Chapter 314 313 Performance

In the past few days, in addition to the trivial matters in the streets and alleys, there are also major events in the court of the capital, and the topic of the Liaodong disaster has been newly added.

According to rumors in the market, Liaodong today has become a hell on earth, with starving people thousands of miles away and people exchanging their children for food. Anyway, no matter how miserable it is, they will say it.

However, when such a topic is spread among the people of the capital, except for sighing from time to time, everyone is talking about it with great interest.

The people talk about this, and the discussion among the officials in the capital has changed from the initial request for Emperor Jiajing to issue an order for disaster relief to how to transport grain.

The problem of grain transport mentioned by the Minister of Revenue Jia Yingchun has spread among the officials in the capital. In fact, many officials knew about this matter more or less before, but they did not think about it when talking about disaster relief in Liaodong.

Now, after hearing the conversation in Xiyuan that day, many officials suddenly realized that grain transport is really important.

In this day and age, it is very difficult for merchants to do business in the capital if they do not have the support of Beijing officials. The yamen runners in Shuntian Prefecture and the county government alone are enough to annoy them, and they can definitely eat them alive.

Therefore, Beijing officials naturally know that due to the recent drought in the south, the canal transportation may be interrupted at any time.

However, most officials are still hesitating about which side to stand on.

Yes, the day after the Xiyuan Imperial Court Meeting, many low-ranking officials from the Ministry of Revenue and various government offices in Beijing wrote to the Emperor Jiajing, requesting him to agree to reopen the sea route and transport the relief grain directly to Liaodong by sea vessels, instead of transporting it to Taicang warehouse first through the canal, and then transporting it to Liaodong through Jizhen.

Disaster relief is like putting out a fire. At this time, wasting time is a waste of life.

If someone supports it, there will naturally be someone who opposes it. Many officials of the fourth and fifth ranks in various government offices have written to oppose sea transportation to Liaodong. As for the reason, it is also fair and aboveboard, that is, Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang issued an imperial decree to stop sea transportation.

Supporters naturally bring up the environment at that time. In the early Ming Dynasty, sea transportation was used to transport military supplies for the Ming army to open up Liaodong. The suspension of transportation was because the Liaodong military settlement had begun to take shape and the local area was self-sufficient, so this edict was issued.

The current situation is far different from that time, so it should be restored.

Just kidding, if Liaodong could be self-sufficient in food now, there would be no Liaodong disaster.

It is another debate on whether to maintain the ancestral system or to save the people from the water and fire. However, most officials who used to choose to sit on the fence gradually turned to support the faction of opening sea transportation in the face of the disaster.

In their view, even if it is to deal with the Liaodong disaster, it is better to open a sea transportation and save people first.

It's already this time, people are starving to death in Liaodong every day, and those superiors are still arguing about how to transport food there. It's really a lack of morality.

There are more and more memorials supporting sea transportation, but the officials who submit memorials are generally of low rank, and their words don't have much influence.

In the major government offices in Beijing, officials are clearly divided into two factions. Not only do they attack each other in memorials, but they often say a few words when they meet in the government office, but they will soon be pulled apart by others.

Whether they support or oppose, anyone will be very annoyed when their subordinates openly contradict themselves.

However, in the Ming Dynasty court these days, the superiors have little power to restrain their subordinates. It is difficult for them to retaliate against their subordinates because of political differences. If this thing is known by the censor, it will be enough to report themselves, so they can only roll up their sleeves and spray each other, and don't talk about the official authority that superiors should have.

Perhaps, only the censors of the Censorate did not participate in this debate, because they were still arguing in the yamen about who should be sent to the south to buy grain.

This is a lucrative job. The Ministry of Revenue issued 600,000 taels of silver. Even if it was lost according to the usual practice, it would be almost 500,000 taels in hand. I could easily get tens of thousands of taels of silver.

Sending grain worth 400,000 taels of silver to Liaodong, I was really too kind.

When the grain is delivered, countless lives will be saved. Will the people of Liaodong build a shrine for me?

If so, should I accept it?

This is what the censors who are interested in this job think of now. Many censors who had a good relationship in the past have now become stiff because of the competition for the job.

There are many people who are ready to move, and many who have submitted memorials to express their grievances, but they are still a minority in the huge group of Beijing officials.

So far, more officials have only been crooked in their hearts, but have not followed suit.

At this time, in a restaurant in the inner city of the capital, in a large elegant room with several tables, a group of officials in green robes were drinking around the table, and the atmosphere was very hot.

