The Prosperous Era of Longwan

In the afternoon, Wei Guangde, Zhu Dashou, Tao Dalin and Jinda, led by Chen Jin and others, walked around the Hanlin Academy.

Indeed, as they said, the doors of many bachelor's offices are closed. They have gone to work in other yamen, that is, low-level officials such as editors and reviewers, as well as doctors of the Five Classics, classics, servants, and waiters. These low-ranking officials are ordered to be on duty.

After leaving office in the evening, Wei Guangde came out of the Hanlin Academy and went to a banquet with the Hanlin Academy officials he met in the afternoon.

The prosperity of the catering industry in the capital is largely due to this. There are many direct social activities for officials. Wei Guangde also discovered before that after officials were sent to the Yamen on duty, they often went out in twos and threes to find a tavern to eat and drink and talk about private and official matters. I didn’t say much in the yamen.

This meal can be regarded as a reception banquet for the Hanlin Academy. All the officials who received their salaries in the Hanlin Academy attended, so it was quite lively.

The capital has a strict night ban system, and the banquet ends early. Even so, when Wei Guangde returned to the Jiujiang Guild Hall, it was already the time when the lanterns were on. It was a little late along the way, but fortunately he had already entered Fangshi and was not stopped. Outside,

When they returned to the guild hall, Lao Kan and others had already returned. They were still looking at the time, wondering why Wei Guangde hadn't come back so late, worried that he would be stopped by the night ban.

Today is the first day for the four Jinshis to go to the Yamen. Wei Guangde and Zhang Ke both went alone. Lao Kan and Xia Kefan were relatively company, so several people talked about the situation in the Yamen.

Back in his room, Wei Guangde called Zhang Ji, "You can find time to go to the dental store tomorrow and ask if the buyer is willing to lower the price."

"Sir, why don't we ask other houses? The house in Nanxunfang is in a good location, and the buyer has set the price to death. I'm afraid it won't be easy to lower it."

Zhang Ji said with a grimace, he had run several times, but it had no effect at all.

"Next time you go there, try your best. If it doesn't work, just agree. The young master of the yard wants it."

The place to eat this time was in the inner city. Wei Guangde also learned that most of them, officials of the Hanlin Academy, lived in the inner city. Only a few of them had their own houses, and most of them rented houses.

However, Wei Guangde doesn’t want to rent a house. This is a house in the capital. Even if he wants to buy it in the future, he will not be able to buy it. Purchases are restricted for foreign residents. There is no such requirement now. Wei Guangde plans to buy the house in the capital. Even if it is sold out later, the big deal is Hang it out or rent it out.

Although the price of the yard is expensive, there is a reason for it to be expensive, but what Wei Guangde values ​​​​is still the location.

Next, Wei Guangde will have to think about what he heard in the morning. He has no choice but to take it seriously. If there is a slight mistake in this matter, it will be a big disaster. Wei Guangde doesn't want to die without knowing.

But by this time, Wei Guangde's shortcomings also came out. He couldn't figure out what happened to the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade.

In the past, in the south, he knew very well that sea trade had never been interrupted, and most businessmen were doing business related to sea trade to make money.

But Wei Guangde really doesn't know what the official situation is.

Forget it, I don’t want to think about it anymore. I will go to the Hanlin Academy for duty tomorrow. I will look up some information first to see how the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty is done now. It can cause such a big Japanese chaos. I really don’t know what those coastal officials are doing. What.

Early the next morning, Wei Guangde rushed to the Hanlin Academy for duty, signed the roll at the gate and walked in.

Wei Guangde went back to his office to sit for a while, and the scribe Lu Bu brought tea.

After not sitting for too long, Wei Guangde went to the library of the Hanlin Academy and found information about sea trade.

He didn't look up much information about the previous dynasty and the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Instead, he mainly searched for records about the Shibo Division from the Hongzhi Dynasty to the present, especially the decrees issued by the imperial court to the Shibo Division.

After working in the library for a long time, there were too many documents. Fortunately, the scribe guarding the library could only find documents from the last thirty years.

Fortunately, this is what the Hanlin Academy does. All the imperial edicts, memorials, etc. are collected in the Hanlin Academy. After all, history must be compiled, and it cannot be done without these.

Ask the scribe to send the found materials to his office. Wei Guangde has not made any arrangements yet and happens to have free time to do these things.

As for the fact that he turned the library upside down on his second day on duty, he couldn't control what other people thought. He had to first eliminate the hidden dangers left by the exam papers.

However, Wei Guangde was stunned when he checked the information. It was completely different from what he thought.

Before, Wei Guangde had always thought that the Japanese pirates came to the coast of the Ming Dynasty to rob because they were greedy for money. This was actually the view of most of the inland guards.

After all, he is a pirate, and no one would engage in the business of licking blood for the sake of wealth.

