New Shun 1730

"What the ministers said, whether they were pleading for the people or being mature and prudent, all made sense."

The emperor uttered a muffled sound, temporarily stopping the arguments, then turned around and stopped talking, staring at the rolling river in a daze.

The clear water of the Huai River and the turbid water of the Yellow River, although not as magnificent as the clear-cut scenery of the Dragon's Rise, are also wonderful and exquisite.

It is believed that the construction of the levees, sluices, spillways, and scouring gates, these projects that have been continuously repaired for hundreds of years, have consumed countless manpower and material resources.

However, how many problems are hidden behind these huge projects created by these manpower and material resources?

The meaning of water control in the previous dynasty was to protect the ancestral tombs first, to protect the grain transport second, and to protect the people's livelihood last.

What is the difference in this dynasty?

If the ancestral tombs were not here, wouldn't it be the same? Even if the ancestral tombs were not here, protecting the people's livelihood would still be the last.

The court has always known that officials in the grain transport and river channels are corrupt. But sometimes it is tacitly approved. As long as the grain transport is guaranteed, the rest of the things will be turned a blind eye.

Li Gan said that he is not an ostrich, but how many years did he act as an ostrich before the formation of the navy and before going to Southeast Asia?

At this point, the emperor had to admit the influence of Liu Yu's strategy of advocating the establishment of the navy and going to Southeast Asia.

From the perspective of grain transport and sea transport alone, twenty years ago, when sea transport was mentioned, the voices of opposition in the court must have been "dangerous and easy to be robbed by pirates; unsafe, if it encounters wind and waves, it will be gone; it is a fragile neck skin, once the waterway is cut off, the north and the south will be divided."

Anyone who mentions sea transport must be associated with harming the country and the people.

When the Jiangsu Jiedushi wrote a letter requesting a trial of sea transport, Liu Yu did not immediately stand up to support it.

Now, at least, those who oppose sea transport no longer use the reasons they used twenty years ago.

Because those reasons were not won by debate, but by doing things that left them speechless.

When the great principles of "serving the country and the people" could not be explained, only very realistic problems remained in the mouths of these opponents.

However, after the Nanyang issue and the navigation problem were solved, the remaining reasons for opposition can be summed up in one sentence: There is no problem that cannot be solved with money. If it cannot be solved, it means that the money is not enough.

The message sent by the messenger just now did not say that the trade negotiations with the Netherlands were completed, but only said that the Netherlands had a coup. But the emperor also knew that according to Liu Yu's strategy, after the coup, the negotiations were 90% stable.

As long as the negotiations were completed and the money was in place, many things would be simple.

Liu Yu's promise at the beginning was that the taxes of two or three Henan provinces would go into the emperor's treasury. Now it seems that it is higher than expected.

Monopoly fees, dividends from equity interest, official kiln porcelain monopoly, plus Ceylon is not in Nanyang and its cinnamon and betel nut profits also belong to the emperor. These few money alone are more than enough.

In the memorial submitted by Du Feng, the governor of Ceylon, to the emperor, he also patted his chest and said that he was absolutely confident that the soldiers of the Indian princely states could defeat 30,000 with 5,000. Now India is in the situation of the late Tang Dynasty. The Jiedushi in various places are fighting in chaos. There must be "Shi Jingtang" who wants to borrow the "Khitan" soldiers.

If it can be taken, it will be treated as foreign. If it can be defended, taxes will be collected. If it cannot be defended, it will be retreated to Nanyang. There will be no danger of Yang and Nu rebellion in the previous dynasty, and more than one million silver can be obtained in a year.

If everything goes well, within three to five years, at least 6 to 7 million taels of silver can be obtained every year. Excluding the extra million taels invested in the northwest and southwest every year, there are still 5 to 6 million taels left.

The emperor thought, as long as there is money, the Huai River can be controlled, right? Even if it is controlled for ten years, if it can return the wealth of the Huai River to the pre-Song Dynasty, it will be worth it.

The letter submitted by the Jiedushi of Jiangsu said it very clearly at the beginning.

The Huanghuai region will not produce Zhu Yuanzhang. At least, under the condition that the centralization of power in Dashun can be guaranteed, the Huanghuai region can only be the vanguard of the king.

Unless the centralization of power in Dashun is as rotten as that of the Mongols, where petty officials beat provincial officials to death and closed the canal to pretend to be imperial envoys, and the central government was completely unaware of it, it is possible for an emperor to emerge in the Huanghuai region.

However, the corruption of the Huanghuai region and the vanguard of the king will lead to many problems. Especially if the canal is not changed to sea transportation.

Since ancient times, there has been a problem that must be faced by all dynasties, the division between the north and the south.

