October 8, 1681, Changsha, sunny.

Xu is now a relationship with Weifu is getting stronger, and Li Laiheng waited until a few days later before announcing that he would meet with Jiang Yunfan, the special envoy of the East Coast, and his party in his palace. The palace where he now lives has been replaced by a brand-new palace from the relatively cramped and cramped former Governor Fu Yamen, that is, a newly built palace on the basis of the former Mingji Palace.

Jiang Yunfan and the others waited temporarily in a side hall, and the officials of the Shunguo Rites Department accompanied them to chat haha, Jiang Yunfan tried his best to deal with it, but he looked absent-minded. In another side hall separated from them by a wall, Emperor Li Laiheng of Dashun was talking with the crown prince Li Siming, Pingxiang Marquis Gao Shougui, and Wushan Bohao Pingping's confidants and courtiers.

The crown prince Li Siming is now about thirty-three or four-year-old and is the eldest son of Li Laiheng. In the early years, Li Siming still went to the battlefield from time to time (of course, it was impossible to lead troops to fight on the front line), and in the last ten years, he has become less and less, and only received the post of Hubei Jiedu envoy, most of the time he stayed in the Changsha Prince's Mansion, and sometimes went to the palace to help Li Laiheng deal with political and military affairs. Of course, he didn't know that in history, when the Qing army besieged Maolu Mountain in the third year of Kangxi (1664), he led 4,000 people to defend Tanjiazhai, "blocking the danger and guarding it", "arranging guns and cannons to resist the enemy", the Qing army besieged in three ways, attacked the fence, and Li Siming "died in the middle of the stream".

One died in the wilderness and was reported to be everywhere, the other lived in a high-rise compound to look down on the world, and the two ended up so differently that the source of everything was the landing of a fleet in Yantai in 1643 in Bohai Bay.

"The people of the East like to pursue profits, and they have always attached great importance to trade. I heard that they were building a weaving factory in Ningbo, and I am afraid that they are eyeing the market of our Dashun. The general of the silver spear army, Wushan Bo Hao Ping said: "There are also weavers in our country, and there are many of them, and the cloth produced is sold in various provinces, such as the security cloth of Wuchang and so on. But there is a big problem in our country's cloth industry, that is, most of the small households weave their own cloth, that is, in recent years, in Changsha, Yuezhou, Hengyang, Wuchang, Nanchang, Ganzhou and other places have appeared some weaving workshops, suddenly open the market to the Easterners, I am afraid that there will be unforeseen disasters. ”

Although Hao Ping is a military general, he has been to Ningbo and other places, and he still knows some things about the people on the east coast. Moreover, in recent years, he has always tried his best to buy all kinds of books from Ningbo, and his understanding of the routines of the people on the east coast has reached a new level. From this point, it can be seen that the influence of the people on the east coast on the high-level of Shunguo is still quite large. No matter how much suspicion, vigilance, and dirtiness there are between the two countries in private, but as far as the model of the people on the east coast is concerned, the high-level of Shunguo is still partially recognized, you must know that they are not scholars who have learned a belly of saints, full of subtle words, and people who have rolled in the troubled times for dozens of times, even if the level of education is low, but the way of thinking about problems and the ability to see people and things will not be bad. This has nothing to do with anything else, only related to life experience, so Hao Ping said this.

Of course, Hao Ping may be too pessimistic, because even the people on the east coast themselves do not have much confidence that they will be able to break the barriers of this small peasant economy in China. In the Yinxian Archives Bureau, there are many reports written by envoys to Shunguo, which involve economic aspects, and Jiang Yunfan remembers the passage most clearly: "The residents of Shunguo, like the residents I have seen in other parts of the mainland, wear homespun clothes. Chinese short-staple cotton can only be spun into roving, which is equivalent to 16 of our yarns. With this yarn, you can weave a very good cloth without applying glue or paste to harden the warp. The cloth was thick and strong, and it was indeed suitable for farmers or other people who worked hard. Moreover, this cloth is very cheap, can be mended and mended, and can be worn in any weather, and the goods produced by the fledgling textile mills in Ningbo cannot compete with it in any way. The most reasonable way to think is to target the middle class with higher spending power, and although the market is small, it's better than nothing, isn't it? ”

