Chapter 473

The emphasis on material and the emphasis on currency are incompatible like fire and water because their fundamental orientations are different. Explaining this problem is extremely complex, but it can be roughly summarized as the contradiction between materialism and idealism.

Take the shipping tickets of the Yanxinglou Trading House as an example.

The Great Ming issues shipping tickets with the purpose of quickly recovering funds and costs by transferring dividend rights and implementing the "everyone is a shipowner" plan, and then investing them back into production to accelerate the expansion of the scale of the Great Ming's shipbuilding industry. This is emphasizing material, with the fundamental orientation of obtaining more and creating more material, or commodities.

This is the radical faction's claim of emphasizing material.

Shipping tickets are traded in the trading house, rising and falling in the hands of various speculators. For the fundamental orientation of "more commodities," it is zero return, or even negative return, because the fluctuation of shipping tickets may affect production, and even force risks to be taken for the sake of ticket prices.

However, if viewed from the perspective of emphasizing currency, it will be found that the trading of shipping tickets and the gradual rise in prices bring more demand for currency. For the fundamental orientation of "more currency," it is a positive return. The larger the scale of the trading house, the more demand for currency.

The ticket trading of the Yanxinglou Trading House is ineffective or even negative for the radical faction; while for the conservative faction, it is effective and of great significance. This is the incompatibility of the two claims.

What is interesting is that they have miraculously reached a state of yin-yang balanced coexistence, or even mutual supplementation. This is roughly the status quo of "yin and yang working together" as mentioned in the theory of contradiction.

Pursuing more currency is not a fallacy, especially in the Great Ming, where commodities are extremely scarce, the commodity economy is underdeveloped, and the imperial court insists on silver and copper precious metals as the standard. Pursuing more currency is itself increasing the liquidity of commodities. Only when the quantity of currency is greater than the total value of commodities can commodities circulate normally.

Then, if the Great Ming no longer implements the coin law but changes to the paper currency law, will this claim of pursuing more currency become a fallacy?

If the Great Ming can project its power globally, use strong ships and cannons to blast open the doors of various countries' markets, conduct free navigation and trade, have Great Ming culture penetrate into every corner of the world, and imprint the ideology of the Great Ming Heavenly Dynasty in everyone's mind, then Great Ming paper currency will become a reliable tool for dominating world resources, products, services, and talent.

Then pursuing more currency, in this case, is not a fallacy, but very meaningful.

This strange state of balance is a situation of interlocking caused by the partial agreement and partial opposition of the radical and conservative factions to each other's policies. If the differences between the Chief Grand Secretary, the Junior Grand Secretary, the conservative faction, and the radical faction evolve into political struggles, or even form party factions, and the consensus of seeking common ground while reserving differences completely disappears, and they oppose for the sake of opposition, fully opposing and denying everything, the state of balance will be broken.

In order to prevent classes with conflicting economic interests from destroying themselves and society in meaningless struggles, there needs to be a force that is superficially above everything. This force should alleviate conflicts and keep conflicts within the scope of "order." This transcendent force is the state.

It is also the meaning of the imperial court to the Great Ming, and the meaning of the Emperor to the imperial court.

An emperor hiding in the harem smoking opium and not approving a single memorial from the imperial court is obviously not fulfilling his obligations.

Wang Chonggu's practice of establishing People-Benefiting Pharmacies in the official factory group and the industrial and military battalions has the fundamental orientation of "more commodities." In terms of output, one experienced skilled craftsman is almost equivalent to three inexperienced apprentices. Therefore, lengthening the average lifespan and working years of craftsmen has become a good method.

Wang Chonggu's meaning is roughly: if the average age of craftsmen is less than thirty, it is impossible for the Great Ming to enter a commodity economy.

The spring breeze in the third month is warm, but the imperial court is very, very uneasy, because the chips for supporting the frontier in Suiyuan have been lowered! From three years of promotion and transfer to six years of promotion and transfer, this has made the scholars who were originally watching completely unable to sit still!

How can the price be lowered!

Moreover, the imperial court's plan to set up schools in the industrial and military battalions has completely made the scholar-officials unable to sit still. Wang Chonggu, this treacherous official, betrayed the collective interests of the powerful and influential families and has now started to take the lead in charging. A terrible sense of crisis permeated the hearts of all scholar-officials.

