Chapter 623: Joseon's Concession

Zhu Youxiao had ideas about the surrounding countries.

Because they would all be using my money, your country's economy would be in my hands — that's even more powerful than the dollar hegemony of later generations.

As long as I over-issue, you all have to suffer the consequences. I print money and flood the market, and all that money goes to your countries to buy things.

Joseon was Zhu Youxiao's first target, and going south would be the same.

When we push further south, we'll make them use Great Ming money too.

Japan's silver mines can provide the Great Ming with an endless stream of silver, minting an endless stream of silver coins, letting the Great Ming buy things all over the world. All kinds of goods and minerals can be hauled back to the Great Ming and poured into its infrastructure projects.

To put it plainly, this is just another form of plunder.

Mining, minting coins, going out to buy things — this money wouldn't even circulate within the Great Ming's economic system. What the Great Ming's commoners would see is only the Great Ming endlessly buying things back from abroad.

Under this model, the Great Ming's economy would get a huge boost. And this still requires silver.

If paper currency could achieve this, the Great Ming would enter an even faster period of development, and banks would follow after.

This is called gold-dollar hegemony — very powerful.

Joseon was the most effective testing ground, and Zhu Youxiao certainly wouldn't let Joseon jump around.

Although Liu Xian didn't understand any of this, he understood one other thing: whatever His Majesty did must have deep meaning, and he just needed to do his job well.

So he opened by threatening Yi Wang.

His Majesty couldn't do such a thing, but as a minister, it posed no difficulty at all. So Liu Xian's words were quite blunt.

Yi Wang glanced at Liu Xian.

You old bastard — just now you were all smiles, and I thought you were a decent sort. But you come at me like this right away?

Calming himself, Yi Wang said directly: "It's truly that Joseon's grain is limited — there's nothing to be done about it. If the Great Ming buys grain in Joseon, Joseon will easily fall into famine."

Yi Wang was very clear about the Great Ming's scale, and knew how wealthy the Great Ming was.

In recent years, trade between the Great Ming and Joseon had continued unabated, and all sorts of Joseon goods had been bought up by the Great Ming. The Great Ming sold Joseon a great deal of cheap cloth and such, and now even Joseon's farm tools and iron pots all came from the Great Ming.

Those Great Ming merchants opened mines and forges right in Liaodong, then sold to Joseon, raking in money hand over fist. Some even just brought money over to sell, and still made a killing.

Many people in Joseon had lost their livelihoods, and the only way left to make money was farming. After all, in the past two years, when the Great Ming bought grain in Joseon, it spared no expense, driving grain prices through the roof — many commoners couldn't even afford to eat.

Under these circumstances, refugees had already begun to appear within Joseon.

And those detestable Great Ming merchants did another thing: they actively recruited workers in Joseon, getting them to go work in Liaodong, to go live in Liaodong.

Liaodong has better jobs and pays more money — come on over!

The industries of Great Ming's Liaodong could no longer recruit anyone domestically. For the Great Ming's commoners, Liaodong wasn't a good place — it used to be constant warfare, and even without fighting, it was hard to make a living there. Far away across mountains and rivers, nobody was willing to go.

In later generations, it was only because people couldn't survive at home and had to brave the journey to the Northeast that the region ended up with so many people. Otherwise, do you really think anyone wanted to live there?

They were forced by desperation — they were fleeing for their lives.

After the founding of New China and the reform and opening up, once the world was at peace, look at the population drain from the Northeast. The younger generation, those with ambition — all of them ran away.

Besides policy reasons, one has to admit it's related to the environment. Many Northeasterners don't like staying in the Northeast — the winters are too cold, and everything is inconvenient.

The situation now is the same — the Great Ming is short on people everywhere, so there's no need to run off to the Northeast to make money. The interior is safe and pays well too — why go to the frontier?

It's not like I'm joining the army to defend the border.

So nobody was willing to go to Liaodong. And those Liaodong merchants naturally set their sights on another group of people. Besides Mongol and Jurchen slaves, the Liaodong merchants also targeted Koreans.

After so long developing and growing, the Liaodong merchants had also learned another thing: slavery wasn't always the best approach — sometimes paying wages was more efficient.

So the Liaodong merchants very aggressively plundered Joseon, stripping it of all kinds of goods on the economic level and seizing its people on the manpower level.

Come, come — once these Koreans arrived in Liaodong, they could fit in seamlessly.

Joseon's scholars wrote Chinese characters beautifully, and classical poetry well too — they could be used right away, needing only a bit of simple training.

Joseon's commoners all spoke the Great Ming language too — they could start work as soon as they arrived in Liaodong. Simply perfect.

These were all things the Joseon king worried about — at this rate, Joseon would soon cease to be a country.

Last time he came, the Joseon king had wanted to solve this problem, but Zhu Youxiao had shut him down directly.

