When Li Banghua took the mine camp and Lu Xiangsheng's Tianxiong camp to sit in Lu'an Mansion and plan to encircle and suppress the thieves who fled to Jin, Emperor Chongzhen did not have leisure in the Forbidden City of Beijing. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

Not long after the purge of Nanjing officialdom and several Hou Boxun noble families, with the pacification of the rebellion in western Zhejiang, Emperor Chongzhen's eyes soon turned back to the matter of opening the sea.

Since the opening of the sea and trade was set as the national policy of the Ming Dynasty at the New Year's Day court meeting in the second year of Chongzhen, the officialdom of the north and south of Beijing has experienced a harsh struggle.

Emperor Chongzhen also took advantage of this opportunity to drive out some of the Donglin Party members who did not change their bad habits from the court through the hands of Jia Jichun, the deputy capital of the Inspectorate, and dealt with these people quickly and ruthlessly, either by raiding their homes and filling up the army, such as Ren Shu, Li Youlan, Huo Huapeng, and their spiritual leader Qian Qianyi; or ordered Zhishi to return home, such as Qian Xiangkun and Zheng Sanjun, the former Shangshu of the Nanjing Ministry of Rites; or cliff-like demotion, such as Zhang Yandeng, Hui Shiyang, Qian Shisheng, etc.

Of course, the Nanjing nobles who ate and smashed the pot and ate inside and outside didn't even have the opportunity to be exiled to the army, so they were directly killed.

Emperor Chongzhen's thunderous means completely let the officials and nobles in the north and south of the capital see the emperor's determination to open the sea and trade, and the discussion and refutation of the opening of the sea between the government and the opposition then turned from open to underground, and no official or nobles wrote against the opening of the sea.

Even Zheng Zhilong, who Emperor Chongzhen had been on guard against before, had not moved.

It stands to reason that the opening of a seaport for trade in the five coastal areas of Denglai, Nanzhi, Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong will have a great impact on the Zheng family's maritime monopoly.

Even if the imperial court set up the newly opened port of Minhai within his defense area, it was basically equivalent to handing it over to him to control, but he should not say nothing.

However, in fact, it is so strange, from January to April, a few months have passed, and the great policy of opening the sea, which has been noisy in the north and south of Beijing, has already spread all over the coast and the world, but Zheng Zhilong has not moved.

However, for the current Emperor Chongzhen, no matter what bad water Zheng Zhilong is holding in his stomach now, and no matter what reason or secret he has, as long as he can not openly argue with the imperial court and not openly oppose the opening of the sea and trade, it is a good thing.

Even if Zheng Zhilong wrote a letter to oppose the opening of the sea through others or himself, or even rebelled again and rebelled against the sea, the current Emperor Chongzhen is ready to tear his face and start a war.

The military strength of the imperial court on the southeast coast, especially the strength of the naval division, is of course far less powerful than Zheng Zhilong, but there are some things that must be done head-on, even if you know that there are risks.

Emperor Chongzhen's edict to open the sea has been issued to the world, and there is no room for turning around this matter, unless the Manchu Dynasty civil and military groups oppose it, forcing the emperor to issue another edict to retract the order.

But at the beginning of Chongzhen, no one in the Manchu Dynasty had the courage and ability to dare to force the palace with his ministers, so that Emperor Chongzhen would take back the edict that had been issued to the world.

Of course, such a thing has not happened in the Chongzhen period in history.

For example, Emperor Chongzhen was forced to issue six edicts of guilt, and the nature of the problem is more serious than the revocation of his fate.

Issuing an edict means admitting one's mistakes or even confessions to the people of the whole world, which is definitely a serious damage to the emperor's authority.

For any emperor, it can only be an option in a desperate and last resort situation.

And such a thing, Emperor Chongzhen was forced to do it six times successively.

Therefore, by the end of Chongzhen's last years, the emperor's authority had almost disappeared, everyone obeyed the yin and disobeyed, everyone concealed the superiors and bullied the subordinates, and the holy decree could not leave the Forbidden City, which has become a fact that almost everyone knows.

On the second day after Li Zicheng's army came to the city of Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen went to the early court, but he was surprised to find that the Jianji Palace, where the court meeting was held in the past, was deserted and there were no courtiers.

At that time, in desperation, Emperor Chongzhen personally went to Jingyang Zhong and summoned the ministers in Beijing to enter the palace to discuss the strategy of defending the city against the enemy, but he knocked on three sides successively, and when it was dark, there was still no courtier.

