Reborn Ming Dynasty as Emperor

Chapter 502 The ruling class quietly changing the way of economic activities (fourth more)

As Zhu Youxiao expected, the turmoil in Panshui, Guizhou eventually turned into a fight among various chieftains. The officers and soldiers of the imperial court only guarded a few critical areas, and gave the Shui'an and Shuidong Song families some military pay and food in due course. In addition, he did not participate in their fight.

The barbarians of Panshui Tusi are indeed quite powerful, and they don't know how long they have accumulated strength, and they even used artillery and other things, but this also shows that corrupt personnel appeared in the Ordnance Department or the army, and they even smuggled weapons without permission.

Major Zhu Youxiao is not allowed to be strictly investigated by the East Factory Joint Military Law Office. Zhu Youxiao has zero tolerance for this corrupt behavior of smuggling main battle weapons.

Despite the support of the imperial court, the chieftain of Panshui is indeed quite powerful. Most of the thirteen strongholds of the Shui'an family have been breached in a blink of an eye, and the Yang family of Bozhou has almost reached the point of complete extinction.

But the places directly ruled by the imperial court are still stable as usual, Chen Jiru still teaches in the cliff cave, and merchants from all over the country still bring their goods into major market towns.

With the arrival of Qin Liangyu's white-armed soldiers, the scope of the war was further expanded. Panshui Chieftain's barbarians had to fight fiercely with the white-armed soldiers one after another, but the outcome was hard to predict. This kind of jungle warfare was very difficult. It is difficult to wipe it out once and for all. Basically, when the chieftain of Panshui loses one thousand, the white soldiers will also lose eight hundred.

Fortunately, the white-armed soldiers have the support of the imperial court, and the chieftain of Panshui is a rebellion after all, so the white-armed soldiers basically have the upper hand.

The war lasted for half a year. The native officials who were attacked by the Panshui chieftain, such as the Shui'an family and the Shuidong Song family, were the first to be maimed, and then the Panshui chieftain was beaten to almost nothing by the white-armed soldiers.

According to the strict order of the imperial court, the Chieftain of Panshui could not tolerate it, so the Baigan soldiers had to continue chasing and suppressing, and this also caused the Baigan soldiers themselves to suffer certain losses. It was not over until a brigade of the Fourth Army entered Chishui and Luzhou. this war.

But in this way, it means that the situation in Sichuan and Guizhou is formally controlled by the imperial court, and the slightly powerful chieftains nearby, including Shizhu chieftains, no longer have the ability to affect the local local situation, and have to follow the imperial court's order to recuperate.

But during this period of time, Zhu Youxiao in Guangxi didn't realize that he was not far away from him and that the war he provoked was becoming more and more intense. At this time, he was enjoying the feeling of rafting on the blue waves. In the distance, the loud and clear singing of the Zhuang people floated, while the cries of egrets nearby made him feel relaxed physically and mentally.

The quiet sunset is close to the lonely peaks, and under the lonely peaks are rice fields where dragonflies play. This kind of beauty that is difficult to feel in the Forbidden City makes him very intoxicated.

Moreover, according to Li Mingrui, from Wuzhou to Guilin, many rice fields are wasteland reclaimed by Huangzhuang and have been contracted to the local people. There is even a phenomenon of not wanting to rent and paying wages to help harvest.

This phenomenon is not only found in Guangxi, but also occurs in almost other ministerial departments.

With the expansion of the proportion of state-owned land and the imperial court's financial dependence on agriculture approaching zero, it is difficult for rural arable land to become a source of sustainable income for the gentry.

Many gentry began to use the saved money not to buy fields but to operate business and even invest in shares.

Just like after the real estate boom in later generations, people are unwilling to keep their money in the bank, and go crazy to buy houses.

After all, after buying land, you have to spend money to hire people to cultivate it, but the profits of agricultural products are not considerable, especially in peacetime, when food prices continue to drop, people may be able to earn a little money to subsidize their daily necessities while being self-sufficient, but for life As far as the extravagant gentry are concerned, it is better for them to gain enough wealth to support their huge expenses by making huge profits in the mall.

In the entire Ming Dynasty, there was no one who didn't talk about business. Even the Panshui chieftain rebellion in Guizhou happened nearby. People in the nearby areas didn't think about what to do if these rebels attacked neighboring provinces, but how to make a fortune.

Because once the war started, the price of iron, grain, and cloth in Guizhou would inevitably rise sharply, while neighboring provinces such as Guangxi, Guizhou, and Yunnan still benefited from the colonial expansion of the Ming Dynasty, resulting in various living and production materials such as Prices such as iron prices are still falling.

As a result, many bold businessmen took the risk of being found out by the government to smuggle these means of living or production to earn a profit from the price difference. Giving it to the Tartars must be a serious crime of ransacking the house.

But now the contradiction has changed, the Panshui chieftain is not a Tartar, and these merchants are not rich Shanxi merchants, so the way of dealing with it is different.

But it was also because of this that the war had only lasted half a year, otherwise, one month would have been enough.

Zhu Youxiao naturally knew that many officials and businessmen would take advantage of this to make a fortune, but he had no choice but to let Dongchang implement a certain degree of control, because this was also caused by himself, because of his reforms, More and more people no longer use the land to make a fortune, but can only use war and trade to make a fortune.

Most of the wealth accumulated by the Panshui chieftain for many years and the wealth plundered from other chieftains have fed the nearby gentry who acted as merchants and officials colluding with merchants, but the real damage was not only the local chieftain but also the imperial court. The tax revenue suffered a loss and a certain amount of military pay was also borne.

But this is not a problem. After these local officials and gentry make a fortune, most of them will put their money in the Royal Bank or invest in Royal Capital Enterprises. After obtaining huge investments, Royal Capital Enterprises will spend these investments on larger-scale overseas colonial projects. superior.

Royal capital absorbs their wealth to create greater wealth. Everyone is getting rich. As long as the total wealth of the society increases and there is no problem with distribution, the whole society is still thriving, and local rebellions will not bring people The sense of chaos in the world even makes the eyes of keen people shine, knowing that this is an opportunity to realize the redistribution of wealth.

As long as they invest in the royal capital, these businessmen can use it to share greater dividends. Li Mingrui and other emerging officials also rely on this to rise to new big bureaucrats and big capitalists. They are close to the core of the empire, and it is naturally easier to get investment plans.

They would even use their prominent official position and strong relationship with Royal Capital to raise funds to invest in imperial capital enterprises. The resigned Secretary of the Household Department, Guo Yunhou, played like this, and he even set up the first private bank because of it.

But unfortunately, because of the cholera incident, his painstakingly managed Guo's financial empire fell short.

(End of this chapter)