"There is not much time left.√∟" Shao Shude put down the letter paper and said with a complicated expression. This is a private message written to him by the Chairman of the Executive Committee Liu Weimin. The general meaning of the letter was that the question of Shao Shude's stay and whether to stay will be discussed and decided after the new executive committee team took office in 1654. Before that, Shao Shude will continue to remain in the Heishui area and control the overall situation.

Although he didn't have to leave immediately, Shao Shude estimated that he would stay in the Far East until no later than 1655, which means that he would continue to rule here for about two years at most. As soon as the new helmsman of the Far East arrived, he would leave his post and return home. Before him, Yang Mingyang, Zhang Xudong, Li Wenchang and others who had served in the Far East for many years had returned to China, and the new replacement candidates had arrived in Shandong. The Executive Committee's determination to rotate military and political officials in the Far East was quite strong. Shao Shude estimated that the next person to be rotated may be Liu Haiyang, commander of the Southern War Zone and commander-in-chief of the Hei Water Temporary Task Force, and as for his nominal deputy Wei Boqiu, since this person came to the Far East for a sacrificial nature, he was probably going to be some more years.

Because time is running out, Shao Shude is particularly unwilling to launch another war that cannot be ended during his term of office, such as an attack on the coastal areas of Japan - a war that is likely to be unable to be completed in a short period of time. Let's wait until the new leader of the Far East is in place.

However, not moving Japan now does not mean that they are not moving anywhere else. At the request of the commander-in-chief of the Army, Mao Desheng, Shao Shude is now particularly interested in moving Korea. As for excuses, it is all ready-made. North Korea sends musketeers to join the Qing army's battle sequence and fight with our Great East Coast in the Heilongjiang River Basin. This is a serious crime, a serious crime that can be punished!

Of course. Any military action must have benefits, whether it is short-term or long-term, or political or economic interests, it must have benefits, otherwise it is better not to fight this battle. The interests of fighting North Korea are ready-made. First, it is political interests. Through a military strike against North Korea, the separation between this country that does not look down on the Qing Dynasty and the "Qing Dynasty" can be further weakened; second, it is economic interests. This is also the information obtained after continuous investigation and collection of "King-Kyu" in Busan over the past two years.

According to Jinwu Kyu's report, since the end of the war with the Later Jin Dynasty, North Korea's economic development has improved in recent years. For example, according to public information from North Korea, the number of cultivated land in the country has been close to the state before the 1592 war. Currently, there are about 1.3 million yuan (North Korean land units). In addition to tax-free fields, Chentian (i.e., desert fields) and disaster-stricken fields that were exempted from money and food that year, the average tax payment land is about 700,000 yuan. The production order is hundreds of times better than the collapsed Ionchen War and the Invasion of the Later Jin in 1636, and the population has also been restored to a certain extent.

After the increase in population and land reclamation, North Korea's agricultural technology has also steadily improved. For example, the seedling transfer method that appeared in the 15th century has been promoted in many government agencies in North Korea since 1650. Both the yield and quality of rice have been improved to varying degrees. There is no doubt that North Korean farmers are extremely hardworking. The agricultural technology is also extremely superb (the cold-resistant rice seeds that can be planted in the Northeast in later generations were cultivated by farmers in the Kingdom of Korea). Therefore, North Korea's grain production has also been steadily restored in recent years. In fact, some areas that lack silver due to the implementation of the "Datong Law" have also exported rice to Busan through various secret channels, and exchanged silver from the people of the East Coast.

The scale of this kind of grain transaction has reached more than 12,000 stones per year, and there is a possibility of continuous increase. This is a great blessing for the grain reserves of the East Coast people. Originally, they occupied Ningbo Prefecture and developed stably for several years, the food gap has been greatly alleviated. Now with North Korea's grain supplement, they are even more at ease. As for some money to buy grain, that's a big deal. There are some in the vaults in Dabo County! If not, believe it or not, I'll go to Australia to dig gold mines for you?

What's even better is that after Emperor Xiaozong Li Yu ascended the throne (in 1649), the "Datong Law" strongly promoted by the leadership of the government (equivalent to the prime minister) gradually became the mainstream tax method in various fields of North Korea. The Datong Law changed the tax method of collecting grain and rice in the past, which had many disadvantages of physical objects such as regular cloth (cloth size, 35 feet of 5 liters of cotton), charcoal, agricultural products, etc., and established a new tax system that unified 10-16 buckets of rice per land (because the number of land in each county is different in size). If there is no sufficient amount of rice to pay tax, you can also pay the money. The implementation of this new tax system undoubtedly greatly activated the commodity economy, pushed a large amount of rice to the market, and at the same time liberated a large number of handicraftsmen and merchants to engage in various industrial activities to prosper the market.

