The Prosperous Era of Longwan

"They can't turn back because Xu Hai and Wang Zhi were both killed by the court. If they lay down their weapons, they are just waiting to be beheaded by the court."

Wei Guangde said in a low tone.

"Killing Wang Zhi was an act of justice within the court. Although a very few people spoke out against it, they were very few after all."

Yin Shizhen said.

"Yes, they have a very good reason. So many innocent people died, why should they let these people go?"

Wei Guangde sighed.

"Shandai, what is your solution?"

King Yu also sighed softly, and then asked.

What he wants to know is how to solve the problem of Japanese pirates, rather than analyzing the causes of Japanese pirates. Although analyzing the causes is helpful to fundamentally solve the problem, the current situation is a done deal and cannot be changed.

I also forgot to mention that it was you, Wei Guangde, who supervised the execution of Wang Zhi.

"Yes, if you have any ideas, just tell us so that we can all work together."

At this time, Yin Shizhen also spoke in agreement.

However, Wei Guangde still noticed the different expressions of everyone in the room. Although King Yu and Yin Shizhen were eager to hear the solution from his mouth, Zhang Juzheng still looked at him with wide eyes.

Obviously, Zhang Juzheng had already made some guesses about what Wei Guangde wanted to say, but it was difficult for him to confirm it without Wei Guangde telling him. After all, King Yu had said before that the market would be reopened, but the Japanese invasion remained the same.

“Actually, whether we are dealing with Japanese pirates or Fujian rebels, the problem is the same, which is to prevent them from getting worse.

There were initially many Japanese pirates, but they were all scattered into countless small forces that did not belong to each other. However, after the 27th year of Jiajing, especially from the 31st year of Jiajing, the strength of the Japanese pirates had grown into tens of thousands, and even A Japanese pirate leader appears who can command hundreds of thousands of people.

To deal with the Japanese pirates, we must find a fundamental solution, which is to allow private merchants to go to sea to do business. If they have a way to survive, they will naturally no longer become pirates and join the Japanese pirates. "

Wei Guangde's tone of voice was very calm, but it was like a thunderbolt in the ears of King Yu and Yin Shizhen. Only Zhang Juzheng showed an expression that he had seen through everything.

Yes, what Zhang Juzheng guessed was to impose a sea ban.

The maritime ban of the Ming Dynasty originated from the policies of Zhu Yuanzhang's period. Throughout the Hongwu period, there are records of Zhu Yuanzhang reaffirming the sea ban every two or three years.

In the third year of Hongwu, the Ming government dismissed the shipping department of Huangdu City in Taicang; in the fourth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered that no one was allowed to enter the sea. Anyone who dared to trade privately with each other must be severely punished; in the seventh year of Hongwu, the Ming government abolished Quanzhou and Zhejiang in Fujian. Mingzhou and Guangzhou, Guangdong are the official agencies responsible for overseas trade of various Chinese dynasties that have existed since the Tang Dynasty.

In the fourteenth year of Hongwu, Zhu Yuanzhang ordered Tang He to inspect the coastal cities of Zhejiang and Fujian and prohibit people from fishing in the sea to prevent Japanese pirates. invade.

However, when Zhu Yuanzhang set the sea ban policy, he did not actually intend to close the country or interrupt official and private foreign trade. His more purpose was to completely eliminate the remnants of Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen's armed forces who had fled to the sea.

The subsequent Yongle Emperor Zhu Di sent Zheng He to the Western Seas, which actually illustrates this point.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's sea ban was only to prevent coastal residents from interoperating with "rebels" who were unwilling to submit. It was a temporary military policy, and the incidental impact on maritime trade was only temporary.

The subsequent emperors did not follow Zhu Di but learned from Zhu Yuanzhang. The reason is intriguing.

However, although most officials believed that the so-called ancestral system should be observed, that is, the sea ban should be enforced, there were still many knowledgeable people in the Ming Dynasty who believed that the sea ban should be opened to allow private trade to proceed.

However, most of these knowledgeable people do not know that the overseas trade that is publicly prohibited has actually formed a complete chain of interests in private.

Originally, this profit chain was operating quite covertly and efficiently under the cover of Shibo, but with the issuance of Emperor Jiajing's ban, changes occurred.

However, this change intensified under the stimulation of the high-pressure policies of several governors and governors, and eventually became uncontrollable, forming a massive Japanese invasion.

Naturally, this is the result of some ambitious people making waves.

But no matter what, Wei Guangde felt that as long as the people's access to the sea was properly opened and the soil where the Japanese pirates grew was blocked first, at least without fresh blood to supplement it, the Japanese pirates could be fundamentally eradicated.

