In fact, Zhu Youxiao also knows the minds of everyone, they are right in order to maintain the system of feudal society, which is also their own way out, but the mainstream of the times is mercantilism, which will lead to the first industrial revolution, if the Ming Dynasty can enter the steam age in advance, then the Chinese nation will not become the sick man of East Asia.

After a terrible silence, Sun Chengzong, the head of the Three Princes, saw that the little emperor had already moved his murderous intentions, and whoever wanted to stop him from conquering Japan would inevitably summon the disaster of killing, so he coughed and stepped forward and said:

"The saint is angry, my emperor is a promising king, and his vision and strategy are naturally not something that ordinary people like ministers can figure out. At the beginning of the conquest of Liaodong and northern Xinjiang, who would have thought that the saint had the wisdom and courage to turn stones into gold and turn decay into magic, not only exterminated Nurhachi, Huang Taiji, Zhuros and other thieves, but also concluded an alliance with Tsarist Russia, established a national alliance in the Mongolian steppe, and completely eliminated the threat from the north, these feats are unprecedented feats. ”

As soon as Sun Chengzong finished speaking, Han Yi, the first assistant of the cabinet, answered:

"Taishi only talked about the military achievements of the saint, and the minister thought that the saint was also a brilliant man. Since the implementation of the new policy by the imperial court, the construction of water conservancy has greatly alleviated the pressure of natural disasters, the construction of five vertical and four horizontal galloping roads to connect us to the interior, the implementation of a whip law to reduce the taxes of the people, the planting of new crops to improve the output of the land. After the defeat of the Dzungar Khanate, the land Silk Road was reopened, and after the defeat of the Netherlands and Portugal, the southeast sea area was controlled by the Ming Navy, and the maritime trade became more and more prosperous, and the income of the imperial court and the internal affairs government increased by 30% and 70% respectively in the third year of the Apocalypse. ”

As the saying goes, don't hit a smiling person with a smiling face, Zhu Youxiao was angry, and he couldn't wait to find a few diehards to play the board, after listening to the praise of the two henchmen, he suddenly laughed like a flower in his heart, and his face gradually returned to calm, and secretly sighed that impulse is the devil. The conquest of Japan would require the mobilization of at least 500,000 troops, as well as tens of thousands of warships and civilian ships, which would be a huge expense, and any problems in the middle would lead to no results, which would not only affect morale, but also call into question his prestige, so he had to consider a foolproof plan to ensure that the sunset operation could be a success at the first time.

After the end of the early dynasty, Zhu Youxiao was alone in the Qinzheng Palace to think about his plan, and did not summon anyone. When he finally sorted out his thoughts at noon, he said straight to the point:

"The conquest of Japan does not need to be mobilized in the country, before Prince Huailiang despised the imperial authority, and then for hundreds of years the Japanese burned and looted, the Ming Dynasty from top to bottom can be said to be the same enemy, united as one. However, with the lessons of Kublai Khan, the ancestor of the Yuan dynasty, I believe that we should try to win Japan's internal response, first gain a firm foothold in Kyushu, and then slowly advance. According to the secret report from Li Dan, after the Honnoji Incident in Japan, Akechi Mitsuhide did not find Oda Nobunaga's body, and we can make up a set of arguments, that is, Oda Nobunaga fled to Kyoto to seek refuge, and later died of grief and death, and then elected a Oda descendant who could be controlled, and he came forward to collect the retainers on the island and support them to form a local government against the Edo shogunate. In this way, the legitimacy of the Tokugawa shogunate will be questioned, the daimyo will rise up, and the island will be plunged into a large-scale civil strife, and we will be able to enter Japan under the banner of the way of the gods.

As for their so-called Emperor Go-Mizuo, I heard that Tokugawa Hidetada forced him to marry his daughter, and it is estimated that the Edo shogunate wanted his grandson to inherit this position, so Go-Mizuo is also a target to fight for. In addition, the daimyo entrenched in Kyushu and Shikoku were also heavily bribed, not only trading with them, but also financing firearms against the Edo shogunate. ”

Seeing that the little emperor had officially set Operation Sunset as a national policy, everyone expressed their support for his decision, so that the whole country entered the preparatory stage of an unprecedented cross-sea landing operation. In order to paralyze Tokugawa Hidetada, Zhu ordered the Portuguese entrenched in Nagasaki to deliberately rob a Ming caravan, and then the two sides had a small friction in the Seto Inland Sea, and finally Tokugawa Hidetada's diplomatic adviser, the Englishman Miura Yasushi, intervened.

Although this self-staged conflict damaged the national prestige of the Ming Dynasty, to a certain extent, Tokugawa Hidetada mistakenly believed that the Ming Dynasty was not familiar with naval warfare and did not have the ability to land across the sea at all. Under this erroneous judgment, he did not arouse vigilance against the Ming Dynasty's actions of building warships and training sailors, and even thought that this was a signal that the Ming Dynasty wanted to retaliate against the Portuguese, and in the future, he could mediate in the middle and meet the left and right.

Zhu Yuxiao did not feel good about the contempt of the Tokugawa shogunate, so he decided to speed up the implementation of the sunset operation, and conducted a second census in the country to recount the taxes paid by the imperial court.

According to the system of the Ming Dynasty, taxes were originally the responsibility of the household department, but Han Xi, as the first assistant of the cabinet, naturally had to be the first to stand up and take a stand. In the past few years, he has climbed from a small official in the Ministry of Officials to the position of the first assistant, completely out of Zhu Youxiao's trust in him, and he has not disappointed Zhu Youxiao, since he presided over the cabinet, he has strongly supported the new policy, and he has long been familiar with taxes and finance.

