Chapter 16 Jiangsu

Xuzhou is not in Jiangsu today.

And in Anhui.

The reason is on the canal.

Historically, the reason why Xuzhou was assigned to Jiangsu was because of the importance of the canal, which could be unified and coordinated in order to control the water.

But the situation in the Ming Dynasty is different from that of the Qing Dynasty.

The first is that the role of the canal continues to decline.

Whether it is the development of maritime transportation or the large-scale construction of the railway, the importance of the canal has been weakened.

After the importance of the canal has been diminished, it is not necessary to think too much about this aspect above the administrative division.

Secondly, it is water control.

The Yellow River used to pass through Xuzhou.

If Xuzhou is assigned to Anhui and the Yellow River is governed, the four provinces of Henan, Shandong, Jiangsu, and Anhui will be coordinated.

But that's not the case today.

The Yellow River has been diverted.

Enter the sea through Shandong.

Nowadays, there is an idea in the imperial court that the Daimyo Mansion will be assigned to Henan.

What is the Daimyo's Mansion?

It is the area of Puyang, Henan Province in later generations. This area was assigned to Henan after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and it has always been the territory of Hebei before.

In order to coordinate the governance of the Yellow River, he gave up Hebei Province.

In the future, the control of the Yellow River will be a matter for the two provinces of Henan and Shandong.

It can be said that after the founding of the People's Republic of China, Puyang was assigned to Henan, which is actually an extension of this line of thinking.

The situation of the four prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River and the two prefectures in the north of the Yangtze River is simply different from heaven and earth.

Although the Ming Dynasty has tried its best to govern the Huai River.

After all, even if the Yellow River is gone, there is still a big problem in governing the Huai River, that is, the ancestral tomb of the Ming royal family is on the edge of Hongze Lake.

The improvement of the Huaihe River valley is by no means something that can be accomplished in a day or two.

It can be seen that Jiangsu's economic pattern will continue for quite some time.

Wang Shu immediately began to ask him some questions.

Chen Yue is like a few treasures, so he is not stage frightened, and it seems that the situation in the whole Jiangsu is well understood, whether it is the salt industry in Jiangbei, or the salt fields in Jiangbei that he advocated to change to cotton. There are also industries in the four provinces of Jiangnan.

The four mansions in the south of the Yangtze River can be described as clothes all over the world, but there are also differences, that is, Suzhou produces more silk.

Because silk is too delicate, many times, it is not possible to use machinery to work, since it cannot be used to work, the division of labor and cooperation of large factories, the impact on the original production mode, will not be too great.

Moreover, Suzhou Mansion is also the fashion capital of Daming.

It is known as the northern palace and the southern Su.

kind, interpreted here as some kind of paradigm. Popular styles.

The Beijing Palace is what the palace wears.

that

In fact, the influence of the court on fashion in history has gradually weakened, and even in the middle and late periods, the concubines in the court are proud of Jiangnan Su.

It's just that although Zhu Qizhen is thrifty, after all, he came from the later generations, and many things cannot be tolerated.

For example, he actually uses the toilet when he goes to the toilet.

For the convenience of his life, he actually made a lot of changes, like honeycomb coal. It's just that many things, due to cost issues, are simply impossible to generalize.

But when it came to the hands of the wealthy people in Jiangnan, it was even more respected, after all, what they wanted was something that others couldn't afford.

Zhu Qizhen's own consumption is actually not too high.

After all, the annual cost of maintaining the palace is only two or three million taels.

It sounds like a lot, but I don't know that the palace today is not only the Forbidden City, outside the Forbidden City, there is also a palace city that is several times larger than the Forbidden City.

There is also the royal annex of Nanhaizi, and it takes a lot of manpower and material resources to maintain these buildings themselves.

The eunuchs and palace maids inside and outside also have to give money.

Coupled with the concubines in the palace, the queen, and even the rewards given to the ministers, and the expenses of some palace banquets, this kind of quality is counted together.

Zhu Qizhen's own food, clothing, housing and transportation, if you really want to count it, it is only one or two thousand taels a year.

For ordinary people, it is a large number, but for the emperor, it is nothing more than the most basic cost of maintaining decency.

If nothing else, it's clothes.

