Xinshun 1730

Chapter 547 The Evil Dragon
"For example, in the case of Batavia, if there were not hundreds of thousands of silver coins from the West, I'm afraid that all the remnants of the Celestial Dynasty in Batavia would be slaughtered. Exactly, if you want to love the people and be willing to govern benevolently, you must have money."

"I have thought about the matter of Batavia carefully, and some people may say that it is all due to the governor's atrocities and injustices. But I think, if there is no such Valknir, it will be the same if you change it to a Bricknir will happen."

"This matter, you should take a warning. There are good and bad officials. If a policy is ordered, a good official will do it, and everyone will praise it; if a bad official does it, everyone will rebel... This policy It's still acceptable."

"But if this policy is implemented, no matter whether it is a good official or a bad official, whoever goes there will cause the people to suffer and everyone will rebel... Then there is something wrong with the policy itself,"

"All lovers are the pillars of the country, so you must always persuade them, and don't make such orders."

Liu Yu took it for granted, thinking that the emperor could sum up contingency and inevitability in a simple way?That's talent.

As far as Batavia is concerned, changing the Lord Qingtian will have the same result. It is even possible that changing the Lord Qingtian may catalyze the uprising.

Master Qingtian is just a master, after all, he cannot solve the problem of the shrinking sugar market brought about by Persia, the Caribbean, Japan and many other directions.

As long as the Dutch East India Company does not change its mode of plundering and monopolizing profits, the problem of Batavia will remain unresolved.

It is impossible to expect the Dutch East India Company to cut its own flesh, so it can only be cleaned by external forces.

The officials here today may not all understand what is going on in Batavia, but they generally understand what the emperor said.

It's just the same words, the same truth, there will be many different interpretations.

Several people thought, Your Majesty is worried about some emerging industries in the future, which will bring uncontrollable things that cannot be solved by changing good officials or bad officials?
Or is it that the emperor is just sad about the past, using today's events to explain the situation at the end of the day, and even change the situation that no one seems to understand. Don't let it happen in Dashun?
After trying to figure out what he wanted for a while, he couldn't figure out anything. The emperor just said this half a sentence, and didn't continue to talk about it, so he talked about the candidates and decrees about sending people to Batavia to "supervise the immigration of the Dutch". And other issues.

The ministers present, not everyone is at the core decision-making level, and some of them are not aware of some things at all, for example, all these are preparations for going to Nanyang.

Those who knew didn't say anything, and those who didn't know thought that the emperor really only cared about the remnants of the Celestial Dynasty thousands of miles away, so they expressed their opinions.

It's just that Liu Yu's headache was caused by expressing his own opinions. Several people imagined Nanyang's affairs completely out of thin air.

The emperor listened for a while, but couldn't help pinching the bridge of his nose, and said that it was impossible to expect these people to deal with these unprecedented new things, at least temporarily.

What does this say?
He listened patiently for a while, and finally couldn't take it anymore, he waved his hands and said, "That's all... this is sitting at home and guessing what it's like to be thousands of miles away. You better go back, my loves."

After finishing speaking, he ordered a few people who participated in the core secrets of the center to stay.

The rest of the people don't care, they specialize in mind art, if you ask me about etiquette and criminal orders, I am naturally better than others.But His Majesty asked about Nanyang, I am too busy with the affairs of the Ministry, how can I think about Nanyang again?
Unless you are a saint, how can anyone know everything?Even a sage does not know whether the sun is at noon or in the morning.

After a few words of slander, several people thought again, it is not unreasonable for the emperor to make a difference between the inside and the outside, and to have the six governments plus the foreign affairs, navy and other ministries other than the six governments.

Within the six governments, it is possible to intersect and change positions. It is no problem for a doctor of the Li government to go to the household government for a few years, or for a state shepherd to be a Beijing official for a few years.

But if people from the Li government are allowed to manage diplomacy and people from the Hu government are in charge of the navy, it will be a bit difficult for others.

After these people resigned, the emperor couldn't hold back the headache he had before. He shook his head involuntarily and said with a wry smile: "The inside of the celestial dynasty and the outside of the celestial dynasty are completely different. Internal and external matters should be separated."

