Summer goes to autumn, autumn goes to winter solstice, and in a blink of an eye, the New Year is coming.Since the end of the Battle of the Zhou Dynasty, the wars in various parts of the world have ended, Zhao Ming not only recovered the territory of the Ming Dynasty before the Jiashen State Change, but also recovered the Guanwai and Hetao regions, which can be said to have completed the unification in the traditional sense.At the turn of summer and autumn, Wu Sangui fled to the Western Regions, Zhao Ming forced Meng Qiaofang to commit suicide, after recovering Guanlong, changed Chang'an to Xi'an, and sent 10,000 troops to Hetao Tuntian, and then led the army back to Jiangnan.Along the way, the people and the gentry greeted him, and the states and counties led Zhao Ming back to Nanjing.Since the Wanli period, the Ming Dynasty gradually declined, and then the Liao Incident, the Guannei Liukou made chaos, and the world fell into chaos for half a century.In these years, the people have repeatedly suffered from the scourge of slaves and rogues, which can be described as unspeakably miserable.Now, with Zhao Ming's efforts in the past 20 years, the world has finally been unified, and the people are no longer suffering from the war, so that the gentry and people in the world support Zhao Ming from the bottom of their hearts, making Zhao Ming's prestige reach its peak.When Zhao Ming returned to Nanjing, the world was set, but he did not relax, but began to prepare, implement the new policy, and achieve reform.Over the years, most reforms have required a relatively stable environment, and if the environment is unstable, reforms are vulnerable to disruption and disruption.During the Warring States Period, Qin used Shang Jun to change the law, and it was able to succeed, a big reason is that Qin is located in the west, and the external environment is relatively peaceful, so Qin can concentrate on changing the law.South Korea's reform was also successful earlier, but a war destroyed the results of South Korea's reform and made South Korea's reform fail.When Zhao Ming was still the king of the Han Dynasty, he had always advocated changing the law politically, but after serving as the regent and gaining the power of the Ming Dynasty, there was no move to change the law, because the environment was still unstable, and Zhao Ming himself did not want to let go of power.Over the past dynasties, the change of the law will inevitably touch the interests of some people, and will suffer from the counterattack of the domestic conservative forces, and at this time, there are still hostile forces such as the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the Zhou State outside the Ming Dynasty, and there are royalists such as Zhu Yihai and Longwu inside, so Zhao Ming did not mention a word about the change of the law.Because of the rash change of the law, it may be the collusion of internal and external hostile forces, which will lead to the failure of the change and shake his position.Now, Zhao Ming has swept away the internal and external hostile forces, and his prestige is in full swing, and the time is ripe for changing the law.Any dynasty or society, to a certain degree and stage of development, will have its own problems, and at this time, there will be reformers.If the reforms are successful, the dynasty will be able to continue its life and continue to move forward.If the reform fails, then the dynasty will collapse due to the increasingly intensified internal contradictions, and finally either die in an internal uprising, or be taken advantage of by external forces.The Ming Dynasty was founded for nearly 300 years, and as early as the Jiajing period, the internal contradictions had been seriously intensified, and they were on the verge of destroying the country.It was in the late Jiajing Dynasty that the voice of reform began to appear in the Ming Dynasty, and during the Longqing period, it occupied a dominant position and opened the Longqing New Deal.With the efforts of reformers such as Gao Gong and Zhang Juzheng, Haoqiang, gentry clans, and maritime smuggling groups were all curbed, but Emperor Wanli, under the deception of the conservatives, finally completely denied the achievements of the reformers, making Zhang Juzheng's reforms in vain.Since then, the gentry in the southeast have basically gotten rid of the control of the imperial court, and the powerful forces of the gentry in various places have also begun to fight back, the gap between the rich and the poor has widened, the distribution of social resources is unfair, and there are many internal contradictions, which eventually led to the surging displacement of the people, and the Jiannu outside the border also took advantage of the void.Since Wanli personally counted the reformers, more than half a century, the Ming Dynasty has basically never heard the voice of the reformists, although the parties in the DPRK and China are fiercely contested, but they are the spokesmen of the gentry and wealthy families, but it is the internal conflict between them, there is no voice for the people, for the long-term consideration of the court.Now, after half the chaos of the world, especially the war of nearly 30 years, the world has reshuffled to a certain extent, which has alleviated social contradictions, but this passive reshuffle is not complete.In the north, the original vested interests were sobered up in the peasant uprising and the war of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and Zhao Ming purged the remaining group in the process of destroying the Manchu Qing and attacking the Zhou State.Now, the original Haoqiang in the