At about three o'clock, Feng Yu, who had been sleeping for a nap, got up comfortably and ordered the old servant to serve a pot of tea.

Tea is the top tea sent from Huizhou, Jiangnan. Feng Yu has been an official in Haizhou and Huai'an for many years. He has been deeply involved in the foreign tea trade of the court and has a deep understanding of tea. Therefore, you can tell at a glance that the tea did not fool him and is indeed a top-quality product. I heard that the wealthy businessmen and gentry in England were all not very good. Although it is not a bad product, it is still a distance from the top-quality product. I really don't know what to say, it is a shameful thing!

But then again, these foreigners really can't taste the quality of tea. If they sell them good tea, they still think it's expensive. Therefore, important ports such as Xiangshui, Haizhou, and Rizhao, most of the tea exported from foreign countries are low-end products, such as brick tea. Occasionally, there are some top-quality and medium-quality products, and they are not very large in quantity, and they are unwilling to spend too much money to buy it. It's really strange.

Although Feng Yu liked drinking tea when he was young, he really reached the level of love, but after he became an official in Huai'an, the tea office in Haizhou was in charge of the Qing Dynasty tea trade. Feng Yu was also familiar with the officials in the yamen and was often invited to taste it. As for tasting, especially the tea tasted by the men in charge of this area, they are naturally the best among the best. To say something heart-wrenching, it may not be worse than the emperor's tea drinking, so Mr. Feng's love for tea has greatly deepened.

After being transferred to Fengtian as the prefect, because of his optimistic future, local officials in Haizhou would be very good, so they would send some top-level tea from time to time. Therefore, Lord Feng's life is indeed enjoyable. The only thing that is not going well is probably that the development of Fengtian Mansion is not satisfactory now.

Of course, this is not because the court is dissatisfied with Feng Yu. In fact, Lord Feng has high requirements for himself and is very eager to serve the country. He is just competing with himself. In fact, looking at all aspects of Fengtian Prefecture, it is actually good. The household registration has increased significantly, the grain output has continued to rise, and the task has been generally completed. Lord Feng also took the time to use the treasury silver to build some rivers, canals, etc. The local weather is actually pretty good. The Ministry of Personnel can definitely be judged as a middle-aged and upper-middle-level assessment.

But so what? These are actually "old policies", which are traditional affairs that every parent official has done for thousands of years. Doing well is not harmful to political achievements. If you don't do well, it is considered mediocre if you can hold on to death. It is difficult to beat the slap. Feng Yu actually doesn't pay much attention to these things. What he cares more about is whether the "new policies" are done well. This is also something the court attaches more and more importance to. Maybe it will be included in the performance evaluation system of officials in the future. Lord Feng is very concerned about.

The biggest new policy in Fengtian is naturally the arsenal. Fengtian Manufacturing Bureau is quite large in scale and ages, and can be traced back to the time when Taizu Taizong. Although many skilled craftsmen were drawn when they entered the pass, their foundation was still there and they continued to invest a lot of money in recent years. Therefore, it is still the top domestic ordnance manufacturing agency. However, Fengtian is the industry of the Ministry of Industry. Although the court also requires local assistance, it has little to do with their Fengtian Mansion, and it is not considered their political achievements. Therefore, what Feng Yu values ​​most is actually the local enterprises such as noodle mills, oil pressing factories, pot burning workshops, silk cloth factories, and foreign nail workshops that have gradually developed with the large-scale influx of Han people over the years.

The land outside the pass is fertile, with few people and more land, which means that the land is high and there is no too much exploitation relationship. People are very enthusiastic about agricultural production, so the grain output is getting higher every year. Fengtian Prefecture, three prefectures, six counties and one department, which place is not full of granaries? Even in Lushun, Yingkou ports were repaired and transported to Zhili and Shandong provinces by sea.

So much surplus grain naturally provides a very good foundation for the deep processing industry of grain. Therefore, all kinds of enterprises emerged like bamboo shoots after a rain. Especially in the past few years, the grassland wars were in the Fengtianwai to transfer a lot of grain to Mongolia. The business of these factories was very good, and they all made a lot of money. After Feng Yu took office, he asked the court to exempt some of the heavy taxes imposed when fighting with the East Coast people. The burden on these enterprises was lighter and developed even more rapidly.

As an official from the Han military flag, Feng Yu once advised local bannermen to run some industries. However, most of these people were Adou who could not help them. They would rather provide protection umbrellas for the Han people and collect dividends on the spot than do those "unmanly" jobs that are frivolous. Of course, the Eight Banners outside the Pass have not been too degenerate yet. These people are not idle every month. They go to the factory at the end of the month and show their faces to get money in the store. They often ride horses and shoot archers and practice skills. Sometimes they practice musket shooting. They are not particularly hardworking, but they must not be said to be lazy. They are just simply unwilling to farm and do business. They have neither the talent nor the mood, which disappoints Feng Yu.

Lord Feng has been paying close attention to domestic trends over the years and knows that many provinces are carrying out new policies and many businessmen who have become rich have emerged. There is no doubt that these people who are becoming rich are basically Han people, and most of the people who provide them with protective umbrellas are Han officials and generals. For example, Yuan Baodi, a coal businessman from the two northwest provinces, is a typical example.

