Five hundred trade permits are five hundred large sailboats!

Nowadays, there are only 100 sailboats that can run far-sea in the Southeast Sea, and they will be killed by slaughtering them, which will be five times more!

The ministers present were shocked! What did this Long Live Master want to do? Want to promote the sea trade? Then make a lot of money? This is to waste the money and violate the ancestral system!

Zheng Zhilong, Li Guozhu, Han Buan and Hans Putsman did not expect that Zhu Youjian would release so many trade permits!

If a trade permit corresponds to a sailboat with a load of 300 tons, 500 trade permits are 500 merchant ships with a total load of 150,000 tons!

The annual export of silk, cotton, porcelain, tea, iron and other commodities in the Ming Dynasty were added together, and the sky was tens of thousands of tons. How could 150,000 tons of merchant ships be used?

"Your Majesty," Wang Zaijin, the chief minister of the cabinet, stood up. "Although maritime trade can bring great profits, the country's fundamentals are still agriculture and agriculture, but the merchants are the last! However, except for porcelain produced in maritime trade, which is made of soil and has nothing to do with agriculture, the rest of the commodities are ultimately from the fields. Silk comes from mulberry, cloth comes from cotton, and tea leaves come from trees. There are only a limited number of fertile fields in the world. If there are more mulberry, cotton, and tea trees, there will be fewer fields to grow grain. Please think twice!"

Zheng Zhilong also gave a speech: "Long live the throne, there are indeed many of these 500 sea ships. If they are loaded with silk, porcelain, tea, etc., they can't be sold even if they are transported to the West!"

Zhu Youjian smiled and shook his head, saying to Wang Zaijin: "Old Wang Ge, do you think the heavenly dynasty has abundant resources and everything, and does not rely on foreign goods to communicate with them?"

"Yes," Wang Zaijin nodded proudly, "The things that are foreigners are indeed dispensable. Even if they are not available to the Celestial Empire, they are imitated by the people of industry and commerce. Didn't we buy Western artillery and muskets? In recent years, the Xuanfu artillery and Ningyuan artillery have been built. Lumi guns and turtledo guns can also be produced by themselves and there is no need to import them anymore."

Zhu Youjian sighed and said, "But God doesn't reward food! The elders of the Lord thought that I was asking for money by releasing 500 trade letters? No, what I seek for foreigners is not firearms, nor gold and silver, but the foundation for the lives of ordinary people and the root of the world's stability! 500 trade letters are 500 sea ships worth thousands of stones or even ten thousand stones! If they can carry grain, they can import up to 5 million stones of rice and grain a year, how many people can live?

Master Bi Ge, you are also the Minister of Revenue. Let’s talk about the situation of water, drought, locust and epidemics in various places this year!”

Master Bi Ge was Bi Ziyan. Because he had made contributions to the robbery and beggars, he became the Minister of Revenue and the Grand Secretary of the Dongge, and became Master Bi Ge.

However, unlike the difficulties encountered when I was in charge of the Ministry of Revenue in my previous life, Bi Ziyan's troubles in this life are no longer lacking money, but lacking food.

Of course, in the fifth and sixth years of Chongzhen in the previous life, the great famine had already begun. However, because the Eastern Barbarians and Western thieves were too joking, there was another Denglai Rebellion between the fifth and sixth years of Chongzhen. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty had no spare time to take into account the food issues of the people.

Now, Pang Taiji of the Donglu is busy losing weight and does not even save the besieged Jinzhou, so he naturally has no time to kill and set fire inside his mouth.

The Western thief was still squinting on Liupan Mountain, which was not enough to cause any major disaster for the time being.

As for Kong Youde, Geng Zhongming and others, they are now following "Li Datou" to eat and drink hot food in North Korea, and of course they will not rebel.

Because the finances are quite abundant, there have been surpluses for several years, the country is quite stable, at least there is no big mess. Therefore, the problem of eating is even more prominent.

Since Bi Zhenyan took office at the beginning of the year, he has been worried about famine in Shaanxi, Henan and Huaibei, southern Zhili. Although Zhu Youjian has brought millions of people to Sichuan and Huguang to "beg for food", he still can't stand the water. The three plagues of drought and locusts are coming!

In the fifth year of Chongzhen, the flood flooded half of Henan and Huaibei, Nanzhili, and most of Shaanxi, and also missed the agricultural season in Xuzhou in the disaster area. The flood in Huai'an has not yet receded!

