Smuggling Daming

Human nature is a wonderful thing, the easier it is to get, the less people know how to cherish it, and even throw it away at will after getting it.But if people have gone through untold hardships to get something, even if the thing is just a broken rock in the eyes of others, the people who get it will carefully treasure it and refuse to show it to others easily.

For example, among the lottery winners in later generations, quite a few of them became rich overnight and returned to poverty within a few years. The huge wealth that was too easy to obtain was squandered by them, and even their original survival skills were thrown away. , making these people only poorer in the future.

For the same reason, Zhou Zhong took advantage of this weakness in human nature when he promoted wool spinning and canning. Instead of vigorously promoting the benefits of wool spinning and canning, he even made a gesture of secrecy, and then the court , Neifu and his Nanyang Chamber of Commerce took the lead in investing and building factories in Xuanfu and other places, which aroused the curiosity of interested people. After these people inquired about the mystery, this weakness in human nature took effect. The attitude of these people, the more these people want to get the technology of wool spinning and canning, so in this case, Zhou Zhong took the opportunity to spread the two technologies. As a result, in less than a few months, Ningxia, Datong and Xuanfu Numerous textile factories and canning factories appeared in the area, and even various factories competed to improve the treatment of workers in order to attract people. As a result, the local labor shortage was once caused.

In the era of Ming Dynasty, there were no invention patents. After a new invention was researched, except for a few military-related things, most of the others could not be kept secret, and as long as it was learned by others, others could use the invention To make a profit for oneself, even the inventor has nothing to do. In the end, he can only admit that he is unlucky, and even the imperial court can't control it.

The same is true for wool spinning and canned food, these two things were proposed by Zhou Zhong.Then the craftsmen of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce perfected it into a mature technology after untold hardships. If the practice of later generations is followed, these two new inventions must apply for patents. No matter who wants to use these two technologies in the future, they must Pay them royalties.

It's a pity that because of the "poor" secrecy, these two technologies are now spread out, even though Zhou Zhong is the King of Zhao.Moreover, it is the supervisor of the Ming Dynasty, but there is nothing to do. After all, the law does not blame the public. There are countless wool textile factories and canning factories in Xuanfu and other places, most of which have deep backgrounds.俌.Their Wei Guogong's mansion also invested in the construction of several wool textile factories, and the other factories also had the support of nobles like Wei Guogong. No matter how tough Zhou Zhong was, he could not be an enemy of most of the nobles.

For this situation, Zhou Zhong had already expected it long ago, and even this was the result he wanted to see.But on the surface, he pretended to be extremely annoyed by this.He even proposed to the cabinet several times that those who stole technology should be severely punished, but unfortunately, the cabinet did not dare to make decisions about this kind of matter, after all, there are too many people involved behind it.

Zhou Zhong quarreled in the court for nearly a month because of the theft of technology, and finally pretended to be helpless, acquiescing to the loss caused by the loss of technology, which made everyone heave a sigh of relief. Especially those who used these two technologies without consent, they were really worried that Zhou Zhong would fight them head-on regardless.

But they haven't waited for these people to let go.However, Zhou Zhong submitted two bills to the cabinet again, namely "Patent Law" and "Trademark Law". Passed easily.

The patent law involves more, after all, after the implementation of this bill.It is no longer possible to usurp other people's new inventions and new technologies as before.However, this time Zhou Zhong was red-eyed and determined to support the passage of this bill. This gives the impression that Zhou Zhong suffered a loss in wool spinning and canning before, so he proposed this bill, and who If you dare to object.That's simply self-inflicted. Only those who stole the technology last time would oppose the bill proposed by Zhou Zhong.

It was also under such circumstances that the patent law, which involved a lot of people, did not arouse much opposition in the end. It was finally passed with Zhou Zhong's strong support, but what everyone didn't know was that they They have all fallen into Zhou Zhong's trap. After all, in his opinion, the technology of wool spinning and canning can be exchanged for the passage of these two bills. It is simply too valuable, especially the patent law. In the future, more talented people will devote themselves to new inventions.

These two bills were just one of the by-products of Zhou's heavy use of economic regulation, and with the construction of woolen mills and canning factories, everyone was looking for raw material supplies.At the beginning, it was the Mongols who drove cattle and sheep to the open border market of Daming for trading, but the volume of this kind of trading was not very large, so they could not meet the needs of those factories soon, so these merchants began to form caravans and actively Go into the grasslands to find the Mongols' tribal trade.