When they were drunk, a young official at the middle table suddenly stood up, holding a wine glass in his hand, and deliberately coughed twice to attract the attention of the guests at the surrounding tables, and then said loudly: "Today, I summoned all my colleagues here, one is to get together with all the brothers, in the past two months, everyone has been busy with the king's affairs, and there is no time to come out for a drink and keep in touch.

Second, Guangde has thought about it at home in the past two days. Many brothers may also know that I have also written to the court a few days ago to request the court to transport the disaster relief grain directly to Liaodong by sea for the sake of the people in Liaodong.

When Guangde wrote the letter, the disaster relief issue should still be discussed in Xiyuan. It can only be said that Guangde's original idea coincided with that of Jia Situ of the Ministry of Revenue.

In the past few days, many people in the DPRK have written to each other and criticized each other because of this matter. Guangde felt really uneasy after seeing it.

However, after spending these two days behind closed doors at home, I finally came to the conclusion that the only way for the people of Liaodong to survive was to transport disaster relief food directly to Liaodong by sea. "

The person who spoke was naturally Wei Guangde. Although after the meeting that day, they had planned to mobilize Prince Yu's Mansion, Wei Guangde's same year, and Xuge's old disciples to fully support the idea of ​​reopening shipping proposed by Jia Yingchun, the Secretary of the Ministry of Revenue, but there were still some difficulties in the final implementation steps. Refinement.

The person who opposes Gao Gong's full support is naturally Wei Guangde, and his reasons are very good. If everyone gives full support from the beginning, the opposition will quickly gather and jointly oppose the opening of the sea, which is likely to delay the disaster relief. It turned into a party struggle in the court.

The result of the final discussion was naturally the current situation. The officials who could be influenced by Prince Yu's Mansion took the lead, including officials from the Ministry of Revenue. The bosses all spoke out. Can the officials below not support it?

What's more, this is also the most reasonable solution. If you object, you can come up with practical and effective means.

As a result, the first shot in support of opening up the sea fell on the officials of Prince Yu's Mansion and the Ministry of Revenue.

Who is Jia Yingchun? Of course he is from Prince Yu's Mansion. It is reasonable for Prince Yu's Mansion to come forward to support him.

As for the second shot, it was natural for Wei Guangde's classmates to write a letter of support.

Nowadays, the Jinshis of Wei Guangde's class can no longer be called Xinke Jinshis.

In the spring of the thirty-eighth year of Jiajing, a new joint examination and a palace examination were held successively, and the title of "New Science Jinshi" had been changed.

The first three people on the Jiwei Ke Palace examination list are Ding Shimei, Mao Dunyuan and Lin Shizhang, followed by 85 people in the second class, and more than 200 people in the third class. Now they are the influential figures in the capital.

This may mean that the waves behind the Yangtze River push the waves ahead, and a new generation replaces the old.

As for Mr. Xu Ge's disciples, they are the last step to launch, because these people are of higher rank and have more influence than the first two waves.

As for the purpose of doing this, Wei Guangde naturally wanted to give the officials in Beijing a feeling that opening sea transportation to Liaodong was a general trend. The number of supporters was gradually increasing, and the weight was gradually increasing.

The general trend of the world is vast and powerful. Those who follow it will prosper, and those who go against it will perish.

As a result, more people choose to support them instead of just sitting on a small bench and watching the show as usual, and their support is only verbal.

And now, it is time to mobilize his classmates to respond. Wei Guangde specially booked this place to invite his classmates who stayed in Beijing to attend a banquet to lobby for this matter.

In fact, everyone here in the same year already knew that Wei Guangde had already submitted a letter to Liaodong in the afternoon of the same day when Xiyuan was still in court. General Affairs Department.

However, Wei Guangde did not write a letter to defend himself when someone impeached him. Instead, he took a few days off from Director Yin and then went home to thank the guests behind closed doors. He had the attitude of "sitting alone in a small building to form a unified body, and don't care about the wind, southeast, northwest, etc." ” posture.

Yesterday, Zhang Ji, the young butler of the Wei family, started running around various houses in the capital, and issued today's invitation letter. Wei Guangde wanted to invite his peers to come here for a banquet. In fact, everyone had more or less guessed it, but now It turned out to be true.

In fact, those who can sit here are not stupid people. The stupid people have been screened out in previous imperial examinations.

Wei Guangde supports shipping to Liaoning, which is considered the right answer by most people. As for why there are so many objections, everyone knows very well that the interests here are a bit big.

As for whether to submit a letter or not, standing with Wei Guangde, everyone also has Xiao Jiujiu in their hearts.

Now that everyone has been officials for several years, they are no longer as innocent as before.

