prosperous age

Chapter 188 Chapter 187
In the afternoon, Wei Guangde, Zhu Dashou, Tao Dalin, and Jin Da walked around the Imperial Academy under the leadership of Chen Jin and others.

Indeed, as they said, the doors of many bachelor's public houses are closed, and they have all gone to other yamen on duty, that is, low-level officials such as editors and reviewers, as well as doctors of the Five Classics, classics, servants, waiters, etc. It is worthwhile to order these low-level officials.

After being released in the evening, Wei Guangde came out of the Imperial Academy, and went to a banquet with the officials of the Imperial Academy whom he met in the afternoon.

The prosperity of the catering industry in the capital is largely due to this. Officials have a lot of direct social activities. Before that, Wei Guangde discovered that officials often go out in twos and threes to find a tavern to eat and drink, and talk about private and business affairs. It's because they don't say much in the Yamen.

This meal can be regarded as a reception banquet of the Imperial Academy, all the officials receiving salaries in the Imperial Academy participated, it was very lively.

There is a strict night ban system in the capital, and the banquet ends early. Even so, when Wei Guangde returned to the Jiujiang Guild Hall, it was already the beginning of the lights. Outside,

When they returned to the guild hall, Lao Kan and the others had already returned, and they were still looking at the time, why Wei Guangde didn't come back so late, worried that he would be stopped by the night ban.

It was the first day for the four Jinshi to go to the yamen. Wei Guangde and Zhang Ke went alone, and Lao Kan and Xia Kefan were still companions, so they talked about the situation in the yamen.

Back in his room, Wei Guangde called Zhang Ji, "You can go to the dental store tomorrow and ask if the buyer is willing to lower the price."

"Master, why don't we ask other houses. The house in Nanxunfang is in a good location, and the buyer will bite the price to death. I'm afraid it won't be easy to lower it."

Zhang Ji said with a bitter face, he ran away several times, but it didn't work at all.

"Next time you go there, you can fight for it. If you can't, then you agree. The young master of the yard wants it."

The place where we ate this time was in the inner city, and Wei Guangde knew that most of them, the officials of the Imperial Academy, lived in the inner city, only a few of them lived in their own houses, and most of them rented houses.

But Wei Guangde doesn't want to rent a house to live in. This is a house in the capital city. Future generations will not be able to buy it if they want to buy it. There is no such requirement now. Wei Guangde plans to buy the house in the capital city. Even if it is released later, it will be a big deal. Hang out or rent out.

Although the price of the yard is expensive, there is indeed a reason why it is expensive, but what Wei Guangde values ​​is the location.

Next, Wei Guangde has to think about the matter he heard in the morning. He couldn't help but not take it seriously. If this matter goes wrong, he might be in a catastrophe. Wei Guangde doesn't want to die without knowing it.

But at this time, Wei Guangde's shortcomings also came out. He couldn't figure out how the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade was going to work.

He used to be in the south, and he knew very well that the sea trade has never been broken. Most of the merchants are doing business related to the sea trade to make money.

But what is the official situation, Wei Guangde really does not know.

Forget it, don’t think about it, I’ll go to the Hanlin Academy tomorrow to be on duty, so I’ll look for information first, and see how Daming’s maritime trade is doing now, it can attract such a big Japanese riot, I really don’t know what the coastal government is doing what.

In the early morning of the next day, Wei Guangde rushed to the Imperial Academy on duty, signed his name on the booklet at the gate, and walked in.

Wei Guangde first went back to his public room and sat for a while, and the scribe Lu Bu brought tea.

After not sitting for too long, Wei Guangde went to the Library Pavilion of the Imperial Academy to find information about maritime trade.

He didn't check much information about the previous dynasty and the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, but mainly searched for the records about the Shibo Division from the Hongzhi Dynasty to the present, especially the imperial court's orders to the Shibo Division.

I have been busy in Zangshu Pavilion for a long time, and there are too many materials. Fortunately, the clerk who guards Zangshu Pavilion can only find the materials and documents of the last 30 years.

Fortunately, this is what the Imperial Academy does. All the imperial edicts, memorials, etc. are stored in the Imperial Academy.

Ask the clerk to send the found materials to his public room. Wei Guangde hasn't made any arrangements yet, so he just has free time to do these things.

As for the upside-down disturbance in the library pavilion on the second day he was on duty, he couldn't care what other people thought. He had to eliminate the hidden dangers left by the test papers first.

However, Wei Guangde was taken aback by this information search, which was completely different from what he thought.

Before that, Wei Guangde always thought that the Japanese pirates ran to the coast of Daming to plunder because they were greedy for money. This was actually the opinion of most of the inland guards.

After all, they are pirates, not for the sake of money, who would do the bloody business.

But what Wei Guangde sees now is a little bit beyond his imagination, the sea trade of the Ming Dynasty is a little bit different from that of later generations.