But what Wei Guangde saw now was a bit beyond his imagination. The gap between the maritime trade of the Ming Dynasty and that of later generations was a bit big.

In the early Ming Dynasty, Taizu did have an explicit order not to enter the sea. However, later on, the Ming Dynasty had contacts with the surrounding vassal states. Whether the Ming Dynasty sent people to announce the edict or the envoys from various countries came to the Ming Dynasty to pay homage, it was very expensive, so most of them would Bring local goods to trade.

Travel costs in ancient times were very high, and Wei Guangde understood this very well.

Well, this opened up the trade between the Ming Dynasty and overseas countries.

In fact, to be precise, sea trade should have been restored. After all, before the Ming Dynasty, Chinese products had already made great strides out of the country and were sold overseas.

The "Market Shipping Department" established by the Ming Dynasty was essentially established to serve this kind of tributary trade. Wei Guangde analyzed it and found that the powers of the City Shipping Department are mainly divided into three categories: one is to handle tribute matters; It smells a bit like Honglu Temple; the second is to prohibit private overseas trade; the third is to control the collection and trade of trade goods brought by foreign tribute envoys along with the tribute.

The reason why the Municipal Shipping Department had to manage tribute, Wei Guangde thought, was that the foreign envoys who came to Ming Dynasty mainly came by ship at this time. Ming Dynasty had strict regulations on foreign trade.

The Municipal Shipping Division has three offices, namely Guangzhou Shipping Division, Quanzhou Shipping Division and Ningbo Shipping Division.

The Guangzhou Shipping Department was specially set up to pay tribute to Southeast Asian countries such as Champa, Siam, Manchuria and Chenla; the Quanzhou Shipping Department was specially set up to pay tribute to the Ryukyus; Ningbo was originally an important port for China's foreign trade, but here The city's shipping department has become specially designed for Japanese tribute.

Wei Guangde didn't care about what happened after that. He didn't even look for documents. He just looked up the changes in the past few decades. Then he saw the memorial of the Ningbo tribute incident in the second year of Jiajing and the subsequent dismissal of the admiral Shibosi by Emperor Jiajing. To guard the eunuch's will.

Although he didn't know the specific reason, Wei Guangde could also imagine that the Shibo Division was probably screwed over by officials who knew how to operate, especially when the Shibo Division was controlled by the guarding eunuch.

Maritime trade is very profitable, but only mainland officials don’t understand it.

If Wei Guangde was a pure aborigine, he would definitely not understand. He would only think that it was the kind of business done by ordinary businessmen, with profits and losses.

It is true that maritime trade is risky, with natural disasters and even man-made disasters, but if everything goes smoothly, the profits will be substantial.

Two Japanese lords came to Ming Dynasty by chance for tribute trade, and then they went to war in Ningbo because of a dispute over who could represent Japan.

Although Wei Guangde doubted whether the information reported by the local government was true, he thought there might be some reasons for concealing it, but the big picture was still good.

Two daimyo vying to pay tribute. What does this mean? Isn't it obvious?

Tribute trade has huge benefits, which is why Japanese daimyo flock to it.

It's a pity that because of this incident, Emperor Jiajing dismissed the eunuchs guarding the Ningbo and Quanzhou Shipping Divisions, and the remaining Guangzhou Shipping Divisions were also dismissed soon after.

The Shibo Division still exists, but the guarding eunuch is gone. The Shibo Division has been promoted and will continue to be responsible.

During this period, the Municipal Shipping Department only had the job of receiving tribute missions, and no longer conducted tribute trade, and missions were not allowed to bring trade materials.

However, after that, because tribute trade could not be carried out, the number of tribute missions from surrounding countries dropped sharply.

Wei Guangde fell into deep thought. The yamen of Shibosi mainly receives tribute, and tribute trade is only an auxiliary business. And now, tribute trade has completely stopped.

Then what happened to the dispute over mulberry and rice that is currently being debated in the court?

There was also the day when Wen Yinglu bluntly said that he was making money through Shibo Division. Since it has stopped, how could it be possible?

Wei Guangde suddenly thought of a possibility, that is, the imperial court or the inner court quietly started the tribute trade again, but did not explicitly lift the previous ban.

Thinking of this possibility, Wei Guangde thought about the reason for doing this.

Well, actually there are many reasons.

The Japanese rebellion in Jiangnan is very serious now, and it seems to be the consensus of the court that the Japanese rebellion started on the market. At least even officials who don't think so are unwilling to speak on this issue.

Therefore, the restoration of the trading function of the Shipping Department can only be done quietly and not in a big way.

As for the reason for the restoration of Shibo, well, Wei Guangde didn't even need to guess. It must be that the inner court was also overwhelmed by the huge expenditure of Emperor Jiajing's training, so he could only find ways to make money.

There are not many ways for the inner court to make money, and most of them are under the noses of civil servants. If you go too far, you may be impeached.