Fortunately, because Wei Guangde submitted the letter early, no one in the same year thought that Wei Guangde and Jia Yingchun had anything to do with Prince Yu's palace, but just thought it was a coincidence.

"Everyone who is of the same year must have seen the nautical chart. In order to debate this matter in the past two days, many people must have looked it up, or at least know the details.

I just want to say that when we study, we set up our minds for the heaven and earth, establish our lives for the people, inherit the unique knowledge of the saints, and create peace for all generations.

No matter why they oppose saving the people of Liaodong, my original intention will not change.

Nowadays, only the sea route can quickly transport enough disaster relief food to Liaodong to buy time for Jiangnan to purchase food.

Everyone also knows that the Ministry of Revenue transferred 50,000 shi of rice from Taicang to be shipped to Liaodong, but now we don’t know how to transport it there.

Taking the land route through Ji Town, Guangde has seen the high mountains in the north. It is said that after leaving Shanhaiguan, it is still mountains outside the mountains. How much food is wasted when transporting people to eat horse chews. This is life-saving food for the people of Liaodong. "

Wei Guangde spoke eloquently for a long time, stretched out his hand to wipe the corners of his eyes, as if the corners of his eyes were moist at the emotional point, and finally raised the wine glass in his hand and circled it, and said cheerfully: "Guangde hereby sincerely asks everyone to support Guangde, We have written to request that 50,000 shi of life-saving food be transported by sea from Haikou, Tianjin, to Liaodong. We cannot afford to delay it.”

Having said this, Wei Guangde's eyes were slightly red.

That thing is a bit eye-catching.

Opening the sea still needs to be done step by step. Now let’s tear open the gap and use the excuse of 50,000 shi of life-saving food to win the support of more officials.

Once the hole is opened, there will be disaster relief grains and grains that should be transported by water because the Grand Canal is cut off, so there is every reason to take the sea route to Beijing.

Wei Guangde's strategy is naturally to nibble away and open the hole bit by bit.

After the domestic sea transportation is opened, we can consider opening the sea in the true sense, establishing customs and foreign trade.

As long as there is money, the Ming Dynasty should be able to survive.

Perhaps some people think that there is no solution to the future crisis with silver but no food.

In fact, Wei Guangde, a half-baked history fan, or it is more accurate to say that he is illiterate in history, in his consciousness, because he still has the memory of later generations, he does not think that there is anything that cannot be done with money.

Are those foreign ships coming to China empty ships?

Or are they only carrying silver?

Fill them with food for me, and the food will be used to offset the tariffs. As long as the court has enough food for disaster relief, it is not afraid of frequent famines in various places and the displacement of disaster victims.

If there is food, they will not make trouble.

Given the nature of local officials in the Ming Dynasty, it is impossible to distribute all the relief food for disaster relief. All levels will withhold some. It is estimated that it is only to let the people below not starve to death, which is considered to be conscientious.

But it seems to be good this way. If they are full, they are afraid of making trouble.

Officials still need to be supervised, so more censors should be sent down, at least to ensure that people don't starve to death.

Wei Guangde's passionate performance first won the support of his fellow villagers. Lao Kan was the first to stand up, holding a wine glass in his hand and said to others: "Since you have said so much about charity, for the sake of the millions of people in Liaodong, I have written this memorial. I will write it when I go back tonight, and I will submit it to the Ministry of Transportation and Administration tomorrow morning."

As soon as the voice fell, he drank the wine in the glass.

Later, Zhu Dashou, Tao Dalin, Zhang Ke and others also stood up, saying the same words as Lao Kan, all supporting Wei Guangde.

In fact, everyone's official position is really not high now, and they have become shrewd after two years of experience in the officialdom, but Wei Guangde's performance still successfully conquered everyone.

Wei Guangde was right. At this time, speaking out to support the transportation of disaster relief food by sea is a kind act for the living, so why not do it?

If you don't even dare to say a true word, then what's the point of being an official?

Establish a heart for heaven and earth, establish a life for the people, inherit the lost knowledge of the past saints, and bring peace to the world.

This is the original voice of these officials, but after two years of immersion in the big dye vat of officialdom, it seems that they are no longer clean.

At this time, many people unconsciously have a feeling that for the livelihood of the people in Liaodong, they can write a letter to support the sea route to Liaodong, so that they can wash away the dirt on their bodies in the past two years, and they can also find their original intentions and become a white lotus that is not stained by mud again.

Soon, the atmosphere at the wine table was ignited again, and everyone stood up with a glass of wine, said a few bold words, and then drank the wine in the glass in one gulp