Chapter 117: Maritime Advantages
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News of Jiannu's massacre of Han people in Liaodong soon spread. First, the Daming Daily conducted a comprehensive and in-depth report, and at the same time exposed various atrocities of Jiannu on the front page.
Massacre, shave, rape and loot, and all evil will be done.
After reporting on Jiannu's behavior, it really aroused strong indignation among the people. Then Zhu Youxiao spoke in the Daming Daily and said: "The Jiannu and Liaodong cannot be wiped out. The biggest problem at present is the insufficient military expenditure. In order to eliminate Jiannu, I will completely cancel the court's fiscal expenditure on the royal family from now on to reduce the court's financial burden."
Zhu Youxiao made another show in the newspaper, and many Donglin parties secretly criticized the emperor for being shameless, which could be used as a show.
The court had no money to give to the emperor, okay? According to convention, it was indeed to give the royal family 200,000 taels of silver every year. However, as the emperor himself found a way to open up the source, he now had to take money from the treasury to fill the financial hole every year. This was equivalent to saying that the emperor's show this time was to use things that actually did not exist to show his grand image.
This shameless behavior is the same as the later Japanese Emperor's announcement that he only had one meal a day and all the money saved was spent on building warships.
Political shows have always been like this.
Although the Donglin Party was scolding, Zhu Youxiao's show was obviously very successful, because he saved the court 200,000 taels of silver every year. At the same time, many commentators from the Daming Daily fanned the flames and pointed out how pitiful and frugal the emperor was. He was immediately sensational, which greatly changed many people's impression of the emperor.
In fact, Zhu Youzhao had a lot of money in his pocket! Especially after the development of royal capital, the emperor looked down on the death wages that the court had owed for many years. It was naturally very normal.
All the civil and military officials in the court also knew it, but most ordinary people didn’t know it!
The Daming Daily reported the tragic situation of the Han people in Liaodong for several days, and Zhu Youchao's determination to recover Liaodong, and the people began to accept military expenditure of tens of millions of taels. In addition, Zhu Youchao's show, he received more than 200,000 taels of military expenditure in various provinces, which made Zhu Youchao stunned. It seems that the Ming Dynasty still had many people who were concerned about national interests!
At the same time, the publicity on the front line is deeper.
The front line not only used newspapers to promote it, but also established propaganda teams to promote the military and the people about Jiannu’s atrocities and how to resist Jiannu’s invasion.
There is no need to say about Dongjiang Town. There is a lot of suffering and hatred. Just a little publicity mobilizes the atmosphere of the whole army's hatred of the enemy.
Time often forgets everything and heals the wounds. After Mao Wenlong was chopped by Yuandudu in history, the Dongjiang Army surrendered to Jiannu one after another. First, the court made them feel heartbroken, and secondly, the hatred was gradually faded by time.
But if someone keeps promoting it, it will be different. In addition, money and food are constantly being supplied to Dongjiang Town at this time, and the rewards are also very generous, which allows the Dongjiang Army to fight without worries.
After continuous publicity, the Dongjiang Army is definitely available for morale. The Liaodong side is similar, but it is more complicated than the Dongjiang Army.
At this time, the whole country was busy with autumn harvest, and officials from various southern provinces began to collect taxes.
At this moment, the Jimin Food Bank jumped out again and began to purchase discounted grains in various southern provinces, prefectures and counties. This behavior suddenly seemed like a hornet's nest. It was soon opposed by officials from various southern provinces.
Zhu Youxiao rejected it and issued a desperate order with a very tough attitude. This year, the southern provinces can only sell the grain to the Jimin Grain Store.
At the same time, Jinyiwei and Dongchang have begun to cooperate with Jimin Grain Bank to purchase discounted grains. Local officials in southern provinces complained for a while.
This means they will lose a gray income!
But his arm could not twist his thighs, so the emperor wanted to designate the government's grain discount to the food store for the people. Those officials had no choice but to shout a few words.
As for those grain merchants, they would not rebel for the sake of the government's food, but there must be some slandering the emperor.
Anyway, if there are too many lice, you are not afraid of biting them, so Zhu Youxiao doesn’t care at all.
With the support of the Royal Bank of China, Jimin Grain Bank successfully ate a large amount of discounted grain in southern provinces, with a total of 12 million stones of rice and only 4.3 million taels of silver.
These discounted grains are definitely the price of bargains. After processing these rice, they can get at least 8 million stones of rice, and 1.5 taels of grain in the north, which means 12 million taels of silver, and the profit is extremely rich.
First of all, the national taxation still guarantees so much. At the same time, it can also make a huge profit. After deducting transportation and processing costs, it can also make a profit of at least 5 million taels of silver. Where did the cost of processing and transportation go? This part of the cost has developed the grain processing, sea transportation and other industries of Royal Capital.
It can be said that it won multiple goals in one fell swoop, greatly repaying tax losses.
