Chapter 543: Frantic War Preparations

Wei Chao hurried over, reached out to help Han Kuang up, and then supported him as he sat down.

Although Han Kuang's body and age were far from requiring this, Wei Chao still attended to him in this manner.

Han Kuang glanced at Wei Chao and said with a smile, "Many thanks, Eunuch Wei."

After Han Kuang sat down, Zhu Youxiao continued discussing matters with him for a while.

Of course, what they mainly discussed was the question of how to execute things; the general outline of the plan still required Zhu Youxiao to set the direction, and only the rest could be handed over to Han Kuang to handle.

After the discussion concluded, Han Kuang took his leave.

Watching Han Kuang depart, Zhu Youxiao stood up and walked toward the palace entrance.

Soon, Zhu Youxiao arrived outside the palace doors. Resting his hand on the railing, he gazed into the distance with a serene expression.

After a long while, Zhu Youxiao raised his head to look at the sky and said softly, "I wonder if anyone will come to remonstrate about this last item."

If the military matters were completed, then only the unified grain levy on officials and gentry would remain.

Regarding military matters, Han Kuang could come to remonstrate with him and was even willing to take the matter into his own hands.

But as for the unified grain levy on officials and gentry, I'm afraid no one would do this. This kind of thing that offends people without any benefit — truly no one is willing to do it.

Back then, Zhang Juzheng dominated the court with his power, yet he didn't dare do it either, because the moment he raised this proposition, he would be toppled by the interest group he represented, without the slightest hesitation or delay.

After all, Zhang Juzheng himself was a figure of the civil official faction; his power was based on the power of civil officials, and it could be said that he had reached the very pinnacle of the Grand Secretariat's Chief Grand Secretary in the Ming Dynasty.

Only, this power itself was not Zhang Juzheng's personally, but rather the entire civil official bloc's. If the reforms he carried out ran contrary to the interests of the civil official bloc, his fate would be very miserable.

In fact, Zhang Juzheng only moved a tiny bit — conducted a survey of some farmland — and the result was already that miserable.

No matter what any of you think, this matter must be done.

Zhu Youxiao let out a breath, then turned and walked toward the rear. His steps were firm, his tread heavy.

In the days that followed, everything seemed to return to normal.

On the surface, the court was operating in an orderly fashion; Jiangnan's wealth was quickly transported to the capital, where it was then divided up as spoils.

A portion flowed into the Emperor's inner treasury, and a portion flowed into the Ministry of Revenue's national treasury. After the division of spoils was complete, this money was quickly spent.

The Ministry of Revenue allocated funds for repairing water conservancy, dredging river districts, building docks, while simultaneously opening trade routes and repairing roads.

In recent years, the court had earned quite a lot of money from commerce, so it was relatively generous with investment. Moreover, every household in the court now had people doing business, so such policies had been actively promoted all along.

It was just that the court had no money before, and matters had been suppressed by Zhu Youxiao. Now that there was money, it naturally moved up the agenda, and Zhu Youxiao no longer continued to suppress it — he needed these people to get things done to resolve some of the domestic contradictions.

For example, providing more job positions, transferring more farmers into labor work, using such methods to improve the treatment of tenant farmers and reduce the resistance to implementing the per-mu tax integration and the unified grain levy on officials and gentry in the future.

So this time, Zhu Youxiao waved his brush with a grand gesture and directly allocated the funds.

Aside from this, a large sum of money flowed to the Hundred Crafts Institute. A new steel mill was being prepared, and in Shanxi and Shaanxi they were even ready to begin construction. That was where Zhu Youxiao planned to build the second coal and steel base.

The reason was also simple — providing employment. The natural disasters in Shanxi and Shaanxi were about to arrive, and they would be the very tragic kind.

There had already been trends over the past two years; droughts and harvest reductions were both very severe, and the court had to allocate large shipments of grain there every year, with very high transport costs.

Zhu Youxiao planned to provide work for the people of Shanxi and Shaanxi, while vigorously expanding trade with the western grasslands, giving them a way to survive — go through the West Pass, go do business.

Of course, smuggling business was not allowed.

At the same time, Zhu Youxiao also had the Imperial Household Department hire large numbers of workers and labor from those regions, at least giving them a job they could survive on during the years of great drought.

As for grain — potatoes have a short growing period, so boil potatoes. And there were also sweet potatoes; in any case, however it was enough to get by, that's how they'd live.

When the land became so severely drought-stricken that nothing could be planted, then there was no other way — go live on the grasslands; or otherwise come to the capital, go work in the workshops.

In any case, Zhu Youxiao was making every possible preparation. With the current transportation conditions, trying to ship grain to Shanxi and Shaanxi to feed the people there was basically unrealistic.

Even if there was grain, it wouldn't work — the transport losses were too great, and it simply couldn't be sustained. So Zhu Youxiao needed the people of Shanxi and Shaanxi to get used to going out to work.

Once they could no longer survive locally, they could go north, they could go to the grasslands, or they could come to the capital.

Aside from this, another portion of the money flowed to the weapons research and development department of the Hundred Crafts Institute.

