jdhmnovel Chapter 822 It's a good thing you, Li Shanchang, dare to think and speak!
Chapter 822 It's a good thing you, Li Shanchang, dare to think and speak!
Emperor Zhu was cursing and complaining in his heart about a certain good son-in-law, but as he was cursing, he suddenly thought of the seventy million taels of silver from Japan.
Damn it, I was so angry just now that I almost lost my train of thought.
Emperor Zhu turned his gaze to Li Shanchang and said, "We can discuss the matter of changing fiefdoms and the manpower shortage later. Let's focus on the seventy million taels of silver first."
Li Shanchang's mind was no longer on the seventy million taels of silver.
For Li Shanchang, signing fewer contracts like the Treaty of Gui Chou would mean a loss of 200 million taels of silver in principal for the national treasury, and an annual loss of 70 million taels of silver in interest.
This is outrageous... I'm so heartbroken I want to burst into tears. How dare you, Emperor Zhu, still be eyeing those seventy million taels of silver?
You loser!
While inwardly cursing Emperor Zhu as the number one spendthrift in the world, Li Shanchang said, "The waste... thanks to the Biden fleet, in the next three to five years, our Great Ming will have more than 70 million taels of military reparations coming in every year."
Emperor Zhu hummed in agreement, signaling Li Shanchang to continue.
Li Shanchang forced himself to calm down and barely suppressed the pain in his heart, saying, "I believe that since these 70 million taels of silver were not in the original plan, they should not be used in the many plans that were originally formulated."
"Compared to the original plans, it would be more reasonable to use the 70 million taels of silver on the Dengzhou Shipyard or to build more shipyards elsewhere."
"After all, a single Dengzhou fleet could bring back 200 million taels of silver in reparations, plus 70 million taels of silver in interest every year."
"If we had a few more fleets, wouldn't we be able to get back even more reparations and interest?"
"Even if it's not easy to manage in the short term, at least we can have these fleets patrol the seas to ensure the safety of our Ming Dynasty merchant ships."
As soon as Li Shanchang finished speaking, Liu Bowen jumped up and shouted, "Are you crazy?! That's seventy million strings of cash, not seventy thousand!"
A small boat with a capacity of 400 liang costs approximately 75 guan.
Even the largest treasure ship in the Dengzhou fleet cost only a little over two thousand strings of cash.
The entire Dengzhou fleet, consisting of two treasure ships and more than sixty warships and horse boats of various types, cost only about 100,000 strings of cash.
Use 70 million strings of cash to build ships?
It's all thanks to you, Li Shanchang, for daring to think and speak your mind!
Li Shanchang was slightly taken aback, then sighed heavily and bowed to Emperor Zhu, saying, "Your Majesty, all I can think about right now is the Dengzhou fleet and the 200 million taels of silver indemnity. So I've only been thinking about building more fleets to go to sea. Please forgive me, Your Majesty."
The Emperor Zhu nodded in agreement, feeling a sense of sympathy.
Who wouldn't be thinking about the 200 million taels of silver in reparations?
That's a whopping 200 million taels of silver!
With the Ming Dynasty's treasury so poor, it couldn't even save up 20 million taels, let alone 200 million taels.
Li Shanchang forced himself to calm down and bowed to Emperor Zhu, saying, "Your Majesty, it is certain that several more shipyards will be added. I believe that a shipyard can be added in the capital, Zhejiang, Fujian, and even Liaodong."
"Firstly, the benefits of maritime trade far exceed our original expectations."
"Secondly, by setting up more shipyards, more people can work and earn money in the shipyards."
"Thirdly, different shipyards can build different types of ships."
“Shipyards like Dengzhou Shipyard can specialize in building treasure ships, Beijing Shipyard can specialize in building ships for inland waterway navigation, Zhejiang Shipyard can specialize in building horse boats and watercraft, and Fujian and Liaodong Shipyards can specialize in building gunboats and warships.”
Emperor Zhu nodded, and Li Shanchang continued, "I estimate that two million taels would be enough to build these shipyards and even produce the first batch of ships."
