Chapter 2766
Regarding the long-standing gray area in the water transportation system, Zhu Zian, who was born in Prince De's Palace, did know a thing or two. The Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, which leads from Hangzhou to Beijing, also has a long stretch in Shandong. Among the five major grain warehouses built along the canal in the Ming Dynasty, two of them, Linqing and Dezhou, were located in Shandong.
These two places are about two hundred miles away from Jinan City, where Zhu Zian lives. The princes and princes of Dewangfu receive a total of 12,000 shi of rice and grain from the court every year, a considerable part of which is transported by water from the south. Shipped.
Of course, by the time Zhu Zian remembered, due to the financial constraints of the imperial court, the prescribed salary had long been unable to be paid in full. Especially after the Qing army invaded Shandong in 1639, they burned, killed, and looted the area. Water transportation was interrupted for a long time, and the two grain warehouses in Linqing and Dezhou were also looted. All the large and small ships on the canal were requisitioned by the Qing army as tools for crossing the Yellow River to attack Jinan City.
When the Qing army retreated, almost all of these ships were sunk, and the food inside and outside Jinan City was also plundered to prevent the Ming army south of the Yellow River from launching a counterattack. For a long time after that war, the Grand Canal failed to resume normal water transportation, and Prince De's Mansion also had no source of food. It had to organize troops at its own expense to go to Yanzhou Mansion in the south, which was not directly affected by the war, to purchase food at high prices. .
However, after water transportation gradually resumed, water grain was still a rare commodity, and prices remained at wartime levels. This directly led to tens of thousands of hungry people fleeing from war-affected areas to Dengzhou Prefecture controlled by Haihan in order to survive.
At that time, Zhu Zian had heard from his fathers that a considerable part of the relief grains that the imperial court had mobilized from the south were withheld by the Caofu government under various pretexts during their transportation to the north. This part of the grain is wiped out from the grain warehouse inventory as losses, and then sold at high prices in markets everywhere. As for where the proceeds from these grain sales go, it is definitely not the state treasury.
Zhu Zian still had doubts about this at the time. Could it be that the court was not aware of such chaos in water transport?
His parents told him that the court was not unaware of these small actions, but the food supply in the entire Gyeonggi region depended on water transportation. If these matters were to be thoroughly investigated, it would be unknown how many officials would be implicated, and it is likely that the entire water transportation system would be paralyzed again. If it causes a food shortage in the capital, who can bear such a big responsibility?
In comparison, the losses caused by those in the Caofu Yamen who deducted grain from the Caofu and enriched their own pockets were nothing more than trivial. As long as the water transport system is still running, the court will probably continue to turn a blind eye and not investigate the various activities here.
Zhu Zian didn't quite understand the answer given by his father at the time, but now that he thinks about it, it's not difficult to understand its meaning. These people who exploit the privileges of water transportation are like silverfish in the beams of a house. Although the homeowner knows that sooner or later, the beams and columns will be eaten away by silverfish, causing the house to collapse, but if they want to eradicate the silverfish, they must first dig out the beams and columns. , and doing so may cause the house to collapse faster.
Based on the situation during the Chongzhen period, the pillars supporting the country were already crumbling and could not withstand any major shocks. No one could be sure what kind of chain reaction it would trigger if a thorough investigation of water transportation was carried out. Since it hasn't collapsed yet, let's just keep our eyes closed and live one day at a time.
The Ming Dynasty obviously failed to find a reasonable response throughout its dynasty, so that when it came time to change dynasties, the silverfish in the water transportation system seemed to get worse.
Zhu Zian sighed secretly, and then looked down. Cao Kun transported this batch of grain all the way to Tianjin, and he encountered trouble when delivering the grain there. Because the amount of grain actually delivered to the local area was nearly half less than the amount mobilized by the court, the officials stationed at the grain warehouse from the Ministry of Household Affairs naturally refused to take responsibility and refused to sign for this batch of grain that was seriously missing.
Of course, the Caofu government was not unprepared. First, it was argued that the governments in the south of the Yangtze River were ineffective in collecting grain and failed to complete the tasks assigned by the court. Later, it was also claimed that Caofu grain was forcibly collected by Haihan before it was shipped from Jiangnan. The Caofu government negotiated There is no result but a bitter pill to swallow. What I mean at the moment is that there is only so much grain that can be transported to Tianjin anyway. If you, the Ministry of Household Affairs, want it or want to be held accountable, then please go find the rightful owner and cause trouble. Our Caofu government will not be responsible.
When Zhu Zian saw this, he already thought that if the Ministry of Revenue wanted to use such an excuse to deal with the superiors, it would be difficult for the court to deal with it.
The imperial court had surrendered to Haihan last year, and the prefectures in Zhejiang had been annexed by Haihan. They had no obligation to continue to be loyal to the imperial court. It was an act of benevolence and righteousness to continue to collect grain and transport it to the north.
Whether it is to issue an order to punish the Jiangnan state governments for their inability to collect grain, or to issue a diplomatic document to accuse Haihan of obstructing it, both options will only put the court into an even more embarrassing situation. But if there is no response to this, what little authority the court has left will definitely disappear, and it will continue to encourage such unhealthy trends.
The most appropriate way is, of course, to find a soft persimmon to punish, so as to scare the monkeys below and give an explanation to the above.
The Caofu Yamen is rich and powerful, and even has an independently commanded armed force. This is not something that the Ministry of Revenue can handle. So in the entire water transportation system, the easiest ones to deal with are naturally those who do not have official official status, including the grain chiefs.
So after consultation, the Ministry of Revenue and the Cao government reached an agreement - the Cao grain losses were quite large this time because the unloading personnel did not do a good job in damage control during transportation and should bear the main responsibility. The relevant persons were arrested on the spot and sentenced to hard labor at the discretion of the Caofu Yamen. Wait until the next time there is a grain collection mission, and then try to find a group of unlucky people from the local area to serve as grain chiefs.
Fortunately, one of the Cao soldiers on this trip was a fellow villager who had some personal relationship with Cao Kun. He secretly informed him of the news and asked him to escape quickly. Among the more than ten grain chiefs involved in the unloading mission, Cao Kun was the only one who got the news and escaped before the government took action.
Cao Kun had no relatives in the north and was worried about being wanted by the Caofu Yamen, so he did not dare to go south directly through the official road after escaping from Tianjin. First, he took a long circuit along the Bohai Bay, and then went to Dengzhou Prefecture, which was controlled by Haihan, and worked as a miner in the Fushan Copper Mine for several months. After saving some money, I took a boat from Zhifu Port back to the south before the Spring Festival this year.
Cao Kun was worried that Caofu was still pursuing him, and he didn't even dare to go back to his hometown in Suzhou, so he came to Hangzhou to make a living. At this time, the Donghai Region has fully taken over Hangzhou Prefecture. No matter how powerful the Caofu Yamen is, they dare not come to Haihan territory to arrest people at will, so it is relatively safe for him.
Cao Kun knew that it would be useless to report this matter to the Ming government, but he was not willing to bear the blame, so he went to the Haihan government and told all his experiences, hoping that Haihan could clear his grievances.
(End of chapter)