Chapter 1038: The Foundation of the Celestial Empire: Punishing the Unrighteous

Hou Yuzhao and Zhang Xueyan, especially after the annual audit, pointed out the huge contribution of the Global Trade Alliance to the economic stability of the Great Ming, and specifically mentioned that the three viceroyalties allowed the free proselytizing of the Great Light Sect.

Before this, the three viceroyalties did not allow the spread of the Great Light Sect, at least not on the surface.

What this reflected was that Spain's control over the viceroyalties was gradually weakening.

And the ruling class of the three viceroyalties was seeking new forces to stabilize their rule.

What happened to Spain would inevitably happen to the Great Ming, because the obstruction of the huge water body of the ocean made the Great Ming's rule over overseas viceroyalties not as powerful as the hinterland, and not even as powerful as the Three Xuan and Six Comforts.

When the Great Ming weakened, it was almost inevitable that these viceroyalties would seek other ways and plot for self-reliance.

The meaning of the two Grand Ministers of Revenue was also very clear: since the loss of overseas viceroyalties was inevitable, then it should be based on plundering interests, not on royal transformation. Royal transformation couldn't produce too many results anyway.

The Great Ming Dynasty could not flourish forever, so overseas pioneering should still be based on interests, not benevolence and righteousness. Even if it was the Jinshan Kingdom, after a long time, it would naturally split up.

This was the view of the Ministry of Revenue. If one asked for the opinion of the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Rites would not agree at all, because from the success of the Ryukyu and Luzon viceroyalties, the Great Ming could complete the royal transformation of overseas viceroyalties.

Zhu Yijun of course understood their subtext and did not intend to adjust the current Great Ming pioneering national policy.

The two ministers saw that the Emperor understood their subtext and didn't say much more. The Emperor had never been soft-hearted in overseas pioneering. The business of Japanese slaves and barbarian slaves was even promoted by the imperial court.

Zhang Xueyan frowned and said, "The Viceroy of Liangguang, Liu Jiwen, and the Prefect of Guangzhou, Wan Wenqing, requested to form the Western Trade Alliance, that is, the Mughal Empire, Ceylon, Calicut, Hormuz, Arabia, Aden, Mogadishu, Malindi, Mozambique, Jifu, and other countries and viceroyalties to form a new trade alliance."

"I am not very optimistic about this Western Trade Alliance. Lacking silver, even if this trade alliance is formed, it cannot last long."

The Yongle opening of the sea and the seven voyages to the West went around in a circle and didn't find what the Great Ming wanted. The silver that the Great Ming urgently needed was not much in the West. Now the framework trade had completely satisfied the needs.

According to Liu Jiwen and Wan Wenqing, barbarian slaves and Kunlun slaves were the main driving force of the Western Trade Alliance, but this kind of manpower was completely uncontrollable, and the output was unstable, so it was not suitable as a general equivalent for trading.

The Western Trade Alliance, which lacked a general equivalent, was very short of money.

"Try it. If it succeeds, it succeeds. If it doesn't, forget it." Zhu Yijun still felt that it could be tried. The Great Ming now had this room for error.

Hou Yuzhao carefully deliberated and said, "To solve this problem, Liu Jiwen and Wan Wenqing's idea is to issue Western Passage Banknotes by the Western Trade Alliance to act as a general equivalent as a medium of transaction. In this way, even if the Western Passage Banknotes have a credit crisis and learn from gold bonds, it doesn't matter if they rot."

"The Ministry of Revenue has carefully studied this idea and judged that it is not feasible."

"Banknotes are all debts, and debts are all based on reputation. The Guangzhou Prefecture issues Western Passage Banknotes, which ultimately rely on the reputation of the Great Ming imperial court and the Emperor. If they go bankrupt, it will ultimately consume the reputation of the imperial court and the Emperor."

Hou Yuzhao did not approve of the Guangzhou Prefecture's idea, or rather, the more conservative Great Ming imperial court could not tolerate this behavior.

Printing money and issuing currency, delegating it to local government offices, was endless trouble. Power was like this. Once it was released, it would be as difficult as ascending to heaven to take it back.

