Since its establishment, the Nanyang Company has monopolized all trade between the Ming Dynasty and the Dutch East India Company, except for Dongfandao, and the profits obtained are extremely considerable.

Therefore, in July of the third year of Chongzhen, just over half a year had passed, Wu Weihua wrote a secret report to the emperor with Gao Qiqian, the supervisor and the minister, asking Emperor Chongzhen to send a message to Su Maoxiang, the head of the household department in Nanjing, and Wang Zhichen, the governor of Liangguang, to allow the Portuguese merchant ships to dock at the port of Guangzhou, and let the Nanyang Company monopolize the trade with the Portuguese in Guangzhou and Haojingao.

The place of trade between the Dutch and the Ming Dynasty was initially in Penghu, and later changed to Dayuan, that is, the southern area of Dongfan Island where the Dutch were entrenched.

Now, although the war between Zheng Zhilong and the Dutch has long stopped, Zheng Zhilong did not withdraw from the Dayuan area, on the contrary, he also built the Dayuan City in the Dayuan area, and let his younger brother Zheng Zhibao lead the army to garrison this place, so as to prevent the Dutch from crossing the sea and landing in Geranza City on Yikun Island again.

Correspondingly, as one of the conditions for the purchase of the ocean-going plywood ship Galion from the Dutch East India Company, Emperor Chongzhen agreed that the Dutch merchant ships would dock at the port of Guangzhou, which was open to trade, and trade with the Nanyang Company.

Because of its monopoly on trade with the Dutch in the port of Guangzhou, the Nanyang Company made huge profits, and Wu Weihua and Gao Qiqian, including Zhang Xiang, who was born in Dongchang, were full of interest in trade with the Hongmaoyi people.

As soon as the Portuguese gathered in Haojingao put forward a request to trade in Guangzhou Port, Wu Weihua and others immediately agreed to apply on their behalf.

In the past, trade with the Portuguese in Ho Kyong Ao was more by land.

If the Portuguese merchant ships could be allowed to sail directly into the port of Guangzhou, then the cargo volume and trade volume would increase significantly, and the profits would naturally be more.

Regarding the ideas of Wu Weihua, Gao Qiqian and others, Emperor Chongzhen thought about it for a while and agreed.

Anyway, the income of the Nanyang Company belongs to the internal carrier of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, that is, to the internal treasury of Emperor Chongzhen.

As for the maritime merchants who originally engaged in maritime trade in Guangzhou and other places, they either went to Ho Jing O, Manolaca, Geranza, San Salvador, San Lorenzo and even Batavia on their own to trade with the Portuguese and Dutch, or they handed over their goods to the Nanyang Company, which was a "second-way dealer" to handle the trade.

For many maritime merchants in the Liangguang area, it certainly means that part of the profits that originally belonged to them will be taken by Nanyang Company in the future, but there is also an advantage to doing so, that is, it is safe and there is not much risk.

Later, the famous Thirteen Lines in Guangzhou were engaged in such middlemen, they monopolized the trade between Chinese and foreign merchants at that time, and even after paying heavy taxes to the imperial court, they were still rich and rivaled the country.

Such a good thing, of course, Emperor Chongzhen must be grasped in his own hands first.

At the same time, Zhang Yixian, who saw huge business opportunities from the monopoly trade of the Nanyang Company, also took advantage of the opportunity of Empress Zhou's joy to get the prince to present treasures to the palace on behalf of Baohe Company at the end of July, and moved Empress Zhou to hand over a sentence to the emperor, so that Baohe Company successfully obtained the monopoly of trade with the Dutch and Portuguese in Dengzhou Port.

In other words, Dutch merchant ships and Portuguese merchant ships traveling to and from Dengzhou Port could only trade with Baohe Company's trading houses in Dengzhou Port, or with Baohe Company's agency rights.

This is also the privilege behind the great success of the Nanyang Company in Guangzhou managed by Wu Weihua, Gao Qiqian and others.

This Zhang Yixian was known in history for his understanding of financial calculations, and the historical Emperor Chongzhen once made him a lieutenant official in the affairs of the Prime Minister's Ministry of Household and Ministry of Industry, and thus caused an uproar in the court.

In this life, although Emperor Chongzhen did not use Zhang Yixian so much, he did not find an opportunity to die like he did with Xu Yingyuan and Du Xun, who were also old men in the palace, but after investigation, he gradually used it.

At the beginning of the third year of Chongzhen, Emperor Chongzhen split the Baohe Company from the growing power of Dongchang, and let Zhang Yixian preside over this affairs, and also promoted him to be the chief eunuch of the Baohe Company.

The predecessor of Baohe Company, is the Emperor of the Apocalypse period of Baohe three stores, after the East Factory in the past few years of raiding actions, in addition to a large number of fields and houses sold into silver directly into the inner transport warehouse, Baohe Company owned all kinds of shops, storefronts, restaurants, workshops, as well as jewelry, calligraphy and painting, treasures and antiques and other things, is really all-inclusive, everything.

