For the convenience of lobbying for these businessmen, Zhu Jinglun did give them the right to make their own decisions on the issue of interests, but he didn't expect them to take such a big step. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Zhu Jinglun originally envisioned that it would be advantageous to exchange the textile tax exemption for the power to ban opium chips to a certain extent, but he did not expect them to agree to the British businessman's request for underwriting.

Zhu Jinglun is very clear that in the old era of China, the demand for Western textiles has always been small, the biggest obstacle is the traditional living habits of men and women, according to statistics, even in the Republic of China, the market share of Western textiles in China is only seventy percent at most, and most of the market is still China's local cloth market.

Therefore, he believes that even if British textiles are tax-free, they will not be able to enter the Chinese market in the short term, and will only slowly expand, and the impact on China's traditional society is not great, but this underwriting agreement makes the Ming government have to really find a way to import British textiles.

With the current scale of opium trade, the Ming Dynasty alone imports more than 30 million taels of opium every year, except for some entrepoints, just the Ming Dynasty itself consumes, it is as high as more than 20 million taels, if these trade volumes are replaced by textiles, it means that the Ming Dynasty has to import 20 million taels of British textiles every year, with the cheapness of British textiles, on average, every Ming people, every year to add a British cloth single clothes.

Is this obviously impossible.

So it's a big challenge.

But after thinking about it, Zhu Jinglun still decided to accept this condition, after all, compared with smoking opium, it is always more cost-effective to exchange money for clothes to wear, and wearing a few more clothes is to improve the standard of living, and in addition to poisoning, smoking opium can only bring serious social problems and theoretical tragedies.

There is also the problem that this matter cannot be guaranteed through official channels, that is, by treaty. The British government does not dare to accept a discriminatory treaty, discriminating against other countries they don't care about, but discriminating against their own interest groups, which is a political price they cannot afford.

This kind of thing is still a big problem in China's dealings with the outside world in later generations, and the Chinese people always see that when state leaders visit foreign countries, they always bring with them large orders, and they buy hundreds of planes in Europe today and hundreds of planes in the United States tomorrow.

In fact, this is definitely not a one-sided trade preference, most of the time it is an equivalent exchange, and behind China's purchase of Western goods, it is the lifting of Western restrictions on the import of certain Chinese goods, such as textiles, tires and other products. But the problem is that Chinese leaders dare to make public how many Western products they purchase, and Western governments can only publicize how many planes they let the Chinese buy, and as for how many restrictions on other products they have lifted behind the scenes, they dare not publicize it, because their own interest groups will definitely resist.

When the British delegation put forward the hope that China could substantially expand its imports of British products, but did not mention the matter of opium, Zhu Jinglun knew that they were in the same predicament again, and they did not dare to make irresponsible remarks about the opium trade, but they would choose to acquiesce, as long as the Ming Dynasty could expand imports of other commodities on an equal footing.

The attitude of the British made Zhu Jinglun feel that this was an unexpected gain, he originally cracked down on the opium trade, the biggest purpose was actually to attack the west, is to abolish the coolie trade, but did not expect the British government under the economic crisis under the huge pressure on the textile industry, really consider giving up the opium trade.

To be able to fight both the opium and the coolie trade at the same time is a huge gain, and as for the price paid by the textile industry, it seems to be a good deal at the moment.

Zhu Jinglun immediately instructed Wu Chongyao to let him have secret contact with the British, telling them that the Ming Dynasty had a way to substantially expand the trade volume of British goods, and let Wu Chongyao come forward, there was an advantage, the Wu family itself was a big merchant family, and he told the British that they could place orders with the British Chamber of Commerce through the Chamber of Commerce, and they would expand the trade of other commodities by 10,000 taels of silver for every reduction in the trade volume of opium chips by 10,000 taels of silver based on last year's customs trade.

The British mission was very satisfied with this, and there was no need for the official to come forward, and there was no need to write it into the treaty, so that the opium interest groups could not find an excuse to target the government, and they could not openly say that the government was attacking their interests, and the big aristocratic groups and financial interest groups behind them could not find a reasonable excuse.