"Your Majesty, the last count of the registered population was 61.55 million, and the cultivated land was 17.49 million mu, and after screening, it was found that there were big loopholes, and the actual population in the fourth year of the Apocalypse was more than 130 million people, and the cultivated land was more than 28 million mu.

There was also serious corruption in the case of annual revenue, and the salt tax during the years of Taizu and Chengzu was 3 million taels of silver per year, but in the 40th year of Wanli it was less than 600,000 taels. In addition, the agricultural tax has already exceeded four million taels, and the commercial and mining taxes are close to three million taels, and if the additional three salaries are added according to His Majesty's request, the minister roughly calculated the following at 1,500,000 taels, so that the annual income of that year will be at least 9,000,000 taels.

Zhu Youxiao, who had been emperor for four years, certainly knew the value of nine million taels of silver, but this was far from supporting a large-scale campaign, and in order to successfully realize the sunset operation, it was necessary to ensure a steady increase in income. However, in view of Chongzhen's lesson, agricultural taxes should not be more, otherwise the people will rise up in the event of a disaster, so he asked:

"What is the reaction of merchants from all over the world after the additional three salaries?"

Han Yi knew that the emperor was worried that the merchants would secretly oppose the imperial court, and that stability was paramount before the war, and that the whole country could be united. Fortunately, these merchants received huge dividends under the mercantilist policy, and the little silver they paid was only a drop in the bucket, so there was no discordant voice.

"Back to Your Majesty, after the implementation of the new policy, all parts of the country will cancel the checkpoints, widen the gallop road, increase the number of post stations, and basically realize the goods in the Ming Dynasty. The merchants were rewarded handsomely and paid the increased taxes on time. ”

Zhu Youxiao thought that businessmen value profit over righteousness, and they may not consider their own gains and losses from the overall situation, but since Han Xi has already sworn that he must be able to employ people. With this in mind, he turned to Wei Chao and asked:

"How much profit can the weaving bureau make this year?"

Since the overseas trade of the Ming Dynasty was dominated by Ying Tianfu, the Wei Dynasty naturally became a popular man on the emperor's side. He was originally assigned to Zijingjun by Wei Zhongxian and the Hakka family, but was later rescued by Zhu Youxiao and arranged to be the director of the Yingtian Weaving Bureau. In his eyes, the emperor is his reborn parents and only supporter, so he has never disappointed Zhu Youxiao after taking charge of foreign trade.

"Long live the master, after signing the agreement with the three Western countries, the scale of overseas trade is getting bigger and bigger, and the looms of Tianfu, Suzhou and Hangzhou can not complete the order every day, and the difference in the price of silk is four taels of silver per horse, and the profit of 700,000 horses a year is 2.8 million taels, and the net profit after deducting the cost is more than 2 million taels. In addition, after the dredging of the Yangtze River, porcelain, medicinal materials, and precious specialties along the coast have become sought-after goods for foreign trade, and the profit is not less than one million taels. ”

Zhu Youxiao was very satisfied with Wei Chao's answer sheet, he nodded affirmatively, and said calmly:

"I know that you are very hard, and I have long wanted to transfer you back to the celebrant supervisor, but I always feel at ease when such a big stall is handed over to others, and I want you to continue to stay in Yingtianfu to preside over the overall situation."

When the Wei Dynasty heard that the little emperor intended to let him return to the center of power, he felt that the future was bright, and he kowtowed with joy to thank him. Zhu Youxiao was never polite to this kind of person, and continued to ask:

"Feihuang, how is your Huayuan Trading Company?"

As mentioned earlier, Zheng Zhilong is the governor of Huayuan Trading Company, although this guy has become a member of the royal family, he is still a robber in his bones. On the one hand, he carried the royal signboard to trade, and on the other hand, he did some cheap business to enrich his own pockets, which made the caravans of various countries suffer. Of course, his bad deeds have been complained by European envoys, but fortunately, Zhu Youxiao has been protecting the calf and has been pressing for him, so he is safe and sound.

"Shengshang, the company is a brand new thing, and the minister can't figure out a clue every day, so I implore the Shengshang to choose another meritorious. However, by this year he had taken control of the trade of Korea, the Wa Kingdom, and Luzon, and with some windfalls, the profit was 1,300,000 taels of silver. ”

The windfall he said was the robbery of Western merchant ships, Zhu Youxiao and everyone knew it, but Huayuan Trading Company was a joint-stock company, and almost all the ministers of the DPRK and China had injected funds, and it would be a fool to make money if they didn't make money. In order to prevent Zheng Zhilong from being too domineering, Zhu Youxiao said implicitly:

"The Cabinet and the Ministry of Household Affairs are discussing ways to set up a separate Ministry of Commerce to manage trade at home and abroad, and all business activities will have rules to follow to minimize the surprises you mentioned."

Although they complained that Zheng Zhilong pretended to be a pig and ate a tiger, they had awe and worship of the Ming Dynasty from the heart. To put it bluntly, everyone is out to mix, and the rules are naturally to be followed, if there is no strong fleet as a backing, the Ming Dynasty will have to pay protection fees in disguise after entering the Atlantic. However, this kind of trick can't be put on the table after all, and it is not conducive to the Ming Dynasty to carry out ocean-going activities in the long run, so Zhu Youxiao did not encourage Zheng Zhilong's behavior, suggesting that he should be restrained.