The land of China in Chongzhen's nineteenth year seems to be much calmer than in previous years.

In the territory of the Ming Dynasty, the instructions issued by Zhu Youzhen to the ministries in the eighteenth year of Chongzhen have begun to be implemented.

Songjiang Prefecture, Shanghai County, a small county that was not well known in this era, has been officially divided into a special economic zone of the Ming Dynasty, and the Municipal Shipping Promotion Division was established here, and the Songjiang Prefecture was moved to Shanghai County.

Wu Jiayin of Tobe Langzhong was transferred to Songjiang Prefecture Yin and Shibo Lifting Division.

Shanghai County is close to the Huangpu River, and from the Huangpu River to the north, you can enter the East China Sea from Wusongkou.

Although it is still a wilderness place, it is one of the most prosperous places in the world in later generations.

At this time, merchant ships from the most prosperous areas of the Ming Dynasty, such as Yingtianfu and Songjiang Mansion and Suzhou Mansion, began to berth at the newly built port wharf in Shanghai County.

Even every day, you can see countless large fortune ships haunting here, these are the ships of the big merchants and imperial merchants who are about to go to sea to trade directly from Suzhou to Huizhou and even Wuchang.

In addition to the imperial merchant giants such as Jiangning Weaving Han Family and Suzhou Weaving Yang Family, a large number of high-quality and inexpensive textiles were prepared overseas, and there were also private merchant ships under the banner of Zheng's Commercial Bank.

The imperial merchants and the government merchants naturally had to pay the export tax in the city, while the Zheng firm only needed to register and directly export trade.

Although the private merchants could only receive taxes from the imperial merchants, the official merchants, as well as some private merchants who were unwilling to carry the banner of the Zheng firm, the tax silver still flowed into the treasury of the Shibo Lifting Division every day like flowing water.

Not only exports, but also Western merchant ships such as the Netherlands and Francophones have begun to gather in Shanghai Port.

In accordance with the order of the Ministry of Households, the Songjiang Prefecture has reached the confluence of the Huangpu and Wusong Rivers in Shanghai County to Wusongkou, which is now the confluence of the Huangpu River and Suzhou Creek to Wusongkou, allowing domestic merchants and foreigners to live here for a long time and even open shops and workshops.

Huangzhuang has purchased land here in accordance with Zhu Youzhen's will, and even built many shops in advance, at first only Huangzhuang operated alone, but slowly because of a large number of people gathered in this area, and as Huangzhuang's profits became more and more lucrative, a large number of merchants also began to come to this area to buy land to open shops or rent shops from Huangzhuang.

For a while, as the trade in this area became more and more developed, the shops in this area began to boom rapidly, and the profits were like a snowball.

By the time of October of the 19th year of Chongzhen, Zhu Youzhen had already made a profit of three or four million silver dollars by relying solely on the rental income and trade income of Huangzhuang in this area.

There are also foreign shops began to gather here, or rent or buy directly, for a time the Huangpu area, which was just a wilderness mountain village, has officially become one of the most prosperous commercial ports in the Ming Dynasty.

According to Wu Jiayin, the prefect of Songjiang Prefecture, by the end of the nineteenth year of Chongzhen, the Songjiang Prefecture Bo Tiju Division had collected a huge amount of eight million silver dollars, and even Wu Jiayin directly sighed in the song that if there was no Zheng firm, most of the private merchants escaped tariffs, and the tariff revenue of the Ming Dynasty would have been directly doubled.

Zhu Youzhen was not surprised by the huge tax revenue obtained after the opening of the commercial port in Shanghai County, after all, it had proven to be a treasure land for gathering wealth in later generations.

Although the Manchus occupied the north and the outside of the Guan, Zhu Youzhen did not prohibit the Ming Dynasty from trading with the Manchus, and the Manchu court itself ignored this commercial ban.

After all, the Manchu court also knew that the north could not do without the support of southern goods, and it could not prohibit commercial exchanges between the private gentry and the Ming merchants.

However, because now it has become a military town from Yangzhou all the way along the Grand Canal to Baoding, the transportation has been interrupted, so whether the Ming merchants in Huaiyang go north or the merchants in the Manchu ruled area go south, they can only transit in Shanghai County at this time, and then take the sea route.

This made the commercial prosperity in the former Caoyun area also moved to Shanghai County.

On the north and south banks of Wusongkou in Shanghai County and even on the inland river Huangpu, there are many merchant ships gathering and coming and going.

The East China Sea and the Yellow Sea from Wusongkou in Shanghai County to Denglai in Shandong Province are the actual control areas of the Ming Navy, although the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty went north to do business in the Qing Dynasty at this time, as long as there is a certificate of tax payment in Shanghai Port or under the banner of the Zheng Firm, the Imperial Navy will not stop it, but the merchants of the Qing Dynasty want to go south to do business at this time, they naturally have to pay protection fees to the Ming Navy.

At this time, in the Ming Sea, the control of the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea was in the hands of the Ming Navy, while the South China Sea and the entire Southeast Asia were controlled by the Zheng Navy at this time.

This is a tacit agreement reached between Zhu Youzhen and the Zheng family, the Zheng group will naturally not cross Taiwan and offend the navy of the Ming Empire, and the navy of the Ming Empire cannot afford to go south to cross Taiwan and seize control of the South China Sea in the hands of the Zheng group.

The Ming Imperial Navy occupied all the islands in the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea and collected protection fees from Qing merchant ships, while the Zheng group collected protection fees from foreign merchant ships south of present-day Taiwan Island in the South China Sea, to be precise.

Of course, the navy of the Ming Empire will not charge the protection fees of the imperial merchants and officials and merchants of the Ming Dynasty, as well as private merchants and Zheng's firms, and the Zheng Group will also not collect them, and they all have the obligation to protect their own merchant ships.

This is also one of the tacit understandings of each other.

By the end of the nineteenth year of Chongzhen, according to Liu Kongzhao's report, the navy of the Ming Empire had collected three million silver dollars at the end of December of the nineteenth year of Chongzhen.

This is still the time when the north has not yet fully restored economic order, and in a few years, the merchants of the Great Qing Kingdom in the north can even bring more than three million silver dollars to the Ming Navy every year.

This is undoubtedly for the Great Qing Kingdom to help the Great Ming Kingdom build a stronger navy.

Of course, Zhu Youzhen did not prohibit trade between the two countries, not only did not want to hinder the country's commerce and offend the country's gentry and merchants, but also had a deeper purpose, now the Ming Dynasty has reformed the money law, silver coins have become the common currency, and silver coins in the Ming Empire because of the financial control of the Ming Central Bank can be recognized by the people in the Ming Empire, and will naturally be recognized by the Qing Dynasty.

Even in order to facilitate the circulation of silver coins in the Manchu ruled areas, the Ming navy only accepted silver coins as protection money.

For this reason, once silver coins began to circulate widely within the Qing court, and even became the mainstream currency of the Qing court, then the silver and gold of the entire north would flow into the Ming Dynasty in large quantities in the south, so that the Qing Dynasty at this time would have a high level of silver and money in the future.

That can undoubtedly provoke domestic contradictions, and even lead to inflation, and Zhu Youzhen will slowly turn silver coins into paper money in the future, once paper money is also circulated in the Qing Dynasty at this time.

If he began to order the printing of paper money or silver coins, then the Ming Dynasty, which had enough silver and gold reserves, would not be greatly impacted, and the Qing court would undoubtedly fall into economic collapse first because of its own economic means.

(End of chapter)