Back to the Ming Dynasty to be a tyrant

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Seeing that Li Yan was puzzled, Shi Fenglai continued: "What's there in the Nanyang land? Although the Nanyang land can produce two or even three crops a year, but now I can buy grain from Nanyang as well, so why rush for a while.

As for this country, it is very different.Think about it first, what does the Wa country have? "

Chapter 5 Seventeen The Emperor Also Has a Headache

Li Yan blurted out: "Zuomo Yinshan!"

Shi Fenglai stroked his beard and said with a smile: "That's right, it's the Zuomo Silver Mountain. It's a waste of money to leave such a good thing to Japan. According to the temperament of our emperor, how can he be willing if he doesn't hold it in his own hands?

Taking a step back, even if there is no Zomo silver, I am afraid that His Majesty will take the Wa Kingdom first and then the Nanyang feudal clans or the barbarians in the West. "

Li Yan hesitated: "Not necessarily?"

Shi Fenglai asked curiously, "Tell me?"

After sorting out his thoughts, Li Yan replied: "The so-called Zama Silver Mountain has been depleted day by day, and now there is not much silver output, even the Japanese country will fall into a state of silver shortage, otherwise, why would the Tokugawa shogunate close the country?" ?

It can be seen from this that it is better to conquer the Nanyang countries first than to conquer the Japanese kingdom. After all, the Nanyang countries produce grain, and Ming Dynasty has suffered a lot of natural disasters in recent years, and conquering Nanyang can also be used to store grain. "

Shi Fenglai smiled and said: "You are right. However, according to the information I got as a teacher, since the 30th year of Wanli, although the output of this Zomo Silver Mountain has been decreasing year by year, the output of copper inside has been decreasing. And more."

After Shi Feng said that there was a little more copper, Li Yan basically understood what was going on.

Is Daming short of silver?

On the surface, it seems that there must be a shortage of money, but in fact, there has never been a shortage of money in Daming.

It's just that the money is not in the national treasury, but in the hands of wealthy private businessmen.

If it weren't for the lessons given to these wealthy merchants when they were strong men, I am afraid that some people would have thought about lending usury to the court.

After Emperor Chongzhen collected business taxes in a fair and honest manner, mere money was no longer a problem for the court.

Just like Guo Yunhou, Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs, although he shouted all day long that the treasury is empty and can run away mice, but in fact, anyone with a discerning eye knows that this is for the emperor to listen to, in case the emperor slaps the bag and makes something happen.

The real situation is that the money in the national treasury is not to mention piled up like a mountain, at least it is easy to play a war of the scale of Liaodong a few more times.

Under such circumstances, whether there are any silver mines in the country of Wa is naturally not attractive to Daming—when silver from all over the world is constantly pouring into Daming, silver is still a rarity ?

But copper is different.

The consequence of silver not being rare is that copper is starting to become scarce. Not to mention that good things like copper are used in many places. The lack of copper coins among the people is enough to give anyone a headache.

As for the slogan that Emperor Chongzhen called out in the first year of Chongzhen to make banknotes instead of gold and silver, so far only a little dawn has been seen, and it is estimated that it will take ten or twenty years before the real complete replacement. .

It's even a lifetime series.

After all, there was Jiaozi in Song Dynasty, and Baochao in Ming Dynasty, but the credibility of Baochao is not good.

Since the founding of the country by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, the great ancestor Gao, the Ming Dynasty has always faced a problem-copper shortage.

The lack of copper is a big problem, even more troublesome than the lack of silver.

Zhu Yuanzhang's calculation was wrong. The old Zhao's family and the old Tie's family were also short of copper, but they played such good things as Jiaozi and Zhongtong handing over banknotes. There is no reason why they can't play like this.

Therefore, such a good thing as treasure banknotes came into being. In the seventh year of Hongwu in Ming Dynasty, the "Banknote Law" was promulgated, and a treasure banknote lifting department was set up.And in the following year, it was issued under the name of Zhongshu Province Nanjing.

In the 22nd year of Hongwu, the Ming court issued five kinds of small banknotes, namely Shiwen, Ershiwen, Sanshiwen, Sishiwen and Wushiwen, with smaller face size.

After Zhu Laosi came to power, he saw that this thing was good, and he could exchange gold, silver, copper and other good things with some paper, so he simply prohibited the people from buying and selling gold and silver. coins.

The consequence of playing this way was that it was really fun at the time, especially when the country was just established, the court’s reputation among the people was still strong, so this thing can still be recognized by the people.

But there is a big problem, that Zhu Chongba and Zhu Laosi belong to the emperor on horseback, they are quite unreliable in terms of economics, and the indiscriminate printing of precious banknotes has become predictable matter.