At this point, Li Shanchang fell silent once again.
This is fucking wrong.
After deducting the two million taels, there are still sixty-eight million taels left?
So, how could an old man like me have a headache because he doesn't know how to spend his money?
No.
I need to think about this carefully.
In any case, these 70 million taels of silver must be arranged as soon as possible, and they must not be allowed to fall into the imperial treasury of Emperor Zhu.
Li Shanchang pondered for a moment, then suddenly a flash of inspiration struck him. He looked at Emperor Zhu and said, "Your Majesty, I have just thought of something."
Emperor Zhu said "Oh," and asked, "What has Mr. Shanchang thought of?"
Li Shanchang stroked his beard and smiled, "I thought of Your Highness, the Imperial Son-in-Law."
Although Yang Dianfeng was not a good person and never did anything decent, it has to be admitted that whether it was the harvester, or later the water press and steam engine, they were all inextricably linked to him, even if it could be said that he invented them.
Then the problem is coming.
How could Yang the Madman come up with so many good ideas?
It must be because Yang Dianfeng was educated.
Even if one out of 100,000 scholars can become a Yang Dianfeng, wouldn't there be ten Yang Dianfengs among a million scholars?
Give the simplest example.
In the second year of the Jiayou era of the Northern Song Dynasty, the imperial examination presided over by Ouyang Xiu produced many outstanding scholars, including Su Shi, Su Zhe, Zhang Zai, Cheng Hao, Cheng Yi, Zeng Gong, Zeng Bu, Lü Huiqing, Zhang Dun, Wang Shao, and Lü Dajun. Three of the Eight Great Masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties emerged from this examination, with Cheng Hao and Cheng Yi being the founders of Neo-Confucianism.
Why was that imperial examination so amazing?
Because the Song Dynasty was a time of great literary flourishing, there were so many scholars participating in the imperial examinations that they were selected from among thousands, even hundreds of thousands of candidates, so there were naturally no weaklings.
Yang Dianfeng was capable of governing a county or prefecture with his literary skills and stirring up the political storm in the court. He could also defeat Commander Xiang Fei in a few moves. He seemed quite formidable. But how did he compare to Xin Qiji, who "examined his sword by lamplight while drunk"? Or to Zhang Heng, the top scholar praised by Su Dongpo as having "the talent of Ziping, unmatched for a hundred years"?
Xin Qiji led fifty men and dared to storm the Jin army camp of fifty thousand men, captured a traitor named Zhang Anguo, and escorted him all the way to Lin'an to be beheaded in public.
Zhang Heng, who was not well-known for his literary works, was skilled in archery, defeating Liao Dynasty military officers in a contest, and was also capable of criticizing the Three Departments and the Prime Minister in court. He also presided over the revision of the "Yuanfeng Nine Regions Gazetteer".
There was also Yu Yunwen, whose fame was even less known, but the Battle of Caishi can be said to have extended the life of the Song Dynasty by more than a hundred years.
Who is weaker than Yang the Madman?
Most importantly, none of the students he, Yang the Madman, taught were any good people.
If they are allowed to continue causing trouble like this, the officials in the court might all have some connection with Yang the Madman.
Therefore, we should use these 70 million strings of cash to build schools, establish more community schools and county schools, cultivate more scholars, and also suppress the arrogance of Yang the Madman.
Li Shanchang stroked his beard and smiled, "I've been thinking about it. Your Highness the Imperial Son-in-Law has been vigorously promoting community schools and county schools in Ningyang County, and many talented people have emerged from Ningyang County. Your Highness the Imperial Son-in-Law has also been vigorously promoting community schools and county schools in Dengzhou Prefecture, and many talented people have emerged from Dengzhou Prefecture as well."
"It is a fact that other places are not as wealthy as Ningyang and Dengzhou, and it is also a fact that the development of community schools and county schools is slower."
"Now that we have these seventy million taels of silver, it is time to put them into running schools."
"To put it bluntly, it's a chicken-and-egg situation; the more schools there are, the more talented people there will be."
"Even if you only select one out of ten thousand scholars, you can still find ten talented individuals."