Chapter 1314 Southern Expedition
"It's nothing to worry about. If you don't allow private casting, you won't be able to mint it. It's no big deal." Qin Lang said to Qin Lu, "We will not mint coins in Luzon from now on. You should quickly arrange for the Luzon coin minting supervisor to stop working here."
"Really just stop like this? Give it up to the court?"
Of course, Qin Lang was not so obedient. He asked Qin Lu to transfer the moulds, machines, and craftsmen in the Qianjian in Luzon to the Qin family's seven overseas concessions, Free Port, before the imperial court sent someone to take over. The Qin family already had small mints in these places to meet overseas needs.
Now the transfer is directly diverted to that side.
Luzon belongs to the territory of the Tang Dynasty, and must be under the jurisdiction of the imperial court, but these places overseas are not the territory of the Tang Dynasty. Those concessions are from the concessions of other countries in the name of the Qin family, not from the Luzon Metropolitan Government. They came from the nominal concession, so those properties belonging to overseas private individuals have nothing to do with the imperial court.
Qin Lang minted coins in those places, and the court naturally had no control over them.
"But in this way, we don't have so much copper material anymore."
The Qin family could cast three million coins a year before, and it cost tens of millions of catties of copper materials a year. Not all of these copper materials were produced by the Qin family. The copper was actually replaced by pig iron. The Qin family mined a lot of iron ore, but the most important thing was the amount of iron transferred by the imperial court and the accumulation of various scrap iron materials recycled.
According to the new system of the imperial court, even if the Qin family can transfer the minting industry overseas, but without sufficient copper materials, it will be impossible to mint millions of coins a year in the future.
"It's okay, take your time. Even if we don't get the gold, silver and copper materials from the imperial court in the future, we can continue to mine overseas and buy gold, silver, copper and iron through trade."
Even if the amount of coinage plummets, as long as you manage with your heart, you can still recover slowly, which is better than surrendering and giving the industry directly to the court.
"Since the imperial court has issued a new salt and iron mining and smelting policy, then we will gradually withdraw from the Central Plains mining and smelting industry and transfer to overseas development."
The imperial court wants to monopolize and control the mining and metallurgy industry, and you are allowed to mine, but all the minerals mined and smelted can only be sold to the imperial court officials. This is too domineering in Qin Lang's view. It is completely independent, and it will definitely become more and more difficult in the future It is better to transfer to overseas layout.
Anyway, the Qin family now has so many overseas colonies. Although they are not large, they will grow bigger and bigger as time goes by. When they go overseas to mine with slaves or hired natives, they don’t even have to pay mining taxes. Mining and smelting are directly processed and produced at the local mint.
"What about reserves?"
"All banks, bank accounts, etc. in Datang will pay reserve funds according to the new policy at that time, but overseas business does not need to do so."
As soon as Qin Lu rolled his eyes, he immediately understood the meaning behind the words. When the time comes, he can also transfer his business overseas to avoid supervision reasonably. Even if he can only avoid part of it, he can still recover part of the loss.
Zhang Chao was a little surprised by Qin Lang's compromise and concession, but he always supported Qin Lang's decision without reason.
"The imperial court has introduced so many new policies this time, what is it for?"
"Is the imperial court so short of money, with an annual income of over 100 million, is there still a shortage of money to spend?"
Qin Lu could guess some reasons.
"The conquest of Xiqi is still going on. The Xiqi clan is tougher than expected and can still fight, and now almost the whole clan of Mohe is against them, and they are unwilling to accept the imperial court's strategy of reforming the land and returning to the local people. I heard that the imperial court We are preparing to launch the third Eastern Expedition campaign, and this time we will mobilize 200,000 elite troops to attack, and the army will go out to fight, so the military expenditure will naturally be high."
"And I heard that there was another fight between the south and the west. The Jimi Nanman under the jurisdiction of the governor of Lishui, Yongchang Road in the southwest, fought with the vassal state of Pyu in the south. The king of that vassal state of Pyu was beheaded, and then Pyu The king gathered eighteen vassal states and more than 300 tribes, assembled hundreds of thousands of people, and marched northward to kill the governor of the Pyu state who had killed the king of the vassal state."
Yongchang Road is a road established by the imperial court in the west of the Lancang River. Except for a few fortresses and military cities, it is basically belonged to the various tribes of the Southern Barbarians attached to Jibi, such as gold teeth, embroidered clothes, black clothes and so on.
There are many tribes of barbarians, and some of them are feuds and often fight.
This time, it was a barbarian tribe under the Lishui Dudufu on Yongchang Road, fighting with a vassal state of Pyu. The two families were feuds. After receiving the training, he actually went all the way to the Wangzhai in that small country, and directly wiped out that guy who called himself a barbarian king.
Datang continued to expand to the south, and the name Lishui of Lishui Mansion was actually the Ayeyarwady River of later generations, and Anxi City, the residence of Lishui Dudu Mansion, was Menggong near Myitkyina of later generations.
