Zhu Yuanzhang can see my dreams

Chapter 364 No Need to Walk on One Leg
From a result-oriented perspective, everyone saw the profits made by Emperor Yongle when he sent Zheng He on his voyage to the West.

Now Zhu Yuanzhang's question seemed a little inappropriate.

So no one answered him.

Of course, this was mainly due to Zhu Yuanzhang’s different ideas. He first wanted to establish a natural economy, so the level of commodity economy was very low.

The early Ming Dynasty at this time clearly showed its weakness when compared with the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

Even the Yuan Dynasty's commercial tax was converted into about 4.5 million taels of silver a year, while the Ming Dynasty's commercial tax was insignificant in the national finances, and it was considered great if it was converted into 200,000 taels of silver.

It was only after Wang Buli suggested raising commercial taxes, and at the same time, there was foreign trade and "smuggling" to the Mongols, that the price rose slightly.

This data was reported by the Ministry of Personnel in the 13th year of Hongwu, and the volume is equivalent to one percent of that in the Northern Song Dynasty.

"Buli, you know a lot about this, tell us about it."

Wang Buli paused while eating popcorn, then smiled and said:

“Your Majesty, the policy in recent years has been to encourage farming, and the development of handicrafts has not been rapid at all, so there is not much demand for maritime trade.

Especially since so many things were made, the people of the Ming Dynasty could not consume them all, so they would hoard them. Then the prices would drop further, and the craftsmen would not make any money, so they would naturally stop making these things.

From Hongwu to Yongle, commerce may have increased. The court could make a lot of money by purchasing a group of goods from the people and shipping them out for trade. The people could also benefit from it, and more people would engage in handicrafts, thus forming a positive cycle. "

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded at Wang Buli's explanation. He felt that this was the case.

After all, the Ming Dynasty has now reached the threshold of prosperity, and it is normal for it to become even more prosperous in the future.

"I implemented the policy of maritime ban not for the so-called economic considerations, but because the sea borders are unstable. There are mainly two forces that pose a threat to our Ming Dynasty in the southeast sea. One is the remnants of Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen who were defeated by us, and the other is the threat of Japanese pirates."

Zhu Yuanzhang began to talk about these two people.

Zhang Shicheng and Fang Guozhen initially made their living by trading salt across the sea.

At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, they each dominated one side and confronted Zhu Yuanzhang for a long time.

Zhang Shicheng used the Three Wus as his base and occupied Jiangsu and Zhejiang. His separatist power extended from Jining, Shandong in the north to Shaoxing, Zhejiang in the south, from northern Anhui in the west to the sea in the east. He had "hundreds of thousands of armored soldiers and thousands of miles of fertile land" and was extremely powerful.

Fang Guozhen occupied eastern Zhejiang and his influence was considerable.

He also had a rather spectacular navy, which could move freely on land and in the sea.

Most of Zhang and Fang's troops were coastal people who were familiar with the maritime situation.

After the Zhang and Fang forces were successively conquered by Zhu Yuanzhang, most of the remaining forces fled to the sea and continued to be enemies of the Ming Dynasty.

Wang Buli didn't know the size of their remaining troops.

But listening to Zhu Yuanzhang's description, from the first year of Wu to the years of Hongwu, this group of anti-Ming forces had tens of thousands of ships in the vast sea area thousands of miles around, often waiting for the wind to set out.

In particular, they were more familiar with this sea area than the Ming navy, and often appeared and disappeared mysteriously, dealing with the Ming army, which once made Zhu Yuanzhang very puzzled.

Because of the constant patrols on the coast, and the fact that many of them had relatives living on the coast, Zhu Yuanzhang prohibited them from going out to sea without permission.

The most important thing is that their remaining forces will plunder the coastal residents to strengthen themselves and force them to join the profession of pirates.

Zhang Ruhou, Lin Fu and others called themselves marshals at sea. They borrowed the barbarians of the Japanese islands in the east as their minions, and connected with Jiaozhi and Champa in the southwest as reinforcements. In addition, they connected with the mountain bandits in the interior to threaten their heartland.

They established many strongholds in the southeast sea, and combined internal and external forces to make it difficult for the Ming Dynasty to defend against them and impossible to suppress them.

Even if Zhu Yuanzhang sent Xu Da over there, apart from building some coastal defenses under his leadership, there was nothing he could do about the vast ocean.

Until the Yongle period, this group of rebels was still very active.

