New Shun 1730

When Liu Yu heard this, he thought to himself, you are smart, I don't want this crap.

But it's not easy to say this, so he had to say: "This dynasty has conferred titles but not established them, and the titles are all empty titles. My title of Jinghaihou is also empty. I am grateful for your trust, but I dare not accept it."

He used a reason that could not be refuted in this era, and everyone felt that it was true.

Some people began to think that Liu Yu's family had two titles, which was not the only one in this dynasty, but it was enough to show infinite grace and honor. If Liu Yu were to be the legal representative of this useless thing, many things would be much easier to do.

But after hearing Liu Yu use this reason, he also felt that this matter was indeed a bit taboo. Isn't it similar to enfeoffment of land and territory?

If the emperor could enfeoffment of land and territory, he still had so many sons, how could it not be the turn of Jinghaihou.

Some people even felt a chill in their heads, thinking, what did that guy say? If it is dug up in the future, wouldn't it be the intention of instigating Jinghaihou to split the land? How many heads will you have by then?

"Don't blame me, Lord Whale. We were so careless. It was just an unintentional remark."

Liu Yu smiled and said, "I know you think it's nice to be under a big tree."

"But how big is a tree? Is it bigger than the sky? This matter is permitted by the emperor. What do you have to worry about?"

After that, he stood up, coughed lightly and said, "Pass on the emperor's oral order!"

Hualala...

The people present almost stood up and knelt in the hall as if it was a conditioned reflex.

Someone in the back had already brought out the incense table and burned the best incense. Another person in the palace came to read the imperial edict with a scroll of oral order.

The merchants knelt on the ground, not daring to raise their heads, and pricked up their ears to listen to what the emperor said.

The eunuch holding the scroll unfolded the oral order and read it in a rhythmic manner.

The first part was a bunch of standard nonsense, and the key point was only mentioned later.

"…Therefore, Taishigong said: The world is bustling with people all for profit, and the world is bustling with people all for profit."

"Xue Jixuan in Song Dynasty: In ancient times, there was no one who was not good at managing money and became a sage and a wise minister. The ones who used the wealth of the world and managed the world together were Dayu and Zhou Gong. Many people in later generations did not understand the true meaning of the sages, saying: The villains are good at managing money, but the sages do not seek profit. Therefore, there are many people who are not good at managing money. When asked, they said: I am a gentleman, I do not seek profit, and I don't care about managing money."

"But do they disdain it? Don't they understand? Gentlemen are not good at managing money. Money is the expenditure of the country. If gentlemen do not manage money, they will all be managed by villains, and they will plunder without limit. How can the country last long?"

"Is there any profit to talk about? People cannot live without profit, so why not? Can we talk about benefits? The Book of Changes says: Righteousness is the harmony of benefits, and righteousness is what is beneficial. "

"It is not that the sage does not talk about benefits, but he actually uses benefits to harmonize righteousness, not to suppress benefits with righteousness."

"The great righteousness of the country is to protect the territory and the people, which is the great righteousness of the country."

"The land of Ezo is located at a strategic point. It controls Japan in the south, suppresses the Rakshasa in the north, and connects with Korea. If this place is not real, it will be a great disaster for the Celestial Empire. Therefore, developing Ezo is actually the great righteousness of the country."

"Developing Ezo will bring a lot of benefits, and you come for benefits. There is no need to hide it. However, you seek benefits, but it is not the great righteousness of protecting the territory and the people, so there is no need to be ashamed to say it."

"Ah!"

After the emperor finished reading the oral order, a group of merchants immediately shouted long live and knocked their heads on the ground.

If it is said that Liu Yu came out to receive them, it was just to let them confirm that this matter is feasible and credible.

The emperor's oral edict, in political terms, defined them, and gave them a "profit and righteousness, your pursuit of profit is the great righteousness of protecting the border and the people", which can almost be regarded as making money is as important as being loyal to the emperor and the country.

The emperor played a trick here.