This area separates the north and the south, and it is related to the canal. At that time, if the governor-general in the south becomes stronger, or if there is another uprising elsewhere, the court will put a lot of energy and troops in the Huanghuai region, and I am afraid that something big will happen.

The Huanghuai region is right in the middle of the north and the south, and together with the canal, it is like a person's waist if it is a person.

If the hand hurts, treat the hand, and if the foot hurts, treat the foot, but if the waist is sick, the core strength is abolished, and the whole body cannot be used.

Since the Song Dynasty, the Chinese dynasties are like a person with a broken waist. He used to have a thousand pounds of strength, but now he is sick and weak. How can he have any strength?

What is the problem?

In the eyes of the Jiangsu Jiedushi, the problem lies in the grain transport.

If the world is peaceful, this is fine.

Once there is trouble in the world, do we have to use the money and grain from the south to fight?

Do the money and grain from the south have to pass through the canal?

Does the canal have nearly ten times the loss?

Does the loss of the canal have to be made up by the people on both sides of the canal?

Will the loss of manpower and labor service stimulate an uprising?

Will the uprising cut off the grain transport and make the problem worse?

If the grain transport is corrupted, will there be problems in the war?

Of course, the Jiangsu Jiedushi cannot use the word "uprising", but uses words such as rebellion, civil unrest, and fooling the people to be used by others.

At that time, external troubles will lead to internal troubles, and internal troubles will lead to civil unrest. Even though Huanghuai is located in the Central Plains, the court can suppress it with all its strength, but it can only be the vanguard of the king at most, and nothing can be accomplished.

However, the series of chain reactions triggered by it can be suppressed by the court if there is a wise ruler, but once it is a weak ruler, the world will be in chaos.

The emperor agreed with this, and in fact, he also knew in his heart that the Ming Dynasty and the Dashun Dynasty were indeed a bit "cruel" to the people of Huanghuai.

In order to protect the canal transportation, once there was a flood, although the court did not make it clear, it actually acquiesced to the policy of "protecting the north but not the south, blocking the north and dredging the south" - talking about Anhui, so that since the Ming Dynasty, when mentioning Anhui, the first word that comes to mind when people in southern Shandong and Henan and other places think of it is beggars.

There were nine years of famine in ten years. The problem was not with the Emperor Zhu of Fengyang, but with the Emperor Zhu of Yan, who was the capital of Beijing in the Jingnan Campaign and abandoned sea transportation and used canal transportation.

After crossing the Yellow River, the canal is close to the Yellow River. Once the silt of the Yellow River enters the canal, the canal will be blocked for ships.

Decades ago, when the Dutch envoys came to Beijing to request trade and attack Catholicism, Peter von Holm, a member of the delegation, measured the depth of the canal, saw the problem of the canal, and believed that it was only a matter of time before the canal was blocked.

The subsequent Dutch delegation also gave a strange conclusion, saying that the silt at the bottom caused the water to be too shallow, and flat-bottomed boats had to be used, which led to the country's shipbuilding design tending to flat-bottomed boats, and the excessive tendency to flat-bottomed boats made the country farther and farther away from the ocean.

Even the Dutch who came to the canal for the first time could see the problem, so could the people of the court not see it?

Therefore, "accepting that floods protect the north but not the south" was the policy of the court. Although it is only a matter of time before the canal is blocked, preventing the silt of the Yellow River from entering the canal can at least delay the blockage by decades or hundreds of years.

The Hongze Lake is getting higher and higher, and the water in the upper reaches of the Huaihe River, especially the Huaihe River basin in Anhui, cannot flow down. How can there not be a flood? How can there not be a famine for ten years?

If we do not tacitly protect the north but not the south, and the Yellow River has problems from the north and muddy water rushes into the canal, will the canal still be navigable given the sand content of the Yellow River?

Since the Ming Dynasty, no one dared to use the water of the Yellow River as the water source for the canal.

So there are all kinds of weird policies: those who irrigate the fields shall not compete with the transportation of grain transport.

When there is a shortage of water in drought, the canal does not release water and is not allowed to irrigate the land.

When it rains, the canal drains water, and a large amount of water enters the ditch and floods the farmland.

The local people have little culture and their "quality" is obviously not high. They don't understand the ins and outs, so they curse directly.

The local gentry are educated and their "quality" is slightly higher. They understand the ins and outs, so they say: The national plan is transportation, transportation funds the grain transport canal, and the grain transport canal funds the river dam. However, the wealth of the people is hidden in the fields, and the benefits of the fields are hidden in the water. Without water to irrigate the crops, the people will be poor. How can the poor people provide transportation?

If you don't use the water of the Yellow River, you have to compete with the farmland for water.