Major miscellaneous newspapers began to report at length on the possible impact of this incident, with complete follow-up reports, because Wang Chonggu was not playing around. He set up a three-level school system, namely children's school, elementary school, and classical school. After completing the nine-year three-level school system, one can be admitted to the Imperial Academy. If one has a natural talent for mathematics, one can even take the examination for the Royal Institute of Physical Studies.

In these three-level schools, the children's school is not detached from production, which is learning to read and write and simple arithmetic. As long as one passes the exam, one can go to elementary school.

Elementary school is completely detached from production. At this step, the content of the Four Books and Five Classics and mathematics becomes complicated. It doesn't matter if one cannot pass the classical school exam at this step; one can transfer to the craftsman school to learn a skill. The tuition for these three years is thirty silver, which the imperial court can advance without interest, but the money must be repaid after graduation.

And passing the classical school exam means crossing the class barrier. One can choose to pay tuition to study, or sign a commissioned training contract. If one cannot be admitted to the Imperial Academy or the Royal Institute of Physical Studies after graduation, one needs to fulfill the contract and go to frontier areas such as Suiyuan, Liaodong, Yungui, Nagasaki, Luzon, and Jiugang. The tuition for these three years is thirty silver, and the imperial court can advance it if a contract is signed.

If one is admitted to the Imperial Academy or the Royal Institute of Physical Studies, that is crossing the class barrier, formally stepping from a producer into a "meat-eater."

Breach of contract may mean paying fines for a lifetime...

Emperor Zhenzong of Song, Zhao Heng, said in "Encouraging Learning": "In books, there are beauties like jade; in books, there are houses of gold." Whether this was true in the Northern Song Dynasty is not to be discussed for now, but in the Great Ming, there really is real gold and silver in books.

Wang Chonggu is for real. He is not showing loyalty in front of the Emperor, receiving the imperial order, and then starting to disobey in secret, blowing in front of the Emperor for a long time, but failing to implement it, always talking about difficulties and concerns. From system design to system promotion, Wang Chonggu's actions were very rapid. The speed of the miscellaneous newspapers' follow-up reports could not even keep up with the speed of Wang Chonggu's promotion of government orders.

Recruitment for military tutors began, and the treatment given was very generous. The treatment is divided into basic grain and assessment rewards. For a school, the tutor's students, each passing the elementary school, classical school, Imperial Academy, or Royal Institute of Physical Studies, have different degrees of rewards.

Zhang San, a student of Kong Yiji, passed the elementary school and classical school because of his diligence and eagerness to learn, and because of his natural talent, he entered the Royal Institute of Physical Studies. Kong Yiji can receive a reward of 120 silver for the whole process. Even if Kong Yiji dies, his son Kong Bingji can also receive this reward.

Kong Yiji, an embarrassed scholar who refuses to take off his long gown and can only stand to drink, also widely exists in the Great Ming. And now, an opportunity to change his destiny is right in front of him. As long as he is willing to promote literature and education, he can get generous rewards. The opportunity for "peaches and plums all over the world" and a richer life has appeared.

Based on the basic view that there are too many lowly scholars in the Great Ming, the establishment of the three-level schools in the industrial and military battalions showed its ferocious face from the beginning.

Making learning carry the smell of copper is a blasphemy against knowledge! This is the mainstream criticism of Wang Chonggu. The "People's Newspaper" in the capital was like a pot exploding in opposition to Wang Chonggu's nonsense. What the poets and writers could not accept most was that the money for the assessment rewards was donated by the Jin Party and Jin merchants!

Formulating government orders and promoting government orders as a public official is what should be done, but Wang Chonggu paid out of his own pocket and brought his own dry rations. What is that about!

Wang Chonggu directly told all scholars through the "People's Newspaper": The reward treasury for assessment rewards has a fixed donation of 50,000 silver every year. Wang Chonggu originally intended to monopolize it, but the Jin merchants took the initiative to recognize the contribution. The reason is very simple: the coal mountains in Shengzhou and the gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal mountains in Wamagang are only valuable after being mined. These things are in the Hetao and Mobei. Without sufficiently stable rule, these gold and silver mountains are not the Great Ming's, and the Jin merchants are the primary beneficiaries.