In fact, many people know that in reality, this distinction between righteousness and profit, especially when applied to merchants and landlords, is excessive exploitation and unrighteousness.

How can you seek profit without excessive exploitation?

The emperor just said this, which is an abstract affirmation without discussing the specifics.

The emperor is not stupid, of course he knows what consequences this contract slave system will bring. These merchants are not benevolent gentlemen and good people, and it is even more impossible for them to pay for the stability of the border.

But without discussing the specifics, only talking about the abstract "righteousness and profit", elevating this matter to the point that profit is the motive and the result is righteousness, without discussing the question of whether it is benevolence and righteousness in the specific details.

This is also the emperor's helplessness, that is, the official ideology of Dashun is not the Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism of "righteousness and profit are contradictory", but the knowledge of the Yongjia and Yongkang schools.

But even if Yongjia and Yongkang were "too overbearing", they were still within the scope of Confucianism. The emperor could not say it so directly, so he could only go around in such a big circle and use fallacious logic to come up with such an explanation.

But even if it was just this, it was already three hundred years old. Since the Ming Dynasty, no emperor dared to directly talk about the issue of righteousness and profit. Even if he wanted to make money, he had to cover it up, and it was even more impossible to directly say "profit and righteousness" which was obviously labeled as heresy after Wang Anshi.

Of course, a group of businessmen would not give up their interests and take out all their wealth to support the border and dedicate everything to the great cause of protecting the country and the people just because of these words of the emperor.

But with the emperor's oral order, they can stand up straight in the future.

After thanking him, Liu Yu held up the imperial edict and said, "When the headquarters is established, this imperial edict can be sent to the main hall."

"You have all heard the words of the Holy Emperor. The court seeks justice, and you seek profit. Scholars, farmers, merchants and artisans are all the people of the emperor. Gentlemen speak justice and accomplish things, and merchants seek profit and accomplish things, all for the world."

Several merchants cried loudly without tears, "The emperor is truly a saint!"

Those who really couldn't pretend to cry, seeing that everyone was crying, couldn't help crying. Fortunately, there was some wine on the table, so they quietly put some in the corners of their eyes. The wine hurt their eyes a little, and they burst into tears.

After crying for about a while, they stopped crying.

…………

In the evening, in the palace.

The eunuch who followed Liu Yu to the original church in Dongjiang Mixiang came back and reported to the emperor what happened there today, how everyone behaved, and what Liu Yu said.

At this time, the eunuch who reported had left. On the table in front of the emperor, the bright whale oil lamp shone through the glass cover, driving away the darkness of the evening.

There were several books on the table.

A "Historical Records", just turned to the "Biographies of Merchants".

A "Guan Zi", and a "The Experience and Gains and Losses of the Virginia Company of England, Guyana and Li Kingdom".

But what the emperor was reading at this time was the memorial in which Liu Yu suggested to control Mongolia with business after the battle with Luosha more than ten years ago. He stared at the sentence "The upper must be connected with the lower to control the middle" on it, and he was silent for a long time.

After a while, he picked up a pen and wrote a word on the Korean tribute paper on the table.

The eunuch serving beside him glanced at it quietly and found that it was a "circle".

It was not the circle of drawing a circle, but the circle of pig pens.

Li Gan stared at the "circle" he wrote, and the more he looked at it, the more he felt that this word was really wonderful.

Li Gan also knew that today's oral instructions might lead to another debate in the court, but he didn't care.

What he cared about was whether the two pig pens in Songjiang and Beijing were solid, and whether the pigs raised in them would make trouble and rebel in the future.

Merchants had money, and they were originally just fish meat.

But now, with the deepening of the Dashun military reform, the implementation of the military service system and the retirement system have become a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, Dashun's war potential has increased rapidly, which is a benefit.

As Liu Yu said, the emergence of flintlock rifles and bayonets made the disputes among countries only look at two things: people and money.

Now the military service system has begun to be tried in some places. With the help of sea transportation, centralized training and centralized camping can be carried out. Dashun has a strong and reliable standing army.