This situation made Feng Yu very worried. He was a bannerman, and his ancestors were the personal soldiers of Fushun's prince Li Yongfang. He felt that he was superior and was very alert to the rise of Han officials. Especially now that the court has established new troops in eight towns. Except for the two towns formed by the children of the bannermen, the presidents of the other six towns are all Han people. This time, the conquest of Galdan, took many years, and the new army fought very well. It is almost inevitable to continue to train new troops in the future, which further helped to increase the power of Han military generals. If we contact the current trend of the capital city, the current capital city will be in a state of great success.

It’s even more amazing. Many clans are learning the Four Books and Five Classics. Some people also recite poems and write poems. Although in Feng Yu’s opinion, those liquor poems like “yellow dogs are white” are simply bullshit and some people even wear Han clothes, which is even more amazing. If we continue to develop, our Qing royal family intermarries with Han people and breaking the defense of Man and Han people is a natural thing. So how should these Manchus handle themselves? They are not as good as Han people in their studies and govern the country, and their engineering skills are not as good as foreigners. They are also impacted by Han people in leading troops in wars. This is simply a shake of the foundation of the country!

Actually, Feng Yu felt that the court was really in a dilemma now. The rise of Han power was unstoppable. This was the general trend. You either learn from the Jin Kingdom during the Southern Song Dynasty and actively integrate. The poems and articles written by the descendants of the Wanyan family were good, or they simply continued to suppress the rise of Han people in the system. Like now, the most dangerous thing is actually. Of course, with Feng Yu's original intention, he would rather see the court regain the defense of the Manchu and Han Chinese, suppress the Han power, and prevent the country from changing its color. But reason told him that this would not be possible!

In what era is now, the role of the heavy armored infantry and the cavalry-shooting team that the Eight Banners are proud of on the battlefield has been greatly weakened. Don’t believe it? Look at the battle with Galdan! People learn from the Russians, muskets, cannons and extremely fierce horses, and Tong Guogang could not resist it at once. More than 20,000 experienced Shaanxi-Gansu Green Camp and Eight Banners were wiped out. Later, the new army was still the one who turned the situation around. Of course, the Green Camp and Eight Banners gradually adapted, and their combat effectiveness also increased.

In the world, the old army has lagged behind the times, and the new army is the direction of the future. However, the consumption of the new army is also astonishingly large. This requires changing the domestic production system and increasing government revenue. In addition, the new army's tactics have severe casualties and injuries, and a steady stream of cannon fodder is needed to fill the war damage, which is something that the Eight Banners cannot afford. Therefore, the best way is to integrate like the Jin Kingdom and win over the Han gentry, so that we can survive the current situation where there are ups and downs in the south and yellow-clad thieves in the north. The pressure on the Qing Dynasty was great.

It is also based on this understanding that after coming to Fengtian Prefecture to serve, although Feng Yu did not like the Han people from the bottom of his heart, he actually supported them at the policy level. There is nothing else. Feng Yu was a loyal minister of the Qing Dynasty and was loyal to the Qing Dynasty. Everything was putting the interests of the emperor first.

But policy support is one thing. Whether the industrial economy can develop has many other factors. The biggest problem facing Fengtianfu now is that their industrial products are mainly deep-processed agricultural products. These deep-processed agricultural products mainly supply cities, and to be more precise, citizens in cities. Because they do not engage in agricultural production, they can only buy food in the market. However, the problem is that the number of main workers in the citizen class is not enough, that is, there are not enough people who do not farm to consume the food produced by these machines, which is very worrying.

There are only two ways to change this situation. One is to enter the external market and export grain to foreign countries. For example, Ningbo is a good market. However, people have their own raw grain suppliers, and there are also a large number of machine rice mills, flour mills, and Qing flour and rice are difficult to enter. The other is to expand the Qing Dynasty's own market and produce more workers to make these flour and rice available for sale. But this will undoubtedly greatly enhance the influence of the Han people and arouse opposition from the conservative nobles of Manchu and Mongolian countries, and the resistance is still great.

In fact, this is also the dilemma faced by the Qing Dynasty's new policy. Let's change, the more the Han people are, the more powerful they are. They open coal mines, set up yarn mills, and build machine factories. Their economic income has increased significantly, and their ability to make money is far greater than that of the Manchu and Mongolian princes and nobles who own large areas of land. Then they penetrated into the government level, causing their interests spokespersons to increase the power of Han civil officials. Not to mention, the proportion of Han military generals is also gradually increasing. The merger of civil and military officials is really a headache.

But it is not possible to change. The southern Shun Ni is also carrying out new policies, and the scale of various machine bureaus is quite large. If the Qing Dynasty lags behind in this regard, how can we fight in the future? You must know that if the new policy is not done well, the cost of the new army will remain high, and the maintenance cost of the old army will not be reduced. Even if the Qing population and land are far superior to Shun Ni, they will sooner or later be caught up. The agricultural country cannot defeat the industrial country, and the yellow-clothed thief's book has already explained this very clearly, and Feng Yu also deeply agrees.

It's really difficult, in a dilemma!
Chapter completed!