Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

Xia Yuanji opened this year's tax booklet, his brows furrowing into a deep frown.

The figures in the booklet were written clearly. The customs duties levied by the Maritime Trade Office were beyond imagination.

Merchant ships from the Eastern Song Dynasty docked one after another, bringing cotton cloth, sugar, spices, porcelain, glass mirrors, and pocket watches—each item was subject to taxation, and the tax revenue flowed into the national treasury.

It looks beautiful.

He turned to the next page of the booklet. The cloth tax in Songjiang Prefecture was 60% less this year than last year. Suzhou Prefecture, 50% less. Hangzhou Prefecture, 40% less. Jiaxing, Huzhou, Changzhou—all were down, a sea of ​​red.

But all things considered, the Ming Dynasty's national treasury not only did not suffer a loss, but actually made a huge profit.

Makes a killing.

Xia Yuanji went over the word in his mind again. He had worked in the Ministry of Revenue for twenty years, and this was the first time he had seen the words "making a killing" when the tax revenue had been halved.

I made money, but something just didn't feel right.

The door was pushed open. Liang Wenju, the person in charge, walked in carrying a cup of tea. When he saw the Minister's expression, he paused.

"Minister, tea."

Xia Yuanji took the teacup but didn't drink it. He placed the teacup on the table and his gaze returned to the booklet.

"Old Liang, let me ask you something," he said, "how much did a shi (a unit of dry measure) of rice cost last year?"

Liang Wenju thought for a moment: "Around five qian of silver."

"What about this year?"

Liang Wenju lowered his voice: "Six qian."

"It went up by one coin." Xia Yuanji nodded. "It's alright, not too outrageous."

Liang Wenju breathed a sigh of relief.

"Do you know how this amount of money went up?" Xia Yuanji asked again.

Liang Wenju's breath hitched again.

"Because...because there's less silver in the market?"

"Why is there less silver?"

Merchants in the Eastern Song Dynasty only accepted silver, not paper money.

Xia Yuanji turned around and looked at him.

"Go on."

Liang Wenju licked his lips: "Merchants in the Eastern Song Dynasty only wanted silver to sell their goods. Merchants in our Great Ming Dynasty, however, had to exchange their paper money for silver first. The more silver they exchanged, the less silver they had, while their paper money accumulated. When paper money became plentiful, it lost its value, and when it became worthless, they couldn't buy anything. When they couldn't buy anything, prices rose. And when prices rose, the paper money in the hands of ordinary people became even less valuable—"

He paused for a moment.

"—It formed a circle."

"Okay." Xia Yuanji nodded. "Well said."

Xia Yuanji sat back down at the table, spread out a blank memorial, and picked up his pen.

A moment later, Xia Yuanji pushed the memorial in front of Liang Wenju. Liang Wenju glanced down and saw that the memorial contained only one line of text, the handwriting neat and strong, penetrating the paper:

"Silver is flowing out like blood is leaking. If this continues, the country will be bloodless."

Xia Yuanji glanced down at his official robes. Officials in the Ming Dynasty were paid in paper money. Even a third-rank official's salary, converted to silver, wasn't exactly generous. Now, even that meager amount of silver was shrinking. He calculated that, at this rate, in two years, his monthly salary would probably only be enough to buy a basket of eggs—if egg prices didn't rise.

After thinking for a moment, Xia Yuanji put the memorial away.

The extra revenue from last year's national treasury has already been invested in the northern garrisons. If Song goods are banned now, where will the Ministry of Revenue get the silver to maintain those newly built garrisons?

Whoever raises the question should solve it.

There are plenty of smart people in the Ming Dynasty; he has no need to charge into battle.

Thinking this, Xia Yuanji took out another memorial, which did not discuss state affairs but only personal matters.

"Could my salary be paid in silver? Even half of it would be fine. Thirty percent would also be acceptable. I am not picky."

"Minister, will His Majesty approve this?"

"Never mind, let's just send it up first."

. . .

the next day.

The Fengtian Hall was packed with people.

Zhu Di sat on the dragon throne, looking down at the sea of ​​heads below.

"We'll discuss only one matter today," he began, "Song Dynasty goods."

The moment those two words were uttered, the atmosphere in the hall changed instantly.

Chen Ying, standing in the front row, had a sudden flash of interest, like a hunting dog smelling a rabbit.

Standing in the corner, Zheng Ci began to wipe his sweat with a handkerchief—he hadn't even started speaking yet, and the sweat was already pouring down his face.

Although he didn't know why he was sweating.

Zhu Di leaned back on the dragon throne and shifted to a more comfortable position.