Even in a war of annihilation, Dashun can fight 200,000 and then pull out 200,000 military trained soldiers. Now I am at a loss. Within the range of Dashun's military deployment, there is really no potential enemy that needs 200,000 standing troops for a decisive battle.

Even if the court has money, it will move the arsenal and shipyard in Weihai to Tianjin and Beijing in the future. As long as the navy is still there and can hold the money bag of Jiangnan, hundreds of thousands of troops can be trained at that time.

On the other hand, it is the money of merchants. What if it is combined with these retired soldiers?

Now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been established, and a large number of Western political and historical books have been translated. The West is not so stable. The merchant power in some places is really scary.

This worry is getting deeper as I know more about the situation in the West.

This is not worrying about the situation in Ezo, but worrying about the overall situation. There is nothing to worry about in Ezo. As long as the navy is still there, it is useless to toss around in Ezo. It is still under the control of the court.

Moreover, Li Gan is also very clear that self-cultivating farmers are the cornerstone of Dashun's rule and the most loyal class of Dashun.

Those who have no permanent property have no permanent heart.

Those who have too much property may have different intentions.

Self-cultivating farmers have their own small industries and they are most eager for a stable court; and apart from the court, no one can organize them together.

Therefore, in the matter of developing Ezo, Li Gan still divided some official fields and unchangeable fields, and the court also spent money to arrange some retired people there to become retired soldiers who pay 30% of the tax and no longer bear the rest of the labor obligations because they have served.

"The upper must unite with the lower to control the middle", this sentence seemed a little reasonable more than ten years ago, but now it seems more and more interesting.

The reason is this, for example, the idea proposed by some Confucian masters of Dashun at this time that "after 30 years of rent, the land will belong to the tenants". In fact, it is to control the center by connecting the upper and lower parts.

Li Gan was so confident about the development of Ezo because of this sentence.

It seems that the contract was given to merchants, and many people in the court were worried that the tail would be too big to be removed, but in Li Gan's view, this was a good thing for the court.

Will there be cases of exploitation of immigrants? There will definitely be.

But will there be no official organization of immigration? There will be the same.

However, if the contract was given to merchants, the Dashun court could mediate in the middle, and taking a step back would be more conducive to governance.

The bad things were done by merchants. The court only needed to play the role of a fair and just master, so that it could receive money and ensure that the local grassroots would be loyal to the court and expect the court to support them.

This was actually the overbearing fraud of the Legalists, because Li Gan knew very well what contract slaves meant, and what merchants would do for profit.

Precisely because he knew, he had to pretend not to know. Only by tacitly allowing merchants to do so could the Whale Sea be developed, the population increased, the control over the northern borders strengthened, and Japan and Korea completely controlled.

But we have to go there from time to time to act as a judge, listen to the complaints of the lower classes, and deal with them appropriately. Of course, this is on the premise that it does not affect the immigration to the border and the payment of the full amount of tax.

When necessary, we can directly distribute the land to the people who have immigrated there, take one-third of the tax, and exempt the middlemen from the rent.

Just like the remarks of the great scholars of the northern school that "after 30 years of rent, the land will belong to the tenants", it is impossible to do so in the mainland, as the roots are intertwined. If you dare to move, Dashun will die.

But outside, in Ezo, especially if the power of merchants is unstoppable one day, they will be useful. Dashun can have tens of thousands more self-cultivating farmers who are absolutely loyal to the court and grateful to the court for at least thirty years. And this will be the sharpest and most ruthless knife to suppress merchants in the future if they threaten the imperial power.

Just like those good family children with special rights and the soldiers who use blood taxes to replace any other obligations.

After thinking about it, Li Gan picked up the pen again and deleted a few words on Liu Yu's memorial more than ten years ago. deleted word.

"The top uses the power of the bottom to control the center."

After writing, Li Gan stared at the word "lian" that he deleted and couldn't help laughing.

"You are a son of a noble family, wearing fine clothes and eating delicious food, being superior and inferior, and being influenced by everything. How could you think of using the word "lian"?"