Emperor Jiajing was very strict with the eunuchs in the inner court. Common people in the capital said so, and Wei Guangde had naturally heard this statement.

It seems that the only way to make money without touching the interests of the civil servant group is through the near-monopoly of foreign trade.

Even if the eunuchs did not participate in the foreign trade of the Shipping Department, those coastal official and gentry families would still engage in smuggling and make a fortune from it.

For the ministers in the court, they may not have noticed the huge value of sea trade at first, so as long as they are not openly robbing the gentry family, but just secretly doing business with the barbarians, they have not violated their bottom line, so they will naturally open their eyes. Close one eye.

The eunuch-led shipping trade may have been incredibly profitable. Now the civil servant group has also discovered the huge interests of the shipping company. Do they want to get a piece of the pie from the inner court?

So, you started to want to bring Shibo Company’s business to the table?

After reviewing the imperial court's regulations and decrees on the Shipping Department in recent years, Wei Guangde came to the conclusion that the imperial court had been weakening the existence of the Shipping Department intentionally or unintentionally.

But now the court is openly discussing increasing trade in silk, porcelain and other products to make money, which is obviously unreasonable.

If the above speculation is true, then why is this matter that will harm the interests of the inner court put on the table?

Wei Guangde still felt it was unreasonable, unless the inner court realized that the cake was too big for him to eat, and he needed help from the outer court to share the burden?

However, Wei Guangde immediately denied this possibility. Who would think it was too much money?

Then, there is only one possibility for them to make money, and that is if someone wants to stop their trading practices.

The business carried out by the Shipping Department will essentially harm the interests of coastal smuggling merchants. Their people in the court will definitely try to obstruct it, and then the inner court will choose to simply cooperate with the powerful forces in the outer court to crush them?

Wei Guangde patted his head and came up with a reason that he thought could be explained. In fact, as long as he confirmed whether anyone from the official was involved in the trade, he could figure out whether the above guess was correct or not.

However, for a new recruit like Wei Guangde, who can he ask?

Who will pay attention to him?

There is no overseas trade on the surface, so how can we still have such a big discussion in the court? It's really a ghost.

Staying at the Hanlin Academy until the next shift, no one organized a wine party today, so Wei Guangde took the car back to Jiujiang Guild Hall early.

"Are you going to do what I told you last night?"

On the carriage, Wei Guangde asked Zhang Ji if he had gone to negotiate the price with the landlord again during the day.

"Master, I've been there, but that store is still unwilling to lower the price, so I can only give you 1,500 taels of silver."

Zhang Ji said with a sad face.

"what expression."

Seeing Zhang Ji's expression, Wei Guangde found it funny, "If you don't lower the price, you won't lower the price. It's not like the young master has no money. Tomorrow you go and tell the people at the dental shop that I want the house. I will sign the contract at a fixed time and let the dentist know that I want the house." Anyone who can do it can report it to the government as soon as possible."

Wei Guangde shook his head and smiled.

"Really want to buy it?"

Zhang Ji still wanted to stop it. Although his young master was rich, there was really no need to spend so much money on it. There was also a large courtyard worth several hundred taels of silver in the city, but it was just a little further away.

"Stop talking, that yard is actually pretty good, didn't Lao Kan say that? The things in it are all good, and people don't charge exorbitant prices."

Wei Guangde didn't want Zhang Ji to talk any more. He was so determined that he wouldn't let Zhang Ji stop him.

The carriage returned to the Jiujiang Guild Hall. As soon as Wei Guangde entered the lobby, the shopkeeper came over and said with a smile: "Master Wei, Lin Maolin, the second master of Huitong Trading Company, came to ask for an audience and said he brought a letter from your father."

"Um?"

Wei Guangde was stunned for a moment, and then thought that this letter might have been sent by his family after they learned about his palace examination results. It was unclear whether the letter he sent had arrived in Jiujiang.

He thanked the shopkeeper and followed him to a table next to him, where Lin Mao was waiting. When he saw Wei Guangde coming in, he immediately stood up and saluted.

Wei Guangde knew Lin Mao. He was the second eldest son of the Lin family and had been in the capital for a long time. After Wei Guangde's joint examination and palace examination, Huitong Trading Company gave him a gift of hundreds of taels of silver.

"Mr. Lin, please don't be polite. Sit down. You brought me a letter from home. I should be the one thanking you."

Wei Guangde saw Lin Mao getting up and spoke immediately.

"I dare not take it as a word of thanks, it is just a small effort."

After saying this, Lin Mao waited for Wei Guangde to sit down before sitting down. However, he looked at the people coming and going in the lobby, with a look of hesitation on his face.

"Is there any inconvenience?"

Wei Guangde felt strange and asked in a low voice.

"No, it's best to ask Mr. Wei to find a quiet place."

After saying this, Lin Mao took out a large envelope from his arms and handed it to Wei Guangde.