As long as the maritime merchants are given a way to survive and they do not join the Japanese pirate group one after another, then the existing Japanese pirates will become fewer and fewer under the encirclement and suppression of the Ming army until they are all wiped out.

Otherwise, in order to survive, if you kill a group of Japanese pirates today, more people will join in at the same time. In the end, more and more Japanese pirates will be killed.

This principle is actually similar to the principle of encircling and suppressing the rebels in Fujian.

As long as the government does not force the people to rebel, and the people do not join in the rebellion for the sake of their livelihood, the natural impact and the scope of the impact will be controllable. The most feared thing is that a small flame will start a prairie fire, and then there will be no solution at all.

"Now that Japanese pirates are so rampant, is there anyone still willing to be a maritime merchant and do business at sea?"

Yin Shizhen frowned and said, Zhang Juzheng on the side also looked very interested.

Although he guessed that Wei Guangde wanted to mention the opening of the sea, because he was in Huguang, he actually didn't know much about maritime trade, not even as detailed as his teacher Xu Jie.

"Of course."

Wei Guangde replied categorically: "The profits of sea trade are higher than your imagination."

At this point, Wei Guangde paused for a moment, as if reminiscing before continuing: "I remember that in the 34th to 35th year of Jiajing, the imperial court used to pass the backlog of silk from the three major weaving bureaus in Nanjing, Suzhou and Hangzhou through Zhejiang The city's shipping department sold it, and the court made hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, which solved the court's financial dilemma."

"It seems that at that time, someone in the DPRK proposed to plant a large number of mulberry trees in Zhejiang and southern Zhili to increase silk production, but in the end there was no result."

King Yu seemed to have thought of something at this time and interrupted.

"The country is based on agriculture, and the people depend on food. I know what Shandai said. In the end, the adults in the DPRK were worried that mulberry trees would occupy farmland and affect the food harvest. Especially when they issued documents in the name of the imperial court, they were worried that the people below would mess up again. , so in the end it was settled.”

Yin Shizhen replied, which explained why there was no follow-up in the end.

"It's definitely not possible to write like this. The imperial court has issued an official document, and local officials don't know what will happen in order to show off. It's not impossible to destroy fields and plant mulberry trees."

Zhang Juzheng nodded. When he was in Huguang, he saw that many local officials would do anything to show their political achievements. No matter how ridiculous, as long as the superiors gave orders, they would do it regardless of the cost, just for the sake of their heads. Wusha.

"In the past few years, is Shibo Company still selling silk to foreign countries?"

At this time, King Yu came to his senses and realized that Wei Guangde's intention was not to make money from the barbarians through the Shibo Division. If he expanded sales and earned a million taels of silver a year, it seemed that Hu Zongxian's additional faction could be abolished.

"At the beginning, Zhao Wenhua was the one who took the lead in the issue of shipping. After his death, it seemed that the shipping was suspended, and only the tribute aspect was retained."

Wei Guangde replied, "However, as far as I know, when the Yi people came to our country in the Ming Dynasty, they wanted to buy more than just silk. They were also eager for porcelain and tea.

In fact, there are a lot of these things in the official warehouses in various places in the south of the Yangtze River. If the porcelain, tea and silk confiscated by the governments in various places are handed over to the Shipping Department for trading, as they did with silk, they can be turned into a lot of money. "

What Wei Guangde said was actually that the Ming Dynasty collected in-kind taxes from workshops, tea mountains, etc. during this period. In fact, it was not just tea and porcelain. What the Ming Dynasty officials collected the most was actually grain, and even fruits and other items that were not easy to preserve.

Many articles in later generations quoted that the annual tax collected by the Ming Dynasty was about three million taels, and as many as four million taels. However, in fact, this figure was only the money collected by the court and did not include the larger physical tax.

If all the goods collected by the court were converted into silver, the total tax revenue should be around 30 million taels of silver. Although this figure is far lower than the annual tax revenue of hundreds of millions taels of silver in the last years of the last dynasty, it is not what many articles say so little.

Once these things are not transferred in time, they will often be destroyed in large quantities. However, as long as the things are still there, who cares whether they are well preserved or not. Perhaps only food can still be used relatively effectively in this era.

However, as Wei Guangde said, in fact, there are indeed a large number of porcelain, tea and other items collected in the past in official warehouses in various places in the south of the Yangtze River. The silk and other items sold by the Weaving Bureau were all eliminated and were not transferred north. supplies.

Of course, high-quality porcelain, tea, silk, cotton, etc. will be transferred to Beijing first through the Grand Canal. These high-quality items are used for salary distribution, and officials can accept them.