north has almost been swept away and reshuffled.In the south, since the Ming Dynasty did not fall, many provinces did not fall, and the original social structure was still retained, there were still some problems.Of course, Zhao Ming wanted to reform, not to carry out a thorough purge of the gentry and merchants, but to carry out reforms according to the national conditions of the Ming Dynasty, so that the Ming Dynasty could enter industrialization and run ahead of the world.Judging from Zhao Ming's experience, there are generally only two ways to achieve industrialization, one is to complete the primitive accumulation of capital and follow the path of Britain and the West, and the other is to carry out a thorough revolution and follow the path of the Soviet Union and China.At the moment, Zhao Ming is also crossing the river by feeling the stones, but fortunately, at this time, the Ming Dynasty is still accumulating technology, and it is far from the time when the industrial revolution breaks out, so Zhao Ming still has time to conduct research and consideration.After Zhao Ming returned to Nanjing, he began to inspect Jiangnan.In mid-December, in Songjiang Prefecture, Zhao Ming, accompanied by a group of officials, was inspecting the Qian weaving industry.Qian's weaving industry is a textile workshop controlled by Jianghuai Cotton, because of the support of Jianghuai Cotton Industry, and a large number of silver money raised from the stock market, so in recent years, it has developed rapidly and has become the largest textile workshop in Jiangnan.However, in the past year, the Qian weaving industry, which has been maintaining rapid expansion, has encountered a bottleneck, and this year not only did not maintain expansion, but closed down three workshops in Jiangbei.At this time, Zhao Ming walked in the workshop and found that in the previously busy workshop, less than half of the looms were in operation, and he couldn't help but fall into contemplation.Chen Mingyu, a bachelor who accompanied him, explained: "Regent, the previous ministers have already understood that the main reason for the reduction in the production of the workshop is that the previous expansion was too fast, and the production of too much cloth was produced, resulting in a backlog of goods, so the production had to be reduced. ”"It's overproduction!"
Zhao Ming said in a deep voice, even though he remembered some more serious problems.Chen Mingyu said: "In recent years, the two Huai have planted cotton on a large scale, and workshops in various parts of the Yangtze River have vigorously produced cloth, but the output of cloth has increased, but the sales have not increased, which has caused the price of cloth to fall, and the workshops can not make money, so they can only close some workshops and stop some looms. ”Zhao Ming nodded, this phenomenon also appeared in places such as Britain and Denmark later.Overproduction has led to a drop in the price of cloth and the shutdown of workshops, while extensive cotton cultivation and sheep farming have led to a drop in the price of cotton and wool and an increase in food prices.As soon as this fall and rise, there was a phenomenon of reverse urbanization, and a large number of weavers left the cities and returned to the countryside to grow grain.This phenomenon of anti-urbanization eventually led Denmark to return to an agrarian society, while the United Kingdom, with its vast overseas market, eventually survived the Industrial Revolution.Zhao Ming frowned and said: "In recent years, the imperial court has recovered the north, and recently recovered Guanlong, and the domestic market should have a great growth."
In addition, China Merchants Shipping Company has opened up a number of overseas routes, and overseas markets should also be expanding.Isn't the growth of the internal and external markets still able to consume the cloth produced by the Jiangnan Workshop?
”Chen Mingyu explained: "Regent, before the unification of the imperial court, the cloth consumed in the north was also purchased from Jiangnan.And the purchase price at that time was higher than now.After the unification of the imperial court, for the northern merchants, they also became Ming merchants, so the price of goods was lower.Therefore, when the imperial court recovered the north, the market did not grow much, and the workshop made less money.As for the overseas market, although China Merchants Shipping Company has opened up a number of routes, in the past year or two, Xiyi's purchase of our cloth has been declining every year.In the past year, Spanish and Dutch merchant ships have almost stopped doing business in Daming. ”Zhao Ming's heart sank, could it be because of the rise of the British wool textile industry that robbed Daming of his job.At this time, Zhao Ming was pondering, Hu Weizong suddenly walked to Zhao Ming's side, handed Zhao Ming a secret report, and said in a low voice: "Regent, the Western Regions Division of the Military Intelligence Department has made a detailed report, Wu Sangui will be proclaimed emperor in Tianzhu, and the next step of the Zhou army is very likely to capture Wusizang." ”Zhao Ming was a little surprised when he heard this, Wu Sangui actually went to Tianzhu and wanted to be the emperor, which was really beyond his expectations.Zhao Ming didn't expect that Wu Sangui would have such a vision, and Wu Sangui was called the emperor and coveted Wu Sizang, which undoubtedly ignited Zhao Ming's anger."
Wu Sangui also dares to be called the emperor, how can this be true!"
Zhao Ming read the secret letter, crumpled it into a ball, and gritted his teeth.
(Updated tomorrow) ()