Chapter 307 306 Maritime Transport

The memorial was delivered, and Wei Guangde's errand was over.

However, when this memorial comes to Emperor Jiajing, they will often be called to Xiyuan for questioning. At that time, the hidden numbers will probably not be covered.

But at this moment, Wei Guangde had already figured it out that he was just lifting the lid and had nothing to do with the people who covered the lid.

He watched Tang Shunzhi say goodbye to him leisurely and go back to the Ministry of War. Obviously, they have to discuss countermeasures in advance. If they ask questions and ask questions and ask questions, it would be fatal.

After Tang Shunzhi left, Wei Guangde's relaxed expression quickly calmed down and he looked at the direction of the Forbidden City to the north with a solemn expression.

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

However, such a major personnel change, Dongjiang, the Minister of War, took over the power of the Governor General of Xuanda, and it is impossible not to cause a storm in the court and the country, let alone the godson of Yan Song and the Minister Yan Yan.

The Yan family must have known it. Wei Guangde knew in his heart that Emperor Jiajing would not fail to discuss with Yan Song if he made such personnel adjustments. He had actually offended the Yan family.

What Wei Guangde is now worried about is whether to travel to Yan's mansion in the past two days.

Although I offended it, I did not offend it publicly. If it can be eased, it would be good if it was just a little bit.

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

Wei Guangde was confused, but he still made up his mind to take the time to bring gifts to Yan's mansion. If it was really irreversible, then he would have made plans early.

Wei Guangde first went to the Censorate to hand over the commission. He went to patrol the border as the Censorate, so he naturally had to hand over the prepared official documents back.

Wei Guangde was not familiar with anyone in the Censorate. After everyone greeted each other according to the etiquette of the official face, Wei Guangde was of low rank and had to take the initiative to bow and bow.

Even if you accept Wei Guangde's documents and files, all the procedures will be done by the officials below. Wei Guangde did not even see Zhou Yan, the left censor.

Wei Guangde did not continue to run in the yamen, and it was even more impossible for him to go back to the Hanlin Academy. According to Tang Shunzhi, he could stay at home and wait for news in the past two days. No matter whether it was summoned in the palace or something, there would always be news.

After running outside for nearly three months, Wei Guangde finally returned home.

When he entered the city, there were already guards returning to the mansion to report the news first, so Wei Guangde saw Xu Jianglan coming out when he entered the gate.

Wei Guangde went directly to the backyard to rinse it clean. He has had many inconveniences outside in the past few months, so it is better to be at home.

After only half a day after Wei Guangde returned home, a servant from Prince Yu's mansion sent a message, asking Wei Guangde to the restaurant for dinner, which was considered a banquet for Prince Yu's mansion to welcome him.

When Prince Yu's mansion meets each other, it won't work even if Wei Guangde doesn't want to go.

At the agreed time, Wei Guangde took a carriage to the restaurant near Prince Yu's Mansion.

Wei Guangde was not sure about the purpose of the confrontation between Prince Yu's mansion.

He already knew that the major personnel change in the capital last month not only involved Xuanda, but also involved the Ministry of War, Ministry of Revenue and Ministry of Justice. What surprised Wei Guangde was the fact that the Minister of Justice was the reincarnation of Minister of Revenue.

It was only after Jia Yingchun came to the capital to serve as the Minister of Justice, and he was transferred to the position of Minister of Revenue.

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

Therefore, Wei Guangde has already had some speculations about the person attending tonight's banquet, that is, Jia Yingchun may also be among them.

Although he is now ranked among the seven ministers, for a person like him, it is actually nothing without Prince Yu’s Mansion supporting him later.

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

From Nanjing to Beijing, and now the Minister of Revenue, Jia Yingchun felt like he was dreaming, and the changes lasted only took a year.

"I heard that your servant had been to Xiyuan before. When you were on a tour?"

After three rounds of wine and five flavors, Gao Gong suddenly started to ask.

Wei Guangde knew that this was the reason why they were so anxious to summon him. The fact that he went to Xuanfu did not spread in the court, and not many people knew about it.

However, because it was too sudden, all forces in the capital would naturally inquire about the news afterwards, trying to understand the cause of the turmoil in Xuanda and the capital.

After all, Prince Yu's mansion came out of the palace, so there were still some spies in the palace. Soon they discovered that the servants who had gone out of the capital with Wei Guangde had visited Xiyuan and met Chen Ju.