At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, the Taizu did have a decree not to enter the sea, but later the Ming Dynasty had contacts with the surrounding vassal states, whether it was the Ming Dynasty sending people to announce the order or foreign missions to the Ming Dynasty, it would cost a lot of money, so most of them would Bring local goods to trade.

The cost of traveling in ancient times was very high, which Wei Guangde understands very well.

Well, this opened up the trade between the Ming Dynasty and foreign countries.

In fact, to be precise, it should be the restoration of sea trade. After all, before Daming, Huaxia products had made great strides to go abroad and sell overseas.

The "Shibo Department" established by the Ming Dynasty was actually established to serve this kind of tribute-like trade. Wei Guangde analyzed that the functions and powers of the Shibo Department are mainly divided into three categories: one is to take charge of tribute, It is a bit like Honglu Temple; the second is to prohibit private individuals from doing overseas trade; the third is to control the collection and trade of trade goods brought by foreign tribute envoys with the tribute.

Wei Guangde thought that the reason why the Maritime Ship Department was in charge of the tribute was that the foreign envoys who came to Daming were mainly by boat at this time, and Ming Dynasty had strict regulations on foreign trade.

There are three Ships Divisions in Guangzhou, namely Guangzhou Ships Department, Quanzhou Ships Department and Ningbo Ships Department.

The Guangzhou Shipping Department is specially set up for the tributes of Champa, Siam, Manga, Chenla and other Southeast Asian countries; the Quanzhou Shipping Department is specially set up for the Ryukyu tributes; Ningbo was originally an important port for China's foreign trade, but here However, the Shibo Division was specially designed for Japanese tribute.

After that, Wei Guangde didn't care about it. He didn't look for any documents. He just looked up the changes in the past few decades, and then he saw the memorial of the Ningbo tribute incident in the second year of Jiajing and the dismissal of the admiral by the Emperor Jiajing. Guard the will of the eunuch.

Although he doesn't know the specific reason, Wei Guangde can also think that Shibosi may be played badly by those officials who know how to exploit, especially when Shibosi is under the control of the guarding eunuch.

Maritime trade makes a lot of money, I'm afraid only mainland officials don't understand.

If Wei Guangde was purely aboriginal, he would not understand it either, he would just think that it was the kind of business done by ordinary businessmen, with profits and losses.

Indeed, sea trade is risky, and there are natural disasters and even man-made disasters, but if everything goes smoothly, the profits will be very objective.

For the sake of tribute trade, two Japanese big names came to Daming at the same time, and then because of a dispute over who could represent Japan, they actually went to war in Ningbo City.

Although Wei Guangde doubted whether the information reported by the local government was true, there might be some reasons for concealment, but the big aspects are still not bad.

The fact that the two daimyos are competing for tribute, what does this mean, isn't it obvious?
There are huge benefits in the tribute trade, which is why Japan's daimyo are flocking to it.

It's just a pity that because of this incident, Emperor Jiajing dismissed the guarding eunuchs of Ningbo and Quanzhou's shipping departments, and the remaining Guangzhou shipping companies were dismissed soon after.

The Shibo Department still exists, but the guardian eunuch is gone, and the Shibo Department has been promoted to continue to be in charge.

During this period, the Shibo Department only received tribute missions, and did not conduct tribute trade, and missions were not allowed to bring trade materials.

However, due to the inability to conduct tribute trade, the number of missions from neighboring countries to pay tribute dropped sharply.

Wei Guangde fell into deep thought. The yamen of Shibosi mainly receives tribute, and tribute trade is only an auxiliary business, and up to now, tribute trade has completely stopped.

So what happened to the dispute over mulberry and rice in the court now?
And the other day Wen Yinglu bluntly said that he made money through the Shibo Company, since they have all stopped, could it be
Wei Guangde suddenly thought of a possibility, that is, the imperial court, or the inner court quietly started the tributary trade again, but did not expressly say that the previous ban was lifted.

Thinking of this possibility, Wei Guangde pondered the reason for doing so.

Well, there are actually many reasons.

Now the Japanese riots in the south of the Yangtze River are very serious, and the Japanese riots started in Shibo, which seems to have become the consensus of the current court, at least even officials who don't think so are unwilling to speak on this issue.

Therefore, to restore the trading function of the Shibo Department, it can only be done quietly and not with great fanfare.

As for the reason for the restoration of Shibo, well, Wei Guangde knew it without even guessing. It must be that the inner court was also dragged down by the huge expenditure of Emperor Jiajing's cultivation, so he could only find a way to make money.

There are not many ways for the inner court to make money, and most of them are under the noses of civil officials. If they go too far, they may be impeached.

Emperor Jiajing was very strict with the eunuchs in the inner court. The common people in the capital said so, and Wei Guangde naturally heard this saying.