The reward treasury for assessment rewards can also receive 50,000 silver from the inner treasury. The reward treasury receives a total of 100,000 silver in donations every year, which is used to promote the three-level schools.

When Wang Chonggu formulated the reward treasury, he had already planned it. His family directly took it out, but the Jin merchants heard the news and ran to the All-Jin Guild Hall to cry, saying things like "How can the Junior Grand Secretary have the heart to abandon us," and eventually had to share the 50,000 silver donation equally.

Wang Chonggu is not afraid of the criticism of the lowly scholars, because the lowly scholars cannot hurt him at all. To put it bluntly: unless the Emperor, the literary Zhang, and the military Qi take action against him, no one can deal with him. Yan Song was scolded for twenty years, didn't he also serve as Chief Grand Secretary for twenty years?

Zhu Yijun summoned Zhang Juzheng in the side hall of the Wenhua Palace. Wang Chonggu was busy with the People-Benefiting Pharmacy and the three-level schools in Xishan, and basically couldn't be seen except for court discussions.

"I feel that Junior Grand Secretary Wang is a bit too radical." Zhu Yijun said to Zhang Juzheng with a complicated expression.

Zhu Yijun knew that Wang Chonggu was capable, but back then, when he overstepped his authority, Zhu Yijun's expectations for Junior Grand Secretary Wang were not very high. If he could run the wool official factory steadily, Zhu Yijun would already be satisfied.

Now, Junior Grand Secretary Wang is running wildly on the road of reform, becoming a representative of the radical faction, while Zhang Juzheng has become a conservative faction responsible for maintaining stability. This magical feeling of "the offensive and defensive positions have changed" made Zhu Yijun feel that Wang Chonggu was possessed.

Zhang Juzheng bowed his head and said, "Not really. I think that the things he is doing are not only to consolidate his own position but also to leave a good name in history."

The Official Factory Group Law is Wang Chonggu's foundation. He can use as much effort as he wants on this foundation. If the Official Factory Group Law has a big problem, he, who is already a treacherous official, will only be executed. Moreover, the Official Factory Group Law has no worries about being "killed after the task is done." Wang Chonggu doesn't have to worry at all that he will end up like Yan Song and Hu Zongxian, becoming a pawn to block the mouths of the pure officials after the Japanese pirates are gradually stopped.

Because the official factory group, in theory, has no day when the task is finished. As long as the imperial court starts the official factory and gets benefits from it, it cannot stop.

As for leaving a good name in history, it is very important for every Great Ming person. The Great Ming does not talk about the afterlife, the afterlife where one can be a superior person by being reincarnated; the Great Ming also does not talk about the present life, living as far as one can;

The Great Ming talks about immortality, immortality through fame, immortality through fame.

Under this system, it leads to the need for the people of the Central Plains to be extra responsible for history. To this day, the Western Regions have been lost for nearly a thousand years. During the Jingtai, Chenghua, and Jiajing years, the Great Ming had many debates about reopening the Western Regions, because those names still remained in the historical records.

The Great Ming's recovery of Hetao and development in Liaodong both directly used names from the Tang Dynasty. This is the importance attached to history.

That is not just a few simple names, but history, and even more, inheritance.

This is not only the consensus of the "meat-eaters" but also the consensus of the ordinary people of the Great Ming. For example, during the time of Emperor Xianzong of Tang, the iron army of the Anxi Protectorate had been defending the city alone for forty years. The city of Kucha was full of white-haired people. Could the defenders of Kucha not surrender, or simply return to the hinterland? They did not, but defended Kucha for a full forty years.

Everyone will become an insignificant speck of dust in the face of time. When standing at the crossroads of history, having the opportunity, ability, and courage to become a pillar in the long river of history, standing tall even after being washed by a thousand years of measurement, and even becoming a part of the backbone, Wang Chonggu's performance cannot be called crazy.

Zhang Juzheng agrees with the Institute of Anatomy's theory of "Central Plains Superiority," because once you think about problems on a scale of a thousand years, it is not a military problem, a political problem, or an economic problem, but a cultural problem. Ups and downs, cyclical rise is the core view of the theory of contradiction, but the firm support of culture makes that theory of superiority more convincing.

