Chapter 5 The Separation of Hell on Earth

This idea has been the opinion of many officials for a long time.

If you just look at the previous discussion, many people probably think that the imperial court has been in a mess in recent years.

But in reality, this is not the case.

Most of the major droughts and disasters are in the north, northwest, and southwest. Although there were occasional floods in the south, the imperial court was still very effective in disaster relief.

Han Yong's choice for the implementation of the law of officials and the law of a whip is that the law of officials comes first. This is also based on the ease with which the testimonies are imposed.

In terms of the law of officials, as long as there is no opposition above the court. After reaching an agreement within the court, the officials who seemed invincible in front of the people were nothing more than lambs to the slaughter.

If you want to cut horizontally, you can cut horizontally, and if you want to cut vertically, you can cut vertically.

These officials have little ability to object.

After all, they are at the lowest level of officialdom.

So, it's more of a question of money.

A whip is different.

A whip law is itself a major reorganization of enslavement. Therefore, it is necessary to have capable officials involved.

That's why Han Yong arranged such an order.

The order in which the law of whipping was implemented was after the implementation of the law of officials, and it is not until now, that is, in the forty-second year of orthodoxy, that the law of officials has been reluctantly implemented throughout the country.

There are still many places where the implementation is reluctant. Dragging.

Han Yong also turned a blind eye to this, and did not forcefully suppress the officials below, because a whip law was not too suitable for poorer places.

Although this series of changes has increased the burden on the imperial court, it is not without benefits.

The biggest benefit is that it is above business.

A whip law has caused many laborers to leave the countryside, and the model of Shaofu factories has also been fully rolled out in the past few years.

Under the condition that private factories are allowed, these industries seem to have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.

There are also rich people of all sizes who have also emerged.

Among them, the two largest are the Guangdong Xian family and the Songjiang Xu family.

Needless to say, the Xian family in Guangdong.

Xian Jing is a concubine, and he is the prince's money bag, and he moves frequently in the South Seas, and even controls several pirates, and even some maritime merchants say that Xian Jing is the king of the sea dragon.

Although his industry was centered on the iron industry, it was not limited to the iron industry.

With the crown prince as a backing.

Many of the new technologies here were soon introduced to Guangdong, including the steam engine. It became the only place in the Ming Dynasty where steam engines could be produced.

If you say, the rich man of the Xian family. It is still being accepted by many people. After all, many people in the Ming officialdom do not regard the wealth of the Xian family as their own, but regard the wealth of the Xian family as the wealth of the prince.

It was made by merchants

The Xian family, who is the Sea Dragon King, is the Nanfu of the Son of Heaven in the eyes of many people in Beijing officialdom.

But the Xu family is different.

Songjiang Xujia is a different model.

Xu Shenchun, the head of the Xu family, is a talented man who can't learn literature. seized the opportunity of history, but in a few years, the net worth is as much as tens of millions.

It's not a rich country, but it's also the richest man in the world.

Xu Shenchun himself is good at dancing with long sleeves. Yili is related to the Wei family, and he has more or less to do with it, and it is not slippery for officials.

The means are brilliant. Although above the officialdom, many people covet the Xu family's property, but it is not easy to start.

The Xu family's industry is also like washing the house, not just a simple industry. The Xu family worked as a salt merchant in the early years and had a lot of background, but what really made him jump up was the cloth industry.

The so-called Songjiang cloth armor world. And the cloth of the Xu family is Jia Songjiang.

It is the dominance in the cloth industry that is the crazy surge of the Xu family's industry.

Of course, Xu Shenchun's development is so smooth, which has Songjiang's unique geographical environment. Songjiang is the Shanghai of the later generations, and this geographical location goes without saying.

Especially how many years has the sea been opened.

The Ming Dynasty has formed a complete maritime trade chain.

In fact, in the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty, although the share of overseas trade is not low, it is not much, and the most is the coastal transportation between the provinces.

What the Xu family has to do is to enter cotton from Shandong.

Today's Shandong is the largest cotton producing area in the Ming Dynasty. The manpower and technology of Songjiang were then used to produce cloth and distribute it to various provinces along the coastline and the Yangtze River waterway.