For example, the right to issue currency was still dominated by the Ministry of Works' Treasure Source Bureau, not the Ministry of Revenue's Banknote Bureau. The Treasure Source Bureau minted silver coins and cast copper coins, and people generally recognized silver coins and Wanli Tongbao as currency, not banknotes.

The Ministry of Revenue, the government office that managed money, could not manage money and had been seeking opportunities to take back this power.

"It's better not to let local government offices issue banknotes. If you really want to use banknotes, you can use gold banknotes." Zhu Yijun pondered for a while and said with a smile, "After all, banknotes issued overseas do not need to be redeemed."

Zhang Xueyan and Hou Yuzhao looked at each other. Before Wang Qian pierced this mystery, in fact, the Ministry of Revenue and the Emperor were very worried that the Luzon banknotes and gold banknotes would merge, leading to a collapse of trust caused by over-issuance of banknotes.

Wang Qian directly pierced the mystery. Luzon banknotes had never been redeemed. This was the importance of local governing experience and practice.

The officials of the Ministry of Revenue had not actually come into contact with the specific operation of overseas banknotes before this.

These barbarians couldn't take away a cent of silver from the Great Ming. The banknotes they brought would only be exchanged for various goods to go back. Of course, once the Great Ming lost its commodity advantage, the silver would flow along the shipping route to overseas.

As for whether the Great Ming could always guarantee commodity advantage, the two Grand Ministers were full of confidence. As long as it wasn't a war-torn situation, they would definitely maintain commodity advantage. Of course, when they were fighting to the death, this loss of silver was a small matter.

Historical experience also proved this point. In the Han Dynasty, it was the Silk Road, and in the Tang and Song Dynasties, it was maritime trade.

Zhu Yijun discussed with the two ministers for a long time and finally determined the issuance volume of banknotes for next year, which would increase from 12 million guan to 17 million guan, of which 5 million guan would be used for the operation of the Western Trade Alliance.

Of course, even if the Western Trade Alliance operation failed, Zhu Yijun would not think that Liu Jiwen and Wan Wenqing were incompetent, but that it was caused by differences in natural endowments.

After Zhang Xueyan left, Zhu Yijun summoned several ministers again to clarify the issues worth discussing in the memorials of the day, completing today's examination of the Examination Law. He did not leave them in the middle without sending them, nor did he deliberately ignore them.

After the day's grinding ended, he picked up the miscellaneous reports placed on the side and read them for a long time.

Because Li Yougong had just taken over the position of the Chief Eunuch of the Ceremonial Secretariat, he was always a bit flustered. For example, the sorting of these miscellaneous reports was not as satisfactory as Feng Bao's.

The miscellaneous reports submitted by Li Yougong were not detailedly screened, which led to some chaos.

There were more than a dozen miscellaneous reports here that made Zhu Yijun frown. If Feng Bao had handled them, he would definitely not have submitted these to the Emperor.

"Li Daban, do you know why some people are willing to give silver to these 'pen-correctors' (writers) to write these articles that no one reads and taste like wax?" Zhu Yijun handed the dozen or so miscellaneous reports to Li Yougong and asked.

"They should be killed." Li Yougong thought for a while and gave a very direct and violent answer.

Feng Bao handed over the work, of course, he explained to Li Yougong how to screen these miscellaneous reports, but Li Yougong felt that the Emperor should see the ugly faces of these guys.

Li Yougong had his own style, completely different from Feng Bao. He was a young and strong faction who grew up in the Wanli Reform.

Feng Daban was a bit too gentle.

"You, you, your killing nature is too heavy." Zhu Yijun laughed when he heard this. Li Yougong was completely different from Feng Bao. Li Yougong came from the military, and the killing spirit on him was really, really heavy.

Solving the person who caused the problem if the problem couldn't be solved was very similar to Governor Ling Yunyi.

Zhu Yijun took out a few miscellaneous reports and said, "I will first answer the question I asked. Even though no one reads the articles, these powerful and wealthy merchants are still willing to give money to these conscience-less writers. The reason is that there is a demand."

"Because of the Wanli Reform, the powerful and wealthy merchants cannot openly and blatantly discriminate against the poor and suffering, nor can they say those words that discriminate against the poor and suffering. They are suffocated and uncomfortable, uncomfortable to the point of pain."

