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Speaking of ancient commercial prosperity, many people subconsciously think of the Song Dynasty.

But the commercial prosperity of the Song Dynasty, to be precise, was the prosperity of the cities, relying on the crazy blood sucking from the countryside. The only business in the Song Dynasty that could beat the Ming Dynasty was the prosperity of sea trade. If smuggling in sea trade was included, the Song Dynasty might not necessarily win.

In the early years of Wanli, the business of the Ming Dynasty reached a peak of the feudal dynasty!

Although many times looked down upon the Qing Dynasty, in the middle of the Qing Dynasty, China's business flourished again, and its scale also surpassed that of the Song Dynasty.

Why did Ming and Qing commerce prosper?

Agricultural development!

In the Ming Dynasty, rice and cotton were the main crops. In the Qing Dynasty, on this basis, sweet potatoes, corn and potatoes appeared.

In the Ming Dynasty, rice varieties from Vietnam really achieved wide-scale popularization. The flood discharge channel and reservoir system have solved the flood problem in the south of the Yangtze River that has lasted for thousands of years. The oil residue extracted from rapeseed and soybean oil is widely used in fertile fields. This is a new type of fertilizer popularized in the Ming Dynasty. Cotton planting methods were improved, and the imperial court guided the whole country to plant cotton.

The increase in rice production has solved the problem of food.

The promotion of cotton has solved the problem of dressing.

Thus, the population exploded!

Big cities can't accommodate so many people, and rural areas can't accommodate so many people, so emerging towns have emerged. These towns not only absorb the surplus labor force in the countryside, but also form one after another rural market. The emergence of rural fairs gave birth to a group of small merchants living outside the city. They bought agricultural products at rural fairs and transported the means of production needed by farmers from other places.

Many wealthy merchants and gentry in the Ming Dynasty grew up from such small merchants, such as the Fei family where the queen lives!

Just talking about the six prefectures of Su, Song, Chang, Hu, Hang and Jia, the number of towns in the Ming Dynasty was more than four times that of the Song Dynasty. You know, that was the ruling core of the Southern Song Dynasty, and the prosperity of the countryside was far inferior to that of the Ming Dynasty.

The emergence of a large number of emerging cities and towns has completely transformed Chinese society.

Before the Ming Dynasty, the development of Chinese society was actually the same as that of Europe later. It is because the population is constantly concentrated in the big cities, and the wealth is also constantly concentrated in the big cities. Since the Ming Dynasty, although they also concentrated in big cities, more emerging towns were formed. The large towns are saturated, and countless small towns appear, and finally towns will appear in just a few villages!

As a result, the phenomenon of "oil-water separation" appeared in China: political power was concentrated in the cities and controlled by officials and dignitaries. Cities have become power and money trading centers, daily necessities consumption centers, and luxury consumption centers. The main economic forces are distributed in tens of thousands of towns. Towns are the centers of productivity in China, and it is difficult or even impossible for the government to effectively control them.

So in the Song Dynasty, it didn't matter if the imperial power did not come down to the county. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was fatal if the imperial power did not come down to the county, because the national economic center of gravity was not in the county. If someone travels back to the Ming and Qing dynasties, if you want to rebel, you don't need to rush to occupy the cities. It is the last word to occupy those towns with prosperous commerce and no city walls first.

This is China's unique rural model, which not only affects China's economic form, but also affects China's social form. It even has an indelible impact on Chinese cultural customs and even on Chinese people's thinking!

Rural China has been carved into the bones.

Zhao Han announced that folk merchants could weave brocade, and the number of merchants engaged in this thing increased rapidly. The city of Nanjing couldn't accommodate it at all, so it had to move outside the city to build a factory. The land outside the city is also limited, so move to the towns near Nanjing City.

Now there are three brocade production bases in Jinling Prefecture, one is outside Nanjing, the other is Jiangning Town, and the other is Chunhua Town.

Shen Yourong is in Chunhua Town, and he has recruited more than a thousand brocade weavers!

Not long after the Lantern Festival, Liang Xingdao, a wealthy businessman from Jiangning Town, came to visit Shen Yourong in person: "Mr. Shen, you know that His Majesty is going to ban women from entering factories to work as weavers!"

"What?" Shen Yourong thought she had heard wrong.

"Your Majesty is going to ban women from entering the factory to work as weavers!" Liang Xingdao repeated again.

Shen Yourong was a little stunned by the fright, and thought with the remaining rationality: "Your Majesty has always given preferential treatment to businessmen. As long as you abide by the rules and laws, why have you ever felt sorry for businessmen? Even Yunjin, which was used by the imperial court in the past, was allowed to operate by private merchants. Will there be a sudden order to ban women from working?"

Liang Xingdao lowered his hands and stamped his feet: "Isn't it the good deeds of those pedantic scholars? After the Chinese New Year, many newspapers published articles against women's participation in the imperial examination. They said that women should not show their faces, and women are born to be husbands, children, and parents-in-law... This newspaper's public opinion It's one-sided, and no one dares to speak for women anymore. A few days ago, there was a servant of the Ministry of Rites, Cao or something, who asked His Majesty to ban female workers. Naturally, the officials in the court opposed it, but there were some who supported it. I heard people say it When His Majesty came to court, he showed hesitation, as if he wanted to ban female workers!"

"Those bastards, they are stupid when they study!" Shen Yourong cursed.

Liang Xingdao said: "Isn't it stupid? You can say such things."

Actually, they thought so too.