After more than half a year of personnel adjustment and statistical accounting, Zhang Yixian took over from the East Factory all kinds of assets belonging to Baohe Company, almost all of the thoroughfares in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, and the valuation was more than 10 million taels of silver.

Such a big family business is in the hands of Zhang Yixian, the eunuch in charge, which not only exhilarates him, but also makes him feel unprecedented pressure.

Baohe Company is not someone else's property, but the royal family's own industry, and it is also an industry held by two queens in the harem, namely Empress Yi'an, the widow of the Emperor of the Apocalypse, and Empress Zhou of the current dynasty, as well as several concubines.

On Baohe Company, there is not only the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but also Gong Zhengji, and I don't know how many famous and secret Dongchang spies have been left by Fangzhenghua.

This situation made Zhang Yixian dare not take it lightly, and made money and profit to satisfy the emperor and the concubines as the first consideration.

As a well-known minister, Zhang Yixian knew the secret of Nanyang Company's success, so while operating the huge industries of Baohe Company all over the country, he also set his sights on sea trade, and it was a monopoly sea trade.

Trade with the Dutch and Portuguese in Canton was monopolized by the Nanyang Company.

Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai are now the world of those generations of wealthy businessmen in the south of the Yangtze River, and Zhang Yixian, who knew the importance of it, did not dare to interfere easily, so he set his sights on the newly opened treaty port of Dengzhou.

Zhang Yixian's idea expressed through Empress Zhou was told by the empress to Emperor Chongzhen that after he knew about it, Emperor Chongzhen quickly agreed.

For Emperor Chongzhen, it was not necessarily a good thing to completely open up the trade between the Ming Dynasty's non-governmental maritime merchants and the Western colonial powers such as the Dutch and the Portuguese in this era.

In his opinion, monopolizing such things in the hands of the Royal Trading Company would not only make it easier to control the scale and variety of trade, but also be more equal to national companies such as the Dutch Kinetic East India Company, so that the Ming Dynasty would not be in a weak position in trade.

In the future, at least after a period of observation and exploration, we will choose to gradually open up free trade between the people and the Western colonial powers, which will be more beneficial to this side of the Ming Dynasty.

Speaking of which, the current Emperor Chongzhen is not at ease with the political envoys in the north and south of the Ming Dynasty, as well as the officials of the city and shipping departments located in various treaty ports.

There are many unique products in Chinese history, such as the cultivation and production of tea, such as the firing of porcelain, such as various unique fruit trees, seedlings, animals and plants, etc., which were taken away by Westerners in the trade between Chinese merchants and Western colonial powers.

One of the most typical is the tea tree.

Tea has always been a very large trade item between China and the Western colonial powers, but in the late Qing Dynasty, the seeds and seedlings of the tea plant were taken away by Western merchants and finally successfully cultivated in India and Africa.

Soon, China's tea exports fell sharply.

In the original history, Emperor Chongzhen did not start by opening the sea to trade to alleviate the financial dilemma, so there was no such problem.

But in this life, since Emperor Chongzhen decided to open the sea for trade, what he was most worried about was that these distressing things that happened in history would appear in advance.

If such a problem arises, it would be a great sin.

Therefore, on the one hand, he asked the Ministry of Household Affairs and the Political Envoys of the North and South to formulate strict tariff regulations and a list of prohibited exports, and included the tea plants and tea trees in Sichuan, Yunnan, Fujian, Zhejiang and other places in the list of prohibited exports abroad, and on the other hand, he tried to try to control the direct trade with the Dutch and the Portuguese, the two colonial powers that were now more active in the East, in the hands of the Royal Trading Company.

After all, imperial trading companies such as the Nanyang Company, the Baohe Company, the Si Si Heng Company, and the Toei Company were directly under the orders of the Emperor himself through the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and they were more resolute in carrying out the Emperor's will.

Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen not only granted the Nanyang Company trade in the port of Guangzhou and Haojingao with the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese, but also granted the same privileges to the Baohe Company in the port of Dengzhou.

It's just that nowadays, when Dutch and Portuguese merchant ships come and go to the Minhai Strait, they need to pay high tariffs to Zheng Zhilong's Penghu City Shipping Office, so Dutch merchant ships and Portuguese merchant ships going north to Dengzhou Port are still relatively rare.

Only a small number of Dutch merchant ships were able to trade between Nagasaki and Batavia.

However, these merchant ships were also tempted to bring rice in exchange for tariff reduction, and brought some rice from Nagasaki, Japan, to offset the customs duties on the docked trade.

Although the quantity is not very large, it is better than nothing, and at least the grain reserves in Denglai Town have continued to increase because of this.