This time the court reshuffle, Prince Yu's Mansion undoubtedly took advantage. Although Jia Yingchun had both positions before and after, the Minister of Revenue was much greater than that of the Minister of Justice, and the ranking in the court was much higher, and the corresponding voice was also stronger.

But at this moment, when the Yan family was dominant, Jia Yingchun could only choose to do things in a low-key manner, and at least did not clean up the officials below at the beginning.

Prince Yu's mansion also holds revenge.

At that time, Gao Gong, Yin Shidan and others were fed up in the Ministry of Revenue. Now that the people they supported have become the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, they naturally have to teach those snobs a lesson.

This is even more true for Gao Gong. Although he is a Jinshi, he has a bad temper. Like the tall Yin Shidan, he is a relatively vengeful person.

Wei Guangde thought for a moment, but decided not to tell all the details. It was really unnecessary.

Emperor Jiajing did not meet him, and his memorial was not made public in the court and the country, which already represents some hint of Emperor Jiajing.

"The day before my tour, Eunuch Chen came to my house to pass on a secret decree, asking me to inquire about the recent situation of the Xuanfu."

Wei Guangde said, "I wrote a letter to the generals who fought in Bao'anzhou together to understand what the situation of Xuanfu in the past two years. The reply I received surprised me a little. A large number of border forts were destroyed and the people and military households were displaced. The most hateful thing is that someone took the opportunity to kill good people and use their heads to exchange for silver rewards in the capital."

The more Wei Guangde said, the more he felt depressed, and he kept shook his head, "After understanding this, I naturally wrote a memorial and sent someone to the capital to hand it over to Eunuch Chen. The changes in Xuanda should be said to be related to my memorial, and I don't understand the others."

"That's true, no wonder."

At this moment, Gao Gong and others all showed a look of silence. It was indeed something that happened to Wei Guangde.

The changes in Xuanda have been explained, and we will continue to push down next, and everyone has roughly guessed something.

Governor Yang Shun of Xuanda killed Liang and deceived the emperor. Among them, the Minister of War was guilty of lax supervision. Although the Ministry of Revenue only allocated reward silver, it was probably hated by Emperor Jiajing. He also believed that it was because of poor supervision that Xuanda took away 300,000 taels of silver in a year.

The topic of this official storm is over. I already know the whole story and there is no need to worry about anything else.

"By the way, you know that the country's insufficient resources are good. Dongyang came from Nanjing and felt the disadvantages of the canal transportation. He was in charge of the Ministry of Justice, but now he has moved to the Ministry of Revenue. So he wants to submit a memorial, please open a sea in Tianjin to make up for the insufficient capacity of the canal transportation. How do you think about this?"

Shandai is naturally called Wei Guangde, while Dongyang is Jia Yingchun, whose courtesy name is Dongyang and his pseudonym is Qiaocun.

"Cache transport? Sea transport?"

Wei Guangde stared at Jia Yingchun with wide eyes. Perhaps because of the pride of spring breeze, Jia Yingchun looked at Wei Guangde with a smile. He did not have the stance of an official as a second-rank official in the court, and seemed very humble.

Although the Grand Canal solves the problem of cargo transportation in the north and south, there are actually many disadvantages. However, by now, it has become a bit of a heavy and difficult to recover. At least that's what Wei Guangde views.

Now in the Ming Dynasty, too many people are counting on the Grand Canal for dinner. Not only the canal soldiers, but also the laborers on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, and there are hundreds of thousands of people at will.

During the Song Dynasty, commerce was prosperous and shipping was developed. A large number of Song Dynasty goods were shipped to foreign countries for sale, which brought a lot of wealth. The Southern Song Dynasty was able to persevere in a corner, which was related to its huge financial resources.

However, by the Ming Dynasty, shipping did gradually begin to decline, and the once glorious voyage to the West had become a thing of the past.

In the current Ming Dynasty, transportation work was more done by the Grand Canal of Beijing and Hangzhou.

People initially opposed sea freight, mostly due to the risk of sea freight. Although the cost of sea freight is indeed lower than that of canal transport, it requires long-term practice and accumulating a lot of sea freight experience. Long-distance sea freight is still regarded as a very dangerous thing.

Although the canal transportation is safer than the sea transportation, the construction and use of canals also have many disadvantages. The cost of repairing canals is huge, and the canals are silted every year and are built every year, which is a waste of money.

