Although Xia Wanchun is not very old, he is very interested in wine, probably poets are like this.

When he took a sip of wine, his eyes immediately widened.

"Your Majesty, good wine, this wine is absolutely extraordinary, it is the first time that the minister feels that there is such a delicious wine!"

Hearing Xia Wanchun praise the good wine, the two princesses showed proud expressions.

Jianwen:

"Of course, my father is the reincarnation of a god, and I not only have good wine, but also ......."

"What my sister means, my father not only has good wine, but also can go into battle to kill the enemy, command the battle and strategize, look at the Liukou and look at the Eastern Capture, you don't understand the children if you say too much, drink!"

Zhu Weijiao was worried that Jianwen would reveal her father's old background, so she hurriedly interrupted her.

Hearing the princess say that she was a child, Xia Wanchun smiled slightly, and wanted to say that the princess is not big? But he held back.

Zhu Youzhen took a sip of wine and interrupted the three children to laugh:

"Xia Wanchun, you are from Jiangnan, can you tell me what you know? I want to hear the truth! ”

Xia Wanchun hurriedly got up and hugged his fists:

"Your Majesty, please speak, the minister will know everything."

Zhu Youzhen smiled slightly:

"Sit down and talk, I want to know about the smuggling in Jiangnan, how much do you know?"

Xia Wanchun:

"Back to the emperor, according to the minister's understanding, although the Daming sea ban is only an official sea ban, there are still ships from the people to the sea, and it is all those gentry and wealthy businessmen who collude with officials to make profits.

A large number of tea, silk, porcelain, etc., went to sea, which could be exchanged for huge amounts of gold and silver, but they would not pay taxes to the imperial court.

After His Majesty lifted the sea ban, the situation seems to have improved, but smuggling is still rampant, if smuggling can be controlled, the revival of the Ming Dynasty will not be a problem! ”

Xia Wanchun said these things, as a 21st century traveler, Zhu Youzhen is of course very clear.

The fall of the Ming Dynasty is actually inextricably linked to the sea ban.

Asking for resources and wealth from the sea can be said to be the consensus of modern people, and the Age of Discovery, which was started by Europeans at the end of the 15th century.

Moreover, the development of resource-poor Europe quickly surpassed that of Asia, laying the foundation for hundreds of years of prosperity in Europe.

As early as nearly 100 years before the Age of Discovery, the great Chinese navigator Zheng He had already led an unprecedented fleet to sail and connect the world.

But the miracle of the world's maritime history did not continue.

In 1424, Zhu Gaochi, Emperor Mingrenzong, announced in his enthronement edict that he would stop going to the Western Ocean, and the Ming Dynasty's maritime exploration was basically abolished.

The termination of Zheng He's voyage to the West was a policy of the Ming Dynasty's civilian clique out of its own interests.

The direct reason why the civil officials of the Ming Dynasty proposed to stop Zheng He's voyage to the West was that "the expenditure was huge, and the treasury was empty", which was to put it bluntly, it was too much money, resulting in an empty treasury.

But this is a lie that can only fool the emperor who is in the palace and far away from the people.

Since the Southern Song Dynasty, the development of foreign trade along the southeast coast of China has entered a peak.

The land area of the Southern Song Dynasty was much smaller than that of the Ming Dynasty, but the fiscal revenue could reach 25 times that of the Ming Dynasty, and overseas trade accounted for the lion's share.

The Song Dynasty imposed tariffs of 7%-10% on imported goods, and the annual tax revenue of the three cities of Guangzhou, Quanzhou, and Liangzhejiang alone amounted to 2 million guan (about 2 million taels of silver)

If the history of the Southern Song Dynasty is far away from the Ming Dynasty, then the Yuan Dynasty was also a big country in maritime trade, and the sea ships filled with porcelain flowed endlessly.

It extends to Japan in the east and Southeast Asia, Persia, Arabia and Africa in the west.

It can be said that the profit of an overseas trade is often ten or a hundred times.

The windfall profits from overseas trade were no secret to the bureaucratic gentry in the Jiangnan region, and many families made their fortunes from this.

After the establishment of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, issued a sea ban in order to solve the invasion of the remnants of the Japanese and Zhang Shicheng, Fang Guozhen and others.

The three major cities of Quanzhou in Fujian, Mingzhou in Zhejiang, and Guangzhou in Guangdong were abolished, and absolute foreign trade was banned.

But there is a famous saying in Das Kapital: "If there is a 10% profit, capital is guaranteed to be used everywhere; With a 20% profit, capital can be activated.

With 50% of the profits, capital will take risks; For the sake of 100% profit, capital dares to trample on all human laws; With more than 300% of the profits, capital dares to commit any crime, even to the risk of hanging his head.

Zhu Yuanzhang's strict orders could not stop the residents of the Jiangnan region from pursuing interests, and ordinary civilians with no power simply went to sea to become pirates.

The bureaucratic gentry, who were in the privileged class, simply helped pirates sell their stolen goods or organized fleets for the smuggling trade.

