Chapter 110                            

You cannot believe everything about Jiajing's words, and you cannot refuse to believe them.

When Jiajing talked about this, Zhou Mengchen had to talk about some more sensitive issues. But there were still many things that Zhou Mengchen had to keep in mind. He could not say to anyone.

Zhou Mengchen said: "Everyone must have cause and effect. If you do not understand cause and effect, and act rashly is just a reckless act. Now that the Jiangnan form has come to this day, the cause has been planted, and Your Majesty is just inheriting the shortcomings of his ancestors."

This sentence made Jiajing feel very comfortable.

The cause of the Japanese riot was freed from Jiajing. Jiajing asked with great excitement: "Oh, then tell me, what is this cause?"

Zhou Mengchen said: "There is uneven distribution of spoils."

Jiajing was a little confused and said, "There is no equal distribution of spoils?"

Zhou Mengchen said: "Since the founding of this dynasty, it has always been dominated by official trade. So Zheng He went to the West. However, after Renxuan, his feat of voyage to the West was no longer there. He replaced it as tribute trade. He restricted private trade to the people and made its profits."

After hearing this, Jiajing felt aroused his heart and said to himself: "Is there any such thing?"

Many times, history is interpreted from different aspects, and there are different statements.

Although Zhou Mengchen's interpretation has a little conflict in the traditional sayings of literati and doctors, most of them are still correct.

First of all, the Ming Dynasty court had restricted civil maritime trade at the beginning of its founding. However, it never encouraged trade between countries. Because the Ming Dynasty carried out tribute trade, made some concessions in trade and fought for some political power.

Some people may think that this is a false reputation and abide by real profit. Only a great country can think of this. It is like the United States is trying to drain every bit of money now, and it depends on who is still following him. In the early Ming Dynasty, Taizu Chengzu had ideas about Nanyang.

So it is difficult to say whether to give up some money or lose money.

Even the tribute trade itself may not be a loss of money.

Many people only see the rich and weak relationships. They have not seen the transportation problems of this era. It can be said that ten times the profit is worth delivering goods from foreign countries to China these days. However, ten times the profit is not necessarily enough for Chinese palace fine products to foreign countries.

But in terms of cost? That's not the case.

After all, the tribute envoys paid more transportation costs. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty tribute trade was not too profitable, but it was another matter. Moreover, if the tribute trade was huge in quantity, it was not possible to enjoy the treatment of the court's favorable exchanges. Too many goods were generally sold on the spot under the auspices of the government. Generally, for these envoys, it was a big profit.

But even so, many people think that the right to trade is in foreign countries, not in China, and think it is too much of a loss. But you should know that when the tribute trade was settled, the Taizu Chengzu Dynasty sent envoys to the South China Sea countries. Zheng He voyages to the West and became famous. Many people do not know that when Emperor Taizu was there, he sent envoys to the South China Sea, and a group of envoys died in the South China Sea, which interrupted Emperor Taizu's plan to Nanyang.

It was Java who lured and killed the envoys sent by Emperor Taizu to Wang Sanfoqi.

After Emperor Taizu weighed the pros and cons, he felt that he would temporarily suspend the Nanyang operation because the Ming Dynasty was not strong at that time.

Even when Zheng He's voyage to the West, it was not necessarily that Emperor Chengzu had to do what Emperor Taizu had not said back then. As a result, Zheng He went south several times in Southeast Asia and intervened in the royal power struggle on Java Island. After the Three Buddhas, he also changed his name to Old Port.

This is actually a channel for opening up official trade.

It is clear that every country in Southeast Asia is not too large. The most powerful one is Java. If China trades with other countries in Southeast Asia, is it easy to connect with the country directly or with local merchants? Naturally, it is easy to connect with the country, and even whether there are enough distributors in the local area to take over Chinese goods are between the two.

Of course.

The times are far away. Some details are not clear. Zhou Mengchen also had few trade accounts in the Western archives back then. Perhaps there were in the palace, but Zhou Mengchen did not find it anyway. But Zhou Mengchen thought about it with his toes and knew that he was rich.

At least it was very profitable at the beginning.

