prosperous age

Chapter 307 306 Shipping
The memorial was sent up, and Wei Guangde's errand was over.

It's just that when the memorial went up to Emperor Jiajing, they would normally be called to Xiyuan for questioning, and those concealed numbers might not be able to be covered up by then.

But now Wei Guangde has already figured it out, he is the one who uncovered it, and has nothing to do with the group of people who covered it.

He watched Tang Shunzhi hastily bid farewell to him and went straight back to the Yamen of the Ministry of War. It was obvious that they had to discuss a countermeasure in advance.

After Tang Shunzhi left, Wei Guangde's relaxed expression quickly subsided, and he looked solemnly to the north in the direction of the Forbidden City.

On the way back to the capital, he found that the memorials he sent back in Xuanfu did not seem to have spread among the court and the public. From this, Wei Guangde guessed that there were not many people in the officialdom who knew that he had been to Xuanfu.

However, with such a big personnel change, it is impossible for Dong Jiang, the Minister of the Ministry of War, to directly take over the duties of Governor Xuanda, and it is impossible not to cause a storm in the ruling and opposition parties, let alone the godson of Yan Songyan's first assistant.

The Yan family definitely knew about it, and Wei Guangde knew in his heart that it was impossible for Emperor Jiajing to make such a personnel adjustment without discussing it with Yan Song. He had actually offended the Yan family.

What Wei Guangde is struggling with now is whether he should go to the Yan Mansion these two days.

Although offended, but not openly offended, if it can be eased, even a little ease is good.

At this stage, in the court, no one is more powerful than Yan Song.

Wei Guangde was tangled in his heart, but he still made up his mind, he still had to bring a gift to the Yan Mansion when he had time, if it was really irreversible, then he should make a plan early.

Wei Guangde first went to the Metropolitan Procuratorate to hand over his errands. He went to patrol the border as the censor of the Metropolitan Procuratorate, so he naturally had to hand over the prepared official documents.

Wei Guangde didn't know anyone well in the Metropolitan Procuratorate. After everyone greeted each other according to the official etiquette, Wei Guangde's rank was low, so he would inevitably bow his hands to salute.

Accepting Wei Guangde's documents and files is considered complete, all the formalities are done by the officials below, and Wei Guangde has not even seen Zhou Yan, the censor of Zuodu.

Wei Guangde did not continue to run in the Yamen, let alone return to the Hanlin Academy. According to Tang Shunzhi, he could stay at home for the next two days and wait for news. Whether it was a summons from the palace or something, there would always be news.

Wei Guangde was very happy when he finally returned home after running around for nearly three months.

When entering the city, there were already guards going back to the house to report the letter, so when Wei Guangde entered the gate, he saw Xu Jianglan had come out to welcome him.

Wei Guangde went directly to the backyard to wash it off. It has been a lot of inconvenience outside in the past few months, so it is better to stay at home.

Only half a day after Wei Guangde returned home, a servant of Prince Yu's Mansion sent a message, inviting Wei Guangde to that restaurant for dinner, it was regarded as a welcome feast for him by Prince Yu's Mansion.

Even if Wei Guangde doesn't want to go to Prince Yu's mansion, he can't do it.

When the appointed time came, Wei Guangde took a carriage to the restaurant near King Yu's Mansion.

Wei Guangde is not very sure about their purpose for recruiting from Prince Yu's Mansion.

He already knew that the big personnel change in the capital last month not only involved Xuanda, but also the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Households and the Ministry of Punishment. What surprised Wei Guangde was the change of the Shangshu of the Ministry of Punishment to the Shangshu of the Hubu.

Not long after Jia Yingchun came to the capital to take up the post of minister of the Ministry of punishment, he changed his title of minister of the Ministry of household affairs.

The household department, which was the place where Prince Yu's Mansion lost all face, is now under the control of Prince Yu's Mansion.

Therefore, Wei Guangde already had some guesses about the people attending tonight's banquet, that is, Jia Yingchun might also be among them.

Don't look at him as one of the Seven Ministers now, but for a person like him, without the support of Prince Yu's Mansion, he is actually nothing.

Sure enough, the banquet was hosted by Gao Gong, and Wei Guangde really met Jia Yingchun here.

From Nanjing to Beijing, and then to the current Hubu Shangshu, Jia Yingchun felt like a dream, and the changes took only one year.

"I heard that your servant once went to Xiyuan before, when you were on tour?"

After three rounds of wine and five flavors of food, Gao Gong suddenly asked.

Wei Guangde knew that this was the reason they were in such a hurry to summon him. The fact that he ran away from Xuanfu was not spread in the court, and not many people knew about it.

But after all, because it was too sudden, all forces in the capital would naturally inquire about the news afterwards, trying to find out the cause of Xuanda and the official turmoil in the capital.