But if the water of the Yellow River is used, the river channel from the Yellow River to Jining will be silted up in 20 years at most.

The so-called tacit consent means that the emperor cannot say it directly. The emperor cannot say in the court that the people in the south can be harmed, but the canal transportation in the north cannot be harmed.

But when the officials do it, if the opening in the north affects the canal transportation, they will be severely punished, and if the opening in the south is blocked afterwards, they will just laugh it off.

As an emperor, there is no conscience condemnation for the people.

But the previous tacit consent was to protect the canal transportation.

Now that there is the ability of sea transportation, it is natural to talk about the people.

When the conscience was thrown away when it was tacitly protected the north but not the south, it suddenly grew back now.

If the problem of "hands and feet" in water control caused by canal transportation can be solved, or even the Huaihe River can be cured, it is equivalent to that Dashun has a lot more basic disks in his hands.

Even if there is chaos in the future, holding the navy in hand is equivalent to always holding the population and food of the northern provinces including Anhui and northern Jiangsu, plus southern Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong that the navy can control.

No matter how much trouble there is elsewhere, as long as the capital, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan, Shaanxi, Liaodi, and the well-governed northern Jiangsu and Anhui are in hand, without the Yellow River and Huai River dividing them into north and south, there will be rebellions elsewhere, and it will be pacified sooner or later.

Because external troubles are not a big problem for the time being.

As for internal troubles, holding these places, the navy controls Fujian, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and southern Jiangsu. What power do the remaining provinces have?

Sichuan is basically stable, unless the central power collapses completely, this place can be chaotic.

Excluding Sichuan, excluding the places that Dashun can control, the provinces that can cause chaos really don’t have too strong power.

If you can really spend money to solve the troubles in the Yellow River and Huai River area, even if it’s just solving northern Jiangsu and Anhui, it sounds like it costs a lot, but it’s worth it.

The only thing I don't know is whether these water conservancy officials, without the constraints of the ancestral mausoleum and the canal transportation, can come up with a plan to cure the Huai River - forget about curing the Yellow River. Even if the emperor is ambitious, he dare not think about curing the Yellow River. He still has some numbers in his heart.

I don't know how much money it will cost to come up with a plan.

…………

Liu Yu, who has learned the news of the successful coup in the Netherlands, can also be regarded as a relief.

Seeing the emperor staring at the river in a daze, he only looked at the river and then retracted his gaze.

I thought to myself that I don't have that ability.

After the Yellow River was diverted in later generations, it took a lot of effort to control the Huai River.

If you want to completely cure the Yellow River and Huai River when the Yellow River is still diverting from the Huai River to the sea now? How great a skill does that require?

Even in later generations, if the situation of diverting from the Huai River to the sea is still difficult to cure.

Anyway, if we want to treat it, we have to wait for a heavy rain one day, the Yellow River will burst and flow to Shandong, hundreds of thousands of people will die, and maybe, maybe, maybe, it will be possible to treat the Huai River and Huai River.

But these are hundreds of thousands of lives, and we can only wait for an accident, a natural disaster.

Every profession has its own expertise. I don’t know how to treat water at all, and I can’t even copy the homework of later generations - the Yellow River flows north and south, the two most basic conditions are different, isn’t copying homework nonsense?

Now we use sea transportation, and the manpower and technology at this time have to fight against the great power of nature, especially the great power of nature like the Yellow River. It can only be described in one word: difficult.

Even if we use water to flush sand and don’t consider the safety of water transportation, how can we treat the Huai River and Huai River?

It is almost inevitable that Hongze Lake will burst and flow to Gaoyou and Yangzhou. If we continue in this way. It may be this year, or next year, or ten years later, or a hundred years later, it depends on which year there will be a heavy rainstorm.

It is almost inevitable that the Yellow River will break through the northern route thousands of years ago. The Lianghuai area has been silted up and the river has been formed. It depends on which year something big will happen.

After thinking about it, the only thing that can be done is to let the court hold 30 to 50 million taels of silver at any time. If the Yellow River changes its course or the Hongze Lake collapses, it can immediately take out money to treat and rescue. This is the only thing I can do now.

It is a good thing that the emperor finally found something that he thinks "can be done, should be done, and is theoretically the easiest to do compared to completely solving problems such as land annexation". You need someone to get you money, right?

The key is that if the emperor just wants to build a big garden or something, how much money is there? If he really has that little ambition, overseas trade and industry and commerce will probably not grow up and will be killed by the emperor.

It would be best if the emperor finds a few more "hobbies" or "ambitions" that require a lot of money.

I just hope the emperor can settle this matter. At this time, you must not be afraid of wolves in front and tigers behind, worrying about the canal workers and the expenses. You must be ruthless and have a dream or ambition to solve the problem once and for all.