Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 546 Shocks the Court and the Public
Seeing the Yuanwang ship gradually approaching the dock under the guidance of a pilot boat, Lu Jin immediately waved his hand and said, "Dingbang, send someone up to meet the ship."

"Yes!"

Lu Jin's personal bodyguard, Li Dingbang, immediately waved and sent a team of imperial guards over.

His Majesty's safety is of utmost importance, and the Yuanwang has a large number of cannons and muskets, and the situation of the crew is unclear. In order to ensure that no mistakes are made, as soon as the Yuanwang docked, a team of guards climbed up and took up posts on each deck to maintain the ship's vigilance and monitor everyone's every move.

As the long gangway reached the side hatch of the Yuanwang, Wang Dayuan, Chen Youliang, and others, upon learning of His Majesty's arrival, led a group of officers and crew members down the gangway. Lu Jin immediately stepped forward to greet them, while Wang Dayuan was even faster, rushing to Lu Jin's side and bowing in greeting.

"Your subject, Wang Dayuan, kowtows to Your Majesty. Your Majesty's divine might is so near that you have condescended to personally welcome this humble subject. Even if I were to give my life, it would not be enough to repay even a fraction of Your Majesty's kindness. Now, Your Majesty has been forced to endure hardship in the countryside. I am filled with trepidation and deserve to die a thousand deaths!"

Lu Jin quickly helped Wang Dayuan up and said, "Sir, you have traveled more than 100,000 li across the sea and have been gone for many years. You have worked hard and made great contributions. I have not heard from you for two years and I miss you very much. A few days ago, I suddenly received an urgent report from Hangzhou that you have returned. How could I sit still in the palace? That's why I led all the officials to welcome you."

"Sir, you have rendered great service, yet I have not rewarded you. How can you be accused of any crime?"

Wang Dayuan quickly replied modestly, "The fact that we were able to achieve even a small success on this voyage is all thanks to Your Majesty's brilliant strategy and the soldiers' valiant efforts. Without Your Majesty's accurate nautical charts and ingeniously planned routes, how could I have safely set foot on Lizhou?"

"Your Majesty, I have only done the work of a dog or horse, how dare I claim credit for what is rightfully mine? Now that it is winter and the wind and frost are cold, I implore Your Majesty to return to the palace immediately. Otherwise, if Your Majesty catches a cold and it harms your health, I will be guilty even if I die a hundred times!"

"It's alright, I'm not that weak." Lu Jin immediately waved his hand and asked, "Sir, you just said you set foot in Lizhou. So you've really arrived at your destination? Well, have you found everything I wanted?"

Wang Dayuan nodded and immediately said, "Thanks to Your Majesty's great blessing, I am fortunate to have fulfilled my mission. Most of what Your Majesty was looking for has been found. In fact, we arrived in Hong Kong last July or August. Originally, if there were no unexpected events, I planned to return to the country at the end of the year in winter or December, so that I could return to the country at the latest in January or February this year."

"However, I know that Your Majesty urgently needs rubber. Even if I bring back seeds and plant them in Southeast Asia, it will take at least ten years before we can start tapping rubber. That is simply not enough time. So I decided to stay in Lizhou for another year to collect as much finished rubber as possible. Fortunately, I did not waste my time and managed to collect nearly 60,000 catties of rubber."

Upon hearing this, Lu Jin exclaimed in surprise, "How much rubber did you say you collected?!"

Wang Dayuan immediately repeated, "There are more than 28 tons, nearly 60,000 jin of finished rubber."

With a loud slap, Lu Jin excitedly clapped his hands and turned to Tao Guangyi behind him, saying, "We've struck it rich, Guangyi! We've got our air compressors, medium-pressure boilers, and blast furnaces sorted out!"

"Congratulations, Your Majesty! Congratulations! The workshop finally has rice to cook. Mr. Wang has done a great service this time."

Tao Guangyi was also very excited upon hearing this. He had been doing research with Lu Jin, so he knew that rubber had long been something His Majesty had been thinking about and longing for. He hadn't expected that Wang Dayuan would get tens of thousands of kilograms at once. Although it wasn't enough to squander at will, it was still a considerable amount for some key projects.

Wang Dayuan quickly replied modestly, "I am merely echoing Your Majesty's words and spending some time running errands for Your Majesty. I dare not claim any credit."

Lu Jin then said happily, "If you want to do something for me, you must first have the ability to go to Lizhou. Sir, there is no need to be modest. This credit is rightfully yours. You can't refuse it even if you want to. Here are the things. Bring them here so I can take a look."

"Yes, thank you for your guidance, Your Majesty. The goods are on the ship, but the rubber is all in the lower decks, and it will take some time to move them out."

"Then move now, I'll wait here."

"Yes, Your Majesty, it is best to select reliable people to transport the goods. In fact, besides the tens of thousands of catties of rubber, there is another cargo that is too important. On the way back, I dared not stay at various ports for too long, and I dared not let the sailors go ashore to rest, for fear that the news would leak out halfway."