The court placed a large order — or rather, Zhu Youxiao placed a large order — for the Hundred Crafts Institute to rapidly manufacture new-style weapons, with materials purchased and immediately put into production.

After all, war was about to begin, and the weapons weren't even in place yet. How could they fight like this?

Before, there wasn't enough money; now the money was already there, so it was full-throttle production — give people if people were needed, give money if money was needed. Zhu Youxiao believed the equipment for the Imperial Guard would be assembled soon.

Aside from this, there was stockpiling grain, and building grain warehouses along the route between the capital and Liaodong, so supplies could be consumed all along the way.

One had to understand that logistics supply in this era was very difficult. In light of this, Zhu Youxiao adopted a crude method — like ants moving their nest, he built a supply line between the capital and Liaodong.

Along this supply line, there were many institutions similar to relay stations, all storing grain within them. And since it was within Great Ming's own territory, there was no worry about attacks; grain would be transported up ahead of time. Once war broke out, there would be no problem of grain shortage.

Under normal circumstances, transport between two points was short-distance, which could be handled by the local government offices, so no problems would arise. Merchants could even be hired to do the transport — just give them some money.

Although not publicly announced, a machine of Great Ming had already started up.

The entire nation was preparing for war — armor, weapons, grain, manpower — item by item, all were in progress.

The capital suddenly quieted down, and the officials at court no longer spoke of these matters.

Everyone knew war was coming, because the nation was frantically preparing for battle.

Under such circumstances, speaking up was not a wise choice; everyone was privately making arrangements in a hurry.

The nobles and the relatives of the imperial family were all looking for opportunities, seeing if there was any chance to go to the battlefield. Everyone knew this would be a great victory, and that going to the battlefield would earn them merit.

This was a golden opportunity for meteoric rise — how could they possibly let it go?

They were all rushing to build connections.

On the other hand, these people were rushing to position themselves commercially, and many were even hoarding goods.

In their view, Liaodong and Mongolia were both fine places. If the Jianzhou barbarians could be wiped out this time, those lands would belong to Great Ming!

Whether it was the wild ginseng in the mountains or the Liaodong goats that were raised, those were all fine goods — the price of cashmere had long since soared to the heavens.

And besides these, it was said there were even better things there. Such as all kinds of ores — iron ore, coal.

Goods could also be shipped from there to Joseon, dumping their own products onto that market.

In recent years, under the leadership of the Imperial Household Department, many people had already developed the concept of dumping — selling some of the things they produced at relatively lower prices.

Of course, only relatively lower; in fact, it was still extremely profitable. Then they used the money to purchase goods at low prices from other places — such as all kinds of things from Joseon — shipping them back to sell, making another large profit.

In recent years, business in Daning City had been booming, and trade with the Mongols was going extremely well.

Daning City had already become a new trade hub, with countless Ming merchants heading north. Besides the Mongols, there were the Jianzhou barbarians—if they killed them all, they would have their own pastures in hand.

These people were all preparing to make a killing.

Time flew by like a shuttle on a loom, and before anyone knew it, autumn had arrived.

Autumn came early this year, since the glacial period was fast approaching—the weather turned cold much sooner than usual.

Leaves withered yellow, cold winds blew straight through, and the howling north wind chilled people to the bone.

Zhu Youxiao, wrapped in a bearskin coat and wearing a dog-fur hat on his head, climbed down from the carriage.

Come to think of it, this was something Zhu Youxiao himself had come up with, and it was intended to be issued to his personal guard. Recently, he had also acquired some cotton. Of course, it was mainly used for making padded clothing, not for weaving cloth or spinning thread.

The border troops had already been equipped with new cotton-padded jackets and trousers, along with cotton hats. Those ear-covering cotton caps were quite effective at warding off the cold.

In the future, the Great Ming would maintain a long-term garrison in Liaodong, so heated kangs, iron stoves, and the like all already had supporting measures in place. When the time came, they could mine coal in Liaodong and burn it, or burn firewood, so the border troops wouldn't freeze.

The northeast in this era had not yet been developed, and stupid roe deer were everywhere. Though it wasn't quite to the point of "knock down a deer with a stick, scoop up fish with a gourd, pheasants flying into the cooking pot," it was close enough. Life in the northeast would be a bit better—aside from keeping warm, there were no other problems.

The weather was getting colder and colder, and it was quite possible that frozen meat from the northeast could be enjoyed even in the capital, transported all the way without ever thawing.

Soon, heavy snow would fall across the entire region north of the Yangtze, blanketing everything in white.

If it got this cold even within Shanhai Pass, it was hard to imagine how cold the northeast must be. This was something later generations couldn't appreciate—did one need to carry a stick when going to the toilet in this kind of cold?

Shaking off his wild thoughts, Zhu Youxiao stepped down from the carriage, glanced at Bi Maokang kneeling ramrod straight not far away, and said, "Enough, no need to kneel in this freezing weather. Get up."

With that, Zhu Youxiao walked straight ahead, continuing as he went, "Whatever business you have, let's discuss it inside."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Bi Maokang hurriedly acknowledged and quickly fell into step behind Zhu Youxiao.