Su Changqing, who successfully expelled the Houjin army from the pass, felt that the fear that had been chasing him since he woke up was finally far away, which made his spirit really relax for the first time, and he thought that after returning to the palace, he could rest for a good night and live a life of sleeping until he woke up naturally.

But after opening his eyes the next day, he found that he was thinking too much, and after watching Lu Qi open the curtains with his own hands, looking at the bright sky outside the window, he knew that his body still woke up on time.

Zhu Youzhen sighed slightly, but he didn't continue to lie back, he asked the waiter on the side to put on clothes for him, and asked Lu Qi, "Do you have any arrangements for my itinerary today?" ”

Lu Qi stood beside him with a robe in his arms and said: "The cabinet is still discussing the aftermath of the war today, as well as the use of rewards for the army, as for the officials of the six ministries after being received by His Majesty yesterday, they are also following His Majesty's orders to start some unimportant departments to make up for spring break. If His Majesty has time, he can go and inspect it.

Since last month, the provincial gentry representatives in Beijing conference, the provincial merchant representatives in Beijing conference, and the overseas trade merchants' association have all opened. According to the minutes of the meetings received by the ministers, there was nothing unusual in the first two conferences, and the most discussed issue was whether His Majesty's personal conquest could be victorious, and many people also contributed to the purchase of war bonds.

However, the affairs discussed by the Overseas Trade and Merchants Association were quite out of line, because His Majesty had not yet returned to the capital, so the Association held several meetings and broke up unhappily.

In addition, Hong Chengchou, the governor of Shanxi, Cao Wenzhao, the governor of Shanxi, and Luo Yangxing, the commander of Jinyiwei, jointly signed a joint petition on the case of 23 firms in Zhangjiakou and Datong that collaborated with the enemy and smuggled all kinds of prohibited materials out of the customs and sold them to various Mongolian ministries and prisoners. According to their investigation, these 23 firms have been smuggling prohibited materials for more than seven years, with a total amount of more than 7 million taels and millions of taels in profits..."

Zhu Youzhen suddenly interrupted him and said: "Twenty-three businesses are involved in the case, how many taels of silver have they confiscated?" ”

Lu Qi lowered his head and recalled for a while, and then said with certainty: "The records of the local officials are: 890,000 taels of silver, and the seized assets are about 1.59 million taels. Several other businessmen who were recorded but not disposed of together paid 2 million yuan of atonement money to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and transferred 57% of the equity of Bank of Shanxi to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded and said, "Well, this number is about the same." The notice was given, and the complete record of the case of collaborating with the enemy should be sent back to Jinyiwei for preservation, and the case ended here. In addition, 15% of the confiscated amount will be awarded to the case-handling personnel of each party. As for the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it also proposed that 10% of the money be rewarded to the personnel sent by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Jinyi Wei to participate in the case. ”

Lu Qi suddenly replied with some reluctance: "Your Majesty, isn't this too generous." According to the reports of several social investigators sent by the ministers, these officials who handled the case had already coveted a lot of money in the process of handling the case, and did not let them spit out the money they were greedy for, and had to give them another money to reward them, and His Majesty was too indulgent to them. ”

Zhu Youzhen, who had already been dressed, looked at the clothes for a while, and then said to Lu Qi disappreciatively: "That's different, what I gave them was a reward, and what they were greedy for ink in private was called a crime."

I don't hold them accountable for their greed for ink now, first, the world is like this; The second is that our current target is traitors who collaborate with the enemy, not internal corruptors.

The road should be walked step by step, and the meal should be eaten in one bite. First clean up those traitors who betrayed the interests of the Ming Dynasty, and then deal with the corrupt officials inside. The resistance we encounter will not only be reduced to a minimum, but also slowly win the hearts of the people, which is the most practical and feasible choice for the imperial court.

If we want to destroy all the enemies in one go, then we will encounter a strong and united opponent, and even if we can win in the end, the fruits of victory will not necessarily fall into our hands, but there is a high possibility that they will fall into the hands of a third person who is a bystander.

However, the Social Investigation Department and the Nanzhen Fusi can be closer to each other, and the evidence of these people's embezzlement will be preserved first, and maybe it will be used later. ”

Lu Qi subconsciously bowed down and replied, "Yes, Your Majesty." ”

Zhu Youzhen stretched out his hand and patted him on the shoulder and said, "Go to the study, you will show me the minutes of the meetings of the Overseas Trade Merchants Association these days, as well as the words and deeds of those merchant representatives..."

When the newly replaced self-striking clock in the study rang the time again, Zhu Youzhen finally finished reading the various records spread out on the desk, he skimmed the hour hand on the clock face and pointed to the back of nine o'clock, couldn't help but put his hands behind his head and crossed each other, and then straightened his waist and stretched a lazy waist.

Zhu Youzhen, who felt a little more relaxed, immediately said to Wang Chengen and Lu Qi on the side: "Let's go, go and listen to the representatives of the Overseas Trade and Merchants Association, what will be discussed at today's meeting?" ”

At 9:45, Xu Xinsu looked at several new maritime representatives who were arguing with Liu Xiang, and yawned boredly, feeling that this morning's time was going to be wasted again.