"They can only let these writers be sarcastic and humiliate the poor and suffering by labeling them as 'villains'."

"Villain" was a hat. Similar ones included "mountain bumpkin," "commoner," "ant-people," "crafty people," "poor and horizontal." These hats were the same logic as the "loser," "inferior," and "Android user" of later generations.

By belittling a part of the people, they satisfied the sense of superiority of another part of the people and obtained benefits.

There were many such miscellaneous reports, and the imperial court generally wouldn't care. They couldn't care even if they wanted to. First, there were too many, and second, the imperial court was really not omnipotent and couldn't care about everything.

These powerful and wealthy merchants mastered wealth and mastered certain social resources, always constantly creating one writer after another. Today it was Zhang San, tomorrow it was Li Si, and the day after tomorrow it was Chen Wu, letting these writers speak for them.

"So they should be killed." Li Yougong also knew this, so his idea was to kill a batch, and no one would dare to do it.

"No, no, no, you thought wrong." Zhu Yijun waved his hand and said, "The more they say this, the more clearly the commoners can recognize their own class, and the more clearly they can see the faces of these powerful and wealthy people, instead of the maid feeling sorry for the young lady who eats delicacies."

The maid feeling sorry for the young lady who eats delicacies was the biggest resistance Hou Yuzhao encountered when writing "Turning Over" and "Deep Turning."

The exploited tenant farmers couldn't understand the imperial court's political decrees, refused to cooperate, and even cooperated with the clamor of the local gentry, opposing the imperial court's return of land, and returning the land to these local gentry.

Sometimes, recognizing one's own class was not an easy thing, and even one couldn't clearly recognize the class for a lifetime. Establishing a clearer class identity was an obstacle to the Great Ming's implementation of returning land and implementing production relations reform.

Metamorphosis also takes time.

The uglier the faces of these writers hired by these powerful and wealthy merchants, the more clearly the commoners could see.

"So that's how it is." Li Yougong only then realized that he was young. The Ministry of Rites left these miscellaneous reports alone for ulterior motives. Li Yougong shook his head and said, "These scholars are really too bad."

The Emperor was busy with ten thousand things and had no energy, and the government office of the Ministry of Rites that specifically managed these didn't have this energy? Until the Emperor explained it clearly, Li Yougong knew that this was another concrete manifestation of the "benevolence" of scholars.

"This article is actually written well. Send it to the Di Bao (Imperial Gazette) for publication." Zhu Yijun took out a miscellaneous report, annotated it himself, and handed it to Li Yougong.

The title of this miscellaneous report was "Dialectics of Psychological Weight." The whole article was in classical Chinese, not vernacular, citing classics, very, very difficult to understand, but actually very valuable.

The School of Mind believes: advanced ideas have advanced systems, and only under advanced systems can advanced productive forces be developed;

While the Neo-Confucianism since the Wanli Reform is completely the opposite, believing: advanced productive forces can give birth to advanced systems, and can give birth to advanced ideas;

And the writer of this article, a Hanlin of the Hanlin Academy, felt that this discussion had no meaning at all.

Because history proves that an overly perfect system will limit the development of productive forces, which represents the error of the School of Mind route;

And history also proves that advanced productive forces cannot directly give birth to advanced systems and ideas, which is why absurd things like "archaeological scientific research" appear.

The shipbuilding industry of the Great Ming Wanli opening of the sea completely archaeologically studied the Longjiang Shipyard, and even obtained the "Zheng He's Voyage Water Route" from Mao Kun, only then solving a series of problems such as the star-pulling ocean-crossing technique, needle charts, and Fuchuan design and manufacturing.

By the twenty-first year of Wanli, the Great Ming was still studying the old case of "Zheng He's Voyage Water Route."

Therefore, this Hanlin Academy Hanlin believed that the School of Mind and Neo-Confucianism should not exist in opposition, but should complement each other. Only systems, culture, and ideas that match productive forces can truly move forward.

Overly advanced ideas that do not conform to the current productive forces are not advanced; overly advanced productive forces without matching systems, culture, and ideas are just a flash in the pan.