By the ninth year of orthodoxy, the price of rice had risen to [-] guan, and even officials were unwilling to accept the precious banknotes, which could basically be declared to be used to wipe their buttocks.

By the time of Zhengde, the treasure banknotes had been abolished and no longer issued.

The result of the abolishment of the treasure banknotes is that the folks are short of copper again, not only the folks are short of copper, but the government is even more short of this thing.

Now it is suddenly discovered that there is such a good place to produce copper in Wa country, so can Emperor Chongzhen let Wa country go?

And even if the issue of copper is not considered, assuming that the Ming army can grab enough copper from all over the world for His Majesty, the great and wise emperor in their hearts, then the factor of oceans cannot be ignored by Emperor Chongzhen.

There is no longer any power on land that can endanger Ming. The strongest Jiannu has been forced to move to the north of Nurgan. The rest should consider the issue of the sea.

After all, both Penghu and the Great Liuqiu were occupied by the Hongmaoyi people, and the equipment of the Hongmaoyi people seemed to be quite advanced, and Daming even bought some from them to "research".

Coupled with the fact that Jinyiwei has not stopped in recent years, they have brought some red-haired barbarians who can speak human language back to Daming and then disappeared inexplicably. These reasons combined are enough for Shi Feng to judge that Emperor Chongzhen's goal is to engage Those Xiyi are gone.

And to engage in Xiyi, Wa Kingdom is a very good bridgehead-we cannot ignore its geographical location just because Wa Kingdom is located in the north.

Japan, Ryukyu, Great Ryukyu, and Nanyang Islands add up, this is the best front base, which can keep the flames of war out of the gate of Ming Dynasty. If this kind of geographical location is not well studied, it can only be said to be the commander of the five armies Those people in the government are trash.

Apparently, those guys in the Five Army Commander's Mansion are now so excited by their military achievements that they are thinking about where to do things every day, how could they let such a good position in Wa Kingdom go.

As for the Mughal side that was originally planned, Shi Fenglai didn't pay much attention to it.

Originally, the matter of Daming selling fushou ointment to Jiannu was kept secret, but Shi Fenglai, as the original assistant of the Daming cabinet, and the fact that he is currently doing a lot of selling in the Wa Kingdom, so he is also clear about the situation in Liaodong.

Right now, Jiannu is being forced to move north, but the medicines that were originally sold to Jiannu have not been distributed to Japan, so where did they go?

Obviously, it was either sold to those red-haired Xiyi, or it was sold to the Mughals.

As for the way, Shi Fenglai obviously didn't think that Jin Yiwei, who could even figure out the situation of Zuomo Yinshan in Japan, would have no way to sell these things.

When the Mughals are as obsessed with such good things as Jiannu, and then want to beat them to death, the price paid will be so small that it is unbelievable.

Combined with the fact that the Zuomo Yinshan in the Wa Kingdom is now producing a large amount of copper, Shi Fenglai has enough confidence to conclude that Emperor Chongzhen will target the Wa Kingdom.

Even if it wasn't, when I return to Beijing to report on my duties this time, I can persuade His Majesty the Emperor to set his sights on the Wa country, right?

Thinking of returning to Beijing to report on his duties, Shi Fenglai said to Li Yan with a dark face: "Speaking of which, this time you are at a loss. Being sent to Java, you might as well stay in Japan."

Li Yan looked at it very openly: "It must be that His Majesty has other arrangements?"

Shi Fenglai said: "It is estimated that the death of the Duke of England has touched His Majesty too much. He wants to let the teacher go back to spend his life, and Wen Tiren is probably the same. The future path depends on you and that man named Shen. Hao's little guy."

Emperor Chongzhen, who was far away in the capital of Ming Dynasty, was planning whether to attack the Wa Kingdom as Shi Fenglai expected.

The reason is just as Shi Fenglai expected. The first island chain is a good thing, and it must be controlled in his own hands. There is also the Iwami Silver Mountain in the Wa Kingdom, which is now called the Zuomo Silver Mountain. Such a copper producer Good place.

What Emperor Chongzhen was thinking about was how to restore the credibility of the treasure banknote, or how to ensure the credibility of the reissued banknotes.

The best way to guarantee the credit of newly issued banknotes is to issue as many banknotes as there is gold and silver in the treasury, and then use bad coins to drive out good ones to drive the silver and copper coins out of the market.

But there are Jiaozi played by the old Zhao family, the Zhongtong handed over banknotes and Zhongtong Yuanbao banknotes played by Temujin's family, and the Daming treasure banknotes played by Daming. They have long since lost the credit of banknotes. clean.