Chapter 143 Great mountains and rivers, don’t give up an inch of land! (Second update)
Zhu Di smiled.
The smile was a little cold and a little speechless.
He was unwilling to give him the iron ore, but Xia Zhibai still wanted more.
Did he really regard Zhu Di’s Peiping as Xia Zhibai’s own back garden? Take what you want?
He, Zhu Dike, has never had a good temper.
Yao Guangxiao and others looked at each other, their expressions full of confusion and surprise.
Where did Xia Zhibai get the courage to open his mouth?
The imperial court also allowed him to open an iron mine in Shuntian Mansion. He was not satisfied yet and wanted more. I really thought that what he said yesterday had a great impact on Zhu Di and made Yan The king must obey him?
How can anything be so easy in the world? !
Zhu Di sat on the main seat with a very stern look on his face.
He stared at Xia Zhibai closely with his tiger eyes, wanting to see through the thin man in front of him. He also wanted to understand where Xia Zhibai had the confidence to say these things to him. , he Zhu Di seems to be a very talkative person?
Yao Guangxiao and others took their seats one after another.
Xia Zhibai’s face was calm and unmoved by these looks.
Zhu Di leaned forward and sneered: "Xia Zhibai, I respect you as a champion, a scholar, and sent by my eldest brother. I don't want to argue with you, but if you are still so pushy, If you are so self-righteous, I, Zhu Di, don’t mind letting you take a lesson.”
"I can do it!"
Zhu Di's eyes were a little cold, revealing the slightest bit of ruthlessness and sinisterness.
Xia Zhibai smiled.
He naturally believed that Zhu Di dared to take action.
Zhu Di had a bad temper. Whenever he felt unhappy, he would hit people easily and it was common for him to take people's lives.
If you are really in a hurry, you will dare to do anything.
The only one who killed the Shi clan in history also came from the hands of King Yan.
Xia Zhibai cupped his hands and said: "Your Highness doesn't have to be so hasty to get angry, because not only His Highness will hear these words, but other vassal kings in the North will also hear them. I want to use the help of the major vassals in the north to The king’s power controls the entire northern business.”
Hearing this.
Zhu Di smiled instead of being angry.
He was really angry at Xia Zhibai's words.
He is a majestic King of Yan, but he can't control the business in Peiping. Xia Zhibai, a small 'merchant official', still wants to get involved in the entire north. Do you really think that northern merchants are monolithic? Can you be manipulated by anyone at will? Even his father had to compromise on many occasions. In order to ensure the salt supply in northern Xinjiang, he had to introduce the Open China Law.
Where did Xia Zhibai get the guts and courage to control the entire northern business?
Yao Guangxiao and Yuan Gong also frowned, not understanding why Xia Zhibai spoke arrogantly.
This is simply impossible.
Zhu Di sneered: "Xia Zhibai, do you know what you are talking about?"
"Do you know how big the north is?"
"There is only one Yanyun Sixteenth Prefecture, with a population of It's as high as two to three million. If other vassal kings are included, the population will be close to tens of millions. Why do you, Xia Zhibai, think that you can get involved in such a huge area, just because you can speak well and we and other vassal kings must be the only ones? Are you from? "
"Don't think that just because you have made some achievements in business in Yingtian Mansion, you can do it in other places."
"Yingtian Mansion is Yingtian Mansion, Bu. The Chief Secretary is the Chief Secretary.”
"There is a big difference between the two."
"Besides, what is so good about doing business that it can make you the number one scholar, so obsessed with it, and spare no effort?"
Zhu Di really wants to not understand.
Xia Zhibai, the dignified number one scholar, was supposed to have a smooth career, but in the end he resigned himself to doing business and never tired of it. What exactly is Xia Zhibai's fault? !
Xia Zhibai stood tall and said lightly: "Your Highness really wants to know?"
"I think." Zhu Di nodded.
"Since His Highness wants to hear it, there is no harm in telling His Highness." Xia Zhibai said slowly: "Your Highness needs to understand the truth that the economic base determines the superstructure."
"The North is exhausted. , now the north is inferior to the south in all aspects, especially if the Northern Yuan Dynasty still exists, which also means that the north must always spend a lot of energy on preventing sudden attacks by the Northern Yuan Dynasty, or preparing for the Northern Expedition. "
“The economy in the north will be difficult to recover for a long time.”
“The gap between the north and the south will continue to widen.”
"If it weren't for my presence in this imperial examination, there would have been a huge disparity in the ratio between the north and the south. Because of my presence, Your Majesty allowed your Majesty to re-mark the examination papers and admitted many more northern scholars. He turned a blind eye like this. With only one eye, the score between the north and the south is still three to seven."
"The gap will only get bigger in the future."
"The scholars in the north cannot compete with each other, and neither can the officials in the north. The South. "
"Because the South has a developed economy, it can pay more taxes to the court and has more people added every year."
"In this case, the Southern officials. , will undoubtedly be taken more seriously.”
"What's more, the official base of the Chinese government in the DPRK is mainly from eastern Zhejiang and Huaixi."
"How many people are there in the north?"
"Secondly."