"Your Majesty, the cloth industry is the foundation of people's livelihood and cannot be neglected. Wushan Boyan said that the people of the East were eyeing the cloth market in our country, and the old minister thought it was correct. At the beginning of the year, he led the army back from Jingzhou, Jiangling, Gong'an, Huarong, Baling, Xiangyin, and Changsha all the way, and saw some officials and businessmen actually wearing azure forging sets, and their wives and daughters were also dressed in red satin and red silk skirts. Look at this Changsha city, the materials of the rich man's clothes are also extravagant, and most of them are dressed in brocade and flower forging. And these silks, mostly produced in Ningbo, the price is high, I don't know how much silver taels to flow out every year, often people are suffocated. Your Majesty, Dashun has been a country for more than 30 years, and has been ploughing and fighting so far, with all kinds of hard work and difficulties, which is really incomprehensible if you are not a person in my generation. The old minister is very heartbroken when he sees it, I am also sixty and five this year, and I have fought for the country all my life, and His Majesty has also rewarded him very much, but he only wears plain cloth at home. These descendants in the city, how can they be virtuous, they are actually competing for luxury, it is really unseemly, I hope that His Majesty will give an order to stop this unhealthy trend. After listening to Hao Ping, Gao Shougui, a veteran of the Dashun army who survived and was born in the Gao family, said.

This person is the cousin of the late Empress Dowager Gao Guiying, who has been serving in the former camp under the control of Gao Yigong, and has fought with the Qing army on both sides of the Yangtze River for many years.

However, the interesting thing is that this person surrendered to the Qing Dynasty in history, and the official Zhichen was often in charge. When Li Laiheng and others were besieged in the third year of Kangxi, the Qing court sent Gao Shougui to recruit surrender, but it was unsuccessful, and then gradually disappeared into obscurity and disappeared into the scriptures. Of course, in this time and space, the fate of many people has changed, Li Laiheng father and son are the same, Gao Shougui is also the same, he is now the marquis of Dashun Kingdom, a great loyal minister, the historical Qing Guochen Chang General Soldier and he seem to be people of two worlds.

Li Laiheng summoned them in the palace today, mainly for the affairs of the Hubei front. The Qing army seemed to be annoyed and angry because of the unfavorable battle in Sichuan, so they began to storm the fortresses built by Shun in some areas on both sides of the Yangtze River regardless of casualties. Hao Ping and Gao Shougui had just returned from the front-line battle, and Li Laiheng came to them mainly to learn about the situation in Hubei, but after talking about military affairs, they talked about economic affairs.

Now it seems that his two more trusted generals were not in favor of opening part of the market to the East Coasters. These people are worried that after the money of the common people and the state is used to buy the silk and silk of the people on the east coast, they will not have the money to buy horses, guns, armor, medicines, and some machinery and equipment needed to maintain ordnance for the continuation of the war, which will undoubtedly drag down the combat effectiveness of the Shunguo army and put them in a disadvantageous situation on the battlefield, so they are resolutely opposed.

To tell the truth, Li Laiheng also somewhat agrees with their views. However, after all, he is the emperor of Dashun and a figure who controls the overall situation, so he naturally can't only think about it from this aspect. He only knew that now the Dongguo people are demanding more and more of their Dashun, especially after they won a decisive victory in Sichuan, the Dongguo people suddenly changed their faces, and changed their previous kind faces (in the past, they half sold and half gave things to you, of course, they looked kind...... In turn, he demanded a lot of conditions that were a little unacceptable to him for a while, such as opening the five ports of Jiujiang, Wuchang, Baling, Xiangyin, and Changsha, so that merchants and people on the east coast could freely trade and start businesses here, and the tax rate was levied according to the average level of Shunguo.

Li Laiheng thinks that it is not a big problem at a cursory glance, isn't it just doing business, why not! However, after consulting some of the country's big businessmen and ministers who were good at economic affairs, he felt that something was wrong, and he was worried about whether it would lead to a large outflow of gold and silver from the country.

However, he wanted to guard against the Easterners, but the Easterners were not going to give him a chance to bargain this time. Before, Ma Wenqiang had already asked people to bring a diplomatic letter, asking Shunguo to agree to some things proposed by the people on the east coast to open the port. However, at that time, Li Laiheng refused on the grounds that the military situation was urgent and he did not want to be distracted, which made Ma Wenqiang very unhappy, and Shao Shuguang of the Bank of Taiwan also complained a lot, and even almost withheld a batch of medicines from the local area that he planned to send to them.

This decisive victory of Shun in Sichuan could almost be declared to have taken another province - or a wealthy province with a large population - so the people of the east coast brought up the old matter, once again demanded the opening of the above-mentioned ports, allowing enterprises to enter the east coast, and also sent a delegation with Jiang Yunfan as a special envoy to force Dashun to express his position.