In the sixth year of Chongzhen, the locust plague had eaten up all the crops in northern Shaanxi and harmed many places in the Guanzhong Plain. At the same time, the drought was back, and there was a drought in Shaanxi and Henan again!

What’s even more terrifying is that Huainan and Jiangnan, which have always been relatively good weather, have also started to cause disasters. Sometimes it is drought, and sometimes it is raining rain, causing mountain torrents to occur. In short, it’s just one sentence: God won’t give you food!

In this case, Bi Ge Lao, who also served as the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, had more troubles!

In addition to the disaster and a big disaster relief, Bi Ziyan was also overwhelmed by the fact that Zhu Youjian thought of linking Jinshi and Juren's quota and tax payment.

The provinces in Shaanxi, Huaibei, and eastern Henan that have suffered major disasters cannot pay much tax on the one hand, and on the other hand, they want their scholars to participate in the imperial examination disaster, which is not their fault! Why don’t they let the imperial examinations take the imperial examination?

The gentry and officials in these places could not find Zhu Youjian, so they could only find a few cabinet masters to argue. Bi Ziyan was even more embarrassed that he was different from other cabinet masters. He could not stand clearly on the affected provinces.

Because the scholars and officials in the provinces that were not affected were all staring at the Jinshi quotas, especially Huguang and Sichuan with food, the rich Nanzhili (Huainan and Jiangnan part), Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and other places, all rushing to pay taxes for the disaster areas in Shaanxi, Henan and Huaibei!

Can Bi Ziyan not have a headache? If he supports scholars in the disaster area, then those provinces (regions) that are not affected by the disaster or are still rich after the disaster will not be willing to pay more taxes.

If he supports wealthy provinces (regions), wouldn’t the scholars and officials in the disaster area hate him to death?

Moreover, Bi Ziyan is from Shandong. His hometown has become more and more drought in recent years. Maybe there will be Shandong on the list of disasters this year.

Of course, the most headache-inducing problem for Bi Ziyan was that while the total amount of grain was insufficient, Zhu Youjian also required the storage of "disaster preparation grain" in two places in Xiangyang and Nanyang for five years. Six years was already a disaster year. The warehouse should be opened for storage. How could there be a reason to do the opposite and collect and store grain?

"Your Majesty, there were more disasters last year and this year," Bi Ziyan said. "But the lake is vast and mature, and it can still make up for the gap. If the court can temporarily suspend the storage of food for waste."

Huguang Dashu is actually the result of Zhu Cilang begging for dinner in Huguang!

Because Huguang is actually a potential for grain production increase. The number of land in Huguang is as high as 220 million mu! If all the land is sown and carefully cared for, it is possible to receive 400 million stone grains a year even in normal years.

This is how familiar Huguang is, the world is full!

In addition, Huguang has a large number of slopes and the mountainous land has not been reclaimed. If some of these lands are planted with sweet potatoes, they can harvest more than 20 million stones of grain per year.

However, Huguang's grain production capacity was not fully utilized during the Chongzhen period of his previous life!

This is because Huguang was attacked and destroyed by the bandits of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, a large amount of land was abandoned, and the hungry people in the north lack purchasing power. Huguang has few people and many fields, so grain production is mainly to meet market demand. If the market does not have demand, farmers will certainly not grow so many!

Therefore, Zhu Youjian's policy of increasing taxes and hoarding waste grain to Huguang actually greatly stimulated Huguang's grain production.

In addition, after hundreds of thousands or millions of Shaanxi and Henan beggar soldiers were taken in by 17 prefectures in Huguang, they all distributed slopes and obtained seeds of sweet potatoes and potatoes. Therefore, the yield of sweet potatoes and potatoes in Huguang also increased greatly.

However, for the "Great Ming Dynasty Calamity" ten years later, there was no reason why Huguang had more food in the past two years, so it was impossible to "repeat grain and rice".

Zhu Youjian shook his head and said, "The way of heaven is difficult to predict, so the country cannot be without the grain for the next year. Now all the treasury warehouses in the country are insufficient in stock and cannot cope with the disasters in succession. In the south of the ocean, Siam, Annan, Chameng, Zhenla, Luzon and other places, there are fertile soil for growing grain. I will promote the maritime trade without charging tariffs, just to use our cloth, silk, tea, iron, and other handmade goods to exchange for their food.
Chapter completed!