After the renovation of the Jiale Palace, although the outside of the hall is still cold and biting weather, but the hall is warm as spring under the action of several earth dragons, mainly the southerners of the maritime representatives, in the hall did not feel the cold of the north at all, so everyone took off their robes, energetically arguing with each other.

It was not Zheng Zhilong's subordinates who quarreled with Liu Xiang, but some representatives who had just entered the Maritime Association. After Zhao'an, among the pirate leaders, Liu Xiang was the most wary of the imperial court, so although he obtained the territory of Xiangdao, he put his base in Saigon, which had just been occupied for a short time, and always maintained private contact with the Dutch.

For the other pirates of the pirate group, before Zhao'an, the imperial court that obstructed overseas trade was naturally the first enemy, so although there were any grievances between the pirates, they had to unite against the imperial court for their own survival.

But after they recruited An, the imperial court, which liberalized overseas trade and tried to establish a maritime trade order, was supported by the majority of maritime merchants, especially those who were weaker.

And the Ming Dynasty, who opened up the maritime trade, soon made these part-time pirate maritime merchants realize that what they originally thought was the vast ocean suddenly became smaller.

The most lucrative Japanese routes, the most profitable raw silk trade, were directly monopolized by the imperial court and several maritime merchant groups, and the trade of other commodities, with the restoration of maritime order, the number of Sino-Japanese trade ships continued to increase, resulting in a continuous decrease in the profits of ordinary cargo.

The most troublesome thing for these maritime merchants is that the outflow of silver deposits in Japan has begun to accelerate due to the rapid development of overseas trade in the Ming Dynasty. The speed of this outflow of silver caused the bureaucrats of the Tokugawa shogunate to panic and begin to impose restrictions on the scale of Japan's foreign trade.

Heightened competition on Japanese routes and caps on imported cargo have led Chinese maritime merchants to turn their attention to the South Sea, the Indian Ocean and further afield. As the radiation area of Chinese civilization, even during the period of the Ming Dynasty, the footprints of Chinese merchants were never cut off here.

It's just that during the Ming Dynasty's ban on the sea, the number of merchants who went to sea to trade was limited, so for these Chinese merchants, Nanyang was like a giant stomach that could not be filled, and no matter how many goods were transported to Nanyang, they could be sold. Of course, these Chinese goods were not only sold to the natives of Nanyang, but also to European, * and Indian merchants who relied on the ports of Nanyang for entrepot trade.

Although the price of goods sold in the South Seas is much lower than that of Japan, for Chinese maritime merchants, this is already several times the profit of domestic trade. And they didn't have to risk crossing the treacherous Indian Ocean, a trade that was already acceptable to Chinese maritime merchants.

But when the imperial court liberalized its control over overseas trade, the price of Chinese goods in Nanyang suddenly fell to a point where even Chinese maritime merchants found it unprofitable.

In the beginning, most Chinese maritime merchants thought that they were shipping too much goods, and the market capacity in Nanyang and Europe, * region, India and other places was limited, so they could not sell at a price.

However, after a few brave maritime merchants rushed out of the Strait of Malacca in their ships and transported Chinese goods to various countries in the Indian Ocean, the maritime merchants soon understood that it was not the limited markets in Europe, the * region, India and other places, and the Chinese goods in those countries were still high.

Rather, the merchants who came to traffic Chinese goods were in the dark, trying to maintain the high price of Chinese goods at home and buying Chinese goods at cheaper prices in Nanyang, so they joined forces to set a purchase cap so that Chinese merchants could compete with each other to lower prices.

Of course, this purchase ceiling is also related to the amount of capital of these ocean-going merchants, except for a small number of luxury goods, basically the merchants of various countries have no bulk goods to make up for the trade deficit with China, they can only control the amount of trade, so as to prevent the cash in their hands from drying up.

In this way, the relationship between Chinese maritime merchants and these foreign maritime merchants has changed from cooperative relations to competition and confrontation. At the beginning of the third year of Chongzhen, if there was a merchant of a certain country who made these Chinese maritime merchants feel the most unbearable, it was the Dutch East India Company.

After the Dutch East India Company took possession of the Spice Islands, its influence in the South Seas became more and more powerful, and he not only forbade merchants from all countries to trade directly with the Spice Islands, but also tried to monopolize all trade in the South Seas.

For example, after the establishment of Batavia to control the Sunda Strait, the Dutch East India Company began to seek control of the Portuguese city of Malacca, in an attempt to control the Strait of Malacca. Once the Dutch controlled these two straits, whether foreign merchant ships entered the South Seas, or Chinese merchant ships wanted to go out, they had to obtain the consent of the Dutch.

The Dutchman's behavior was simply unreasonable for the Chinese maritime merchants, who had just opened the door to the new world, and the Dutch East India Company succeeded in becoming the most hostile target of the Chinese maritime merchants, above the Spaniards who had slaughtered Chinese immigrants.