The formation of such a situation is naturally delighted by the people of the East Coast, because they have huge amounts of silver on hand and have nowhere to spend it. It is best to use it to exchange it for food. The only problem now is probably that due to the existence of conservative forces within North Korea, the scale of this private grain trade has not been effectively expanded. Even at some special moments, North Korean bureaucrats will order a ban on this kind of trade, which has always made Kingo Kyu of Busan very annoyed: North Korea's grain production has been mobilized, but you actually banned trade. How can you tolerate it?

In addition to grain production, the cultivation of tobacco, pepper and pumpkin introduced to Korea from Japan during the Imperial War also developed rapidly in recent decades. Especially tobacco, in the 1630s, Korean tobacco began to be introduced into Shenyang in large quantities. The proportion of smokers in the Later Jin regime was extremely high, so in 1638, Huang Taiji ordered a ban on smoking to reduce the outflow of money, and at the same time ordered North Korea to ban tobacco exports.

After North Korea banned the export of tobacco, it did not ban the planting, because the proportion of smoking among North Koreans was quite large. Therefore, the cultivation of tobacco was quickly popularized in Jeolla Province, Chungcheong Province, Gangwon Province, Ganggi Province and other places. While supplying its own consumption, it continued to secretly import it into China to earn money.

Peppers, pumpkins, and tomatoes (introduced from China and called "Nanman Persimmons" by the North Koreans) also developed rapidly after being introduced to North Korea, and the current planting area is quite large. Shao Shude privately believed that these agricultural products were urgently needed by people on the East Coast, and they can also be used to balance the possible future trade surplus. However, this first requires the East Coast government to have a strong influence and deterrent force on North Korea, otherwise it will be difficult to achieve a comprehensive trade level.

Of course, the best commodity North Korea uses to balance its trade deficit is mountain ginseng. This traditional export commodity in North Korea has always been their money-making household. The price of wild old ginseng starts from hundreds of taels of silver, and it is no longer a cap, which is no different from grabbing money. Some people may say that as North Korea's population increases day by day (the population is still gradually increasing during the Little Ice Age...), the area of ​​"fire fields" (i.e. the original wilderness) is constantly increasing, wild old ginseng should be less and less, but why is North Korea's business becoming more and more prosperous?

The answer lies in artificial cultivation. The Koreans actually started to cultivate ginseng artificially since a long time ago. In addition to traditional ginseng production areas such as Gangwon and Hamkyung, the Koreans cultivated artificial ginseng in the Kaesong area of ​​Gyeonggi Province, and then processed and steamed to make red ginseng and imported into China in large quantities. After the 1620s, Kaesong has become the main production area of ​​Korean ginseng, and the annual trade volume is so huge that it is shocking.

To be honest, the report sent by Jinwu Kyu to Yantai gave Shao Shude a new understanding of North Korea. He used to think that this feudal country with millions of people was a stagnant and extremely poor country, because they couldn't even collect the final payment for redeeming Ganghwa Island. But now he thinks that his understanding may be somewhat biased. Although ordinary farmers in North Korea are poor, the government's finances may not be very abundant, but the aristocratic ruling class, mainly from the two classes of Big North and Small North, Western and Southerners, is not poor at all. They constantly embezzled farmers' land in wars or natural disasters. In the past, the only ones who did not pay taxes were not 200,000 yuan. Now, the 1.3 million yuan land is worth tens of thousands, and the 600,000 yuan that did not pay taxes - making his wealth continue to gather.

These people are all the best fat pigs! Shao Shude hummed twice. Of course, what he liked was not the money of these people, but the agricultural products, livestock and even labor in their hands. These things became moldy and rotten in the hands of these landlords and gentry like pigs and dogs (historical facts, like the gentry of the Ming Dynasty, they would rather rot than take out the food to help the hungry people, so that the "open fire thieves" and other hungry people were always armed in North Korea), it would be better to be filial to our Great East Coast, so that we could find ways to capture more people from the "My Qing" territory for resettlement.

Therefore, fighting North Korea has both political interests and great economic interests, so why not do it? You should know that in the face of the paper-like North Korean army, the people of the East Coast do not need to invest a large amount of troops, nor do they need to go deep into the hinterland of North Korea. They only need to break a few counties and annihilate some regular North Korean troops. Then the cowardly Emperor Xiaozong will soon send people to seek peace - this is almost certain.

At that time, if we negotiate with North Korea to further deepen trade, the resistance will not be so great. They are very realistic, and they will gain memory after being beaten. This is really cute.
Chapter completed!