Shen Yourong's daughter has a high school graduation certificate. Although she cannot go to college at public expense, she is eligible to go to college at her own expense. He first sent his daughter to college at his own expense. After only one year of study, he found a good husband's family and immediately let his daughter drop out of school to marry.

In his view, going to college is just to increase his daughter's social status so that he can find a more powerful husband's family.

If his daughter dared to become an official, he would break her leg with his own hands!

But it's different now, and those scholars must not be allowed to talk nonsense. Brocade weaving is his lifeblood, and the female workers are all hens that lay golden eggs. How can scholars be allowed to splash dirty water?

Liang Xingdao sighed: "Oh, Your Majesty is willing to do anything, but insists on seizing the gentry's land and distributing it to those mud legs in the countryside. We gentry, now we have no land to collect rent, we can only do some business to live. If the recruitment of female workers is prohibited , from now on, I have to sit and eat.”

Shen Yourong sneered: "Do you think His Majesty won't attack powerful gentry without dividing the land?"

Shen Yourong is Shen Wansan's descendant, from his ancestor's notes, he knows what happened that year better than anyone else.

Long before Zhu Yuanzhang became emperor, Shen Wansan was dead, but the Shen family was indeed moved to Nanjing by Zhu Yuanzhang. In addition to the Shen family, there are a total of 67,300 wealthy gentry households in the south of the Yangtze River, which were moved to Nanjing twice by Zhu Yuanzhang (in addition to businessmen, there are many local gentry families).

Zhu Yuanzhang directly explained his purpose. He wanted to learn from Liu Bang, the great ancestor of the Han Dynasty, and move the rich households in the world to Guanzhong.

For the construction of the Nanjing City Wall, not only the Shen family contributed money, but tens of thousands of wealthy gentry contributed money.

Why did so many people die in the Sapphire case?

It was Zhu Yuanzhang who took the opportunity to eliminate the rich and powerful, deal with the very serious collusion between government and business at that time, and by the way, steal money from rich households. The descendants of Shen Wansan were involved in the Sapphire case, beheaded and exiled.

The "Yufu Miscellaneous Notes" of the Ming Dynasty also records that the wealthy businessmen who were relocated to Nanjing, during the several years of investigating the Lanyu case, either moved their families, were killed in connection with each other, or were exiled by their families. Almost none of them survived.

It is estimated that Shen Wansan was the richest man in the south of the Yangtze River, and his reputation is too great, so people condensed the previous events and the experiences of tens of thousands of wealthy households in the south of the Yangtze River on Shen Wansan, and the bizarre story of Zhu Yuanzhang and Shen Wansan appeared.

People like Zhu Yuanzhang often kill birds with one stone.

Killing Lan Yu can pave the way for Zhu Yunqi. Expanding the Sapphire case can crack down on the collusion between government and businessmen, eliminate the influence of the big clan on the court, and steal money from it.

Compared with other founding emperors, Zhao Han's forcible distribution of the gentry's property actually hit a wider range. Liu Bang migrated to rich households all over the world, and Zhu Yuanzhang migrated to wealthy households in the south of the Yangtze River. The method was similar to that of Zhao Han. They directly dug the foundation of local tyrants, and the next step was to kill them as they wanted.

Shen Yourong recalled what happened to her ancestors, and felt more and more that the current emperor is the reincarnation of Zhu Yuanzhang.

He ignored Liang Xingdao who was walking back and forth, and forced himself to calm down and think. After closing her eyes and meditating, after a long time, Shen Yourong opened her eyes and said, "This news should have been released on purpose by His Majesty. Prohibiting the use of female workers is not something His Majesty can do."

Hearing this, Liang Xingdao also began to think, and then said happily: "Then don't worry!"

Shen Yourong said, "But if we don't accept the move, His Majesty is very likely to do so."

"Accept the move?" Liang Xing said puzzled.

Shen Yourong explained: "Your Majesty must be very dissatisfied with those rotten scholars. But as the emperor, it is inconvenient for him to come forward in person, not even the court. So, His Majesty wants us to be pawns, rolling up our sleeves and playing pen sticks with those rotten scholars. If you don’t believe me, just watch, as long as we make a move, next month, or the next month, the "Datong Monthly" will stand up and make a decision and judge us to win."

Liang Xingdao wondered: "Since Your Majesty has already made a conclusion, why don't you just explain it directly?"

Shen Yourong said: "Both the emperor and the imperial court should be impartial, and the Datong Monthly is the same. A few rotten scholars jump up and down and alert the emperor to come forward. What is the majesty of the imperial court? Moreover, the emperor's immediate exit has become a defense against the people." Worse than Fangchuan. Not only those rotten scholars are not convinced, but even us merchants are not convinced. If there is no such thing, do you agree with women's imperial examination?"

"I don't agree with this matter." Liang Xingdao said.

Shen Yourong said: "But with this matter, we don't agree with it in our hearts, but we must agree with our mouths. Not only must our mouths support it now, but it will continue to support it in the future."

"I see!" Liang Xingdao was no fool.

Shen Yourong said: "Let's connect together merchants from the entire Jinling Mansion to get together. Even merchants who sell cloth should be invited together. We don't have female weaving workers. Where can they buy it? A few companies jointly run a newspaper office and run dozens of them." Home, the government will definitely issue licenses quickly. Before you get the license, you can pay for a pen and write articles to refute the remarks of those corrupt scholars. The more trouble we make, the happier the emperor will be."