After all, Prince Yu's Mansion came out of the palace, so there was still some eyeliner in the palace, and they soon discovered that a family member who accompanied Wei Guangde out of Beijing had been to Xiyuan and met Chen Ju beforehand.

This time the court reshuffle, the Yuwang Mansion undoubtedly took advantage of it, although Jia Yingchun's two positions were Shangshu, but the responsibility of the Minister of the Ministry of Households is much greater than that of the Minister of the Ministry of Punishment, and the ranking in the court is not high. Less, the corresponding right to speak is also heavier.

It's just that at the moment when the Yan family dominates, Jia Yingchun can only choose to do things in a low-key manner, at least at the beginning, he didn't clean up the officials below.

Prince Yu's Mansion also held grudges.

At the beginning, Gao Gong and Yin Shizhen had had enough anger in the household department, and now the person they supported has ascended the position of the household department minister, so naturally they have to teach those snobs a lesson.

This is especially true for Gao Gong. Although he is a Jinshi, he has a violent temper. Like the tall Yin Shizhen, he is more vengeful.

After thinking for a while, Wei Guangde decided not to tell all the details, it was really unnecessary.

Emperor Jiajing didn't even see him face to face, and his memorial was not made public in the court and the public, which already represented some kind of hint from Emperor Jiajing.

"The day before my tour this time, Eunuch Chen came to my house and delivered a secret decree, asking me to inquire about the current situation of the Xuan Mansion."

Wei Guangde said: "I wrote a letter to the generals who fought together in Baoan Prefecture to find out what the situation in the Xuan Mansion was like in the past two years. I was a little surprised by the reply I got. A large number of frontier fortresses were destroyed and civilians and military households were displaced. The most hateful thing is that some people take the opportunity to kill good people and use their heads in exchange for rewards from the capital."

The more Wei Guangde talked, the more depressed he became, and he couldn't help shaking his head, "Understanding this, I naturally wrote a memorial and sent someone to the capital to hand it to Eunuch Chen. The changes at Xuanda should be related to my memorial. relationship, as for the others, I don’t understand.”

"That's right, no wonder."

At this moment, Gao Gong and the others all showed a clear expression, it really happened from Wei Guangde's place.

Xuanda's changes have been explained, and then continue to push down, and everyone has roughly guessed what it is.

Yang Shun, the governor of Xuanda, killed the good and pretended to be meritorious, and deceived the emperor. Among them, the Minister of the Ministry of War was guilty of lax supervision. Although the Ministry of Households only paid rewards, Emperor Jiajing probably hated him. He also thought it was the lack of supervision. Let Xuan Da take away 30 taels of silver in one year.

The topic of this official turmoil is over, and I already know the ins and outs of it roughly, so there is no need to get entangled in other things.

"By the way, you know about good loans for insufficient national use. Dongyang came from Nanjing and felt the disadvantages of water transport. He used to preside over the Ministry of Punishment and naturally couldn't control it, but now he has moved to the Ministry of Household Affairs, so he wants to go to the Shu , please open the sea in Tianjin to make up for the lack of water transport capacity by sea, what do you think of this matter?"

Shandai is naturally called Wei Guangde, while Dongyang is called Jia Yingchun, Jia Yingchun's name is Dongyang, and his name is Qiaocun.

"Water transport? Sea transport?"

Wei Guangde stared at Jia Yingchun with wide eyes, perhaps because of the elation of the spring breeze, Jia Yingchun looked at Wei Guangde with a smile on his beard, without the airs of a second-rank official in the court, and looked very modest.

Although the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal has solved the problem of transporting goods from north to south, there are actually many disadvantages. It's just that up to now, it has been a bit hard to get back, at least that's how Wei Guangde sees it.

Now too many people in the Ming Dynasty are counting on the Grand Canal to eat, not only the soldiers, but also the laborers on both sides of the strait, casually tens of thousands of people.

In the Song Dynasty, commerce was prosperous and sea transportation was developed. A large number of goods in the Song Dynasty were shipped to foreign countries for sale, in exchange for a lot of wealth. However, the Southern Song Dynasty was able to persist in a corner of peace, which was related to its huge financial resources.

But in the Ming Dynasty, shipping did gradually begin to weaken, and the once glorious voyages to the West had become a thing of the past.

In the current Ming Dynasty, more transportation work still relies on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal to complete.

People initially opposed sea transportation because of the risk of wind and waves. Although the cost of sea transportation is indeed lower than water transportation, it needs long-term practice and a lot of experience in sea transportation. Long-distance sea transportation is still regarded as a very dangerous thing.

Although water transportation is safer than sea transportation, there are many disadvantages in the construction and use of canals. The cost of maintaining canals is huge, and the canals are silted up every year, which is a waste of money.