At night, the outer city fell, and then the inner city fell, and after Emperor Chongzhen dealt with the last thing he thought needed to be dealt with, he stumbled to the coal mountain behind the imperial garden, looked out, saw the city full of fire, chaos, and in despair, hanged himself on the coal mountain.

At this moment, there was only one eunuch Wang Chengen by his side.

For the current Chongzhen Emperor, such a historical tragedy must not be repeated again.

No matter what kind of resistance you face, you must carry out what you believe, God blocks and kills God, and Buddha blocks and kills Buddha.

Because to make concessions on any key issue is to push oneself to a dead end.

Opening up the sea to trade is such a key issue that is likely to reverse the fortunes of the Ming Dynasty.

Therefore, even Zheng Zhilong, a figure who should be focused on at present, if he really rebelled on this issue, Emperor Chongzhen would not give in blindly without fighting.

Moreover, Emperor Chongzhen also firmly believed that the benefits of joining the imperial court like this would definitely bring to the Zheng family much greater than his betrayal overseas.

Therefore, he also believes that as long as Zheng Zhilong is not forced to a desperate road of no retreat, then Zheng Zhilong will be satisfied with the benefits of sea trade on the southeast coast as in history, and will not easily fight with the officials and troops of the Ming Dynasty again.

Therefore, after figuring out these problems, no matter whether there are still government and business groups engaged in some conspiracy and trickery behind the scenes between the government and the opposition, he must quickly implement the matter of opening the sea and setting up ports.

Fortunately, after cleaning up a group of officials and nobles of the imperial court and Nanjing who opposed the opening of the sea, the wind direction has changed for the discussion of opening the sea and trade in the court.

In particular, officials closely related to the opening of the sea and trade, such as Wang Zhichen, the governor of Liangguang, Wen Tiren, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Sun Guozhen, the governor of Denglai, also wrote letters to support the imperial court's decision to open the sea, and also put forward detailed rules for opening the sea and setting up ports and collecting taxes for trade and taxation within their jurisdiction, including the choice of ports, the appointment and dismissal of officials, and the detailed rules for taxation, and so on.

With these directly related feudal officials, they wrote to express their support for Kaihai, and the voices of the court supporting Kaihai suddenly became the mainstream.

Regardless of whether these people follow the trend or not, Emperor Chongzhen praised all of them for such a performance, and then asked people to copy and paste it outside the gate of the General Administration, and then spread it to the world in the form of a newspaper.

On the same day that Li Banghua and several governors gathered in Shanxi held a meeting to discuss the strategy of suppressing thieves, Emperor Chongzhen also convened the cabinet ministers and household ministers to discuss matters in the Wenhua Palace, and the topic of discussion was the political issues related to the opening of the sea.

The administration is the affairs of taxation, and the issue of taxation is also the issue of taxation.

However, now the Chongzhen Emperor is well aware of the complexity of the tax issue at the end of the Ming Dynasty, so he has never dared to make a quick move, and in the current situation, he will not easily make large-scale changes.

However, as for the issue of returning sea trade, because it was basically a blank before, the question itself is not a question of how to re-divide the cake, in the final analysis, it is a question of how to make a new cake bigger, so he is not worried about any backlash.

Looking at the few important ministers in front of him who conscientiously assisted him in dealing with military affairs, Emperor Chongzhen pondered and said: "The edict of the imperial court to open the sea has been issued for more than three months, and although there have been ups and downs during the period, they have all subsided. As for the pros and cons, right and wrong, now look at the clouds and fog, it is not clear, all of these are left to future generations to comment.

"Today, I summoned a few Aiqing to come to the Wenhua Hall to discuss some of my thoughts in the past few days. The imperial court's financial plan is difficult, and the problem has been a problem for a long time, and there is no better way to rectify the financial plan than to open up sources and reduce expenditure.

"However, if there is chaos today, it is not comparable to the time when the four seas are peaceful, whether it is disaster relief or military spending, neither of them can be reduced.

"The reason why I am bent on opening the sea is just to open a new source for the financial plan of the imperial court. As for those civil servants or lords who strongly oppose the opening of the sea, it is not clear whether they have selfish intentions.

"Former Song Dynasty Prime Minister Wen Tianxiang once said that no one has died in life since ancient times, and he has left Dan to take care of his sweat! You Aiqing followed me, diligently and diligently, and also received a lot of scolding. But I believe that in the future, I will have a good name in the history of China. ”