The embarrassment of the Ming Dynasty is one in the court, one is a natural disaster, and the third is finance. Since the beginning of the founding of the country, the Ming Dynasty has excluded commercial taxes. "Shinong Industry and Commerce", in all dynasties, is to treat businessmen at the bottom of society. But in the Ming Dynasty, at the beginning of the founding of the country, Zhu Yuanzhang realized the value of businessmen "with the best or the best", and even tilted the businessmen in the country's major policies, stipulating that "all commercial taxes, thirty and one will be taken, and those who pass will be judged as violating the order!" "Military and civilian wedding and funeral offerings, boats, cars, silk cloth, etc., are not taxed!" ”

Even, Zhu Yuanzhang also abolished the discriminatory rule that "businessmen are not allowed to be officials" since the Tang and Song dynasties, and also opened up a career path for the children of merchants' families and even military families. Although there were still many restrictions on merchants in the imperial court at this time, in general, the importance of commerce had been highlighted with the development of merchants.

After the middle of the Ming Dynasty, after a hundred years of infiltration, it was commonplace for the children of merchants to enter the court as officials, and the two classes of scholars and merchants began to merge rapidly. Especially in the Jiangnan area, with the increasing economic prosperity and the improvement of education, the wealthy class in Jiangnan began to enter the civil official group on a large scale.

The high-ranking officials of the Ming Dynasty mean that their families are rich and noble, even if they are from a poor family, they also need connections and economic support from the merchant class and Shilin in their hometown.

So at the beginning of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Taizu proposed a commercial tax of thirty and took one, which became an untouchable bottom line for the civil official group and the merchant group, and anyone who dared to challenge this bottom line, including the emperor, would not hesitate to fight to the death. The Shangjia Group gradually became an inseparable whole with the Civil Service Group. Within the territory of the Ming Dynasty, all the businesses that can make money are dominated by the gentry.

Whoever dares to talk about the collection of commercial taxes is an enemy of the gentry group, an enemy of the high-ranking officials and dignitaries who were born in this group, and an enemy of the world's scholars, and this statement is not an exaggeration at all.

At the beginning of Emperor Chongzhen's succession, he was fooled by the Donglin Party once, and recalled the mine supervisors, tax supervisors, weaving and other internal officials from all over the country. Civil officials everywhere have made a lot of money. The Donglin Party became famous all over the world again for a while, and became the iron-clad and awe-inspiring upright gentleman of Shilin. Chongzhen had to suffer a dumb loss.

Now, Zhu Ping'an is in Dengzhou, and he wants to take advantage of the fire in this troubled water. The sea trade in the north of the Ming Dynasty is firmly grasped in their own hands. Of course. It is absolutely not advisable to force it. It will be slandered and attacked by the civil and military forces of the Manchu Dynasty, and even by the corporal of the world, and the current Zhu Ping'an will definitely not be able to withstand this kind of pressure. Thereupon. can only follow the trend, since Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang can set up the city, then why not Dengzhou?

Dengzhou is located in the easternmost part of Shandong, under the command of the four guards built near the sea, although not as good as Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang's sea trade, but the total annual trade volume is also around 10 million taels of silver. But it should be noted that these are all so-called smuggling, and the imperial court does not receive a penny of tax silver.

Weihaiwei, Dasongwei, Jinghaiwei, and Chengshanwei all have their own wharves and even private ports, and goods from Korea, Japan, and even from Siam and Annam, including precious stones, grain, salt and iron, spices, timber, medicinal materials, etc., are disembarked from these private ports, and flow into the interior through large and small warehouses and trading houses in Guò Shandong. And the Ming Dynasty's tea, silk, porcelain and other specialties also boarded from here and flowed overseas.

This is the reason why Zhu Ping'an immediately grabbed the command of the four guards as soon as he arrived in Dengzhou. For many years, the wealthy businessmen and tycoons colluded with the powerful people of the DPRK and China to take the profits of the sea trade for themselves, Siwei was just a transit station and landing site, and Liu Zeqing and Lu Wangfu, as the head snakes of Shandong, played the role of protectors on the one hand, and participated in this smuggling operation on the other hand, it can be imagined how much profit they have made from it over the years.

After taking control of Siwei, Zhu Ping'an's first step was to spare no effort to crack down on Siwei's private port, and in less than a month, except for Weihaiwei being temporarily acted by Hong Fatzi, Siwei's record is staggering.

Within a month, the four guards cooperated with the Denglai sailors to fight more than ten fierce battles with the smuggling merchant group, and more than 100 ships of goods were seized.

Of course, Zhu Ping'an also knew that behind these fleets there were shadows of the powerful people of the DPRK and China and the governors of various places, so he did not rush to kill them all, but only declared that the imperial court was about to set up a city port in Dengzhou, and would further standardize the maritime trade operations in Dengzhou, and in the future, Dengzhou would have only one legal import and export port, that is, Penglai Port, which is now being intensified.

Within a few days of the seized goods, the visitors broke through the gate of the Dusi Yamen. Zhu Ping'an is not embarrassed, as long as he pays the fine in full and guarantees that he will go ashore in Penglai in the future, and the city will not be embarrassed to extract commercial taxes. There is only one point, Dengzhou prefect Yamen and Du Si Ya will reclaim 100 acres of wasteland in the southeast of Dengzhou Prefecture, and then it will become Dengzhou's trade area, there will be merchants from all walks of life from inland and overseas gathered here, in layman's terms, in the future, in and out of the goods, there is no need to go all the way to order, negotiate, and deliver to the door, there are merchants from all walks of life in this trade area, and they can negotiate at one time, and they will be delivered and traded in this trade area.