The reason is that Zheng He's fleet is too big. Even if it is Zheng He's treasure ship, Zhou Mengchen probably cannot get it. The expenses for the entire westbound journey are not even a few million taels. Not to mention the other way, the 30,000 officers and soldiers, and the craftsmen who are several times more likely to get it. Not to mention, several shipyards were built on the Western route, each with money and money written on them.

Zhou Mengchen studied the finances of the Ming Dynasty and knew that such a large expenditure was so large. Even if the national strength was strong at that time, such expenditures could not be rashly spent. Therefore, in the later period, did Zheng He's fleet not make ends meet and needed subsidies from the court. However, in the early days, Zheng He's fleet must have a considerable amount of trade profits supported.

Zhou Mengchen told the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade policy and said: "In this dynasty, the situation has changed a little. The first thing is the battle to seize tribute."

Speaking of the dispute over tribute, we have to say, what is the overseas relations between the Ming Dynasty before the dispute over tribute is approaching?

It can be said that after Ren Xuan and the Ming Dynasty gave up its overseas operations, many countries in Southeast Asia no longer paid tribute. Even if they paid tribute, it would be several years, once every decade, and it was still unknown whether it was true or false. Of course, there are countries that insisted on tribute, such as Korea, Annan, Siam, Cham, Ryukyu, and Japan. These countries are generally these countries.

Needless to say, North Korea. Annan was afraid of being beaten by the Ming Dynasty. Not to mention the splitting of the Annan civil war in the early years of Jiajing. Both the Mo Chao and Zheng Chao split out needed the Ming Dynasty. Chameng was facing the threat of Annan and needed the support of the Ming Dynasty. As for Siam, that is, Thailand, it was also a traditional friendly country in the Ming Dynasty. Ryukyu and even the 36th Fujian power in the country must surpass the King Shang family.

However, since other tribute countries usually come from South China, that is, from Guangzhou, only Japan, Ryukyu, and sometimes North Korea also takes the sea route and goes ashore from the south of the Yangtze River.

The dispute over tribute was something that happened in the fifth year of Jiajing. I won’t go into details. Anyway, the court verified that the Japanese envoys were staked. As a result, two groups of Japanese came, and they all said that their staked were true. However, local officials believed that there must be one problem with the two staked, otherwise how could two Japanese delegations appear? This is unreasonable?

Therefore, local officials had not figured out the problem yet. The Japanese solved the problem by themselves. The two groups of them were from different Daming, so the two groups of people started a massacre in Ningbo City. Even some of the Ming officials involved were killed.

This scared the people of Jiangnan who had been peaceful for a hundred years.

Reaction to the court, Jiajing was furious and ordered a ban on trade with Japan.

Zhou Mengchen knew it carefully and explained the situation to Jiajing one by one, saying: "Official trade has been cut off, but Japan is indispensable for one day, so smuggling is rampant. At this moment, another group of pirates also arrived outside Ningbo, that is, the Folangji. During the Zhengde period, people were sent to the court. However, after the death of the late emperor, Yang Tinghe drove away the Folangji envoys. They were not honest. They went ashore many times. The official army defeated Tuen Mun several times and seized the Folangji cannons. Now they are imitated by the imperial court. Seeing that the road in Guangdong is blocked, the thief went north and gained a foothold on the islands outside Ningbo, joining forces with the smuggling leaders and the Japanese pirates. They are Shuangyu thieves."

"Your Majesty, do you remember the Xie family case."

Jiajing said: "How can I not remember that the prime minister's family in this dynasty was killed by a mere thief. It was a great humiliation."

Zhou Mengchen said: "I heard some different statements from Jiangnan about this case. I don't know whether it is true or false. Your Majesty will listen to it now."

Jiajing knew that Zhou Mengchen dared to say it, which means that these words were closer to the truth than those on the official side. Jiajing said: "Say."

Zhou Mengchen said: "I heard that the Xie family was involved in overseas smuggling and was very dishonest. They owed many people money, and these pirates repeatedly failed to ask for it, so they took the risk. Only then did this happen."
Chapter completed!