New Shun 1730

Liu Yu was envious and jealous despite his complaints.

The political environment of Asia, including the Green Roman Empire, was like this. After reaching a certain height, only the person at the top was qualified to be "willful" and occasionally act like a human being.

Including many princes, as long as they showed a little weakness, those who followed them would have already gone to other places.

Below the princes, Liu Yu was already a duke, the top.

But even if he had too much "humanity" in the previous issue of Huai River control, once he stood up, he would be in big trouble if there was a problem with water control in the future.

The emperor seemed to be asking the people around him, but in fact he was talking to himself and sighing. Because of this, no minister dared to answer.

The final conclusion and posthumous title were determined after the coffin was closed. Dashun had no habit of evaluating living people.

Liu Yu could more or less understand the reason why the emperor was crazy at this time.

From the perspective of the Li Dynasty, the things that have been done now are not mentioned.

The remaining things are either a temporary solution or a trivial matter, or a utilitarian thing that is worth a thousand years.

From the perspective of the nation, the reform of the southwest chieftain system is naturally a big deal.

But from the perspective of the Li Dynasty, is it a big deal?

Based on history, have the chieftains in the southwest succeeded in their uprising and eventually sat on the throne?

Based on history, the danger of peasant uprisings is much greater than that of the chieftains in the southwest.

Based on history, even if Liu Yu has said countless times that the line soldiers plus field artillery plus bastions can bid farewell to the disaster of northern nomads. The conclusion of "the bastion era is over" deduced by the Dashun General Staff is the impact of the war between Dashun and those Western countries and the inevitable technological diffusion of the fuze wooden support explosive bomb, not the northern nomads - the Junggars, who can afford the Swedish artillery, rely on gold and copper mines and the cultivated land, cotton, wheat and handicrafts of the Tianshan Mountains. It is not a simple nomadic force at all.

But after all, considering the history of the past dynasties, the illusion of empiricism and the subconsciousness of looking for a sword in a boat made the emperor subconsciously feel that the problem in the north was much more serious than that of the chieftains in the southwest.

From the perspective of the royal family and the dynasty family, the reform of the chieftains in the southwest was just a patchwork.

In addition to the reform of the chieftains in the southwest, there were also immigrants in the northwest and northeast, and even the counties of Korea and North Vietnam envisioned by the emperor, which were either trivial matters or superficial matters.

And water control, Huaihe River control, Yellow River control, abolition of grain transport, etc., were major matters from the perspective of the Li Dynasty, and superficial matters.

Liu Yu once said that the emperor was very conceited and wanted to do major things and superficial matters. Because the remaining minor matters and superficial matters in the eyes of the Li Dynasty could be almost accomplished even if his son was not as good as himself.

But there is no simple major matter.

It can even be said that the control of the Huaihe River, the Yellow River, and water control are the simplest of these major matters.

For the rest, if the Li Dynasty wants to maintain its rule, it must ensure the small peasant economy, self-cultivating farmers, and the delay of land annexation, so as to ensure that the people will not live in poverty.

Clerical revelry, additional assignments at the grassroots level, gentry control, land transactions, floods in the Yellow River and Huai River, mergers and bankruptcies, and corruption... these are the major issues that need to be resolved.

Among these major issues, the Huai River control, which requires 30 million taels of silver, is the simplest one among these major issues.

The total fiscal revenue of a year can only solve the simplest major issue, and there is no guarantee that this issue can be done well in the end.

It sounds a bit magical, but this is the fact.

Can any of the remaining issues be solved by 30 million taels of silver?

Let's talk about the simplest one that can be solved by krypton gold in theory... Control the Yellow River.

30 million taels?

Want to tame the Yellow River with 30 million taels? Just bully the Huai River. If the Tongwaxiang is really breached, 30 million taels won't even make a sound.

The rest, clerks, gentry, additional taxes, corruption, mergers, land rent... Which one is not more difficult than managing the Yellow River?

When Liu Yu was a political animal, when he was "innocent" and "sad about the universe", the emperor laughed and thought that Liu Yu had fought too many wars and got a post-war illness.

However, once he stopped being a political animal and occasionally became a human, he would also feel this kind of powerlessness.

Liu Yu naturally felt powerless, so he placed all his hopes on the new class of the Shadow Twins and on the future.

He directly avoided the affairs of the Celestial Empire, thinking that the affairs outside were much simpler than those inside the Celestial Empire.

Just do it.

Even if it was the land reform in Java, he could tell Niu Er directly: How simple, just kill him. He could handle it even if he chopped off the head of the Sultan of Banten and someone came to the court to complain. In Java, chopping off a local big landowner with 100,000 mu of land is not as troublesome as chopping off a gentry with 1,000 mu of land in Henan and Jiangsu.

Java land reform can kill, but would Liu Yu dare to say the word "kill" for the land problem in Shandong and Henan?

But the emperor is not Liu Yu, he is the Son of Heaven. In his view, the ultimate goal of external expansion is to have enough money to solve internal problems.

As long as the current basic base is guaranteed and the internal problems of the basic base can be solved, the external problems will naturally not be a problem.

It is absolutely correct to think so.

China is so big, the internal problems have been solved, and it has one-third of the world's population. What are the Western countries at this time?

However, the most correct idea often means that this is a road that cannot be taken at all.

So-called: correct nonsense. That's it.

The emperor was deeply moved by the regulation of Huaihe River. If the truth solves all the domestic issues, how will it be different from reaching heaven?

The emperor also knew that no one dared to answer his occasional sighs. He finally sighed to the turbulent river and stopped mentioning "what if I die now". He slowly turned around and stopped looking. That turbulent waves.