The British called this situation compensation trade, there is no impermeable wall in the world, and then the term soon spread, but the Ming and the British government have not recognized that there is such a compensation trade agreement between them, otherwise it will not only be Britain itself, other countries will also think that this is an infringement of trade freedom.

After the completion of the dirty private deal, it was the normal negotiation on the table, and the British summed up the demands of the domestic chamber of commerce, and put forward more than ten requirements, they hoped that the Ming would give up the tariffs on the textile trade, as well as the taxation of the circulation process of textiles in the Ming Dynasty. At the same time, it is hoped that Daming can reduce taxes on other goods, which are in many categories, such as coal and steel, and it is clear that in the wave set off by the textile industry, coal groups and steel groups have also joined the ranks.

The British didn't mention it at all, obviously they planned to abandon the opium trade, of course, not mentioning it was also to leave them a backhand, once the Ming did not compensate for the trade in accordance with the private agreement, they would openly stand up for the opium trade, and openly oppose the heavy taxes collected by the Ming in the opium trade at home.

The current Ming Ministry of Foreign Affairs is completely different from the previous Qing court officials' way of doing things, they have understood the international rules, even if the rules are formulated by the British, but it does not mean that they cannot be used to fight for the interests of their own country, one of the most important diplomatic principles is reciprocity, especially in commercial negotiations is very necessary.

Since the British put forward the hope that the Ming Dynasty will be exempted from tariffs on many industries, especially the tariffs on the textile industry, then the Ming Dynasty also has reason to ask the British to exempt the equivalent of the tariffs on Ming products, the first is the tea tariff, although the British has given up heavy taxes on tea, but the tea tax in the UK is still as high as 17%; second, Britain was required to exempt Daming from all taxes on raw silk and silk fabrics; The third is the taxation of Ming handicrafts such as ceramics.

In the end, after fierce negotiations, the two sides compared various data and gave each other special preferential tax rates for certain commodities, such as the Ming Dynasty exempted textile tariffs, consumption taxes and other taxes, and the British reciprocal exemption of tea tariffs and transaction taxes and other taxes. The Ming Dynasty exempted British machinery products from customs duties and transaction taxes, etc., and the British exempted Chinese handicrafts from various taxes; Coal to raw silk, steel to ceramics, etc., a total of more than 30 industries.

In the negotiations, both sides adopted a principle, that is, the principle of advantageous industries, the industries that Britain gave to Daming products duty-free are all industries that cannot be produced in their own country, and Daming's tax-free British products are also mostly industries that have not formed a climate in their own countries.

Therefore, the two sides quickly reached an agreement, but for Daming, it was unfavorable. Because it is equivalent to invisibly putting shackles on many industries, these modern industries are likely to encounter the impact of British superior products in the future development of the Ming Dynasty.

But reality is stronger than people, since the Ming government wants to abolish the opium and coolie trade, it must pay a certain price, even if the harm itself is brought by foreigners, when you are not strong enough, you must swallow the bitter fruit.

So although the negotiations were completed and the threat of war was gone, Zhu Jinglun was not very happy, and he felt humiliated.

In particular, the British refused to negotiate on the Hong Kong issue, and Zhu Jinglun did not think about settling the Hong Kong issue now, he only hoped to treat Hong Kong as an issue, but the British did not recognize Hong Kong as a controversial issue at all, and they believed that Hong Kong was British territory and would not be discussed at all.

At the same time, the British did not mention the issue of Macao, and acquiesced in the Ming Dynasty's move to take back Macau.

In fact, Zhu Jinglun later learned that the reason why the British did not talk about Hong Kong was because the Ming Dynasty forcibly took back Macao, which made them feel threatened, and they were worried that the Ming Dynasty, an emerging country in the East, would one day not follow the international rules and conditions, and once they regressed to the arrogant attitude shown by the Qing Dynasty in the past, then the British and other Western businessmen needed to have a refuge like Hong Kong, especially after the refuge in Macao, which had existed for hundreds of years, was taken back, Hong Kong became even more indispensable.