The eleventh emperor of Byzantium shouted, "I will return like lightning," but Rome had no sign of returning at all.

The Han family's mountains and rivers have loyal and good people in every generation.

Zhang Juzheng thought for a moment, bowed his head and said, "Looking south to the Nine Plains, where is it? The dust and sand are dim and the road is vast." This is the final poem of Wen Tianxiang. Three hundred years ago, Wen Tianxiang was escorted to the capital and beheaded by Kublai Khan at Caishi. The "Nine Plains" he mentioned is the Nine Plains Commandery, the foot of the Yin Mountains, the border city built by the State of Zhao, the Nine Plains Commandery of the Qin Dynasty, the northern end of the straight road built by Qin Shi Huang, the Wuyuan Commandery of the Han Dynasty, the Fengzhou of the Tang Dynasty, and the current Wuyuan Prefecture.

Zhang Juzheng completely answered His Majesty's question. This is the thickness of history.

"The teacher's words are reasonable." Zhu Yijun understood what Zhang Juzheng wanted to express. Indeed, Wang Chonggu's behavior cannot be called crazy, and is even very restrained.

"The officials are remonstrating, asking the Prince of Lu to go to his fief." Zhu Yijun sat up straight and talked about the arrangements after the Prince of Lu's grand wedding.

The Prince of Lu, Zhu Yiliu, is absurd, and the whole capital is discussing it. They ask the Emperor to restrain him and also ask the Emperor to arrange for the Prince of Lu to go to his fief. After going to his fief, the absurd things that damage the court's majesty will happen in the Prince's mansion, not in the capital.

The Prince of Lu's mansion in Weihui Prefecture, Henan, was built during the Hongzhi years and has been at least seventy years old. In the fourteenth year of Hongzhi, Prince Ru, Zhu Younei, went to Weihui to his fief. Prince Ru, Zhu Younei, had no descendants and the state was abolished. The Prince's mansion has been uninhabited since the tenth year of Wanli and has long been devastated. The court officials mean to let the Prince of Lu go to his fief there.

"The Weihui Prince's mansion is dilapidated and still needs repair. I don't think it's appropriate to go to the fief immediately. The imperial court's Suiyuan road and Suiyuan mining industry are tight on funds, and there is no financial expenditure for repairing the Prince's mansion. I think the Prince of Lu should stay in the capital first to fulfill his filial piety." Zhang Juzheng does not think that being enfeoffed to Henan is a good idea.

There are too many princes in Henan, and clearing the fields is a difficult problem. It was finally cleared a little bit, and now the Prince of Lu is going to his fief. I am afraid it will not be conducive to clearing the fields.

Zhu Yijun said, "I intend to enfeoff the Prince of Lu to Davao City on Mianlanlaodao."

"Your Majesty, this..." Zhang Juzheng had long been prepared for the matter of overseas enfeoffment, but His Majesty said it directly, leaving Zhang Juzheng unable to answer for a while.

There are too many problems, and it cannot be solved overnight.

First of all, Empress Dowager Li cannot possibly agree. Is Mianlanlaodao a good place? Davao is said to be the largest city on Mianlanlaodao and the second largest city in Luzon. Even counting the red-haired barbarians, there are only 200,000 people. Shanghai county alone has 620,000 people. Just that broken place, going there is just baring teeth at big crocodiles. What kind of broken place is it, and you want to let the Empress Dowager's favorite youngest son go to his fief?

Empress Dowager Li will never think that the court officials are doing it for the sake of the state. In Empress Dowager Li's eyes, being so harsh to the imperial clan is rebellion!

"I don't think it's appropriate. It still needs to be discussed from a long-term perspective." Zhang Juzheng did not want to stimulate Empress Dowager Li, or rather, did not want to change the stability of the current top-level political ecology of the Great Ming. Empress Dowager Li's current state is very good. Bringing children in the Tonghe Palace, it is really grandchildren around the knees. Zhu Yiliu is completely enough in the Prince of Lu's mansion.

Overseas enfeoffment should be done little by little.

"As for the palace, I will handle it." Zhu Yijun is also not sure if he can persuade Empress Dowager Li, but this is inevitable for opening the sea. Otherwise, the overseas Governor's Office can only be of a loose nature forever. If you want real territory and counties, you must take this step.