Zhu Di had no choice but to issue an edict that as long as these people were willing to return to their hometowns and be good citizens, their crimes would be pardoned and not pursued. However, this had little effect.

In the first year of Yongle, Quanzhou Wei captured some refugees and sent them to Nanjing. Zhu Di personally interrogated them on how many refugees had not yet fled back to the Ming Dynasty. They all said there were many.

These stubborn anti-Ming forces caused the Ming Dynasty a lot of headaches. It was impossible to find any trace of them and could only wait for them to come passively. Retreat was the best option.

Anyway, the only ones who suffer losses are the people living on the coast.

Besides, making the common people suffer is not exclusive to the Ming Dynasty.

Another threat at sea was the Japanese pirate problem.

The Yuan Dynasty launched two military campaigns against Japan, both of which ended in failure, and the government then severed ties.

In order to obtain Chinese goods, the Japanese continued to rob along the Chinese coast during the Yuan Dynasty.

After the Ming Dynasty, the harm became even worse. They "plundered and harassed the people living along the coast" and caused great harm to the lives and property of the people living along the coast.

In the 13th year of Hongwu, the Hu Weiyong case broke out. Zhu Yuanzhang believed that the Japanese wanted to help Hu Weiyong seize the throne, so he was very angry. "He was particularly angry with Japan and determined to break off relations with it and focus on coastal defense."

To this end, Zhu Yuanzhang often sent senior officials to inspect the coast, on the one hand to hunt down Japanese pirates, and on the other hand to build castles on a large scale.

However, for the sake of the silver mine, he listened to the advice of his ministers and severely reprimanded the envoys who came to China, demanding that they hand over the Japanese pirates.

According to the timeline, Japan's tribute trade qualifications were restored in the early years of the Yongle period.

In the 17th year of Yongle, General Liu Rong won a victory in suppressing the Japanese pirates in Wanghaitang, Liaodong.

From then on, the harassment by Japanese pirates was greatly reduced, but it was never eradicated.

This is obviously one of the major reasons why the Ming Dynasty implemented the maritime ban.

Of course, Wang Buli obviously would not say that Zhu Yuanzhang's small peasant consciousness was too serious and he had no long-term strategy. He just disarmed himself in order to guard against these two enemies.

Especially because of the experience with the Mongols, Zhu Yuanzhang felt that once people entered the sea, they would not be easily controlled by him.

In terms of foreign trade, Zhu Yuanzhang, as a conservative, was not as open as Kublai Khan.

If Wang Buli had not suggested adding mathematics to the imperial examination, Zhu Yuanzhang would have planned to abolish this subject from the Imperial College.

Zu Chongzhi's technique of combining letters was quite popular in the Tang Dynasty, but as mathematics declined in the Ming Dynasty, the book was lost.

Zhu Yuanzhang said in the "Huang Ming Zu Xun": "The barbarians in all directions are all bounded by mountains and separated by rivers, and are isolated in a corner. Their land is not enough to provide for them, and their people are not enough to command them."

Regarding the overseas situation, he relied on the fact that China was the "Celestial Empire" and had everything and did not need foreign products.

He himself was very frugal, not extravagant, and had no interest in rare treasures from overseas.

With the channel of "tribute trade", he could not only satisfy his vanity of "all nations coming to pay tribute", but also obtain necessary overseas goods. It seemed unnecessary to allow private individuals to go out to sea for trade.

If all the people in the world cultivate the land and provide for their own labor, and the world is at peace, that is enough.

If the common people went out to sea in droves to pursue "petal" benefits, it would not only reduce the objects of exploitation, but also make them difficult to manage, and might even cause unexpected troubles to the Ming Dynasty's rule.

Zhu Yuanzhang was also an emperor with extremely strong autocratic ideas. This extreme monarchical autocracy was mixed with narrow peasant consciousness, which was reflected in the maritime ban policy in foreign economic activities.

"In fact, I think the Ming Dynasty is different from the Song Dynasty." Zhu Yuanzhang said with a leisurely smile: "The Song Dynasty had too many soldiers, too many officials, and too much money, and the financial burden was heavier. However, the territory was small, and the tax revenue from agriculture was limited, so it had to rely on business to make up for it.

On the other hand, our Ming Dynasty implemented military settlements on a large scale and it was effective. Our territory was much larger than that of the Song Dynasty, we collected more food, and our soldiers were still able to fight.

The Ming Dynasty has far fewer officials than the Song Dynasty, and does not need to rely on overseas trade to maintain tax revenue. "

"Father is right."