The economic reason is that because the Ming Dynasty took back Macao, a large number of Portuguese and other businessmen in Macao took refuge in Hong Kong, which greatly improved Hong Kong's fiscal revenue for a time, and they had the ability to be independent and did not need the British government's investment, which reduced the dissatisfaction within the British government with subsidies to Hong Kong.

The negotiations are over, and Zhu Jinglun knows very well that the crackdown on the coolie and opium trade is not over, and it has only just begun.

Through this new treaty of commerce, the British only tacitly acquiesced in their unsupportive attitude towards the coolie and opium trade, and the real blow had to be dealt by the Ming themselves.

As early as before the signing of the new trade treaty between Daming and Britain, Daming introduced laws in the early days of cracking down on coolie trade, and at the same time sent notes to Western countries, telling countries that Daming does not prohibit the export of labor, but opposes any unguaranteed labor export, and authorizes Daming Labor Export Company to be fully responsible for overseas Ming workers to work abroad, and this company will also be responsible for protecting the interests of these laborers. It is not allowed to buy privately with the Chinese workers themselves, let alone with the piglets.

This bill actually prohibits the current coolie trade with the situation of the law, but it is not so easy to make foreigners accept it.

Zhu Jinglun needs support at this time.

The Lincoln administration was the first to stand up and criticize the inhumanity of the coolie trade, and then the first to announce the acceptance of the Ming Labor Export Act, requiring all American companies to accept the bill if they needed to bring in Chinese laborers.

Lincoln is still slippery enough, in fact, Zhu Jinglun has long hoped that Lincoln can stand up and admit this bill, but Lincoln has been dragging his feet, and he has been seeing the British sign a new trade treaty with the Ming Dynasty, so he stood up to support it, because he saw that Britain had given up the protection of the coolie trade behind his back, so the United States was happy to be a favor and accept the supervision and protection of Chinese workers by the Ming government.

But Lincoln's statement is still useful, under the impetus of Ming diplomacy, soon those countries that are eager to profit from the Ming Dynasty or have already profited, whether they are sincere or false, have accepted this bill, especially in Sweden and Denmark, two small countries that have been expanding their interests well, they themselves have no interest in coolie trade, and they followed the United States to accept this bill.

Prussia, which had not yet grown to the time of the German Empire, also declared its acceptance, and Russia declared its acceptance.

But Britain and France did not express their position, the British are taking a tacit attitude, for fear of causing resistance from relevant interest groups, as for France, they have not yet established diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty, out of the face of Napoleon III, the French were not very friendly with the Ming a few years ago.

However, after Zhu Jinglun ascended the throne, the French government saw that if it wanted to expand its interests in the Far East, it would not be able to bypass the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Zhiting and other important ministers still firmly remembered the changes caused by Zhu Jinglun's visit to the United States last year, and they were worried that once Zhu Jinglun visited the United States again, the domestic careerists would be ready to act again.

Zhu Jinglun weighed it, he finally accepted the invitation, he was not worried that once he left, what problems would arise in the newly established Ming regime, but France is an important country, and without establishing relations with France in this era, the Ming Dynasty really cannot stand in the forest of the world.

In addition, he also wanted to see if the Ming regime could stand alone, and if a coup d'état broke out in the country immediately once the supreme leader went abroad, the regime was too fragile.

But before he had to prepare.

The day after accepting the invitation of the French, Zhu Jinglun announced that the construction of the Daming Palace had stopped, and he immediately moved into the Liangguang Governor's Palace, which was now the Daming Palace, which had just been cleared of the ruins, and then he began to delegate more power to Shangshu Province step by step.

He hoped that in the future, Shangshu Province would be able to truly operate like the central government of a country, and he wanted to see if the political system he had established could continue to operate on its own without his involvement at all, and at the same time give them a test and a chance to exercise. (To be continued.) )