Although the canal was fully considered during construction and used the original waterways to communicate with each other, it violated the laws of the natural environment. In fact, the court would be extremely nervous when the flood season came, and the river was worried that the river would break down and the river water would enter the sea with a new channel, which would cause the canal to stop operating due to water shortage.

Once such a thing happens, people along the river will have to bear heavy labor and dig new pits. At the same time, more and more river sections on the canal will charge water fees, which will directly increase the cost of pit transportation.

However, the high cost was not borne by the court, but by taxpayers paying freight, which increased the pressure on the people in Jiangnan to pay taxes.

The canal transportation also allocates the costs of its infrastructure, especially the costs of maintaining the Grand Canal and building ships, to the civilian governments and military units in the places where the canal flows, and will eventually be transferred to the people along the river.

To put it bluntly, although the peers of the Grand Canal solved the transportation problems between the north and the south, they left a heavy burden on the people. Many supporters of shipping also concluded based on economic accounts that maintaining canal shipping was actually very loss-making.

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 through sea transportation.

It was only as the military farming of the Ming army in Liaodong had benefits and basically satisfies self-sufficiency, that Zhu Yuanzhang ordered the suspension of sea transportation. This was also the first time that the Ming Dynasty had a ban on sea transportation.

However, when it was in the Yongle Dynasty, Zhu Di needed to use large-scale troops to the north and needed to transport a large number of supplies, so the shipping in the Yongle period was not cut off and there was still some strengthening.

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, for decades after the seemingly safe river transportation, it has been troubled by problems such as the Yellow River invasion and river blockage, and interest groups lying on the canal transportation have grown stronger and stronger. Every minister in history has proposed to resume shipping, they will be opposed by these interest groups, resulting in abortion.

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

"What Da Situ means is to increase the total transportation volume of the ocean?"

If it were before, Wei Guangde would have thought Jia Yingchun meant to open the sea, and thought that the sea ban in the Ming Dynasty was very thorough.

However, after entering the court as an official, Wei Guangde still found that now, the Zhayang General under the governor of the Cao Transportation Army is still carrying out this maritime transportation task, but the annual quota is very small, with only tens of thousands of stones of transportation.

However, Jia Yingchun shook his head, "The canal has gradually become a burden for the prefectures and counties in the river. It is expensive to dredge and silt every year. I plan to submit a diversion to convert half of the grain into the sea to Tianjin, that is, to reduce the number of ships on the canal and congestion. It is beneficial for those merchant ships to change the grain into the sea to the sea."

After hearing Jia Yingchun's words, Wei Guangde knew that there were many benefits to changing canal transportation. Even if it was influenced by shipbuilding technology in this era, it would be no technical difficulty to build a useful foreign ship.

Although I don’t know what the current technical state of shipbuilding technology in the Ming Dynasty and the Western countries, they are driving those sea boats all over the world to do business.

Thinking of voyage to the West, Wei Guangde felt that it would be no difficulty for the Ming Dynasty to quickly build a large number of foreign ships, but the resistance was also obvious. The commercial interests along the canal and the civil service groups had long been deeply connected, and the impact of sea transportation on them was insignificant.

Wei Guangde did not say anything, but looked at Gao Gong and Prince Yu's mansion as the decision. Since they mentioned that Jia Yingchun wanted to submit a memorial, they must have communicated in advance, and Wei Guangde didn't understand why he told him about this.

"We have discussed this for many days, but we still couldn't make a conclusion. Just when you returned to the capital, you also gave us a reference. Let's talk casually, you have to be under pressure."

Gao Gong looked at Wei Guangde and smiled when he looked at him.

"Who supports it? Who opposes it?"

Wei Guangde asked.

"I support Dongyang's intention, but they are not optimistic."

Gao Gong replied with a smile, and he also wanted to hear what Wei Guangde had to say. They had been arguing in Prince Yu's Mansion for a long time before.

The reason why he wanted to submit this memorial was naturally the reason why the new official took office. Jia Yingchun wanted to do something to show his existence.

"There have been people who have made this proposal in all generations, but they are always rejected."

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

The disadvantages of canal transportation are just a boat trip to the Grand Canal of Beijing and Hangzhou.

Later generations only marveled at the grand canal project, but they did not know that the cost of maintaining the Grand Canal was actually not worth the cost.

"Most of them say that the sea is unpredictable. In fact, there is no situation where the boats are overturned and drowning?

The reason they objected was because there might be their commercial interests in the prefectures and counties in the rivers, and there were also river officials. What would they do if they changed to sea routes?"
Chapter completed!