It seems that the only way to make money without touching the interests of the civil servants group is the almost monopoly foreign trade.

Even if the eunuchs do not participate in the foreign trade of the Shibo Department, those coastal officials and gentry families will still smuggle and make a fortune from it.

For the ministers in the court, they may not have noticed the great value of sea trade at the beginning, so as long as they are not robbing the families of officials and gentry, but just secretly doing business with barbarian people, and their bottom line has not been violated, they will naturally open their eyes. Close one eye.

The Shibo trade dominated by eunuchs may be astonishingly profitable, and the current civil servant group has also discovered the huge benefits of the Shibo Department. They want to get a piece of the pie from the inner court?

So, starting to want to bring the business of Shibo Division to the table?

After reviewing the imperial court's regulations and orders for the Shibo Division in recent years, Wei Guangde came to a conclusion that the imperial court has been weakening the existence of the Shibo Division intentionally or unintentionally.

However, it is obviously unreasonable for the imperial court to openly discuss increasing trade in silk, porcelain and other products to make money.

If the above speculation is true, then why is this matter that will harm the interests of the inner court put on the table?

Wei Guangde still finds it unreasonable, unless the inner court realizes that the cake is too big for him to eat, and needs the help of the outer court to share it?
But Wei Guangde immediately denied this possibility, who would think too much money?

Then, there is only one possibility for them to make money, and that is if someone wants to stop their trading behavior.

The business carried out by the Shibo Division will essentially harm the interests of coastal smugglers. Their people in the court will definitely try to obstruct it, and then the inner court will simply cooperate with the power in the outer court to crush them?

Wei Guangde patted his head and came up with a reason that he thought could explain it. In fact, as long as he confirmed whether anyone from the government was involved in the trade, he could conclude whether the above guess was right or wrong.

However, for a recruit like Wei Guangde, who can he ask?
Who will take care of him?

There is no overseas trade on the surface, so how can there be a lot of discussions in the court, it is really a ghost.

Stayed in the Hanlin Academy until the next duty, no one organized a wine party today, Wei Guangde took the car back to the Jiujiang Guild Hall early.

"Did you go to what I told you last night?"

On the carriage, Wei Guangde asked Zhang Ji if he had gone to negotiate the price with the house owner again during the day.

"Master, I've been there, but that company still doesn't want to lower the price. If they do, they can only give 500 taels."

Zhang Ji said with a sad face.

"what expression."

Seeing Zhang Ji's expression, Wei Guangde thought it was funny, "If you don't lower the price, you won't lower the price. It's not that you don't have money. You can go to the dentist tomorrow and tell the people in the dentistry shop that I want the house. I will sign the contract at a fixed time and let the dentist Those who can do it will report to the government as soon as possible."

Wei Guangde shook his head and smiled.

"Do you really want to buy it?"

Zhang Ji wanted to stop it. Although his young master was rich, there was really no need to spend so much money on it. There were also large courtyards with hundreds of taels of silver in the inner city, but it was a little farther away.

"Don't talk about it, the yard is actually pretty good. Didn't Lao Kan say that? The things in it are all good things, and they don't ask for a lot of money."

Wei Guangde didn't want Zhang Ji to continue talking, he was determined, so he wouldn't allow Zhang Ji to stop him.

The carriage returned to the Jiujiang Guild Hall. As soon as Wei Guangde entered the lobby, the shopkeeper came over and said with a smile: "Master Wei, the second master Lin Maolin of Huitong Commercial Bank came to ask for an interview, and said he had brought a letter from your father."

"Ok?"

Wei Guangde was taken aback for a moment, and then thought that this letter might have been sent by his family after they learned of his palace examination results, and he sent the letter by himself, and it is not clear whether he has arrived in Jiujiang or not.

After thanking the shopkeeper, he followed him to a table next to him. Lin Mao was waiting there at the moment, and when he saw Wei Guangde coming in, he immediately stood up and bowed his hands in salute.

Lin Mao, Wei Guangde knew, he was the second child of the Lin family, and he had been in the capital for a long time. After Wei Guangde's general examination and palace examination, Huitong Commercial Bank gave him a gift of hundreds of taels of silver.

"Master Lin, please don't be polite, sit down, you bring me a letter from home, I should be the one to thank you."

Seeing Lin Mao get up, Wei Guangde immediately spoke.

"Don't dare to take it as a word of thanks, it's just a little effort."

After saying this, Lin Mao waited for Wei Guangde to sit down before sitting down, but he looked at the people coming and going in the lobby, with a little hesitation on his face.

"Is there any inconvenience?"

Wei Guangde felt strange and asked in a low voice.

"No, it's best to ask Mr. Wei to find a quiet place."

After saying this, Lin Mao took out a big envelope from his pocket and handed it to Wei Guangde.

(End of this chapter)