Who wants to speak first?

Chen Ying darted out in a single stride. His speed was so great that anyone who didn't know better would have mistaken him for a military general.

"Your Majesty! I have a memorial to present!"

Zhu Di raised his chin: "Present your report."

Chen Ying took a deep breath, flicked her sleeves, and struck a very imposing pose.

"My proposal can be summed up in twelve words: Ban the seas! Burn Song goods! Expel Song merchants! Leave no one alive!"

A chorus of agreement arose in the hall. Several censors nodded repeatedly, like a row of chickens pecking at rice.

"Your Majesty, please look—" Chen Ying turned around and pointed outside the hall, "The weavers in Songjiang Prefecture are starving! Half of the cloth shops in Suzhou have closed down! Seventy percent of the dye houses in Hangzhou have gone out of business! This is all the fault of the Song Dynasty goods! I heard that there is an old weaver in Songjiang, whose craft has been passed down for three generations, but now he can't sell a single piece of cloth and sits in his empty shop every day counting flies!"

"Your Majesty! If this is not stopped soon, in ten years, the people of the Ming Dynasty will be wearing Song Dynasty cloth, looking in Song Dynasty mirrors, carrying Song Dynasty watches, and spending Song Dynasty money! At that time—I dare ask—will the Ming Dynasty still be the Ming Dynasty?"

The hall was silent for a moment, then a chorus of agreement erupted.

Chen Ying raised her head and retreated back into the ranks, her face filled with the satisfaction of "I just saved the Ming Dynasty".

Zhu Di looked at Xia Yuanji.

Xia Yuanji stepped forward.

He didn't have Chen Ying's "I'm going to yell at people" attitude. He slowly took out a piece of paper from his sleeve, slowly unfolded it, and slowly began to speak.

"Your Majesty, I have also done the math."

"What are you calculating?"

"This year's maritime trade revenue has greatly increased the national treasury's income, and that money has supported the soldiers of the three garrisons in the north." He turned a page of the paper. "If the sea is banned, these tariffs will disappear. Without these tariffs, where will the soldiers' salaries come from?"

Chen Ying couldn't help but interject, "Then raise taxes! Make the people pay more—"

He will bear the blame for the suffering of the people.

"Imperial Censor Chen," Xia Yuanji turned to look at him, his expression as if he were looking at a genius who had uttered the famous "Why don't they eat meat porridge?", "the people have already paid too much. The price of rice has risen from five qian to six qian. If you raise taxes again, are you planning to make the people eat dirt?"

Chen Ying opened her mouth.

Xia Yuanji didn't give him a chance to retort: ​​"My proposal is to increase taxes on Song goods. Aren't Song cloth cheap? Let's make it expensive. When it's as expensive as Songjiang cloth, the people will naturally go back to buying Songjiang cloth. The extra taxes can be used to help unemployed weavers, to support the army, and to repair the river. It's a win-win-win situation."

"What if the Song merchant refuses to sell?" someone asked.

Xia Yuanji glanced at the man: "Are they really willing to sell? They're even more greedy for Ming Dynasty silver than we are."

Someone in the hall laughed out loud, but quickly suppressed it.

Zhu Di looked at Zheng Ci. Zheng Ci was wiping his sweat for the third time.

"Zheng Ci".

When Zheng Ci stepped forward, his steps were unsteady, as if he were walking on cotton.

His greatest skill in life was saying "I second that" after everyone else had finished speaking, but in this situation, saying "I second that" would obviously not be enough to get by.

"Your Majesty, I...I have an idea." He stammered, "The Song people's cloth was so good because their looms were so good. I was thinking...could we...well...learn from them?"

"What should I study?" Zhu Di asked.

"Learn their... skills."

Zhu Di's expression was rather unpleasant. Did he not want to learn?

But Chen Ying exploded at this moment.

"Learn?!" Chen Ying's voice cracked. "Minister Zheng! You're the Minister of Rites! The Minister of Rites says we should learn the skills of barbarians? What about the classics you've been studying? Confucius said, 'To attack heresies is to cause harm!'"

"No, I mean—"

"You learn their skills, and the next step is to learn their systems? And the next step is to wear their clothes, speak their language, and worship their gods? Minister Zheng, you are destroying the very fabric of our Ming Dynasty!"

Zheng Ci's face changed from white to red, from red to purple, and from purple to green.

"I...I'm not..."

"What do you mean, 'what the hell'?!" Chen Ying swung her sleeve, nearly hitting Zheng Ci's nose. "Minister Zheng, I advise you to go home and read the *Spring and Autumn Annals*, and see what the distinction between Chinese and barbarians really means!"

