Daming: At the start of the showdown, Lao Zhu was stunned

Chapter 669 Negotiation
Philip and Felut returned to Guanyi and sold the last tea and silk that were scheduled to be brought back to Europe. They also borrowed a lot of foreign debts from familiar European businessmen, and then they gathered together the materials to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty and obtained the title of Ming Dynasty. The qualifications of a vassal state allowed him to meet the emperor.

Lao Zhu met them at the court meeting and asked Honglu Temple to treat them well. Philip took advantage of the situation and made a request to accompany the Ming fleet to Fengmingzhou. Lao Zhu immediately agreed, and everything went as planned.

This made the two of them ecstatic and kept kowtowing and thanking them. Lao Zhu suppressed his laughter and waved them away.In fact, according to Zhu Su's original intention, he wanted to have people pretend to be the Buddhist envoys to say goodbye to them, so as to squeeze their oil and water again.In fact, Zhu Su even found those semen who pretended to be the envoys of Fo Langji. When the Ming Dynasty took over the rule of Yuanting, there were already many semen in the territory. These people had been living in China for a long time since their fathers and ancestors. In fact, they had no contact with the Chinese people in daily life. different.But his face still has a European style, which is more than enough to pretend to be a European envoy.

It was Liu Bowen who felt that going too far was not enough, so he dissuaded Zhu Su who was playing some tricks.After all, the Franco Kingdom has been at war with Britain for a long time, and the two sides know each other very well. They may have seen some clues, and there is no need to make such extraneous matters.

Moreover, the Franconian Kingdom actually does not have much communication with the East.At this time, the Franconian machine that Ming thought of actually referred more to later Spain than to France... If such a mission was created to compete with these British people, what if these British people thought of this flaw? It would be a shame if I had doubts about the previous design.

Even so, the British mission was actually at the end of its rope at this time.Except for the two ships that have not yet been sold, they have sold almost everything that can be sold for money.Even the Western-style dresses worn by the two nobles were pawned to a pawn shop in Yingtian City in order to raise supplies for the voyage.

This was because the old shop owner of the pawn shop thought the style of the dress was rare, so he reluctantly let them pawn it for three or four thousand yuan... Otherwise, this dress, carefully sewn by a palace tailor and worth a thousand taels of silver in the West, would have been thrown into the garbage. No one here wants it.

"Tie Xuan has put the nautical chart drawing files into the library of Dabentang, and Master Song is in charge of it personally. Longjiang Shipyard has also rebuilt the treasure ship. Now, the treasure ship has a larger cargo capacity and a deeper draft..." In the palace, Zhu Su, Lao Zhu, and Zhu Biao were sitting in the pavilion of the Imperial Garden, and Zhu Su reported the preparations for the next trip to sea.

"And the fleet has brought sufficient firearms and medicine this time, and plans to explore deeper into Fengming Continent. We must bring the divine seed back to the Ming Dynasty within a year."

"Yes." Lao Zhu nodded, "Also tell Zhang He and Tie Xuan that although we are eager to get the divine seed, the safety of the soldiers of Fengmingzhou must also be put first."

"We operate Fengming Continent as a place for all things, and we are not planning to directly take the divine seed to make things happen. If the craftsmen and sinners who moved there want to take root there, they must also practice good governance and preach in Fengming Continent. change."

"This time, we have trapped a lot of literati for them to use to educate the barbarians and govern the people. Don't let us down. Many of these people have ulterior motives. When we arrive at Fengming Continent, there may be some Just like Xu Fu did in the past, he had inappropriate thoughts. Let them take our secret message to Mao Xiang later, and be sure to keep a close eye on those guys."

"Father, the so-called scholar rebellion will not happen in three years. I think that when those civil servants arrive at Fengmingzhou, they may no longer have any desire to cause trouble." Zhu Biao said. "On the other hand, the civil servants in the DPRK... Because many officials have been dismissed and reassigned this time, some people in the DPRK are quite panicked. It is better to think about how to stabilize the situation in the DPRK."

The word "you" in Zhu Biao's words actually means he is quite helpless.Lao Zhu's eyes were really filled with trouble. Starting from the Hu Weiyong case and the Kongyin case, this was already the fourth large-scale dismissal and exile of court officials.Although there was no such brutal peeling of daylilies as the previous times, the arrest of all the officials in the court who were involved with the merchants and spoke out for the merchants, such a move would be enough to cause huge waves in any other dynasty.

That is to say, in the Hongwu Dynasty, officials were somewhat used to it... But even so, everyone in the court is still in danger.In fact, not all the officials arrested this time are corrupt officials who accepted heavy bribes from businessmen. There are lessons from previous major cases. Officials should consider whether they have enough courage before committing corruption.More often than not, it was actually entrusted by family elders, or to repay former benefactors... After all, it is inevitable that the family of an official has a business background, and the emperor was originally inclined towards maritime affairs, so when he came forward to say a few words, it was not all for the purpose of using power for personal gain. .

"Hmph, if a group of people who are just eating corpses are not guilty, why would they be so frightened?" Lao Zhu's face dropped after hearing this.Because of his early experiences, Lao Zhu actually did not think very highly of these sanctimonious civil servants. This is very different from Zhu Biao, who relied heavily on civil servants. "If you accept dividends from businessmen and your family is rich in business, don't become an official in the Ming Dynasty!"

"Lao Wu, we are going to make it clear that those who have businessmen in the third generation of their families, or who have close ties with businessmen, are strictly prohibited from taking the imperial examination and entering official positions. What do you think?"

"Father? This... is absolutely impossible." Zhu Biao's expression changed. "This matter is extremely difficult to implement. Even if it is to be implemented, it must be very expensive and expensive. I think it is impossible."

"It's just a name." Lao Zhu waved his hand and said. "We also know that this matter is not easy to investigate in detail. We just need to have such an order to teach them not to blatantly use the power given to them by the court to do business, and to give them a sense of awe and fear."

"This..." Zhu Biao pondered for a while, "In this way, it is feasible. Just this order may cause more turmoil in the court."

"We know, that's why we asked Lao Wu for his opinion." Lao Zhu said.

Zhu Su pondered for a while and then tentatively said: "Perhaps we can increase the salary of the court officials?"

"Dad, with all due respect, the salary our Ming Dynasty gives to officials is really too low. It's only enough for their family of four or five to eat, clothe, sleep, and sleep. If they support the elderly or have children, it's not enough. ”

"It should be noted that it is unrealistic to require all officials to serve the public wholeheartedly. Most of the lower-level officials juggled their duties, in fact, just to get the iron rice bowl from the imperial court, so that they can honor their ancestors without starving to death on the streets. "

“If you don’t have enough money to make a living, you will naturally have to look for ways to make a living, and it is not uncommon to even traffic in power for personal gain... I think that if we want to catch corruption and collusion between officials and businessmen, we must first put the fundamental survival issues of officials first. Solved. Otherwise, most officials will not even have enough to eat and will have to be greedy. Small greed will turn into big corruption, and one person's greed will become everyone's greed... When corruption becomes common and becomes a fashion, then will the true meaning of Ming Dynasty be revealed. A serious concern."

(End of this chapter)