Zhang Juzheng was still very stubborn and said, "Your Majesty, His Highness the Prince of Lu is too young. This matter is of great importance and cannot be sloppy."

Letting a flower in a greenhouse face the forefront of the opening of the sea is a very cruel practice. The Prince of Lu going to his fief in Davao would result in the Prince of Lu probably not being able to fulfill his duties as a barrier, and even having life-threatening dangers and disasters.

This is not Zhang Juzheng alarmist. Mianlanlaodao is a hodgepodge of natives, red-haired barbarians, Japanese pirates, and desperate people. The contradictions and conflicts are extremely intense. At the Prince of Lu's age, enfeoffing him there will not have any effect.

Once the Prince of Lu's enfeoffment has an accident, this road of overseas enfeoffment will come to an end. In the future, wanting to enfeoff overseas will be a fantasy.

Zhu Yijun thought for a moment, nodded and said, "The teacher's words are reasonable. Enfeoffing overseas is indeed a bit too hasty and too early."

Zhang Juzheng suddenly understood. His Majesty didn't want the Prince of Lu to go to his fief now, so he put forward the rhetoric of overseas enfeoffment. In this way, the clamor of the court officials for him to go to his fief would stop abruptly.

The Chief Grand Secretary and Grand Tutor understood the imperial will.

"Recently, Li Le, the Governor of Yingtian, reported the corruption in the Nanjing Tax Inspection Institute, and Luo Bingliang, the Nanjing Commander, submitted a memorial to resign. I rejected Commander Luo's memorial and told him to work hard. As for corruption, just investigate and deal with it." Zhu Yijun talked about the corruption case in the Nanjing Tax Inspection Institute. It was a case reported by Hai Rui. A total of three thousand-household officers of the judicial department were involved, totaling 3,400 silver taels of "corruption."

These 3,400 silver taels were discovered during the Ministry of Revenue's audit last year when the accounts didn't match. It took three months to investigate clearly.

These three thousand-household officers didn't put the money into their own pockets but gave it to the archers of the tax inspection room as rewards.

The Tax Inspection Institute divides three-tenths to the local area and seven-tenths to the capital. This three-tenths is left in the local area. The distribution of interests is that the local government office, the thousand-household officer in charge of tax inspection, and the archers share it. Therefore, tax inspection institutes are built all over the country. Every prefecture has a tax inspection room, and every county has a tax inspection police inspector, leading a number of archers to inspect taxes.

"I will pay close attention to it. If the officials of the Southern Yamen have nothing to do, they can go to dredge the waterways." Zhang Juzheng paid great attention to this case. It was not a big deal, but the censor officials of the Southern Yamen's Censorate kept picking on it, and even Luo Bingliang was made to look bad and had to resign.

When local government offices have no money, they will go to the tax inspection room to beg for food. The tax inspection room also needs the cooperation of local authorities, so as long as it is not excessive, the tax inspection room will also give silver, which is considered borrowing. Local government offices have no choice but to borrow money from the tax inspection room, which belongs to the Embroidered Uniform Guard. Most of them will pay it back, but there is a time difference here, and the archers' rewards have to be paid, so there was this 3,400 silver tael deficit.

These are all very normal government affairs, but the gentry in Jiangnan are troubled by the Tax Inspection Institute. Once they found an opportunity, they naturally impeached them to death.

Zhang Juzheng is prepared to find some work for these censor officials who have nothing to do. Dredging waterways is a long-term job. The 40,000-li waterway of the Yangtze River needs dredging. If the censor officials have the ability, they can roll it out. If they can't, they can just go home.

I don't know what these corrupt censor officials are pretending to be clean people for. They think the 3,400 silver taels of the Tax Inspection Institute are unforgivable? If they were sentenced according to this, wouldn't all the wine-bag-and-rice-sack guys in the Southern Yamen have to be sliced to death?

Don't look at how much tax the Tax Inspection Institute can collect for the imperial court in a year. Every tax payment ticket is walked out step by step by the colleagues of the Tax Inspection Institute.

Zhang Juzheng never softens his hand when dealing with censor officials.