"After these years, The long-term war has caused serious agricultural decline in the north. Although there are military households to reclaim land, it still lags behind the south in terms of cattle farming and planting technology. "
"The lives of the people at the bottom are very difficult. I came to Peiping. On the way, I have seen several girls of twelve or thirteen years old walking home more than once, carrying firewood that is taller than themselves. There is only one grandmother in their home, no parents, and no boys. "
"Some of the men in the family died in the war, and some died in the previous two Northern Expeditions."
"Such a miserable situation is very common in the north."
"With this A group of old, weak, sick and young people, even if the north wants to develop, where can it develop? ""Wen is not prosperous, but the military is difficult to defeat"
"If the imperial court does not take action, the north will rely on itself to recuperate. How long will it take for it to return to normal? How long will it take for it to catch up with the South? When the North really regains its strength, I am afraid that the South will already dominate the court. How much say will the North have? "
"His Royal Highness comes from the south."
"I have some understanding of some situations in the court."
"The north and the south look down upon each other and are at odds with each other. Southern scholars look down on northern scholars, and southern officials look down on them. Northern officials and southerners also look down on northerners. Behind the scenes, southern officials have been squeezing and targeting northern officials in the court. "
"If it hadn't been for His Majesty's suppression, I'm afraid the northern officials would have been kicked out long ago. "
"It's just that your Highness and even the many vassal kings don't realize one thing. In the eyes of civil servants, the towns in the north are disposable and they are also a burden to the court. "
"At the moment, His Majesty's prestige is just high enough to suppress these doubts. When the southern officials become dominant in the future, these so-called nine-sided towns will be abandoned one after another, because these guard posts will not be used for the imperial court's money and food. It consumes too much."
said.
Xia Zhibai also glanced at Zhu Di with slightly strange eyes.
The failure of border defense in the Ming Dynasty began with King Yan.
Perhaps, in history, Zhu Di wanted to settle things once and for all. After dismantling the guard posts north of the Great Wall, he worked hard and followed Zhu Yuanzhang's example, conducting five expeditions to Mobei.
However, in reality, Zhu Di's five crusade did not achieve any substantial victory. Each time he brought hundreds of thousands of troops, the results were mediocre and the result was mediocre, and he was never able to wipe out all the main Mongolian forces.
Naturally, the troubles of clearing the Ming Dynasty's frontier fortresses were not completed.
Then with the help of several generations of emperors in the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty's defense line finally shrank to the country's gate.
"They dare!" Zhu Di stared angrily.
Xia Zhibai shook his head and said calmly: "It's not a question of whether you dare or not. If His Highness faced that kind of situation, he would do the same thing, because the north cannot afford so many guards. Going to the back, the imperial court The more money and food was invested in supporting these health clinics, eventually the court could no longer afford it and had to give up.”
"His Royal Highness Kaizhongfa should know."
"The imperial court used salt and tea as intermediaries to recruit merchants to deliver military rations, horses and other materials."
"Why did the imperial court implement Kaizhong? Law? ”
“It’s because the imperial court couldn’t supply it itself and had to rely on merchants. Even so, there was still a shortage of salt and food in Liaodong, Xuanda, Gansu and other places. ”
“The bottom line is that the economy in the north is sluggish, and merchants cannot make ends meet after long-distance transportation, so they are unwilling to transport it.”
"But everyone here knows it."
"The war in the north has not stopped."
"Now it is just a truce adjustment."
"Once the war starts, The number of men in the north will further decrease, and the production situation in the north will further deteriorate.”
“The north will only be supported by the imperial court.”
"Businessmen are profit-seeking."
"Now that there is no war in the north, merchants can still make profits. As the population in the north decreases, they will receive less and less grain and rice from the north. This is also This means that they have to pay a greater price to transport food from farther away in order to obtain today's salt."
"When the cost becomes higher and higher, merchants will also start to weigh it. Pros and cons. ”
“Eventually they will give up.”
"When there is no profit to be made from the people in the north, these merchants will take risks and turn their attention to the Mongols to do business with them. Mongolia is short of food, salt, and tea, and these merchants can get it and sell it secretly. From the sale, they would make far more profit than following the court's orders."
"These are all foreseeable."
Zhu Di's face turned completely black, and his fists were even more intense. The clenching sound.
Yao Guangxiao and others were also livid.
They know it.
What Xia Zhibai said is very likely to happen.
The productivity of the north is indeed too low, because the loss of the war-torn population also means that recovery is doomed to be slow.
If the imperial court's Northern Expedition fails to achieve immediate results, it will greatly drag down the livelihood of the north. At that time, many northern guardhouses will become tasteless and it will be a pity to abandon them. There will not be many officials from the north in the court. , it is also foreseeable that some remote health centers will be abandoned one after another.
One step away, step by step.
In the end, I am afraid that we will really have to divide the river to rule.
Xia Zhibai said solemnly: "This is the reason why I want to control the business in the north."
"Rely on the power of the imperial court to speed up the recovery of the north, boost the economy of the north, and make the north strong again."< br>
“At the same time, we must strictly control the situation of merchants who invest in the enemy and betray the country.”
“There are great mountains and rivers, and no inch of land should be given away.”
“We must learn to guard against subtle changes, and even more, we must take precautions before they happen. ”
"This is what I want to do."
(End of Chapter)