When is the emperor, what weather, what clothes need to be worn. There are 24 solar terms a year, and many clothes cannot be worn only once or twice, and they must be new every year.

And a lot of clothes, especially dragon robes, a dragon robe does not talk about materials, what gold and silver threads, but when it comes to time, it takes two or three thousand working hours.

The so-called seamless, that is, there is no sewing place on the dragon robe, and it is all woven directly from the loom.

I can think of the cost.

This rule, Zhu Qizhen has been reduced a lot. Only the four seasons are left.

Therefore, if you really want to calculate the cost of Zhu Qizhen, it is not much higher than the annual expenditure of some wealthy households in Jiangnan.

And another reason, the reason why the palace is popular.

It is the procurement system reformed by Liu Dingzhi.

Before, whatever the palace wanted, there were various factories under the 24th prison yamen for production, but this kind of official factory could not keep up with the changes of the times at all.

And after Liu Dingzhi's reform. Whatever the Ming court wants, it is sold by the major merchants in the capital, and the palace adds a percentage to the selling price, and then purchases.

This plus one percent is a rule set by Emperor Taizu back then.

In order not to hurt the people, when buying things in the palace, they all add one percent to the market price. Only then did it become a non-starter.

The same is true today.

When selling, who does not add this percentage to the cost.

Zhu Qizhen naturally doesn't care about these things, but the queen is in charge.

The queen is still quite concerned about these things, as if every woman has a desire to shop, and the other is to maintain her virtuous name.

Do not let the people below oppress the people.

Therefore, there is the supervision of the queen, and in this kind of procurement, it is always to give enough profits to the merchants below.

But later they found out that the advertising effect of the royal family's procurement made more businessmen willing to lose money, and they also wanted to win the order in the palace, so that they could recover profits from other sales.

As a result, there are many palace patterns that are required to be attached to the palace.

But even so, Suzhou Su is not afraid of the palace sample at all, and even has more influence than the palace sample, and even many of the suppliers of the palace sample are themselves Suzhou businessmen.

It is a fashion center with everything from antiques to furniture, from silk to clothing styles, from all kinds of paper, to calligraphy, paintings, books, etc.

There are many craftsmen, and the times are commensurate with a craft, which can be said to be excellence. It's basically to the height of a work of art.

Therefore, if Songjiang is because of the expansion of the times, it has grasped the great demand of the cotton cloth industry and grown rapidly, but Suzhou is a comprehensive and all-round aspect with its own characteristics, from the lowest silkworm cocoon, silk, wooden furniture and other industries, as well as the kind that makes people spend a lot of money. A masterpiece that can't be sought.

The so-called Suzhou and Hangzhou, which are heaven on earth, are never given in vain.

All of this makes people feel a kind of drunkenness, not like the prosperity of the world.

The more Chen Yue spoke, the more excited he became, and seemed to regard the prosperity of Suzhou as his own political achievements, and he wanted to tell Wang Shu about it.

It's just that Wang Shu doesn't like Suzhou more and more in his heart.

It's not that Suzhou is bad, but Suzhou is too good.

But this kind of is too good, and this year's Ganxi earthquake, the imperial court emptied the treasury for disaster relief, and there are still many places that are not enough, and hundreds of people can only leave their hometowns and travel hundreds of miles, just to have a bite to eat.

There is even an unknown number of deaths in the earthquake, and the government has no statistics at all, and only after this disaster year, after being newly registered, can it be estimated how many people died and how many people were not in the yellow book of the imperial court.

The displaced people from Shaanxi and Henan entered Huguang from all over the world, and would rather be in the deep mountains and old forests of Yunyang, accompanied by fierce beasts, just for a bite to eat.

Wang Shu may have seen this kind of various situations with his own eyes, such as the matter of Yunyang, when he went to Beijing, he made a special detour to see. There are some things he has heard of, such as the Shaanxi earthquake.

All of this is in stark contrast to the prosperity of Suzhou.

This made Wang Shu feel how could he let go.

There is nothing wrong with Suzhou's wealth, but if the people of Gansu and Shaanxi want to live, is there anything wrong?

In this way, Wang Shu's determination to make this trip was even more determined, if the commercial tax in Jiangnan was not a few million taels and did not need the imperial court, he would not be able to account for it here.