"I really don't like the censor officials being yin and yang about the army's northern expedition. Although they didn't mention General Qi Jiguang or the capital garrison in their memorials, they always clamor about this kind of wind, as if our Great Ming capital garrison is deliberately creating slaughter outside the Dacheng." Zhu Yijun sat up straight and talked about the memorials of the censor officials in the capital.

These memorials are very reasonable, but many things in this world are not useful just by talking about reason.

If the grassland people cannot live in peace, they can only go south to plunder, so the Great Ming needs to transform the grassland with royal culture. This is complete reconciliation.

The Great Ming army is suppressing bandits in Suiyuan, turning from pacification to annihilation, which makes the scholar-officials who advocate "gentleness to people from afar" and "Heaven has the virtue of loving life" somewhat unable to accept it. From the reports, General Qi Jiguang's orders are very harsh.

Because the cruelty of the horse bandits outside the Dacheng is beyond the imagination of these old men who have never seen the world.

Cutting off ears and pulling out tongues to interrogate for food, pulling out all the hair before killing, pressing people into the water until they choke to death for fun, using burning wooden sticks to stir women to death, "sweeping hair" with a broom, throwing children into boiling water pots...

After General Qi Jiguang learned about this, he ordered the battalions: as long as they don't surrender, resolutely eliminate them! Any resisting horse bandits, no matter where they are found, must be eliminated immediately. Only victory is allowed, and victory must be achieved!

The people of Hetao only have praise for General Qi Jiguang's bandit suppression, and even set up many temples for the savior.

Zhu Yijun thought for a moment, took out a list from his sleeve, and said, "A comfortable life gives them an illusion, always feeling that a stable life is something easily obtained. Survival, being born and living, has never been an inherent right, but a trophy snatched from this cold world by countless warriors."

"The capital region has been broken by the northern captives twice, and the capital region is shaken and uneasy. I think letting these dozen or so people go to Kaiping Guard and Yingchang Guard to face the cruelty of war is the solution."

Zhu Yuanzhang had a theory of "parents of the world." The ones who give birth to people are parents, and the ones who let people grow up safely and live stably are monarchs. This theory has rationality in the Great Ming of imperial autocracy, and Zhu Yijun applied this theory to expand the concept of "parents of the world" to every warrior who struggles for the collective public interest of the Great Ming, and those who carry the burden for the country and society.

Zhu Yijun cannot accept shaping the capital garrison, which reports to the Son of Heaven and saves the common people, into the image of an executioner.

There are seventeen people on the list. These seventeen people are the first batch to be exiled to guard the frontier. If they can stay, they stay; if they can't, they will be dismissed from their official status and fame and go home.

"I obey the decree." Zhang Juzheng looked at the list. Interestingly, there are people from the Chu Party, the Zhe Party, and the Jin Party, and the distribution is quite even. A stable and peaceful life always makes scholar-officials hold some unrealistic fantasies.

People teach people, a thousand times and they won't learn; things teach people, once and they will learn.

Zhang Juzheng does not think there is anything inappropriate about His Majesty's move. It is necessary to let the scholar-officials who cannot distinguish between the five grains see the world to understand why General Qi Jiguang's bandit suppression turned from pacification to annihilation, and the orders issued were almost the same as when suppressing the Japanese pirates.

After Zhang Juzheng came out of the side hall of the Wenhua Palace, the thunderous means directly shocked the capital. Seventeen people in the capital were exiled to Suiyuan, and more than thirty censor officials of the Southern Yamen's Censorate were sent to Guizhou to change the land and return to the flow, and dredge the Wujiang River.

As for the bad name, Zhang Juzheng hasn't cared for a long time. Anyway, no one dares to scold him.

These disposals were issued with the content of the imperial decree, which was stamped by the Emperor. Up to this point, there is actually a way to save it, which is for the six offices of the six offices to exercise the power of sealing and rejecting, sealing and rejecting the Emperor's imperial decree.

The six offices of the six offices directly closed their doors and played dumb. Whoever wants to go, go! Whoever is willing to go, go, anyway, they won't go.

They were very fortunate that they were not on the list.

The reason why the six offices of the six offices did not participate in these rotten things was that they were busy looking for trouble with Wang Chonggu, which happened to avoid a disaster.

After such a toss, someone actually began to respond to the edict to go to Suiyuan. If they don't go again, the pits will be occupied by others.

(End of chapter)