Perhaps in the eyes of others, it would be very dangerous for a caravan of the Ming Dynasty to enter the grassland. After all, there are endless battles between the Ming Dynasty and the Mongols.But in fact, this is not the case. In order to weaken the power of the prairie people, Daming has always implemented trade control on the grassland, and sometimes even banned trade. , It seems to have strangled the throat of the prairie people.

It is precisely because of Daming's blockade of the grassland that the grassland people have formed a tradition, that is, to respect caravans. As long as the caravan arrives in a tribe, not only will they not be attacked, but they will also be warmly entertained. The smuggling situation in the northwest and northeast of Daming is very serious, not much worse than at sea, so there is still a guarantee for the caravans of Daming to enter the grassland. Of course, it is not without a little danger. There are also robbers on the grassland, and these robbers ride horses. But the line comes and goes like the wind, so it is also called horse thief. This kind of horse thief has not been eliminated until the liberation period of later generations.

However, horse thieves on the grassland usually operate in small groups. After all, if there are too many people, not only will it be inconvenient to move, but they will also be attacked by some tribes. Therefore, as long as there are enough people in the caravan, ordinary horse thieves will not dare to attack them at all. Only when several horse thieves work together can they dare to attack the caravan, but this situation is very rare. After all, horse thieves are also highly competitive, and few people will trust others, let alone cooperate.

The caravans of the Ming Dynasty scrambled to enter the grassland, and the trade blockade of the grassland by the Ming Dynasty was abolished. In fact, this decree has long since lost its effect. There are smuggling caravans everywhere on the border between the Ming Dynasty and the Mongolian grassland, especially in Shanxi. Over there, it even controlled most of the Ming Dynasty's smuggling transactions on the grasslands and Liaodong, so after this decree was abolished, the most affected were those rich merchants in Shanxi, because they could no longer monopolize the transactions on the grasslands. .

"Master Jian Guo, this villain has been monitoring the wealthy merchants and clans in Shanxi and other places. With the abolition of the ban on grassland trading, these Shanxi businessmen can no longer control the trading of grasslands and Liaodong, so they are very dissatisfied with the imperial court. Moreover, these businessmen are rich and powerful in the local area, and they even have a large number of thugs and nurses. Even the local officials have to obey their orders. The villain is worried that if these businessmen cause chaos due to dissatisfaction, it will cause another disaster on the border of our Ming Dynasty !" In the small room where Zhou Zhong worked in Wenyuan Pavilion, a middle-aged man wearing the uniform of a commander in brocade guards was reporting to Zhou Zhong.

When Zhengde left the capital, he also took a large number of people with him. Among them were not only internal officials like Gu Dayong, but also foreign officials like Jiang Bin. In addition, Qian Ning was also worried that if he was away from the emperor for a long time, he would be completely taken away by Jiang Bin. Instead, he left Jin Yiwei's affairs alone and ran to Xuan Mansion himself.However, this also brought an opportunity for Zhou Zhong to rectify Jinyiwei. The young man in front of him is named Sun Liang. He used to be the commander of Jinyiwei. Liang's performance really made Zhou Zhong very satisfied.

"You did a good job. I heard that the Jin merchants in Shanxi are as rich as the country, and how many of them are representatives of them. I don't know which ones are they?" Zhou Zhong asked in a calm tone. The Shanxi merchants did not have the slightest favor, because these Shanxi merchants communicated with Mongolia and the Jurchens for their own selfishness. Especially after decades, these Shanxi merchants provided the Jurchens with military salaries, weapons and food, and vigorously supported the Jurchens. It can be said that the reason why the later Jin was able to be established and entered the customs to destroy the Ming Dynasty was mostly thanks to the support of these Shanxi merchants, and after the establishment of the Qing Dynasty, these Shanxi merchants became the imperial merchants of the Qing Dynasty. Has been prosperous for hundreds of years.

During this period of time, Sun Liang had already figured out Zhou Zhong's temper. Although Zhou Zhong's tone of voice was very indifferent, he couldn't help but shuddered and said, "I would like to report to Lord Supervisor, Shanxi Shanxi Merchants originally relied on regional relations. They began to smuggle between Daming and Mongolia, and then it became bigger and bigger, and even bought many generals in the frontier army with money, so their caravans can pass through the border without hindrance, but other caravans can only stop at the border. border."

When he said this, Sun Liang paused and said: "It is also in this way that Shanxi merchants monopolized Daming's trade with the grasslands and Liaodong, and after generations of accumulation, these Shanxi merchants can indeed be called The above is a country that is as rich as an enemy, and it is represented by the eight families of Wang, Jin, Fan, and Liang. These eight families are all big clans in Shanxi. It is also the most noisy!"