Gao Gong was a little impatient when he heard this. Li Chunfang was really causing trouble.

This time he didn't want to talk anymore, so he gave Zhang Juzheng a wink, and his uncle replied to him: "Yuan Weng misunderstood. The principle of 'river and sea are carried out at the same time, and the canal transportation is based on' will never change. We have never planned to give up the canal transportation. We are just planning to increase the strength of sea transportation, from the current two million stones to four million stones."

"The total number of canal transportation is only 4 million stones a year!" Li Chunfang felt like she was being fooled by two fools, and couldn't help but raise her tone.

"That's because the canal transport can only transport four million stones a year. If the rivers and seas are brought together, six million stones a year without increasing the burden on the people!" Gao Gong said tit-for-tat: "If you transport two million stones more, the north will be much better than that, and the court will do more things!"

"This is also impossible. This year, the Peach Blossom Flood, the Yellow River broke its dike again. The flood once again broke through the Wangjiakou area, from Shuanggou, broke more than ten places in the north and south, and the river was silted for more than 800 miles, and more than 100 ships were drifted over, losing more than 40,000 stones of grain." Bugu continued to sigh:

"The canal transport that was restored last fall has been cut off again now, and I don't know when it will be completed again."

~~

The violent dragon of the Yellow River is obviously not so easy to tame. Even if Pan Jishi had too many magic weapons like cement, he still could not succeed in one battle. In fact, the most dangerous area of ​​Gaojiayan has withstood the test of floods because of the use of a concrete embankment.

However, the cement production is limited, and there are still long earth dikes that need to be replaced for several years. The place where the dam is broken is the earth dike that has not yet been rebuilt...

However, the government and the public have completely lost patience with the repeated restructuring of the Yellow River. The officials have tilted all their anger that has been accumulated for many years to the river Prime Minister Pan Jixun.

Gao Ge Lao also strongly accused Pan Ji of making mistakes in protecting transportation, causing huge losses. He strongly asked him to immediately give up the current Yellow River control plan, ignore the Yellow River for the first time, and make every effort to start the River to protect the water transportation.

As mentioned earlier, in order to solve the chronic disease of the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal being often broken due to yellowing, there are three solutions in the court - opening the Jiaolai River, opening the Qing River, and restoring the old path of the Yellow River.

The Jiaolai River plan has been on-site survey the year before yesterday and was killed, so there are only two left now. Gao Gong is the supporter of Kai Yue River, while Pan Jixun is a firm supporter of the latter plan.

Gao Gong believes that the Yellow River has broken its dam again, which proves that Pan Jixun’s method is not good, so he still has to open the River of Yu - from Xiazhen through Taierzhuang to Pizhou, he built a 260-mile canal, which can enable the Grand Canal to "avoid the dangers of the Yellow River" and achieve smooth operation.

So he wrote a letter to Pan Jixun with great enthusiasm, hoping that he would start planning the opening of the River Project according to his own wishes, adding another highlight to his brilliant achievements.

Pan Jixun received the letter, but refused to cooperate and said bluntly that the river embankment was repaired without any problem. The dam was broken because it was not repaired enough. We should increase efforts and continue to repair the river embankment. How can we give up halfway? Moreover, the huge amount of money spent on the river embankment. Once it is completed, it will cause the court to completely abandon the Yellow River and let it flood. What should the millions of people along the Yellow River do? It will eventually lead to a huge disaster!

Seeing that he had made a big mistake and refused to repent, Gaoge Lao couldn't help but be furious and planned to order Pan Ji to live in vain, and Zhu Heng, the Minister of Works, was fully responsible for the digging of the river.

Zhu Heng told Gao Gong that he also agreed to digging the river. But he calculated a few years ago that this project would cost at least one million taels of silver and two hundred thousand people, and it took three years to work.

Moreover, before completion, the canal transportation will be completely cut off.

~~

Gao Gong then asked Ge Shouli, the Minister of Revenue, to ask.

During the early years of Longqing, the court was full of cemeteries, and Ge Shouli, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, was unmoved. At that time, the subordinates of the Ministry of Revenue wanted to imitate each department and jointly impeach Gao Gong, but no matter how the two ministers Xu Yangzheng and Ma Ziqiang persuaded him, Ge Shouli still refused to sign the memorial.

In the end, the two had to have his name empty, and handed a white-headed sparse that made people laugh. After Gao Gong stepped down in dismay, Ge Shouli, who knew that he would be attacked by Xu's party, begged for his mother to return. After Gao Gong returned, he immediately kicked away Ma Sen, the Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, and regained him the original official.

With this relationship, Gao Gong naturally attracted him as his confidant. Ge Shouli had no taboos in speaking. He told Gao Gong that, first of all, the Ministry of Revenue had no money and had to find a way to raise money for himself to open the river. Furthermore, the canal transportation yamen was shut down for a year, and the whole country had already complained. If they were to suspend the transportation for another three years, they would have to rebel.

Of course Gao Gong knew that things were difficult to handle. Because all the easy things were done, Xu Jie and Li Chunfang had already completed them, so the rest were naturally hard to crack.

He asked Ge Shouli if there was any solution, but Ge Shouli answered the question and told him that last winter, the emperor did not ask Taicang for money.

Gao Gong was shocked. Because the palace expenses were extremely expensive, it was originally supported by the Huangzhuang and Huangshang, and it still had to allocate hundreds of thousands of taels from Taicang every year for use.

