The envoys of the Seventeen Kingdoms of the Western Regions entered Beijing, and set off a wave of procurement in the capital, and the spices from Maluku rose by 10%.

This is also thanks to the fact that Zheng He's fleet has just returned, otherwise, the price of spices would have risen even more according to the purchasing power of the countries that must be used.

This is mainly because Timur and other countries robbed too much gold and silver in the West, and these gold and silver have no consumer market in their own country, so in addition to building temples, they can only come to Daming to shop.

And spices are simply priceless treasures for nomads. They like to eat barbecued meat, and a little spice when grilling meat can make the barbecue taste more fragrant.

Although it was hot in July in Yingtianfu, several barbecue restaurants in the city were contracted by these people from the Western Regions every day.

Of course, the Inner Supervisor was very happy about this, although some nobles now brought back some spices with the fleet, but the trade of the Inner Supervisor was the main one.

Since the summer of the thirteenth year of Yongle, spices have unconsciously become the fourth largest trade commodity in the trade between the Ming Dynasty and the countries of the Western Regions.

The first is of course silk and cloth, and both the poor and the rich in the Western Regions have to wear clothes.

And the second is tea, tea is an indispensable drink for the people of the Western Regions, and it is also their medicine, which can not be lacking in a day.

The third largest trade item was originally ironware, which is now porcelain. The Mongols spread iron-making techniques to the Western Regions, and most of the countries in the Western Regions are now able to make their own ironware, so porcelain is now a major trade item.

However, it is inconvenient to travel to the Western Regions by land, so most of the porcelain purchased by the people of the Western Regions is high-quality porcelain, rather than daily necessities.

On the contrary, the envoys of Timur were not very interested, because Zheng He's fleet had already arrived at Khurumus and brought them ships of porcelain.

Only those countries like Turpan would transport porcelain by land.

Spices were one of the goods that Zhu Zhanji asked Zheng He's fleet to trade this time, and Zheng He and the internal supervisor were still a little puzzled. Because spices are simply everywhere in the Maluku country, and their value is not high.

Although the Ming people like the rich fragrance of spices, there are almost substitutes for these condiments, whether it is pepper, star anise, cinnamon Daming itself, and the taste of cloves and nutmeg, Daming people are not too accustomed to it.

After these spices arrived in the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Zhanji sealed them in the inner library, preparing to bring them over when he went to the West next time.

In this era, the price of spices in Europe was almost as heavy as gold. Europeans are crazy looking for all kinds of spices, Portuguese, Dutch, Spaniards, they are crazy looking for the source of spices.

In a way, the impetus for Europeans to frantically search for the New World was primarily for spices.

Moreover, Zhu Zhanji also interfered with the trade of the inner treasury for the first time, and directly marked the price of worthless spices by a hundred times.

In Maluku, an iron pot can be exchanged for a stone of spices. Because the kilogram has not yet been popularized, the Ming Dynasty mainly uses stone as a weights and measures.

In other words, an iron pot can be exchanged for 120 catties of dried spices.

But under Zhu Zhanji's price, a pound of spices was sold for a pound of silver in Daming.

Because of such a high price, a pound of spices can buy nearly fifty catties of rice, and at present, Ying Tianfu has bought a small amount except for a few big restaurants, and it can't be sold at all.

But these people from the Western Regions didn't care about the price at all, and when they heard that Daming only had a boatload of such spices, they directly took out the gold and wrapped all the spices.

This also made Xie Kun, the head of the internal supervisor responsible for managing spices (not a typo, but an official position), stunned. If it weren't for Zhu Zhanji's dissuasion, he would even want to take back all the spices that flowed out and sell them to these people from the Western Regions.

However, Zhu Zhanji knew very well that relying only on official trade, although there were profits and complementarities, and he could earn silver, but the economic promotion of the Ming Dynasty was very small.

Just like this spice, no matter how much money the internal prison makes, it will not promote the people's livelihood at all, and only the royal family will make money.

On the contrary, with a trade surplus that has been like this, too much gold and silver will flow into the Ming Dynasty, which will cause inflation.

Of course, it's still too far to talk about these now, because the current Ming economy is only growing savagely, and there is still a long way to go before it matures and is saturated.

However, if you want to control the economies of other countries, so that they can go from trading with the Ming to becoming dependent on the Ming and indirectly controlling their economies, you can do it now.

But this plan, as soon as it was mentioned to Zhu Di, it was rejected. "We want their countries to be poorer and better, so why help them develop their livelihoods? Only when they are poor and can't open the pot is the most beneficial time for Daming. ”

"Grandpa Huang, we don't want to help them, but we are helping our Daming. A big war will cost us two million taels of silver, and it may not be effective. However, as long as our economic strategy is right, we can turn them into our Ming market, and our dumping ground ......"

"What is a dumping ground?"

