amaotonovel Chapter 841 How dare Yang the Madman raise the price?
Chapter 841 How dare Yang the Madman raise the price?
As Yang Shaofeng finished speaking, Zhu Biao stared straight at him.
After a long while, Zhu Biao sighed softly, "Brother-in-law, do you think it's possible that my younger brother is just not very smart, but not stupid either?"
Yang Shaofeng was slightly taken aback, and Zhu Biao continued, "If you say there is new grain overseas, I will not doubt it at all, nor will I argue with you."
"But if you say there are any high-yield grains overseas, then I'll have to argue with you about that."
Zhu Biao sighed slightly and said, "To find high-yield grains, we should first eliminate nomadic and hunting peoples, and focus on countries that rely on agriculture, right?"
"A country that is primarily agricultural will inevitably have a stable livelihood and become powerful as long as it has high grain yields."
"From the Qin and Han dynasties to the Tang and Song dynasties, has my brother-in-law ever read any relevant records in historical books?"
"Only the Western Qin was recorded in history books as having people who were all tall and well-proportioned, resembling those of China, but in the end, this Western Qin was no more."
The so-called Western Daqin refers to ancient Rome.
"Similar to China" is a very high compliment in the Han Dynasty, meaning that the ancient Romans were very similar to the Han people.
In contrast, Parthia, which proactively presented 20,000 Parthian cavalry to the Han envoy, was described by the Han envoy as having "a weak army."
Zhu Biao sighed again: "So, there may be new crop seeds overseas, and with careful cultivation, they may also yield high yields, but it is probably unrealistic to find high-yield seeds directly."
Faced with Zhu Biao's statement that "there are no high-yield crops overseas because there are no powerful countries there", Yang Shaofeng was momentarily at a loss for words to refute it.
Because the theory and logic behind this statement are not wrong.
Including corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava, these things didn't have very high yields at the beginning, and it was only after a lot of cultivation that they became high-yield crops.
Give the simplest example.
sweet potato.
This thing was introduced to China as early as the mid-to-late Ming Dynasty, but it was not until the reign of Emperor Ma Zi that it gradually became popular.
Was it because the emperors and peasants of the Ming Dynasty were too stupid to know that this thing was highly productive?
No.
This is because the newly introduced sweet potatoes did not have a very high yield, and they also had many drawbacks, such as causing stomach upset and flatulence if eaten in excess.
With the Ming Dynasty itself plagued by natural disasters and man-made calamities, no one dared to place all their bets on sweet potatoes.
By the time of the Pockmarked Years, the most severe phase of the Little Ice Age had passed, and years of war and massacres had greatly reduced the population. Even though sweet potatoes had not become a staple food, people could still barely survive by eating chaff and drinking thin gruel.
Tsk.
Even eating chaff and drinking thin gruel, they still managed to create a prosperous era.
In comparison, the father and son, Old Deng and his son, are clearly not good at deceiving people, and even the fourth son is much less so.
Both were fourth princes, but that fourth prince, despite signing the Treaty of Kyakhta, was wildly praised and almost hailed as a wise and benevolent ruler, a rare talent throughout history.
And look at this fourth prince, who led five expeditions to the northern deserts, seven voyages to the Western Ocean, and established the Old Port Pacification Commissioner's Office overseas, attracting countless tributary states, yet he was almost cursed to his face.
Oh, no, I should say they did point their fingers at me and insult me.
After all, they fabricated stories of skinning three thousand palace women alive and exterminating ten generations of their families.
Yang Shaofeng's thoughts gradually veered off course into all sorts of random directions, and he even began to consider whether to increase the efforts to buy laborers from the Koreans.
Zhu Biao was startled by Yang Shaofeng's unpredictable expression and whispered, "Did I misspoke?"
Yang Shaofeng snapped out of his reverie, shook his head slightly, and said, "Your Highness is right. I was just thinking about the story of oranges growing in the south and north of the Huai River, wondering what if some overseas grain, once brought back to our Great Ming, would become highly productive?"
Zhu Biao nodded blankly, then sensed something was off: "Brother-in-law just said he was going to trick Han Guogong, right?"
Yang Shaofeng nodded slightly, and Zhu Biao continued, "That's not right."
"The premise for my brother-in-law to cheat the Duke of Han is that he must stockpile enough grain to feed all the people of the Ming Dynasty for five years."
"Even if overseas crop seeds become highly productive in the Ming Dynasty, wouldn't it take several years to find, discover, bring back, cultivate, plant, and store them?"
"After so many years, the population of the Ming Dynasty may have grown to ten million."
"I always feel like something's not quite right."
It's like the chicken-and-egg problem.
My brother-in-law needs labor urgently, but the time required to cultivate high-yield crops is quite long.
More importantly, even though the Ming Dynasty's grain production was increasing, the number of people in the Ming Dynasty was also increasing.
Anyway, no matter how Zhu Biao thought about it, he felt that something was not quite right.
Yang Shaofeng glanced at Zhu Biao and said meaningfully, "Without these two fleets, it's normal that we wouldn't have enough food for five years in a short time."
"But even with these two fleets, we still won't have enough food to feed the people for five years. Wouldn't it have been a waste to build these two fleets?"
"Furthermore, I have heard that there is an island overseas that is covered with bird droppings that have been fermenting for who knows how many years, making it a first-class fertilizer."
Yang Shaofeng pointed in the direction of the fleet and said, "Let them take silk, porcelain, tea, and paper money to sea, exchange the silk, porcelain, and tea for gold and silver, use the paper money to buy back what our Great Ming needs, and bring back bird droppings along the way. It's a win-win situation."
Zhu Biao's eyes lit up immediately.
Understood.
As the saying goes, the real intention is not in the wine, and what the brother-in-law is trying to trick the Duke of Han this time is not the lack of manpower in Ningyang County and Dengzhou Prefecture at all.
Not right either.
To be precise, my brother-in-law never even considered the issue of five years' worth of food.
Instead, they wanted to use the two fleets to go to sea, dumping Ming Dynasty goods at high prices while bringing back foreign goods at low prices, using huge profits to prove the necessity of developing workshops.
To put it somewhat inappropriately, given the bandit-like nature of his own father and the Duke of Han and his ilk, once they see the benefits of dumping goods overseas, they'll probably be clamoring to develop their own workshops. If they don't have enough manpower, they might even dare to send the Duke of Wei and the Duke of E to arrest people.
Most importantly, they will definitely be clamoring to develop their fleet vigorously.
What's so special about Dengzhou having two fleets?
They dare to build ten or even a hundred such fleets!
Thinking of this, Zhu Biao could no longer sit still.
"Let's go, brother-in-law, hurry up and tell the Korean public."
Zhu Biao pulled Yang Shaofeng directly to Li Shanchang, grinning broadly, and said, "Prime Minister Li, my brother-in-law said he can get enough grain to feed all the people of the Ming Dynasty for five or even ten years. I just don't know if you can get enough laborers?"
Li Shanchang instinctively felt that something was wrong.
ten years?
Let alone ten years, just getting enough grain to feed the people of the Ming Dynasty for five years is already a pipe dream. How dare Yang the Madman raise the price to ten years?