Zhu Biao first agreed that compared with the Song Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was still much stronger.

Even though the Song Dynasty had so much money, did its people live better than the people of the Ming Dynasty?
"Nowadays, our Ming Dynasty does not have an absolute advantage in foreign trade."

"If we hastily abandon the maritime ban policy at this time, it is very likely that all our previous efforts will be wasted, and the two enemy forces will take the opportunity to harass our Ming seashore."

Zhu Biao continued to find excuses for his father: "Perhaps by the time of Yongle, these two forces had been completely wiped out by us."

When Zhu Di heard this, he immediately smiled with joy.

What his father failed to solve, he solved when he became emperor.

This shows that he is extremely reliable as the emperor.

Zhu Yuanzhang nodded. In fact, he knew that his descendants would open up the seas in the future. During the Longqing period, they made a lot of money by opening up the seas.

"Buli, do you think there are any disadvantages to this tribute trade?"

"Overall it is beneficial to us, but there is still a fatal weakness." Hearing this, the father and his two sons looked at Wang Buli. They felt that tribute trade was very good, and the pricing power was all in the hands of the Ming Dynasty.

Even if the envoys smuggled large quantities of goods for trade, he would not collect taxes.

"What's the fatal weakness?"

"That's because the small foreign countries around us don't want to play this game with us anymore."

Wang Buli explained to Zhu Yuanzhang that although His Majesty had ordered that tribute should be paid once every two or three years, they stopped paying tribute afterwards.

Would the Ming Dynasty send large ships to the gates of the four barbarian countries and fire cannons to force them to trade just because of something like this?

In general, this matter is maintained by relying on the power of the state and never takes into account any economic laws.

In addition, once foreign tribute envoys arrived at the Maritime Customs, all reception and banquet matters were the responsibility of the Maritime Customs officials.

When accompanying the tribute envoys to Beijing, the Ming court had to send people to deliver the tribute.

Wherever the tribute envoys went, the local officials would host banquets and recruit common people to transport items for the tribute envoys.

Even during the busy farming season, we must not slack off in the slightest.

Therefore, the tribute envoys brought harassment along the way when they came to the capital, causing great burden to the common people along the way.

This also became a political task. The people suffered heavy losses, and the Ming Dynasty did not make much money. It was just a political show.

In addition, private trade was becoming increasingly strong, impacting and undermining the tribute trade. They could trade directly with private individuals, so why should they take the huge risk of coming to the Ming Dynasty?
“The tribute trade gained in politics but lost in economics, and the value of the items that the Ming Dynasty gave them in return was far greater than the value of the tribute they paid.

Since they had paid the price of vassalage and tribute, it seemed natural for the Ming Dynasty to give them more things.

If we cut their expenses, they will be very dissatisfied and feel that it is not profitable, so they will simply not come."

Zhu Biao also nodded in agreement. He could feel it from receiving some envoys in the past few years.

Wang Buli spread his hands and said, "If this continues, how can such a losing business last long?"

In fact, this was also the policy set by Zhu Yuanzhang, which was to give more and take less.

"What about that?"

"We, the Ming Dynasty, let them pay tribute and become vassals to reward them with food and give them the opportunity to do some business in the Ming Dynasty. They are still greedy. Just chop off the leaders of this group of envoys and send a group of less greedy envoys instead."

Wang Buli snorted and laughed: "What the hell is Confucianism? It's not as effective as a knife."

"Father, I think my brother-in-law is right!"

Zhu Di nodded repeatedly. He had just seen that Zheng He's fleet was not very popular, so if they took out swords and guns and fought, they would become popular.

Especially since many people cannot communicate with you, if you don't convince them, how can they sit down and listen to you obediently?

Zhu Yuanzhang always felt that Wang Buli was a radical, too radical.

But as an emperor, he still needed his "reputation", so he stroked his beard and said nothing.

Zhu Biao took over the conversation: "Dad, actually what my brother-in-law said is not unreasonable. We treated them well, but they still committed murder and looting, betraying the grace of heaven and violating the etiquette of the monarch and his subjects.

"You occupy a tiny piece of land and dare to challenge the Ming Dynasty. You are truly an ungrateful person. How can we not teach you a lesson?"

Zhu Yuanzhang just nodded but did not agree. He still remembered the list of small countries that he had issued that the Ming Dynasty would not conquer.

Wouldn't that be like shooting oneself in the foot?
Zhu Yuanzhang still found it hard to accept that he had slapped himself in the face.

