On the twentieth day of the first month of the thirteenth year of Chongzhen, after three days of purge, Taiyuan City gradually returned to calm, and the Tianwu army transported the copied family property to Beijing in batches, and also escorted the eight major Jin merchants and their main family members.

In the city of Beijing, Zhu Cihong was reading the good news of Shanxi with great interest, and this time the big raiders got a total of 80 million taels of silver, and other gold, silver, jewelry, antique calligraphy and paintings, as well as the goods hoarded by the eight major Jin merchants, worth at least 200 million taels of silver.

Zhu Cihong was full of emotion, since the opening of the Ming Dynasty, the total amount of silver that has flowed into the Ming Dynasty through overseas trade in the past 70 years is only 353 million taels, and now the total amount of silver in the world is also one billion taels, and the cash silver in the hands of the eight Jin merchants actually accounts for nearly a quarter of the total amount of the Ming Dynasty.

It is no wonder that later economists said that the real reason for the collapse of the dynasty was the lack of money, the fiscal deficit was too large, the income was not spent much, and finally it collapsed completely.

As we all know, the fall of the Ming Dynasty was not a simple political issue, economic issues accounted for an important factor, which is also an important case in the history of the world economy.

Daming is one of the most advanced countries in the world at that time, since the time of Longqing switch to Chongzhen, the commodity economy has developed very developed, the symbol of the commodity economy is currency, the currency of the Ming Dynasty is mainly silver.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, natural disasters continued, and the imperial court must have silver if it wants disaster relief, and even if there is no silver, even if the imperial court has a planned economy, and how much financial statements and budgets the household department makes, it is nonsense, and Emperor Chongzhen's disaster relief decree was sent to the disaster area in Shaanxi in exchange for a copper plate, and even toilet paper is not as good.

Daming has always been very short of silver, the total output of silver mines in the country is only 180,000 taels a year, and the people only recognize silver.

Therefore, when the Ming Dynasty developed overseas trade in Longqing Switch, it required foreign merchants to pay silver in exchange for goods, and after the Longqing Switch, Ming earned one-third of the total amount of silver in the world at that time, plus smuggling and other channels, it can be said that Ming has half of the total amount of silver in the world, but why is there still no money and no silver?

The commodity economy of the Ming Dynasty was very developed, the more developed the economy, the more silver was needed, but the silver used for market circulation at the end of the Ming Dynasty was limited, and it was not enough at all, and the biggest reason was that the silver was concentrated in the hands of a small number of officials and businessmen, and was either invested in land, real estate, or cellared underground.

A large amount of silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty, but did not form new purchasing power, create new value, and did not promote innovation, but brought new problems, first a large inflow of silver caused the price of expensive silver, resulting in inflation, and then most of the silver was controlled by the powerful so that there was not much silver circulating in the market, and deflation, these two problems were not solved by the top of the Ming Dynasty.

The prosperity of overseas trade allowed European countries to obtain a large number of overseas goods in global trade, which stimulated new markets, and European countries such as Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal evolved into capitalist countries, while the Ming Dynasty stopped at the embryonic stage of capitalism, and finally passed by the rich country and the strong people.

In addition to the large amount of silver hoarded by the eight Jin merchants, Zhu Cihong also knew through history that the magnates of the Beijing division also had seventy or eighty million taels of silver, and the silver accumulated by the Jiangsu-Zhejiang consortium and the Guangdong consortium in the south of the Yangtze River was probably not less than that of the Jin merchants.

Whether it was the establishment of the nine-sided trade gateway in the early Ming Dynasty or Zheng He's trip to the Western Ocean, it was for the imperial court to control the wealth, but the capitalists of the Ming Dynasty united and slowly controlled the northern trade pass, that is, the Silk Road, and abolished Zheng He's treasure ship team through some means, controlled the maritime Silk Road, and even the Tumubao change may have been planned by them, just to control the northern trade pass and kick the imperial court out.

The so-called European voyage, to a certain extent, is the division of labor in the international value chain, in fact, it is to find silver overseas for the capitalists of the Ming Dynasty, that is, to export silver to China, and complete the offshore minting of silver capital.

The Eight Great Jin Dynasty used commercial cellars to store silver, deliberately exacerbating the shortage of silver, so that the interest rate could increase if they lent money, and these people knew too well how to speculate in the capital market.

The Jiangnan capitalists and the Jin merchant capitalists controlled the maritime trade and land trade of the Ming Dynasty respectively, and played the Ming economy step by step. No matter how much economic reform you want, it is useless.

Zhu Cihong is not talented, he knows that he can even lose his own pants by playing economic warfare with these bigwigs, so he can only conquer them by force and kill them, because there is really no way, the country's economic lifeline is in his hands, and it will be difficult for him to become an emperor in the future, Chongzhen is a good example.

Zhu Cihong will not be stupid enough to compromise and cooperate with these capitalists, those people finally kicked out the court and seized the initiative, how can they easily share their cake with the court, it is too naïve.

Zhu Cihong's support for the Hui merchants was not only to fight against these capitalists, but also to allow them to replace the capitalists who are now digging the corners of the Ming Dynasty in the future, and finally the imperial court and these new capitalists will cooperate for a win-win situation, and grasp the economic initiative, and the two sides will form a new community of interests.

With the support of these new capitalists, Zhu Cihong's rule will be more stable, and the Ming Dynasty will be able to better carry forward the past and forge ahead into the future, integrate into the world development trend, and even colonize the world to divide the cake.......

Zhu Cihong put down the list of raiding the house, and looked at another piece of information, which said that when the house was raided, the bodies of several Jinyi guards were found in the secret prison of the Fan Mansion Courtyard, and after the identification of the Ministry of Intelligence, one of them was Wu Mengming, the commander of the Jinyi Guard, who was tortured in an inhuman form, and had already lost his breath.

Zhu Cihong took a deep breath, this information came too timely, with it, the pressure on Emperor Lao Tzu will be reduced a lot, after all, killing Jinyiwei is no different from plotting rebellion, and it is the emperor's face that is slapped.

The news that the eight Jin merchants were eradicated by force caused an uproar, shocking the whole country, and the outside world accused the outside world of being so bold and reckless, clearly digging the roots of the gentry in the world!

Even though Zhu Cihong ordered the "Huangming Times" to report on the various evil deeds of the eight major profiteers who betrayed the country, it still aroused the anger of all forces, first the prefectures and counties in Shanxi played one after another, and then the fierce response of the officials and nobles of the Beijing Division, and the music books from all over the country flew into the dragon case of the Forbidden City like snowflakes.

Among them, Zhu Xianxuan, the king of Jin, cried in several books, saying how the Tianwu army was rude, and actually killed the steward and eunuch in his house, and scolded him to his face, which is really unroyalty!

The interests involved in the Eight Great Jin Merchants were too huge, after their downfall, too many people's wealth and wealth were cut off, as the saying goes, cutting off people's wealth is like killing their parents, some officials were afraid of being implicated, and constantly pressured the imperial court to release the Eight Great Jin Merchants and return their property.

Even the nobles and officials in Jiangnan also played, saying that the Tianwu army captured and killed the Shanxi gentry, or a large number of killings, the crown prince's move was shaking the foundation of the Ming Dynasty, and some people even proposed to abolish the crown prince and set up the third prince Zhu Cijiong as the prince.

After tossing for several days, Zhu Cihong didn't care, just quietly watching their crazy performance, he liked to see these people hate themselves and couldn't kill them, it's so cool!