This point was rare for everyone. But think about it, in this way, it is very convenient, although the merchants have their own purchase and sales channels, but in the long run, the price fluctuations will not be reflected. But if you are in this trade zone, you may face dozens, or even hundreds, of sellers and buyers, and the price will naturally be much more flexible. The most important thing is to avoid the pain of traveling thousands of miles, as long as you set up a shop in this trade area, all the transactions can be completed here, which is simply convenient and fast.

Another point, which is also extremely attractive to everyone, is that the Denglai Navy Division will patrol the sea, at least in the sea area from Jianghuai in the south to North Korea, there will be Ming officials and soldiers to escort merchant ships, so that in this sea area, there is no need to worry about the threat of pirates.

Only then did the people who came to the door to intercede find out that this incident was a blessing rather than a curse. However, there was a conflict with the officials and soldiers of the four guards before, and it looked quite bad on the face, so he took the initiative to pay the fine, of course, everyone also understood in their hearts that this was the Dusi Yamen fiddling with the method to collect money, but with such a good news, what does it matter if you take some money!

As a result, people come and go quickly, in less than ten days. At least when the news that Dengzhou was going to set up a city and a port spread throughout Shandong and Hebei.

And at this time. Within a month of its establishment, the institute also came up with the first invention with extremely high economic value, that is, cement!

To say that this cement is really a necessary magic weapon to cross the crowd, Zhu Ping'an just put forward a general idea. That's the case with technology. Sometimes it's just a thin veil in front of you. He Changshui and several craftsmen worked hard for half a month. Gypsum, clay, quicklime, charcoal and other materials were used to develop the primary cement of this era, although it could not catch up with the quality of later generations, but it was more than enough to strengthen the city defense.

And Zhu Ping'an took advantage of this invention. Began to repair the official road between Dengzhou, Penglai and the trade area, and even called on the people to build a brand new road completely paved with cement and other materials, side by side to allow four carriages to travel at the same time, the construction period is tentatively scheduled to be five months, after completion, Dengzhou and Penglai can be unimpeded. Next is the construction of roads throughout Dengzhou, of course, this requires a long construction period and a large amount of capital investment, which is still just a plan.

Hundreds of acres of barren land in the trade area are being leveled, and there are more than ten merchants who have decided to settle in, these merchants are all introduced by Shen Mingxian, there are local ones in Shandong, as well as those in the Jianghuai area, the scale is not very large, but they are all engaged in sea trade for generations, although Zhu Ping'an suspects that there is Wang Chengen's help, but at present, the trade zone does need the support of popularity, just waiting for the holy decree to arrive, the barren land in this area will immediately become a prime location.

In short, the prefect of Dengzhou is also the yamen that Zhu Ping'an must fight. The current waiting meeting to subdue Zhao Guangluan was recommended by Wang Chengen, but there was no second word, but Yang Tinglin was rare and did not oppose Zhu Ping'an's plan for the trade zone, and put on a look to see the after-effects, it seems that although he has some doubts about this plan, he still plans to take a look at it.

With their help, the rest is much easier. Yin Shigang's Sihai Warehouse set up its headquarters in the trade zone and changed it to the Four Seas Commercial Bank, and Zhou Mian set up a Donghai Commercial Bank in the trade area, and the initial investment in the trade zone was invested by these two commercial banks, but Zhu Ping'an accounted for a large share.

Zhou Mian was always a little uneasy. At first, when he came to Dengzhou, he originally planned to join Dengzhou's maritime trade smuggling to get a piece of the pie, and Jiading Bo Zhoukui also thought so. But he didn't expect that Zhu Ping'an would draw a development plan for a trade zone in a big way. Jiading Bo Zhou Kui sent several letters in a row, asking Zhou Mian to take a look at the situation before making a decision, don't blindly invest in it, so as not to lose all your money.

Zhu Ping'an was not reluctant, but said that he had reserved shares for Jiading Bofu, and he would wait until Uncle Zhou Kui decided to make plans. Zhou Mian gritted his teeth, and was stunned to invest all the more than 100,000 taels of silver he had accumulated over the years into the shares of the trade zone.

This time, it scared Zhu Ping'an a lot. It's not that I'm surprised by Zhou Mian's so-called "broken cauldron and sinking boat", but I'm really surprised by Zhou Mian's strength, a housekeeper of Jiading Bofu, has a net worth of more than 100,000 taels of silver, it's really staggering, think about the savings in Zhou Kui's mansion, it's really much more generous than Emperor Chongzhen, no wonder Li Zicheng captured Beijing, chasing stolen goods and helping salaries, Zhou Kui is the biggest wronged man!

Zhou Mian's entire net worth was invested, which also moved Zhu Ping'an a little, and after a few years of acquaintance, he found that although Zhou Mian was a guy who regarded wealth as his life like Zhou Kui, he had a bit of righteousness in the rivers and lakes, which also made Zhu Ping'an not hate him.

Zhu Ping'an pointed to the construction site in full swing, as well as the houses that rose from the ground, and was full of ambition for a while, relieving Zhou Mian who was full of sadness, "Brother Zhou, you don't have to worry, one year, as long as one year, the construction of the entire Dengzhou will enter a new period, the little brother expects that when the time comes, you will be surprised by the development speed of Dengzhou, not to mention anything else, but these lands and houses we start, when the time comes, it is estimated that you will wake up laughing every night dreaming!" ”

Zhou Mian rolled his eyes and looked at Zhu Ping'an, with a look of obvious disbelief on his face, and muttered to himself: "It's really fake?" (To be continued......)