"We just saw Zheng He promoting the Ming Dynasty while trading with the barbarians, bringing back a lot of gold, silver and various specialties. We can put the gold and silver into the warehouse to build water conservancy projects, and then keep some of the specialties and sell some.

In this way, since the business is also controlled by the state, it seems that commercial taxes will increase significantly in the future.

Our Ming Dynasty is vast and rich in resources, and we can earn the same amount of money as the Song Dynasty. In this way, why should we worry about not entering a prosperous era earlier? "

Zhu Yuanzhang still has great expectations for pursuing a prosperous era.

He became emperor, and after so many years of hard work, what he wanted most was to make the world prosperous.

Only in this way can we justify his hard work of working so late every day.

"This matter still needs further consideration."

Zhu Yuanzhang knocked on the back of his chair but did not respond immediately. He was still quite wary of the anti-Ming forces on the sea.

In particular, his navy was good at fighting in Hanoi, but once it came to a naval battle, he was really a little out of control.

This is a brand new challenge for him.

He couldn't find talented people in naval warfare in a short time.

The main reason is that they are at an inherent disadvantage against the people who are exiled at sea.

"I wonder what Father is worried about?"

Zhu Di asked bravely, since he was in Peking now and couldn't reach her anyway.

"You all know that overseas trade can make a lot of money." Zhu Yuanzhang immediately pointed out the key:
"By then, the people will abandon their land and pursue trivial matters. Our Ming Dynasty is mainly based on agriculture, and by then, no one will farm.

Moreover, those who go out to sea privately can evade taxes, and even go out to sea after committing a crime, which we cannot tolerate."

To put it bluntly, farming has always been the top priority in Zhu Yuanzhang's mind.

"Your Majesty is right."

Wang Buli agreed directly.

This made Zhu Yuanzhang look at him with a higher opinion, seeing how aware our son-in-law is.

Although Zhu Yuanzhang believed that Zheng He's voyages to the West were entirely facilitated by Wang Buli, he did not have to do it immediately. It was good that he could understand his difficulty.

Such words made Zhu Yuanzhang feel more comfortable and more acceptable.

“In fact, Zheng He’s voyages to the West were not without their own risks. At present, the Ming Dynasty does not have a good understanding of the waterways and natural environment in the South Seas and other regions.

In the future, when the envoys of the vassal kings come, we still need to ask them to draw a map, and then tell the outside world that the Ming Dynasty will also send envoys to confer titles on the kings.”

"Yes, that's exactly what we should do."

After all, the king and the crown prince who were not enthroned by the Ming Dynasty as required could be overthrown.

Many foreign small countries are also willing to go through this procedure.

"As for what Your Majesty said just now, that you are worried that many people will take small boats to trade, I personally think that is impossible. First, they cannot load more goods to make a profit, and they will easily be eaten by fish if they encounter a little wind and waves."

Wang Buli pointed at the huge treasure ship on the screen and said, "It takes a lot of skilled craftsmen and financial resources to build a ship like this. So I think those who can go out to sea privately are mostly wealthy merchants on the coast and local big families."

Wang Buli's words made Zhu Yuanzhang think carefully.

He has always been "robbing the rich to help the poor", how could he forget such a thing?

How could the common people who farm the land have the time and energy to build a slightly larger ship?
Especially, how much capital do they have?
Only those who have money can accomplish such things!
Zhu Yuanzhang himself was trapped in the limitations of his thinking: "Yes, it is my fault for not thinking it through."

"Your Majesty, based on current general conditions, it is common for sea transportation to earn more than ten times the profit.

Such high profits are like a magnet that attracts maritime merchants to smuggle goods illegally. No matter how strictly Your Majesty prohibits it, private overseas trade cannot be completely stopped.

Second, the people along the coast have long made their living from the sea, and this has become a habit. Especially since the Song and Yuan dynasties, more and more people along the coast have made their living by engaging in overseas trade.

The Ming Dynasty's implementation of a maritime ban undoubtedly cut off their way of survival.

In order to avoid being killed, they tried every possible means to go out to sea privately. "

"Well, I am also always worried that they will collude with pirates."

Wang Buli continued his speech: "Your Majesty, after decades of recuperation, the population of Ming will increase, but the land allocated to the people will also decrease.

Land annexation inevitably followed the old path of the previous dynasty, eventually leading to rebellion by the landless people.

With the trade means of sea transport, perhaps it can alleviate the coming of land annexation and prevent the Ming Dynasty from relying solely on agriculture. "

(End of this chapter)