The governor of Lishui is a general stationed by the imperial court. He was originally the general of the Tonghai Dudufu. After all, the task of the Lishui Governor's Mansion of the imperial court is to continue to develop southward. As early as many years ago, the imperial court had a plan to go all the way down the Lishui River to open up the Lishui Thousand-Li River Valley Plain, and finally directly into the sea, allowing the southwestern region In addition to the Red River, add another major artery.
The Lishui River Valley Plain has been coveted by the imperial court for a long time.
So the governors stationed in Lishui will make waves if there is no wind, not to mention the barbarian tribes who had feuds in the past, naturally they are all kinds of sowing dissension and fanning the flames.
Front generals always like to provoke frontiers, especially when they are powerful, so that they have the opportunity to make contributions.
But now the governor of Lishui is none other than Wang Xuance, the ruthless man who once went to Tianzhu alone, and then beat him into obedience.
This man's official career in the Kaiyuan Dynasty was not smooth, mainly because Li Shimin's death was related to the elixir of Monk Hu, and the elixir of Monk Hu was the medicinal material brought back from Tianzhu by Wang Xuance, so he was demoted in the end. Stayed in the Southwest for more than ten years.
Now he is still only the governor of Lishui. Outside the city of Anxi Army, there are barbarians. If you want to leave, you must have enough merits, otherwise Wang Xuance will only die of old age in this rainforest wilderness in this life.
Wang Xuance is still very capable. He has been in Lishui for many years. Originally there were only a few small strongholds here. Wu, the strength gradually became stronger, and even many barbarian tribes began to serve in the Tang Dynasty for military service and labor, and taxation became much more active.
Some rebellious barbarians before were also conquered or eliminated one by one by Wang Xuance. It was in this situation, when he felt that he was strong enough, and when he heard that the old king of Pyu had passed away due to illness and the new king was succeeding him, and there were some internal strife and discord, Wang Xuance provoked the border governor to go to the northern border of Pyu. The subordinate country launched a surprise attack, and he also provided a lot of weapons and equipment for the Tang army, allowing the governor to enter the barbarian king's stronghold in one go.
War has been waged.
The new king of the Pyu Kingdom was also eager to establish his prestige, so he summoned the tribes of the vassal states to go north. Wang Xuance could have saved the governor of Jimi, but he deliberately delayed the timing, and then the tribe was unlucky to be captured by the Pyu coalition forces.
Wang Xuance sent someone to take in the nephew of the tribal leader who had fled north, and then sent someone to question the king of Pyu.
Because the envoys sent were rude, and even put forward many unreasonable reasons, such as asking the king of Pyu to apologize, and even asking them to pay tribute to the Tang Dynasty, etc., the young Pyu king was so angry that he beheaded the envoy.
Now Wang Xuance can finally present a book to the imperial court.
Li Yin, the emperor in Luoyang City, after receiving Wang Xuance's urgent report, really decided to send troops to conquer the Pyu country. In fact, Li Yin had already planned to attack the Pyu country. Clear, but pretending not to know, taking the opportunity to follow the trend.
The war against Xiqi and Mohe in the north has not yet ended, but the emperor has already begun to ask the Privy Council to plan a conquest against Pyu.
The emperor made it very clear in the Privy Council that the use of troops this time was not to teach the southwestern barbarians who did not know the majesty of the heavenly kingdom, but to go down the Lishui River, leading directly to the sea, and laying another outlet for the southwest of the Tang Dynasty.
So this time, the emperor requested that at least 100,000 troops be dispatched to destroy the Pyu country and fight until it reaches the sea.
In a barren land like the Southwest, it is not easy to use troops, even on a large scale. However, the generals of the Privy Council felt that although the Pyu Kingdom had been powerful for hundreds of years, with the current status of the Tang Dynasty occupying the upper reaches, from the upper reaches of Lishui and the east. There is still a great chance of winning if troops are dispatched to the Nujiang and Lancang rivers.
After all, the Lishui River Valley is a rare valley plain, so I chose to send troops in the cool season, and fight safely. It will take three to five years, and I have enough time to conquer this wild land. Niu Jinda even proposed to send a navy to bypass the sea coast and attack the south coast of Pyu country, and then the north and south will attack by land and water.
Anyway, the emperor and the military of the Privy Council are ambitious, and there is a bold king Xuance who wants to make achievements and leave the wilderness. It can be said that the use of troops in the Southwest Pyu Kingdom is a certainty.
Such a war of annihilating the country, especially in the southwest barbarian land, the imperial court must make early preparations in terms of logistics supplies.
Transport the materials and weapons in the southeast to Tonghai through Jiaozhou and Honghe River, and then transfer them to Yongchang Lishui. In terms of supplies, it will be more difficult than the imperial court in Liaodong and the war in Korea.
But the will of the emperor cannot be violated, no matter how difficult it is, we must face it.
As long as there is enough money, mobilizing the forces of the military, civilians and merchants can solve the problem easily.
It was precisely under such heavy pressure that Prime Minister Ji undertook the introduction of the New Deal.
(end of this chapter)