Although the distribution of the water system was fully considered during the construction of the canal, and the existing water channels were used to the maximum extent for communication, it violated the laws of the natural environment. Suspended due to lack of water.

Once such a thing happens, the people along the river will need to bear heavy labor and dig new canals. At the same time, there will be more and more canal sections on the canal for charging water fees, which directly pushes up the cost of water transportation.

It's just that the high cost is not borne by the court, but by taxpayers to pay for the freight, which increases the pressure on the people in the Jiangnan area to pay taxes.

Water transportation also allocated the cost of its infrastructure, especially the cost of maintaining the Grand Canal and shipbuilding, to the civil government and military units in the places where the canal passed, and it would eventually be passed on to the people along the river.

To put it bluntly, although the counterparts of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal have solved the north-south transportation problem, they have left a heavy burden on the people. Many supporters of shipping have also come to conclusions based on economic accounts, and maintaining the canal shipping is actually losing money.

At the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, in order to maintain the military supplies of the Ming army in Liaodong, the Ming Dynasty maintained a powerful navy fleet to transport supplies by sea.

It was only after the Liaodong Ming Army's settlements became profitable and they were basically self-sufficient that Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the suspension of shipping. This was the first time that the Ming Dynasty had a decree to ban shipping.

It's just that in the Yongle Dynasty, Zhu Di needed to use large-scale troops to the north and transport a large amount of supplies, so the sea transportation was not cut off during the Yongle period and it was strengthened.

It was also at this time that the Grand Canal gradually took shape, and the Ming Dynasty began to gradually abandon sea transportation and specialize in river transportation.

However, the seemingly safe river transportation has been plagued by problems such as Yellow River intrusion and river blockage for decades after its passage. The interest groups that lie on the water transportation and suck blood are also growing stronger. Every time a minister proposes to resume sea transportation, these interest groups will be met. opposition, leading to abandonment.

In fact, the current capacity of the canal has begun to decline. The main reason is the blockage of the canal, and the annual dredging pressure of the river section is huge.

"Da Situ means to increase the total transport capacity of Zheyang?"

If it was before, Wei Guangde would think that Jia Yingchun meant to open the sea, and that the Ming Dynasty's sea ban was very thorough.

However, after becoming an official in the court, Wei Guangde still discovered that Zhe Yang, under the rule of the Governor of Water Transport, is still carrying out this maritime transport task, but the annual quota is very small, only tens of thousands of stones.

But Jia Yingchun shook his head, "The canal has gradually become a burden for the counties along the river, and dredging and dredging costs a lot of money every year. I plan to go to the dredging and divert half of the grain to Tianjin by sea, that is, to reduce the number of ships on the canal." Quantity, link congestion, and the diversion of tank ships to sea routes are beneficial to those merchant ships."

Hearing Jia Yingchun's words, Wei Guangde knew that there were many advantages to changing water transportation to sea transportation. Even though it was affected by the shipbuilding technology of this era, it is not difficult to build a usable ocean-going ship.

Although I don't know the current state of the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty compared with Western countries, they are all driving those sea ships all over the world to do business.

Thinking of sailing to the West, Wei Guangde felt that it would not be difficult for the Ming Dynasty to quickly build a large number of ocean-covering ships, but the resistance was obvious. The commercial interests along the canal and the civil servants had long been deeply connected. The impact on them is not small.

Wei Guangde didn't speak, but looked at Gao Gong, Yu Wang's mansion is up to him, since he mentioned Jia Yingchun's plan to go to college, they must have communicated beforehand, Wei Guangde didn't understand why he told himself this matter.

"Da Situ has this intention, and we have discussed it for many days, but we still can't come to a conclusion. It just so happens that you return to the capital, and you also give references. Everyone can chat casually, and you have to be stressed."

Gao Gong watched Wei Guangde look at him, and smiled with a twitch of his mouth.

"Who is for? Who is against?"

Wei Guangde asked.

"I support Dongyang's idea, but they are not optimistic about it."

Gao Gong replied with a smile, he also wanted to hear Wei Guangde's opinion, they had been arguing for a long time in Prince Yu's Mansion about this matter.

The reason why he wants to go to this school is naturally the reason why the new official took office. Jia Yingchun wants to do something to show his existence.

"There have been people who have proposed this throughout the ages, but they have always been rejected."

Wei Guangde shook his head, looked at Jia Yingchun, and said word by word.

Disadvantages of water transport, as long as you take a boat trip on the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, you will know.

Later generations are only amazed by the grandeur of the Grand Canal project, but they don't know that the cost of maintaining the Grand Canal is huge, and the gains outweigh the losses.

"Most of what they say is that the sea is dangerous and unpredictable, but in fact, there are no boats capsized and people drowned in river transportation?
The reason for their opposition is that they may have commercial interests in Yanhefu County, and the river officials, what will they do if they change to the sea route? "

(End of this chapter)