“Even in Hangzhou, I dared not slack off in the slightest, nor did I dare to reveal a single word to the Provincial Governor. It was only after returning to Jiankang and meeting His Majesty in person that I breathed a sigh of relief. I have finally fulfilled my mission and can now relieve myself of this burden,” Wang Dayuan immediately reminded him.

Lu Jin immediately became curious, "What is it that's more important than those 60,000 catties of rubber, that scared you so much that you didn't dare to dock at the port?"

"Your Majesty, it is over 500,000 catties of gold and silver."

"How many?!"

Before Lu Jin could even speak, Li Shanchang, Feng Guoyong, and the others jumped up in surprise. When Wang Dayuan mentioned tens of thousands of kilograms of rubber, they hadn't reacted much because many people didn't even know what rubber was or what it was used for, so they naturally didn't know how precious and hard-won it was. But if you mentioned gold and silver, they were wide awake.

Lu Jin was also somewhat surprised after hearing this, and asked again to confirm, "Are you sure it's over 500,000 jin? And not over 500,000 taels?"

"Indeed, it's a jin (a unit of weight), of which there are seven or eight million taels of silver alone, plus a considerable amount of gold. According to the current gold-silver exchange rate of one to five in the Ming Dynasty, if all of it is converted into silver, the total value is no less than 1200 million taels," Wang Dayuan affirmed again.

Boom! The officials present immediately erupted in uproar.

"1200 million taels of silver! Are you sure you didn't make a mistake? Good, good, good! This is truly a great achievement. My Great Ming Dynasty has been established for more than two years. All the taxes collected in these two years, after deducting grain and other goods, and all the cash surplus, is probably less than three million taels. You made a trip to Lizhou and earned me several years' worth of taxes for the Great Ming Dynasty. Excellent, excellent!"

Li Shanchang and the others were also astonished. He immediately asked, "Is Lizhou really so wealthy? Even if you sold the entire ship and everyone on board, it probably wouldn't be worth that much money. Where did Mr. Wang get so much gold and silver? Could it be that you robbed the treasury of that Mayan kingdom? That shouldn't be possible, considering how many people you have in total?"

Upon hearing this, Wang Dayuan smiled and explained, "Prime Minister Li is joking. How could we possibly rob someone else's treasury? Besides, those small states in Lizhou don't use gold or silver as currency. Their treasuries are filled with cocoa beans. Even if we robbed their treasuries, we probably couldn't get that much."

"What are cocoa beans? Are they more precious than gold and silver?"

"Where did you get this from?"

Li Shanchang and Feng Guo asked a barrage of questions.

Wang Dayuan continued, “You two may not know this, but the natives of Lizhou do not know the value of gold and silver. Merchants in the country use cocoa beans or potatoes as currency. Cocoa beans are just a kind of food for the natives, just like pepper and other spices.”

"Gold and silver are just decorations to the natives and are not valuable. However, the natives of Lizhou do not know how to smelt iron, so any ironware is more valuable than gold to them. I exchanged ironware with them for gold and silver. Often, an axe or an iron pot can be easily exchanged for the same weight of gold and silver. That's why I got so much."

"The million catties of ironware on my ship, aside from the travel expenses and resettlement costs for the immigrants, were all exchanged for gold and silver, which yielded over 500,000 catties of gold and silver, along with numerous other goods. "In addition, on the nautical charts Your Majesty has marked, there is a place called Jinchuan on the west coast of Lizhou. Several rivers flow through the valley, their waters filled with gold dust, hence the name Jinchuan. There aren't even any small towns or kingdoms there, only some savage tribes. In Jinchuan, I also traded ironware with the locals for a considerable amount of gold dust. In Jinchuan alone, I collected tens of thousands of taels of gold, and the gold dust in the rivers hasn't diminished even slightly."

"."

Upon hearing this, everyone was speechless. The surroundings were completely silent. They all felt that this was too unbelievable. What era is this? There are still countries that don't know how to smelt iron and don't know the value of gold and silver. They can easily exchange a few axes and iron pots for a large amount of gold and silver.

Yes, Chinese ironware did sell well both at home and abroad, but that was only because the foreign and barbarian tribes in various places were unable to smelt iron on a large scale. It doesn't mean they couldn't smelt iron. Their technology may not have been as advanced as China's, but it doesn't mean they had none at all.

If Lu Jin hadn't been there, knowing that Wang Dayuan wouldn't dare commit the crime of deceiving the emperor and spouting nonsense in front of His Majesty, they would have all thought Wang Dayuan was telling a fantasy.

Xia Yu and Bao Yu exchanged glances. Just moments ago, they had been discussing with His Majesty how to build the navy, how many warships to build, and the annual cost of shipbuilding. This group of so-called kings and generals, who were actually scrimping and saving, had gritted their teeth and decided on a plan of 250,000 taels of silver per year to build 100 ships in ten years.

Even so, the total value was only 250 million taels. Now, however, Wang Dayuan has brought back five naval officers.
The civil and military officials who were lined up behind them to welcome them couldn't contain themselves any longer. It was hard to say whether Lizhou had any high-yield immortal seeds, but it was certain that there was a lot of gold and silver. The crowd immediately started discussing it intensely.