"This Nanyang, before the war, was still outside the Celestial Dynasty; after the war, it was within the Celestial Dynasty."

"Now that I'm still abroad, I still have to use people from the Privy Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to do this. I was going to find some people who are waiting for the official vacancy to practice, but now it seems that it will not work. Let's talk about it later."

"Now there should be news from the Raksha people. The Raksha special envoy can't sit still, and the matter of the Northwest boundary agreement has been settled. The matter of the Marquis Whale's voyage to the West is already possible. All preparations have been made. ?”

Liu Yu nodded and said: "Everything is ready, the only thing that is missing is the money from your Majesty's money. The rioters in Batavia want to buy armaments..."

Batavia didn't have much money to buy armaments, and anyone present could afford it.

At most three to fifty thousand taels of silver, even if they have a reputation of being clean and honest, they are not short of these three to fifty thousand taels.

But Liu Yu definitely couldn't pay the money.The minister himself funded the rebel army with his own money?Is this preparing to be the king of Nanyang in the future?
Furthermore, Batavia's rebel army did not leave a very good impression on the emperor.

Shi Shi told the truth, and he also had the eyeliner sent by the emperor to tell the truth. When he persuaded him to surrender, he said, "You Li Zicheng should be the emperor for rebellion. Why can't we do something big in Java?" The emperor was very upset. .

In the war against Japan, the emperor once told his ministers three lessons, one of which is that they must not be feudal.

The consequences of feudalism were vividly displayed in the First World War against Japan. Each has his own ghosts, preserves his strength, sits on the mountain and watches the tigers fight, and replaces them... All these made the emperor die of the idea of ​​not being feudal.

In the eyes of the emperor, Nanyang can have a tributary state, but this tributary state must not be established by the Chinese.

He is the son of heaven, and he considers himself the king of all Chinese. He can allow countries such as Mata Ramsandra, Brunei, and Sulu to pay tribute, but it is impossible to allow the Chinese to build their own country.

In fact, from the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the strongman emperor saw the benefits of Nanyang.

Zhu Yuanzhang once said: I have heard that anyone who has interests in China will benefit as much as the South China Sea. Looking at it today, if you open the sea lanes and accept small tributes from various tribes, you can use them to come to the place where the merchants, ships, and officials get their people. The ancient levy is comparable to the Kuang tax of the Thirteenth.

Liu Yu said that Nanyang made a profit and did not pay a few Henan land taxes. Of course Li Gan believed it.

The problem is that, as an emperor, he has to consider how Nanyang will "take profits" in the future, as well as Nanyang's ruling model.

To put it bluntly, the way of the Ming Dynasty is actually similar to what the Netherlands did.

After changing the skin, the lining is still the same lining, in short two words: monopoly.

There is not much difference between the official monopoly and the monopoly of trading companies in terms of form alone.

The sea ban and tribute trade can make the royal family monopolize foreign trade.For example, Zheng He's voyages to the West, the royal family wants to benefit, there must be a prerequisite: forbidden sea.

Is there any essential difference between the sea embargo during Zheng He's voyages and the Dutch East India Company and British East India's "non-corporate ships are not allowed to pass through the Cape of Good Hope, and offenders will be sunk, half of the cargo company and half of the royal family"?

In the early days of the Ming Dynasty, the sea was banned, and its own large ships traveled across the Western Ocean to bring goods; this is the same as the East India Company's ships across the east of the Cape of Good Hope, but private ships dared to cross the border, and the East India Company directly sank them... It was nothing more than one caught on the shore and the other at sea. Just grab it.

Prohibition of private voyages, while the official monopoly of trade channels, which can obtain excess profits.If there is no monopoly, where will the excess profits come from?

In order to collect money, the emperor actually did some things like the East India Company.It looks like there is a difference, but when you think about the essence, it is not much different.

In order to ensure the price of spices, the Dutch poured boatloads of spices into the sea to ensure scarcity and sell them at high prices. This is market-regulated prices.

Zheng He brought back a large amount of pepper and sumac from his voyages to the West.In the early stage, it was rare, and it was 30 taels per [-] catties; later, the number of voyages to the West increased, and it dropped to [-] taels per [-] catties, which can be regarded as market regulation and supply and demand relationship.