He called his attendants and gave a few instructions. The attendant then asked the guards, internal officials, etc. around him to disperse fifty steps away, exactly where the emperor's words could not be heard.

When only the emperor, Liu Yu, and Liao Hanhui were left in the center surrounded by a group of guards dozens of steps away, the emperor motioned for Liao Hanhui to come closer, and then asked a question.

"I don't want your head, and I don't care about family guarantees or anything like that. I just want to ask, how much is the Huaihe River management policy worth?"

Liao Hanhui's attitude made the emperor predict his prediction. Most likely, if asked, he would definitely use his own head and his whole family as a guarantee.

But for such a big thing as regulating the Huaihe River, it is useless to have a head on one project and dozens of people in the family?

"Return to Your Majesty..."

Liao Hanhui carefully considered it and then said one sentence.

“It’s up to people to plan things, but it’s up to Heaven to make things happen.”

"Since the Song Dynasty conquered the Yellow River, all dynasties have thought about water control. For example, some projects have been excavated to control the Huaihe River. However, there was no heavy rain in the previous seasons, but it rained heavily in the year of the excavation, and the results were overturned."

"Dongfeng doesn't want to be with Zhou Lang, and Tongquechun locks Erqiao deeply."

"I am a human being, so I can only make decisions based on others."

"If there is no abnormality in the sky, there will be an eighty-point calculation."

"I have measured a lot of data in the atlas. The flow of the Huaihe River, the flow of the opening, the flow of the river, the height of the terrain, the labor required... none of these can be obtained by sitting in my study and patting my head."

These words didn't seem to guarantee anything, but in the emperor's eyes, they weren't considered slipshod.

Instead, he made the matter clear. If he really wanted to do it, if God didn't allow it, what could manpower do?

It was the emperor who made the final decision. It is not something that he, a minister, can decide. Even the governor of the river does not have the decision-making power.

This is not a matter outside China, but a matter within China.

It is to go to the Sixth Government, Tianyou Hall, and Dachaohui.

It was not a matter of going to Nanyang, where the emperor spent some money from his own funds and directly bypassed the Tianyou Hall of the Sixth Government to negotiate with the Netherlands.

If this thing is done, the emperor will be wise.

If it cannot be done, it means that the emperor has his own way.

Liao Hanhui is not kicking the ball to the emperor, but saying that in the end, the six governments of Tianyou Palace and the emperor are the decision-makers of the empire. You are just the one who ensures the implementation of the decision.

It also includes writing outspoken letters and admonitions.

It's not that he doesn't want to fight hard, but as the emperor said, what's the use of his own head and the lives of his family?

The emperor who got the answer "80%" hesitated for a moment and turned to look at Liu Yu.

"Mr. Xingguo, if I need money urgently, how much can you get?"

Liu Yu thought for a while and replied: "It seems that the court has not paid it back. There is some money that you don't need to pay back. There is some money that it is best to pay back."

"If the court gets money from the salt merchants, it actually ends up getting it from the people. But in this case, the salt merchants have money because of the court's monopoly policy. They enjoy the court's monopoly policy and get profits, so there is no point in getting some money. The problem is. If they are missing, someone else will take care of it.”

"Although overseas trade is also a monopoly policy of the imperial court, it is different."

"If you don't do things like salt merchants, if the imperial government relaxes the policy, others can do it."

"Overseas trade, the imperial court liberalized its policy, and the result was that the Dutch detained the maritime merchants in Batavia without even daring to let go; the result was that the maritime merchants went to Kokura for 'free trade' and were bombarded to death by the Japanese with cannons. Ten; the result is that we can’t even go to the Lion Kingdom, which we could go to during the Two Jins and Three Kingdoms period.”

"Your Majesty has appointed ministers to promote industry and commerce, and the salt minister cannot control it."

"We are only talking about industry and commerce. Your Majesty asked me to get money. If you fish in the lake and kill the chicken to get the eggs, and don't want to pay it back at all, I can get 80 million taels."

"But if you want to repay it...it's a loan."

"With an annual interest rate of 5%, I can make 10 million taels."

"With an annual interest rate of 30%, and the court guarantees that it will be repaid, and even using the salt tax as a mortgage as a guarantee, I can make tens of millions. However, if the annual interest rate of 30% doubles in three years, the court cannot afford it at all."

The emperor hummed, and understood the difference between the monopoly of salt merchants and the monopoly of overseas trade. It is now difficult for Dashun to even leave India. When all countries are engaged in monopoly, the only way is to fight monopoly against monopoly and country against country.

After some calculations, if you borrow 10 million taels, based on an annual interest rate of about 5%, the annual interest will be about 500,000 to 600,000 taels.

So he asked Liao Hanhui: "If we control the Huai River and turn floods into water conservancy, how many fields can be irrigated? How many fields can be changed from dry fields to irrigated fields?"

"Your Majesty, if we divert the Huaihe River to the Yangtze River and the Hongze Lake directly to the sea, the number of acres of land that will be benefited will be around 1.2 million acres."

"Except for the irrigated land, millions of acres of arable land from Anhui to northern Jiangsu can also reduce waterlogging in the Huaihe River, and the need for rescue assistance for floods that occur every three to five years can also be avoided."

The emperor subconsciously said to himself: In this place where there are no floods, the relief and relief are saved, but the taxes are not increased. Even if 1.2 million acres of irrigated land is moved from the lower fields to the middle and upper fields, and even if the number of acres is increased and the taxes on the upper fields are increased, will it be enough to earn an interest of five or six hundred thousand taels a year?