Zheng Ci really wanted to say, "Where do you get the nerve to call the Song people barbarians?"

But after thinking about the investigation the Embroidered Uniform Guard had conducted on him, he decided to let it go.

Don't let yourself be labeled a traitor.

Zheng Ci shrank back into the ranks, like a quail soaked through by the rain. He took out his handkerchief and began wiping his sweat for the fourth time. The handkerchief was already soaked through.

Just then, a voice came from the back of the hall.

"Your Majesty, I have something to say."

Everyone turned to look. A young man stepped out from the very end of the civil officials' procession. His seventh-rank official robes were the most inconspicuous kind in the hall—a sneeze from the official in front of him could easily drown him out. He walked to the center of the hall and bowed. His movements were slow, but steady.

Zhu Di looked at him.

"Your subject is Yang Shiqi, a compiler at the Hanlin Academy."

Zhu Di raised an eyebrow. "Speak."

Yang Shiqi took a book out of his sleeve.

The book was wrapped in oiled paper; when it was opened, the cover was revealed—"The Wealth of Nations".

Paper from the Song Dynasty, ink from the Song Dynasty, calligraphy from the Song Dynasty.

"Your Majesty, I would like to ask Imperial Censor Chen a question."

Chen Ying looked at him warily: "Ask away."

Was gunpowder invented by the Han Chinese?

Chen Ying puffed out her chest: "Of course!"

Was the compass invented by the Han Chinese?

"Of course!"

"Then I don't understand," Yang Shiqi tilted his head. "Using the same gunpowder, our cannons can only fire at 500 meters, while the Song cannons can fire at 3,500 meters. Using the same compass, our ships can only navigate near the coast, while the Song ships can cross the ocean. Imperial Censor Chen, tell me—what's the difference?"

Chen Ying opened his mouth. All eyes in the hall were on him.

"The problem is...the problem is..."

"The problem lies in the system," Yang Shiqi said for him.

The hall was completely silent.

Many people began to quietly distance themselves from Yang Shiqi.

Yang Shiqi opened the book "The Wealth of Nations": "This book says that the reason why the Song people were rich was not because the government had a lot of silver in its treasury, but because the people could freely buy and sell, freely set up factories, and freely hire workers. Whoever wove the best cloth made money, and whoever built the fastest ships made money. Are the craftsmen of our Great Ming Dynasty less skilled than the Song people? No. What they lack is—freedom, which is what we often call benevolence."

"The imperial court should not exert too much control over the people; only in this way can the vitality of the people be unleashed."

He closed the book and looked up.

"Your Majesty, it is better to learn from their governance than their skills."

The hall was deathly silent. Chen Ying's face had turned a deep purplish-red. Zheng Ci's hand, which was wiping sweat, froze in mid-air, but his eyes lit up.

Zhu Di sat on the dragon throne, expressionless. He stared at Yang Shiqi for a long time.

Does anyone agree with what Yang Shiqi said?

The hall was completely silent. Some officials were itching to make a move, but were stopped by their colleagues.

Even when the Crown Prince tried to explain for Yang Shiqi, Zhu Di glared at him and shut him up.

"Dismiss the court."

The next day, Yang Shiqi left Yingtian overnight.

In the Ming Dynasty, the exceptionally talented Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang had already constructed a perfect framework for the dynasty.

It was a static society where "everyone stayed in their own profession and nothing changed from generation to generation".

In the early Ming Dynasty, the policy of "registering by occupation" was implemented, which tied occupations such as generals, civilians, artisans, and stove makers to household registration, requiring them to be inherited through generations and not to be changed arbitrarily.

Yang Shiqi's talk of freedom undoubtedly crossed the line.

Naturally, he no longer had a place in the Ming Dynasty.

. . . .

The Imperial Study.

Zhu Di summoned the Song envoy and got straight to the point: "I can open all the ports of the Ming Dynasty, and Song goods can be sold in every prefecture and county of my territory. I have only one condition—to set up a factory in Yingtian Prefecture and train my craftsmen to build your machines."

"Otherwise, as you have seen, the people of the Ming Dynasty have a lot of complaints about your goods."

The Song envoy did not answer immediately. He took a sip of tea and said, "Your Majesty, this matter is beyond the authority of a foreign subject. It must be reported to Xinxiang."

Zhu Di stared at him: "I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the Song Dynasty. Go tell your emperor—the Ming Dynasty has fifty million people. Is this market worth a machine?"

He wanted the machines of the Song people; he didn't need to learn their systems at all.

Of course, there's no need to steal their techniques.