Zhu Yijun highly agreed with this. The theory of contradictions had gradually become a prominent study, but there were still very few scholars willing to study the first three volumes of the class theory, and even Zhu Yijun, who wrote the fourth volume of the class theory, had never made the fourth volume public.

The great debate in the process of the Wanli Reform had been going on continuously.

In the twelfth month of the twenty-first year of Wanli, the cold wind blew through the capital of the Great Ming. This year in the north, there was no snow. Not only was there no snow in the capital, but there was no snow in Shaanxi, Shanxi, Gansu, Suiyuan, Beizhili, and many other places. The Great Ming Emperor issued an edict to reflect on himself and went to the Qinian Hall to pray for blessings for the people.

The Emperor lived in the Qinian Hall for a full seven days, but still didn't move the heavens. Until the Spring Festival, the sky over the Great Ming capital was still shrouded in cold wind, but there was no sign of snow at all.

All the officials in the capital, even submitting memorials and going to the Tonghe Palace to pay New Year's greetings, were cautious, fearing to offend the Emperor, making the Emperor unhappy, and suffering an unprovoked disaster.

The Emperor was fair and would never vent his anger on others, but jumping out at this time was a bit asking for a beating.

Until the fourth day of the first lunar month, the cold wind suddenly stopped for two hours, and small snow began to fall in the sky, and then the small snow turned into heavy snow. This heavy snow fell a full foot deep before it stopped, and the sky began to clear.

Although this snow only existed for three days and then melted, it was completely enough. At least it froze the locust eggs to death. Even if there was a widespread drought next year, there would be no locust plague, which would be grassless.

God seemed to have become more temperamental, but the damage caused by the change of heaven was not as great as people imagined. At least the commoners in the capital did not hear the news of civil unrest.

This represented that the road the Emperor wanted to take was correct. Stopping man-made disasters was really useful.

With a batch of inferior gentry beheaded and displayed before the New Year, the local gentry of the Great Ming Dynasty suddenly stopped those messy little actions. After all, the Emperor would really kill people.

Heads should indeed grow on necks, not be carried away by wild dogs.

The Four Barbarian Halls of the Court of State Ceremonial welcomed a batch of new envoys. In June, the envoys of various barbarians had left, but the Western Trade Alliance was about to be formed, and new envoys came to the Great Ming. This batch of envoys mainly came from the West.

The Ministry of Rites did not intend to arrange for these envoys to have an audience, because they didn't understand etiquette and needed to learn etiquette first, so as not to offend the Emperor himself.

Shah Maimaiti had learned Han language for a full year before he could have an audience with the Emperor. These new barbarian envoys also needed to learn etiquette for a long, long time.

And the ones teaching these barbarian envoys were the Ministry of Rites officials Li Yashi and Shah Maimaiti.

Li Yashi was mainly responsible for the envoys of the Angola, Mozambique, and Goa viceroyalties. These people spoke Latin;

Shah Maimaiti was responsible for the envoys from Hormuz, Arabia, and Egypt. These people spoke Persian.

The two who had been busy all day leaned on the backs of their chairs, drinking tea and resting.

"Teaching these barbarians is really a very troublesome thing." Shah Maimaiti said sincerely.

Li Yashi sneered when he heard this, shook his head and said, "As if you are not a barbarian yourself."

"I am different from them. I am a nobleman. Forget it, you wouldn't understand even if I told you." Shah Maimaiti struggled forcibly and waved his hand. He wanted to promote the nobility of his bloodline to highlight his difference, but thinking of being in the Great Ming, his noble status would not be recognized.

In the eyes of the Great Ming, they were all barbarians.

Li Yashi shook his head. He had completely integrated into the Great Ming life, but Shah Maimaiti was still him, a nobleman.

Li Yashi smiled and said, "You, you, people like you are called 'rats in the sewer' in the Great Ming, just unable to see the poor people have a little bit of good."

"After the abolition of the slave system in the ninth year of Wanli, until now, those powerful and wealthy merchants are still very dissatisfied with this political decree, but they dare not express it on the surface, so they hire some people to talk nonsense in the miscellaneous reports."

"You know the Yao Guangqi Index, right? It distinguishes between affordable goods and expensive goods. Hey, some people are also quite dissatisfied with this distinction, because the imperial court pays more attention to the fluctuations and impact of affordable goods, and does not pay attention to the impact of expensive goods."