The Ming Dynasty did not have a strong navy, so it was powerless to stop piracy and smuggling.

Zhu Yuanzhang's sea ban was useless except for reducing the tax revenue of the imperial court, and the bureaucratic gentry took the opportunity to become the dominant players in the overseas trade of the Ming Dynasty and make huge profits.

Take the famous Zheng Zhilong (Zheng Chenggong's father) maritime trading group at the end of the Ming Dynasty as an example, earning tens of millions of taels of silver every year.

The appearance of Zheng He's voyage to the West broke the monopoly of the bureaucratic gentry in the Jiangnan region on maritime trade.

Zheng He went to the West with more than 200 ships of all sizes, including 63 main treasure ships.

According to the British scholar Mills's calculations, each treasure ship could carry 2,500 tons, and before each voyage, the Ming eunuchs would buy a large number of porcelain, tea, silk and other goods in order to go to sea with the ship to trade in the countries along the route.

The trade volume of various countries is limited every year, and Zheng He's fleet brought a large number of goods, which naturally affected the sales of the smuggling caravans of the Ming Dynasty.

The most important thing is that everyone blatantly violated the sea ban because the emperor couldn't catch it.

Now Zheng He has formed an invincible fleet at that time, and it is not easy to raise his prestige overseas, eliminate pirates, and catch a smuggling fleet.

The people in charge of the Western fleet are all the emperor's cronies and eunuchs, and they only need to be loyal to the emperor, but there is no need to give face to the bureaucrats and gentry, and if the smugglers are caught, whether they are dead or alive depends on the emperor's mood.

Therefore, the smuggling fleet was greatly reduced after Zheng He's voyage to the West, and at that time, the annual inflow of silver into China due to trade was as high as 260,000 kilograms.

The Ming Dynasty relied on the imperial examination to recruit scholars, while the culturally developed Jiangnan region had a long-term monopoly on admission quotas.

The famous "Nanbeibang Case" of 1397 epitomized this phenomenon, in which Ming officialdom was mostly dominated by officials from the Jiangnan region, who were more or less involved in overseas trade.

Even if the civil officials themselves are not involved in overseas trade, the "ice respect" and "charcoal respect" that are honored by the people below every year, holding a large sum of silver, taking people with short hands and eating people's mouths, have to speak for interest groups, and it is not the political correctness of the civil official clique to crack down on the power of eunuchs.

A large group of civil officials collectively admonished and demanded the abolition of the voyage to the West, but naturally it could not be said that it would affect their own selfish interests, and they should play a fair and just slogan, that is, "the expenditure is huge, and the treasury is empty."

However, Ming Chengzu Zhu Di was a very assertive emperor and basically disdained civil officials, so it was not until 1424 that Ming Renzong Zhu Gaochi, who believed in civil officials, ascended the throne and abolished his exile to the West.

In 1430, Zhu Zhanji of Ming Xuanzong once again ordered Zheng He to go to the West for the seventh time, but unfortunately Zheng He was already old, and there was a delay for many years.

Whether Zheng He made money in the West or not, just look at what Ming Chengzu Zhu Di did.

Zheng He's first six voyages to the West ranged from the third year of Yongle to the twenty-second year of Yongle.

During this period, Zhu Di personally conquered Mongolia five times, and each time he dispatched more than 100,000 soldiers and horses.

Zhu Neng, the Duke of Chengguo, and Zhang Pu, the Duke of the British, were sent to the south to conquer Annam four times, and it was the cost of more than 100,000 soldiers and horses.

Millions of craftsmen and people were recruited to expand Beiping City, build the Forbidden City, move the capital to Beijing, etc., and a lot of the money came from the emperor's inner treasury.

And the emperor's money was earned by Zheng He and other eunuchs for him, to put it bluntly, all the money earned by going to the West went to the emperor's own small treasury.

If the officials of the DPRK had no selfish motives and did not want to pay taxes and monopolize overseas trade, they should not push for the abolition of the Western Ocean.

Instead, we should promote the abolition of the maritime ban and promote the expansion of foreign trade.

This selfishness can be said to destroy the only chance to postpone the fall of the Ming Dynasty.

There are two biggest reasons for the fall of the Ming Dynasty, one is the collapse of the country's finances, and it cannot come up with enough money to quell Liaodong and suppress the peasant uprisings such as Li Zicheng.

If the emperor of the Ming Dynasty could get money from the sea trade, the so-called "three salaries" would not be a matter at all, how could he be short of money to spend.

The second is the Xiaoice River period, when the Ming Dynasty suffered from continuous natural disasters, failed grain harvests year after year, and famine continued.

The countries of Champang, Siam, Annam, and Chenla in Nanyang are all large grain-producing countries, and the grain is harvested twice or three times a year.

If the Western fleet had always existed, these grain-producing areas would have always respected the leadership of the Ming Dynasty.

Whether it is requisitioning grain, borrowing grain, or buying grain, it can solve the problem of food shortage in the Ming Dynasty, but unfortunately history has no ifs.