"To put it simply, it's to let them buy our shabby places at a high price, they don't have the money, and of course they can't afford anything. But what about when they have money? There is money to buy our stuff. Of course, we can't sell steel, firecrackers, and cannons, but when we can't wear enough coarse cloth and precious silk to sell them, it can bring greater benefits to our Ming economy. ”

"It's inappropriate, it's too risky. If they have money, they will be able to build more weapons to harm our Ming people. ”

It was difficult for the minds of the ancients to figure this out until they saw the effect. Zhu Zhanji had no choice but to take out his killer weapon and said: "Grandpa Huang, think about Duoyan Sanwei, they are now refining coke for my Daming, and we gave them a lot of property, but these belongings finally bought goods from my Daming." Their economy is getting better now, but now they have to rely more on our faces to act, don't they? ”

Zhu Di stopped talking and thought deeply.

Since the discovery of the Beimingshan copper mine last summer, 200,000 troops and 100,000 people have stayed in Beimingshan. However, in addition to the Daming blasters trained by the Shenji Battalion who were mining in Beimingshan, all the serfs who really smashed stones and worked as coolies were sent by Duoyan Sanwei and Tatar nobles.

These serfs could earn the price of half a sheep for a day's work, which was not too high, but rain or shine without any risk.

And they raise sheep for a year, and when they encounter bad weather, they may get nothing, so anyone will calculate this account.

Most of the able-bodied serfs were sent to smash stones, and they crushed the ore blasted by Han Chinese technicians with gunpowder, picking out the crushed stone with a high copper content, and transporting it to the stockpile.

Most of the Han farmers were subsidized by the imperial court to send a new cart, and then buy one or two horses on the grassland, so that they could pull the ore from Beiming Mountain to Kaiping Qiantunwei.

Although this distance is 400 kilometers and 800 miles, the Ming Dynasty insisted on pulling all the ore to Kaiping Qiantunwei for refining. In order to make transportation faster, the first cement road that Daming has planned to build is the road from Beiming Mountain to Kaiping Qiantunwei, and then to Beiping.

When this road was built, the Ming Dynasty sent troops to the Mobei grassland, and there was no need to levy people's husbands, just today's copper mine service personnel could successfully complete the transportation of baggage.

Although the amount of gold, silver and copper produced in Beimingshan is not too large to cover the cost, as long as the discerning person knows, the only thing that restricts production is transportation.

When the cement road is built, the copper production will have a skyrocketing stage.

Through the production of a copper mountain, the current Ming Dynasty has completely controlled Duoyan Sanwei and half of the Tatars, and if it continues like this, it will not take a few years, and I am afraid that the entire Tatar will be attached to the Ming Dynasty.

So when he heard Zhu Zhanji mention the Copper Mountain of Beiming Mountain, Zhu Di said with some emotion: "There is only one Beiming Mountain, and there are so many countries in the northwest, how can it be like Beiming Mountain?" ”

Zhu Zhanji said with a smile: "My grandson already has a strategy, it is not a copper mountain, but it is more stable and durable than a copper mountain, that is, to teach people from northwest countries to grow cotton." Moreover, the grandson also wanted to ask the imperial grandfather to order that cotton planting was strictly prohibited in the fertile fields south of Beiping. ”

"Cotton? Just this thing can make the Northwest countries bow down? ”

Zhu Zhanji said with a smile: "My grandson heard that the imperial grandfather is preparing to draft a decree and send a batch of palace maids home, why is this?" ”

"Of course, because of the new loom, there is no need for too many manpower......" Zhu Di suddenly paused for a moment, thinking about the logical relationship of this matter.

Whether it is the Ming Dynasty or other countries, many poor people are still unclothed. Especially in some remote areas, in winter, the whole family can only nest in a quilt because there is no clothes to wear.

Many children, both men and women, are still bare-chested every day until they are seven or eight years old, not because they are frost-resistant, but because their clothes are too precious to wear.

Therefore, Daming is by no means saturated with the clothing industry, just because of the lack of raw materials for cotton, linen and silk.

The palace maids of the inner library were sent home, also because the new loom could replace more manpower, but if there were more raw materials, the Ming would be able to produce more cloth.

This industry is bigger than most people think, because clothes are consumables, and the increase in population will also promote the increase in the consumption of clothes.

And in addition to the Ming Dynasty, in other countries, the situation is even more serious, because they are poorer than the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, Zhu Di, who is not short of understanding of people's livelihood, quickly figured out the middle link, patted his thigh and said: "No matter whether I am coercive or tempting, I want the northwest countries to help me grow cotton." ”

Zhu Zhanji said with a smile: "Grandpa Huang also forgot a good thing. ”

"What's good?"

Zhu Zhanji said with a smile: "Using the transportation of cotton, I can build a cement road to the northwest in the Ming Dynasty, and as long as this road is built, it will no longer be difficult to march in the northwest in the future." ”