Li Laiheng knew that this time the people on the east coast probably would not give him any more room for maneuver, and if he agreed, he agreed, and if he disagreed, he did not agree, and the people on the east coast would adjust their future policies accordingly according to the reply he gave. In this regard, Li Laiheng did not have any good way to crack it, and he pondered in his heart that he could only agree to the conditions of the people on the east coast, otherwise he was afraid that he would not be able to pass this hurdle. After all, Sichuan has just been taken, and the situation on all sides is still quite unstable, so they must not only guard against a large-scale counterattack by the annoyed and embarrassed Qing army, but also maintain sufficient vigilance against the Nanming regime that is peeking into the rear of Sichuan, so they still need the help of the people on the east coast at this time. Some economic interests, in the face of the country's righteousness, still have to be put aside.

However, Li Laiheng also made up his mind in his heart that once Dashun had eased his breath and spent a few years to clean up and digest it, he would slowly expel the influence of the East Coast people. Dashun's money, how could you earn it so casually? You, a native of the Eastern Kingdom, neither kneel down to worship my Dashun Emperor, nor donate money to the Dashun court, why do you let you make money in Dashun?

Thinking of this, Li Laiheng sighed and waved away the two generals. In fact, these two are also smart people, and they understand Li Laiheng's thoughts, so they just picked out what he likes to hear, in fact, as front-line generals, can't they see that Dashun can't do without the armament on the east coast? How can it be!

Jiang Yunfan, the envoy of the east coast, soon came to this side hall at the invitation of Li Laiheng's personal eunuch. Li Laiheng, who is now in his fifties, sighed softly, waved his hand and found several scholars and servants from the Dashun Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Households, and the Ministry of War, and asked them to talk directly with Jiang Yunfan and others. These people basically already knew the tone of the talks, so they talked about it very pertinently, that is, knowing that they could not hinder the determination of the people on the east coast to open trade ports, carefully planning and repeatedly negotiating to reap benefits for the country as much as possible, was their main task.

The main concern of the Shunguo side is still the trade of war materials. They have just captured most of Sichuan, and their territory has greatly increased, but they are facing military pressure that is increasing unabated, especially in the case that many passes leading to Shu in northern Sichuan and Hanzhong are still controlled by the Qing army, and the Shun army in Sichuan can be said to be facing great challenges, and it is difficult to say whether they can stabilize their positions.

Moreover, before the Zuoying entered Sichuan, the people on the east bank had given them a large number of guns, ordnance and armor, but now they have been fighting for several years, and these losses are very serious, and the military production base in Changsha is completely unable to replenish the gap, so now Dashun is more eager for military supplies from the east bank than ever.

Jiang Yunfan knew the bottom of Marven's forcible relationship before he came, so he readily agreed to Shunguo's request for military assistance - saying that it was aid, in fact, it also had to be paid, but it could be temporarily credited. Of course, there were also conditions attached to his promise, that is, the Dashun side must maintain peace with the Southern Ming court and other separatist powers, such as the Lu King of Southern Zhejiang, the Zheng clan of Fujian, and the Li clan of Guangdong, and must not provoke border provocations, otherwise the people on the east coast have the right to interrupt military assistance at any time.

Lee Rae-hyung agreed to the request after a long silence. Anyway, it is too late for them to digest Sichuan and deal with the counterattack of the Qing army, and there is no reason to start a war with the enemy on multiple fronts. When I get over the past few years, won't I just do what I want? Is it difficult to create some evidence of a border conflict in which you are the injured party? Isn't it unusual to counterattack and attack the territory of the empire in self-defense? I believe that as long as it is not too much trouble, and it is decisively stopped after reaping some benefits, the people on the east coast should not be in trouble.

However, this Dongguo is really hateful, he regards himself as the kingdom of the Celestial Empire, and a small envoy dares to point fingers at himself and his court, how can this be endured! I still have to find a way to attract more foreign merchants in, such as those English people, Francis, Dutch red hair, etc., which first needs to have an outlet to the sea. Well, I'm going around here again, and I still have to find a way from those former Ming remnants. It's time to wait!

On the same day and in the next few days, the East Coast Mission represented by Jiang Yunfan signed a series of agreements with the Shunguo side, which made him very satisfied. As for Li Laiheng, he also received a promise from the people on the east coast to continue supplying goods – even a promise to help them update some of the equipment at the Changsha gun factory – which was extremely important for the defense of Sichuan, and both sides could be said to have taken what they needed and were both happy, at least for now.