After hearing what Wei Guangde said, King Yu's eyes shone. Of course he was very aware of the financial difficulties of the imperial court. Now that he heard Wei Guangde propose such a solution to the financial difficulties, he was naturally very interested.

But soon, King Yu's eyes dimmed. It was an almost impossible task to turn all this into reality.

Emperor Jiajing didn't like trading with the barbarians. He even wanted to completely abolish the Shibo Division and keep all the wealth in the Ming Dynasty.

If Emperor Jiajing were to propose the abolition of the maritime ban and restart large-scale commercial shipping, it would probably be a blessing or a disaster.

King Yu could think of it, and so could others. However, Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng were not as simple as King Yu thought. What they needed to consider was the impact on the country if the maritime ban was abolished and the market reopened as Wei Guangde said.

This is not a simple policy, the court just needs to promulgate it. After all, the sea ban has been in place for many years, and it is not like no one in the previous dynasty mentioned this matter, but everyone is tacitly aware of the outcome.

Moreover, the meaning of Wei Guangde's previous words was very clear. The so-called "Shifang" he called was not the current transaction with the Yi people under the leadership of the imperial court, but the participation of private merchants and allowing them to go to sea to do business.

The maritime ban of the Ming Dynasty actually prohibited private trade. Officials had been conducting transactions overseas through tribute trade. It was only in this dynasty that this model was broken due to some reasons.

However, there is still a contradiction in Wei Guangde's words, that is, since he plans to use commercial ships to dispose of the goods hoarded in the official warehouses in the south, but on the other hand, he allows merchants to go to sea. Who doesn't know that the best goods have been shipped north, leaving The quality of the goods in the warehouse in the south is not very good, how can I discount it at that time?

Who doesn’t know that if merchants obtain the right to sea trade, they will naturally sell high-quality items, because only these well-made products can be sold at a good price, and they can obtain more generous profits.

The goods collected by the imperial court were both good and bad. The good ones were all shipped to Beijing, and the bad ones were abandoned and left in the official warehouse over there. Who would want the bad goods when there are good goods.

Zhang Juzheng first raised this issue. In his opinion, it is enough to completely restore the market shipping system, and there is no need to involve the private sector.

Since there are profits from sea trade, why not keep the profits in the court and let them all go into the pockets of the court? Why let the private sector get a share of the pie?

"Actually, if the supply of goods exceeds demand, the physical goods can be collected in exchange for silver. It is not unprecedented in various places."

Wei Guangde answered Zhang Juzheng's question with just one sentence.

It is true that the Ming Dynasty levied taxes on physical goods according to a certain proportion, but merchants could also choose to discount them, that is, use money to offset them.

Except for items that have been given special uses, in fact, the physical quality of the objects received by the government is generally not high, or it can be said that they are products that are difficult to sell on the market.

The main reason why these things are manufactured even though they are not easy to sell is that they are low cost and can be used to deduct taxes.

After all, the market is so big, and not everything produced can be sold. Businessmen are naturally very good at taking advantage of the loopholes, making both good and bad products. They sell what can be sold for money, and if they can't sell it, they give it to the government for tax deductions.

In other words, most of the things abandoned in the official warehouses in the south were actually worthless things, which were colluded by businessmen and local officials to deceive the court.

However, that is under the premise that the market is fixed. When there is a new market, the supply of porcelain, cotton cloth and other things produced exceeds the demand. Who has time to make these worthless things? They would like to sell everything they make. When the time comes, the money will be folded and handed over to the government, which will save everyone trouble.

Afterwards, Wei Guangde discussed some of the issues with Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng. Most of them were asked by Yin Shizhen and Zhang Juzheng, and Wei Guangde gave solutions, while King Yu's eyes gradually brightened as he listened.

The emperors of the Ming Dynasty seemed to be extremely fond of money. Perhaps they were afraid of poverty when they were bullied by the Ministry of Revenue a few years ago. At this time, King Yu heard Wei Guangde’s analysis that if the market was completely restored, hundreds of thousands more would be added every year. It's still very easy to get two taels of silver, but that's just reselling the non-realizable physical objects collected by the governments in various places every year.

And if private merchants are released, they will definitely find a bigger market after they go to sea by ship. As a result, southern industry and commerce will experience unprecedented prosperity. By then, the court may be able to earn millions or even hundreds of dollars a year just by collecting taxes. Ten thousand taels.

"Industrial and commercial development can absorb refugees. This is good governance. Taxes are collected from factories and workshops, and you collect tariffs at the Shipping Department. Can there really be so many? One million taels?"

King Yu finally couldn't help but interjected and asked.