"Are the powerful and wealthy merchants not the Emperor's subjects? It's a bit too partial."

"The Songjiang Prefecture implemented the ten livelihood articles, which is a good thing, but how many wealthy merchants are itching with hatred for the salary-cutting office, and because of the majesty of the imperial court, they dare not speak out, so they have to squeak like rats in the sewer."

Shah Maimaiti spread his hands and asked in confusion, "Why? Why does the Great Ming imperial court want to do this? Why can they do this?"

"The reason is also very simple, because this land has long been shaken evenly." Li Yashi deliberated for a while and answered both questions.

Li Yashi continued, "In China's long history, credible history rather than legendary records, the upper and lower layers have been reversed and confused countless times. This is caused by the core concept of the Great Ming Celestial Empire: punishing the unrighteous."

"This is also the fundamental reason why the Great Ming can recreate China, while Rome did not return like lightning."

"Rome perished, the nobles died, and it really perished. Killing these nobles killed these elites and killed Rome."

"But China is not like this. One county can gather a team to fight for the world. The fire has long been scattered on this land. Even if it falls into darkness for a short time, it will ignite light again. This is the 'Holy Fire Shining Clearly and Never Extinguished'."

Shaken evenly, looking back hundreds of years, whose family didn't have a few noble people? Everyone was a descendant of noble people.

This caused no essential difference between people.

Therefore, relying on the legacy of one's ancestors or a temporary trend, becoming a person above others, and standing on a high place to maliciously slander the poor and suffering, naturally would be dissatisfied by everyone, and even dissatisfied by fellow wealthy merchants and powerful people.

When struck by lightning, people of the same class would also be implicated.

This was the fundamental reason why they could do this and why they had to do this. Everyone had no essential difference, even the Emperor was like this. Today the surname is Liu, tomorrow the surname is Li, and the day after tomorrow the surname is Zhu.

"Punishing the unrighteous?" Shah Maimaiti asked without much interest.

"Punishing the unrighteous." Li Yashi began to talk eloquently.

Before, Li Yashi was quite dissatisfied with the Great Light Sect, or rather, with the doctrine written by Ma Liang.

Because in Ma Liang's doctrine, it was all unrealistic imagination about the Great Ming, while ignoring the fundamental and core concept of the Celestial Empire: punishing the unrighteous.

Tang and Wu revolutions, "Are kings and nobles born?", punishing the unrighteous and killing the violent Qin, "The blue sky is dead, the Yellow Turban should stand," "Don't say the stone man has one eye," etc., these great turmoils that promoted the shaking of the upper and lower layers were all based on one logic:

When those in power are not worthy of their position, they should be united and reasonably killed.

Whether they can be killed or not, this result is irrelevant. The key is that the act of destroying an unrighteous regime itself has natural justice.

This is the fundamental concept that the Great Ming has stood in the forest of the world for thousands of years and maintained its status as a Celestial Empire. Rebellion has natural justice.

Similarly, Li Yashi admired Ma Liang very much.

In practice, Ma Liang realized this truth and began "Huang Chao-style" proselytizing in France, because Ma Liang keenly grasped the essence of light.

Never by begging others for charity can one obtain light; one can only strive for light from the struggle.

Just like Ma Liang's famous saying: Thunder can tear open the sky covered by dark clouds.

"Very good, didn't understand." Shah Maimaiti listened to Li Yashi's sharing very seriously, and after thinking about it seriously, he gave up thinking.

He really couldn't understand. As a nobleman, he couldn't understand: eliminating nobles could let light fill the world?

Li Yashi stopped sharing. He had been writing the "Civilization" series with Hanlin Academy Hanlins recently and had thought a lot about this aspect. He looked at the question of why the Great Ming was the Celestial Empire from the perspective of a barbarian.

Punishing the unrighteous was his answer. The standard for unrighteousness was also very simple: making the people unable to live, that was unrighteous.

"How do you view this Western Trade Alliance?" Li Yashi asked about government affairs. Forming the Western Trade Alliance might be the biggest event in the imperial court recently. The Prefect of Guangzhou, Wan Wenqing, came to the capital to campaign, seeking the support of the imperial court.