He knew that in recent years, Concubine Li's mother's family had taken away the operating rights of the Huangzhuang and Huang Store from the eldest princess. Unfortunately, Wuqing Bo Li Wei and his son were idiots who knew how to make money. How could they support most of the cost in the palace like before?

"Where did the money come from in the palace?" He whispered in the day-valuation room.

"Royal shipping." Ge Shouli told him that the royal shipping dividends were distributed in the New Year, and the palace received a total of 800,000 taels, which was twice the amount allocated to the treasury in previous years.

"So much?" Gao Gong sucked in the air conditioner.

"In the palace, it only accounts for 10% of the shares of Royal Shipping." Ge Shouli was also unbelievable, but in the Royal Shipping Supervisory Board, a Wailang, a member of the Ministry of Revenue, served as the supervisor, who supervised the shipping of grain on behalf of the court.

As he said that, he presented a Royal Shipping annual report to Gao Gong for browsing.

The annual report is simple and easy to understand, and it only lists the main financial data of Royal Shipping, shareholder situations, and some important matters that should be reported to shareholders. It will not be as numerous as in later generations.

But even if you look at the leopard in the trap, Gao Gong was shocked. He didn't expect that the royal shipping fee was only four buckets of freight per stone, and half of it was collected for the Cao Transportation Office. He actually made a profit of 8 million taels a year!

"Is this too scary?" Gao Ge Lao was shocked. The Taicang silver that has been released nationwide in one year is only 4 million taels...

Of course, this is not to say that the Ming Dynasty only had four million taels of tax revenue a year. It is because Emperor Taizu lacked economic knowledge and used his simple old peasant thinking to formulate a financial and tax system for the Ming Dynasty that was extremely stupid and harming the country and the people. Since the fact that it was mainly based on physical tax revenue at that time, Lao Zhu felt that it was a waste to transfer the collected grain cloths and the like from the local area to the capital, and then transport them from the capital to the border and provincial garrisons.

It is better to directly transfer it from various prefectures and counties to nearby garrisons, royal palaces, superior yamen and other units that eat financial meals, so that you can greatly save shipping costs and reduce the burden on the people. Wow, I am such a genius! It’s decided to be the ancestor forever, and it will not be easy forever!

It is controlled by the Ministry of Revenue, which only provides taxes for the capital and the Jiubian, less than 12% of the national fiscal revenue. If the local government does not need to "go to the Ministry to make money", it will naturally not be over the court. The court is so poor that it is naturally not fartable...

Although Gao Gong did not understand what "the economic foundation determines the superstructure", he knew very well that it would never be possible for the imperial court to have no money.

He asked in his heart, "How did they make so much money?"

"This is written very clearly." Ge Shouli pointed to the annual report: "First, self-operated sea freight trade, which accounts for 70% of the business. Second, the freight income for shipping goods for merchants, which accounts for 30% of the business."

"Hiss, it's really profitable..." Gao Gong sucked in air conditioning, and asked in confusion: "Why didn't the canal transportation make money before?"

"Who said that the canal transportation is not profitable? It just fell into the canal transportation group's bag." Ge Shouli sneered: "They transport four million stones of grain every year, and they have to collect more than 10 million stones of freight. How much can they be greedy here? Furthermore, the court complies with the difficulties of the canal train and stipulates that they can carry goods when they return without taxation as a subsidy. According to regulations, a canal train ship has 400 materials, but the canal trains have been privately expanded, and each ship can carry thousands of materials. The extra six hundred materials are used to transport goods by themselves. How much is this income?"

"However, the canal transport is definitely profitable, but it is certain." Ge Shouli changed his tone and said: "The canal ships are always on the inland river. There are too many checkpoints along the way, and too many peeling layers. There are too many canals for fibre-pulling ships, and this expense is indeed huge. Furthermore, the canal transport is too slow and the time is too long. The things that can be transported are always limited, and the decay and loss are also huge. Third, the sea transport can be sold overseas, and this profit is the big deal!"

"What do you mean?" Gao Gong asked with his beard closed and frowned.

"Change all the canal transport into sea transport." Then Ge Shouli said in a deep voice: "The Royal Shipping has been in operation for two years, and all the routines are very mature. We just need to take medicine according to the prescription - first build the fleet in the name of transporting grain, and then run freight, and finally sell it overseas! We don't have much request, we can earn 4 million taels a year, right?"

"Well, I think it's okay!" Gao Gong nodded slowly, his throat trembled slightly, as if he was swallowing. What is the biggest difficulty in the Ming Dynasty now? No money!

A penny stumped the hero, and poverty restricted the old man's hands and made him unable to do many things.

If Taicang Sui can double the amount, wouldn’t all the problems be solved?

"The only problem is that the money needs to be entered into Taicang." Ge Shouli finally emphasized: "If I were busy for a long time and still made wedding clothes for others, I would never offend those of the shipping group."

As he said that, he shivered and said, "If you really want to do it, you have to let the Jinyiwei protect me day and night, otherwise I will be afraid of death."

Gao Gong didn't listen to his last words, and he was in trouble. If the money was to be in Taicang, the fleet must be run by the Ministry of Revenue. Hundreds of thousands of people from the canal transportation yamen drank the northwest wind?

How could it be possible to agree?

But Ge Shouli said it was correct. If it was handed over to the Cao Transportation Office, Taicang's income would inevitably drop sharply, and it would become a wedding dress for the Cao Transportation Office. Not to mention Ge Shouli, Gao Gong was unwilling to stab the Royal Marine Hood's nest for those Nanjing nobles.
Chapter completed!