Zhu Youxiao gave him another plan instead: we'll attack the Wa country, and everyone will go plunder the Wa together. When that time comes, you won't just get benefits — you'll also make up for your previous losses.

But nice as it sounded, the Joseon king didn't dare believe it. This time he didn't even come in person, only sending his son, hoping to negotiate properly. Last time he hadn't dared to refuse himself; this time he hoped his son could refuse.

On this matter, Zhu Youxiao could only say that the Joseon king was overthinking things — no one could refuse the Great Ming.

Liu Xian glanced at Yi Wang, and seeing that his attitude seemed somewhat resolute, narrowed his eyes at him and said: "So you don't want to participate in this campaign against the Wa after all?"

"If that's the case, then fine — there's nothing left to discuss. I'll go back and report to His Majesty."

Yi Wang's face darkened.

How could he possibly not want to participate?

Joseon had a mountain of domestic problems — if they weren't resolved, the country would soon cease to be a country. But the campaign against the Wa was indeed an opportunity — what they wanted was to take part in it and gain some benefits.

And the Great Ming's attitude was to let Joseon participate, but Joseon had to pay first before receiving any benefits.

And just how much those benefits would be — that would be decided later.

Yi Wang was naturally dissatisfied with this, but after testing the waters, he found there was no way around it.

Whether it was the Great Ming's Emperor or this Liu Xian before him, they all held the same attitude. It was truly helpless.

Yi Wang said: "Joseon doesn't have that much grain, but we can assist the Great Ming in other areas. On grain, we can contribute some — we'll purchase it ourselves and deliver it to the Great Ming's army."

This was already Yi Wang's concession.

If Great Ming merchants were allowed to buy military grain in Joseon without restraint, Yi Wang couldn't even bear to imagine what the result would be.

Those Great Ming merchants would certainly stir up all kinds of trouble.

He was already afraid of those Great Ming merchants, especially that office called the Imperial Household Department.

Liu Xian thought for a moment, then said: "Then let's leave it at that for now. I've noted it down and will report it to His Majesty later. As for the outcome, that will depend on His Majesty's decision."

"Thank you, Lord Liu." Yi Wang said hastily.

"It's nothing. Next, let's discuss the question of profit distribution." Liu Xian looked at Yi Wang and said: "This matter is rather important — we need to discuss it carefully."

The country of Japan has many islands, large and small, but mainly four big ones.

The division of these islands is definitely necessary. Besides occupying a few islands itself, the Great Ming will also give a portion to Joseon—it cannot possibly keep everything in its own hands.

How to divide them has already been decided by the Great Ming. It will not give Joseon a whole island outright, only a portion of one.

The places the Great Ming wants have long been marked out; the remaining areas are what will be given to Joseon. There is no room for negotiation on this matter.

The reason for holding discussions is to get Joseon to agree to more conditions—for instance, allowing the Great Ming to station troops there, sending more of its own forces to Japan, building naval bases for the Great Ming in Japan, and providing support for the Great Ming's army in Japan.

To sum it up in one sentence: Joseon must obey the Great Ming in everything.

After Zhu Youxiao tossed the matter to Liu Xian, he stopped paying attention to it. He trusted Liu Xian's abilities and knew he could handle the task well—that was why he felt at ease handing it over.

If someone needed to be schemed against or some other underhanded work was required, Zhu Youxiao would turn to Zhang Yu—that was the true professional.

After calming his mood, Zhu Youxiao returned to the field headquarters.

These past few days had been busy, and with his mood not being great either, Zhu Youxiao hadn't had time to properly keep Noble Consort Yuan and Noble Consort Tian company. Now that he had time, it was a good chance to chat with them.

Although Tianjin was not a very large city, it was by the sea after all, giving it a charm all its own.

Strolling around with them and then taking them out to sea to fish would be wonderful. The natural conditions of this era were excellent—there were still plenty of fish in the coastal waters, and one could even catch big fish sitting on a cliff's edge.

Getting some seafood to eat would be nice too. When the tide went out, he could take them beachcombing. Setting everything else aside, catching some crabs to eat would be good. He wondered if the crabs of this era were plump and tasty—he imagined they should be more so than in later generations.

And then there was lobster—at this time of year, they should be able to catch lobsters.

Zhu Youxiao looked at Noble Consort Tian and Noble Consort Yuan and said with a smile, "When the tide goes out, I'll take you beachcombing."

Noble Consort Tian and Noble Consort Yuan exchanged a glance, then asked in confusion, "Your Majesty, what is beachcombing?"

"When the sea tide recedes, people picking up seafood along the shore look like they're chasing the sea as it runs away—that's why it's called beachcombing. We can go to the shore to catch some fish and shrimp, then come back in the evening to cook them up."

Noble Consort Yuan and Noble Consort Tian exchanged a knowing glance, both seeing the helplessness in each other's eyes.

We don't find this interesting at all. How could His Majesty like this sort of thing?

But since His Majesty likes it, we'll have to grit our teeth and go along.