Shah Maimaiti looked left and right and whispered, "I don't think it will work, because the West doesn't have what the Great Ming wants. Not just silver, there are not many other specialties that can support the operation of the Western Trade Alliance."

"Why can the Global Trade Alliance General Council regulate the contradictions and trade disputes between several viceroyalties? It is because they all need to do business in the Great Ming and have to look at the Great Ming's face, while the Western Trade Alliance does not have such conditions."

"To tell the truth, even the Mughal Empire doesn't have many things worth the Great Ming's concern."

Li Yashi expressed deep agreement and said, "My thoughts are consistent with yours."

In fact, this was also the biggest problem facing Wan Wenqing. After Wan Wenqing arrived in the capital, he visited several ministers, but the ministers were indifferent to this political achievement. Wan Wenqing also found Gao Qiyu, who formed the Global Trade Alliance.

Gao Qiyu did see Wan Wenqing once and asked several questions, all of which left Wan Wenqing speechless.

At Wan Wenqing's level, what they pursued was not material and wealth, but only power and immortality. Immortality was to remain in the world by name, to let oneself become a symbol, and always be remembered by people.

Obviously, the Western Trade Alliance was an important means for Wan Wenqing to pursue power and immortality, but it seemed that no one was optimistic about this trade alliance.

This situation where no one was optimistic made Wan Wenqing very anxious. He found his teacher Wang Jiaping to find a solution.

After Wang Chonggu died, the Jin Party collapsed, so that Wang Jiaping, the leader of the Jin Party and the head of the All-Jin Guild Hall, existed in name only, and even the leader of the Industrial Party was now in the hands of Governor Ling Yunyi, not in the hands of Wang Jiaping.

If it was based on seniority, Wang Jiaping should be the one singing the opposite tune to Shen Shixing, but things in the world are unpredictable. Wang Jiaping was now struggling even to be a walker in the Western Study. Wang Jiaping lacked political achievements to go further, and he urgently needed some merits.

"I really want to help you. The Emperor also intends to pioneer the West. The success of the Global Trade Alliance has given the imperial court certain expectations for the Western Trade Alliance, but if it cannot be done, the price of letting expectations fall will need to be borne by us." Wang Jiaping looked at Wan Wenqing who came to beg, his face a bit complex.

Wang Jiaping could fully support the establishment of the Western Trade Alliance, but he needed more certainty to let himself place a bigger bet.

Otherwise, protecting oneself was also a good choice for him.

"Need more, more practical things." Wang Jiaping didn't have much concealment to his disciples, and said straight to the point.

"Light oil." Wan Wenqing took out the light oil, a petroleum distillate.

Compared with all the lamps in the Great Ming, the lime spray lamp was brighter, but restricted by the output and origin of light oil, the price had always been high.

Wan Wenqing continued, "In Hormuz, black petroleum flows out even if you step on it. Refining petroleum, and then using light oil as fuel, to illuminate the schoolhouses of the Great Ming's three-level academies, and illuminate the entire Great Ming."

The trade alliance must have a core commodity as a foundation, and Wan Wenqing's eyes looked at petroleum. This was the thing that interested the Great Ming most besides barbarian slaves and Kunlun slaves.

The Great Ming's development of petroleum was not comprehensive, and the lime spray lamp of light oil was definitely not all of petroleum.

To find the core commodity, Wan Wenqing believed that only this kind of thing best met the Great Ming's needs.

"You spoke very correctly." Wang Jiaping pondered for a moment and chose to bet, because the Great Ming's firearms, the Divine Fire Flying Crow, needed a large amount of fire oil refined from petroleum.

Lighting, fuel, ink, curing diseases, paving roads, the Great Ming's development of petroleum was still seriously insufficient.

The Western Trade Alliance was an opportunity.

Of course, for the current Great Ming, if the Western Trade Alliance could succeed, it would naturally be a happy event, and if it failed, there was no need to pay a very expensive price, which would not affect the Great Ming's process of opening the sea.

With Wan Wenqing's help, Wang Jiaping wrote the memorial and submitted it to the Emperor. ===== CHAPTER 1039 =====