After purchasing the grains, the unlucky days of officials from various southern provinces were obviously not over yet. Soon Zhu Youxiao issued an order to urge the land tax and issued an order that all prefectures and counties that purchased the grains of Jimin Grain Bank this year would use the silver dollars given by Jimin Grain Bank to pay the land tax.
Many officials cursed on the spot when they received this order.
Damn, the fire is gone!
This time, I sold all the discounted grains to the prefectures and counties of the Jimin Grain Bank, and all the silver dollars minted by the Royal Bank were minted, each weighing eight cents and three cents.
Now the emperor wants them to hand over the silver dollar directly, and there is no need to cast ingots anymore, so naturally he can't embezzle by relying on the name of fire consumption.
As for the prefectures and county officials who did not sell the grain to Jimin Grain Store this year, they are secretly grateful! Fortunately, the prefectures and counties they manage are relatively remote and transportation is not so convenient.
The most tragic thing is the provinces on the front line of the Yangtze River. Because of its developed water transportation and low transportation costs, it has become the "severely affected area" for the centralized purchase of discounted grain in Jimin Grain Bank.
So many local officials did not receive any grains after a autumn harvest, and they were almost crazy. However, some officials did not embezzle land taxes, but had other income channels, so they didn't care.
The Jimin Grain Bank's transaction is very cost-effective, but if the grain is converted into silver, it still has to be a problem. First, the grain is processed in various provinces, and can be subcontracted to private capital processing workshops or processing plants. Then, it is transported to Songjiang Prefecture through the Yangtze River water transportation, and then contacted local maritime merchants to transport the grain to Tianjin, Denglai, Liaodong and other places, most of which are still transported to Tianjin Port.
Royal Shipping Company and Hengchang Shipping Company, which cost 10,000 yuan, currently have not many ships. However, marine merchants have ships, and these marine merchants are willing to collect goods. They only look at whether the transportation price is cost-effective. The price can be negotiated. If the negotiation is reached, the transportation will be transported. If the negotiation is not reached, it will be reversed.
After all, maritime trade is monopolized by some maritime merchants, and these maritime merchants still have many pirates under their jurisdiction. Therefore, most of the private maritime merchants are engaged in ordinary transportation, especially in the Yangtze River Basin.
There are many large ships on the Yangtze River, and these ships can also take the sea route, but the risk is slightly higher, but if you drive along the coastline, as long as you don’t go to sea in winter, the risk is very small.
The harsh sea conditions in the Bohai Sea and the Yellow Sea areas basically occur during the winter monsoon period. Cold air travels southward to cause various harsh sea conditions, increasing the risk of navigation. However, you can still go to sea in winter, but the risks are higher.
In addition to the fact that the sea conditions are not very good in winter, it is basically a problem of sea fog. In the central and southern Yellow Sea, as well as the Zhoushan Islands, are common sea areas with poor visibility and are prone to maritime accidents such as ship collisions.
The efficiency of sea transportation is obviously not comparable to that of canal transportation.
Regarding the issue of sea transportation or river transportation, the Ming Dynasty has actually experienced many discussions over the past two hundred years. The convenience of sea transportation has long been known.
The transportation efficiency of river transportation is low, and often increases costs due to floods. Sometimes transportation is extremely difficult and consumes a lot of manpower and material resources. Many of the canals are maintained every year, etc., and these costs are very high.
Sea transportation does not require any maintenance costs of transportation channels, and it is highly efficient and can be transported in one step. It does not need to be transferred to land and then to river transportation. The goods have to be refuted and guarded during the process. River transportation is obviously extremely troublesome, and these shortcomings of sea transportation do not exist. It is just that sometimes it will be delayed and will be displaced (ship disaster), and there will be casualties, but the cost is still lower than that of river transportation.
But why can't the end of the sea transportation be won't be able to compete with the river transportation?
This is naturally related to the interests of those officials. If the grain is transported by sea, how can they make money from it? First of all, it is the damage to the grain transportation, and the other is the entrainment of merchants, which are all oil and water. Especially for the entrainment of goods, the transportation cost is transferred to the grain households, which is equivalent to the fact that these merchants can transport goods north for free through entrainment.
Therefore, after the abolition of sea freight, it was proposed to start sea freight several times. Among them, it was once during the Longqing period, and the effect was very good.
However, the shipping during the Longqing period damaged the interests of officials and the interests of merchants in Tongzhou and other places. So a shipwreck occurred. After twelve people died, the officials used this as a reason to abolish shipping. That year, when Emperor Wanli had just ascended the throne and had a little kid, he didn't know anything. Moreover, people died in the accident, if you want to reason, what else is there a greater reason than a person who died?
Another thing is that when the Ming Dynasty transported grain by sea, the ships used to transport grain were 1,000 stones. Compared with the 300 stone transported by rivers, 400 stone shallow ships were indeed much more efficient. However, a sea ship with a displacement of less than 150 tons was less than 1,000 stone. Such a small ship has a natural poor resistance to wind and waves.
Chapter completed!