This is the reason why the Xu family can sit big.

Even this one thing, there is a side effect.

It was such a thriving cotton trade that led to a great reduction in the amount of grain grown on land in Shandong. Grain production in the north has decreased, and in the midst of various disaster reliefs, it is necessary to transfer grain from the south.

The officials below have reacted to this situation.

I want to limit it.

But Zhu Qizhen put it all on hold.

No, Zhu Qizhen has a shelter for the Xu family, mainly because of the thoughts of the Ming government, which is simply stuck in ancient times, and what they do is just to limit the area of cotton planting.

This kind of uninnovative measure is, in many cases, useless.

It is nothing more than a policy at the top and a countermeasure at the bottom.

However, the proposal of Chen Yue, the governor of Jiangsu, was somewhat new, that is, to open cotton fields in northern Jiangsu.

Because the Jianghuai region needs to produce salt, and floods are frequent, there are a large number of wastelands in the coastal areas of Jiangsu, and these wastelands are most of the saline-alkali land. Second, these wastelands are used to provide materials for boiling salt.

Nowadays, the salt drying method is vigorously promoted. The price of Daming salt is getting lower day by day, and it is even distributed overseas.

These wastelands are useless.

Chen Yue proposed to open up these wastelands in Jiangbei and seed cotton on a large scale. In order to solve the dilemma of grain fields in Shandong.

Zhu Qizhen agrees with this method. It was approved.

And the Xu family is just a representative of the merchants in the Jiangnan area. It doesn't mean that there is only the Xu family in Jiangnan.

From Songjiang, Suzhou, Hangzhou and other places, almost every prefecture has millionaires, if you really want to count, the Jiangnan generation is the world, it is definitely not a lie.

Zhu Qizhen had to admit one thing.

That is the area south of the Yangtze River, which is the best place for the economic foundation of the Ming Dynasty.

The same thing, Zhu Qizhen has made great efforts, starting from the enthronement, taking Hebei as the fundamental business base, and operating the industrial base for so many years, it is only a few years before it is comprehensively overtaken by the Jiangnan area.

People will naturally consume when they have money, and it will drive various industries, which is extremely extravagant.

This forms a Ming and two worlds.

In a world, there are many disasters and famines, and the earth is moving frequently. Zhu Qizhen's anxiety. I don't know where to start, the court spent a year of tension.

But in this area of Jiangnan, there are mellow wine beauties, Jiangnan Fengyue. It's really a warm breeze blowing the tourists drunk.

There are even a large number of gentry who have joined this feast of wealth, both openly and secretly, and in the area south of the Yangtze River, there is already a clear idea of inclined to merchants.

Some people borrowed Chen Baisha's knowledge to say that Shinong industry and commerce are just industries, and what really matters to people is their hearts. Everything else is just appearances, even if a person is engaged in business, but if they can be trustworthy and compassionate, and follow the way of the master, who can say that they are not good?

This kind of merchant is a Confucian merchant.

There are also those who can't learn and go into business, and those who succeed in business and return to school, a person may not be able to jump back and forth between businessmen and officials, but a family can.

Every big family is the first-class talent into the office, the second-class talent in business, to protect the family, to prosper the family.

Although this is not the case in every family, there are already obvious signs of this.

Of course, there are also many businessmen who can really do this, and they have donated money in all the previous disaster reliefs. It can also be regarded as serving the country.

But that's not the case with most businessmen.

After all, businessmen must put their interests first, otherwise they will not survive at all.

How can these ministers in the Ming Cabinet tolerate such a situation?

Naturally, it will be dealt a hard blow, maybe the Nanku of the Son of Heaven can be retained, but the merchants in Jiangnan should teach them a good lesson, so that they know what etiquette and humility are.

Someone may ask? At the end of the Ming Dynasty, there was a monster of the Donglin Party in the south of the Yangtze River, but now why is it developed at the same time, but it has become the target of the Manchu Dynasty's civil and military affairs? Everyone shouted and beat them, and they didn't speak for them?

Without him, everything changes too fast. And the changes in people's minds often lag behind reality.