Lu Jin nodded in agreement. "That's true of those small countries in Lizhou. Luckily, they had a lot of ironware prepared, which allowed them to exchange it for so much gold and silver. This is their savings accumulated over thousands of years, which is why we got such a good deal. Once we've squeezed all the gold and silver from their reserves, it won't be easy for them to get so much gold and silver again."

"However, if handled well, it's not impossible to make another ten or eight million taels every year in the future."

Li Shanchang exclaimed in surprise, "They can really get so many, and every year at that?"

Upon hearing this, the others also turned to look at Lu Jin.

Lu Jin nodded affirmatively, "We can probably get that many, but these gold and silver mines are all on other people's territory. Taking them over would require a war. Are you willing to send troops?"

"Let's discuss this further." Upon hearing that troops were to be sent to war, everyone fell silent.

It's not that they can't fight, nor that they oppose Lu Jin's expansion of territory. At least they need to wait for the Ming Dynasty to recuperate and recover its strength before they talk about it. After all, they have only just quelled the chaos, and everything is still in ruins.

Lu Jin wasn't just talking nonsense; if his plan was executed well, it was indeed possible to generate that amount every year.

Leaving aside other places, just in the Japanese archipelago alone, there are the Sado Gold Mine, the Iwami Silver Mine, and several gold and silver mines in Hokkaido. If these few mines in Japan were exploited without regard for consequences, they could yield 400 million taels of silver per year and continue to be exploited for a hundred years without any problem, completely draining these gold and silver mines.

In addition to the gold mines on Luzon Island and the gold and silver mines in the South Pacific islands, there are always about one million taels of silver mined every year.

The largest quantity of silver mines belonged to the Inca Empire in South America, across the ocean. South America was rich in silver and copper mines, and mining millions of taels a year was easy. All of these combined meant that the cash income from mining alone amounted to tens of millions of taels each year.

The funds are sufficient and stable; the key is how to spend them.

As you can see, Spain and Portugal were the first to embark on the Age of Exploration, and Spain plundered countless gold and silver from overseas. However, in the end, Spain returned to Europe with this gold and silver and squandered it everywhere, quickly bankrupting itself. Instead, it enriched its neighbor England and incidentally guided England to complete the Industrial Revolution.

Lu Jin's Ming Dynasty could not follow Spain's example. He wanted to turn this gold and silver into the first pot of gold for the Ming Dynasty's industrial revolution and into continuous investment. He wanted to turn this gold and silver into schools, factories, railways, and ships, and to turn this wealth into tangible assets that remained on the land of the Ming Dynasty. Naturally, it was impossible for him to follow Spain's example.

Moreover, industrial development requires a great deal of investment. The reason why Britain was able to complete the Industrial Revolution was largely due to the massive spending of Spain. China's resurgence in modern times also relied on countless foreign investments and hardworking people. The Ming Dynasty has never lacked hardworking people; what it lacks is a continuous influx of massive amounts of foreign capital.

Unfortunately, there was no such thing as foreign investment in this era; we had to go overseas to plunder it ourselves!

After everyone calmed down, Lu Jin made arrangements, saying, "Dingbang, send a team of guards to accompany Mr. Wang to unload the goods. You personally keep an eye on them, while the two prime ministers keep accounts and see how much gold and silver they have earned this time."

"Yes!" Everyone immediately responded in unison, and then began to unload the goods.

The first things unloaded from the ship were the 12 alpaca babies, all under six months old, along with turkeys and Muscovy ducks in several large cages, and more than 20 husky and Alaskan puppies.

The sight of those strange creatures, resembling neither sheep nor camels, with long necks and furry bodies, immediately sparked another heated discussion among the crowd.

It seems that the existence of Lizhou on the other side of the ocean is indeed true, as it is home to such a peculiar creature. Many people inquired about its name, and the name of the Lizhou alpaca quickly spread throughout the imperial court.

After unloading these living creatures, the next step was to store various kinds of food. When Wang Dayuan and his men returned, in case of emergency, apart from the gold, silver and rubber in the bottom hold, the rest of the space was used to store food and fresh water. The corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes they prepared filled an entire cabin, enough to feed several hundred people for more than a year. Now, the uneaten corn, potatoes and other things were naturally taken down as seeds.

Soon, several ears of corn were passed around among the officials as samples, drawing gasps of amazement from everyone.

"Oh my, this is the legendary corn. It's quite big."

"Just like pearls and agates, the name of this corn is truly apt."

"I just don't know how much this thing is produced, or what it tastes like?"

"According to that explorer, this plant can yield around 210 catties per mu when planted on newly reclaimed land in Lizhou, even without fertilizer."

"210 jin per mu?! That's quite a lot. It's more than growing wheat. Wheat only yields about 120 jin per mu, and even the best irrigated fields only yield about 150 jin. No wonder His Majesty is so determined to find this thing from so far away."

"That's not all. I've heard that this crop can be rotated with winter wheat. Wheat can be planted in autumn and harvested the following June. After the wheat harvest, corn can be planted immediately, and another harvest can be made in late autumn. If this is true, then the half of our Great Ming Dynasty north of the Yangtze River can also have two harvests a year, just like in the south. It would be a blessing for the people!"

(End of this chapter)