In order to "sell at a high price", Chengzu used pepper and sumac to convert money according to a fixed price, paid officials wages, and forced high prices.

This is similar to the Ostend incident a few years ago, when the price of tea plummeted. When the Dutch East India Company paid dividends, it did not give money. Instead, according to the price of tea when the price was high last year, one shareholder distributed two packs of tea. It is conceivable that the shareholders meeting What do you think.

The abolition of voyages to the west itself is also an obvious conflict of interest.

Internal money and treasury are separated.The treasury pays out the money for shipbuilding and voyages to the West; the profit after returning goes to the internal treasury.

This is similar to when the East India Company raised shares and said goodbye to you with a smile and dividends. If this model can continue, all economics books will have to be torn up and rewritten.

Purely from an economic point of view, Zheng He's voyages and the Ming Empire's trade strategy are the "Royal Nanyang Monopoly Company", which relies on a "sea ban" policy similar to that of the East India Company to obtain excess profits and monopoly rights.

This is why the "East India Company" model cannot be adapted to Ming or Dashun.

If it is not done well, it will become a ban on the sea, but it will be banned, and the monopoly will not be achieved.

The coastline is too long, and smuggling cannot be eliminated. If the royal family wants to monopolize trade, it can only choose a direction that is convenient for monopoly.For example, in order to make money, Manchu made thirteen lines.

Say a thousand words and ten thousand words, all for one word.

money.

The merchant's money, not the emperor's money, it's as simple as that.

Why Dashun can set up a monopoly company in Japan, because Japan itself is locked up.Dashun checks one, the trading company checks one halfway, and Japan locks the country and can check one, so it can be turned into a monopoly.

I would like to thank the Tokugawa family for their country-locking policy.

Songjiang Trading Company's monopoly on Japan relies on Japan, not on the monopoly order issued by the Dashun court.

Without Japan's lock country, the monopoly order is a fart. Even in Japan's lock country, there are maritime merchants who forcibly break into the Maguan Strait and smuggle to Xiaokura.

As for Nanyang, there is no way to monopolize it.

The Dutch are so good, they still can't monopolize them, the British and Chinese can still smuggle them, and they can still bypass the Netherlands to produce spices.

In the end, the monopoly model of Zheng He's voyages was destroyed because the merchants in Jiangnan wanted to break the monopoly.This is basically the same reason why many people in the Netherlands opposed the monopoly of the Dutch East India Company.

Li Gan and Liu Yu discussed the difference, and also talked about the lessons of Zheng He's voyages to the West, and finally came to the conclusion that there is no way to monopolize Nanyang.

However, by blocking the Sunda Strait and the Strait of Malacca, it is possible to maintain a monopoly on European trade.

The money that the emperor wants to take is not the money from Nanyang and Dashun trade.

Rather, money from trade with the West.

Dashun merchants trade with Nanyang, they can do whatever they want, just check for pirates and tax evasion. Anyway, the coastline is so long, there is no way to check for smuggling, and you can’t get much money.

However, the export of Nanyang spices, Dashun silk, porcelain, tea, sugar, etc. to the West, the emperor wanted to monopolize the export to the West. He wanted to use the profit to support the navy and to immigrate to the Western Regions and the Whale Sea. to ponder.

What the emperor thought about was different from what Liu Yu thought about.

The emperor thought that it would be best if the trading company could go out and sell its goods to Europe through cooperation with the Swedes.

If not, then take Malacca, engage in trade in Malacca, and gain profits by monopolizing trade with Europe.

Close the door in Malacca, use Nanyang as the back garden of Dashun, completely eliminate the influence of Westerners, and throw all Western business houses to Malacca.If you want to buy spices, porcelain, raw silk, tea, etc., you can buy them in Malacca, and don't think about other places.

And those small countries in Nanyang can only trade with Dashun, but it is not dominated by the government, but the profits are given to the merchants, and they are allowed to play by themselves.

Under this idea of ​​domination and profit, it became an intolerable thing for the Chinese to establish a country in Nanyang.

Since Nanyang is the back garden, analogous to the Anxi Protectorate, there can be four towns in Anxi and small countries in the Western Regions, but there can never be a country established by the Han people themselves.

(End of this chapter)