"Chen Aiqing has solved a big problem for my Daming!" Receiving 10 million taels of silver and countless goods sent by Li You, Emperor Wanli happily praised him, although he rarely went to the court to deal with the government, but he was not ignorant of the world, you must know that Emperor Wanli studied with Zhang Juzheng when he was a child, and his political understanding was far above that of ordinary ministers. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

He has not been in the court for more than ten years, firstly, because his health is really not good, and he cannot cope with the hard work of the early dynasty every day, and secondly, now the political system of the Ming Dynasty has been very perfect, even if there is no emperor's cabinet and various ministries in the court, they can also deal with various government affairs according to the old practice, and thirdly, because he wants to replace the prince, he has had a stiff relationship with the courtiers, so he simply hides in the deep palace and does not care about the affairs of the outside world.

But this does not mean that he does not know anything about state affairs, he still has a strong ability to control the imperial court, and deeply knows the current chronic illness of the Ming Dynasty, those ministers in the court are getting more and more solid, but the deficit of the imperial court is more and more, in order to enrich the inner treasury he had to send the mine supervisor to search around for money, Li You's crusade against the Japanese State was originally quite criticized in the imperial court, and the Wanli Emperor was also very hesitant, but when he received the first money and grain sent by Li You from the Japanese State, he turned to support Li You, Now Li You really didn't disappoint her, this ten million taels of silver, countless goods, and the seizures that had been transported back one after another were enough to greatly alleviate the financial crisis of the Ming Dynasty, not to mention that there would be an income of two million taels of silver a year for twenty consecutive years in the future.

More importantly, Li You's attack on the Japanese state of the move made him see a glimmer of opportunity to alleviate the internal contradictions of the Ming Dynasty, now the Ming Dynasty can be described as full of contradictions, official corruption is rampant, land annexation is becoming more and more serious, and the people's lives are becoming more and more difficult, which is enough to shake the foundation of the Ming Dynasty's rule, but there is an example of Zhang Juzheng in the front, the Wanli Emperor knows how difficult it is to change these problems, and with Zhang Juzheng's genius, he only ended up with the death of the people and the death of the people, and what good way did he have to change all this? But the harvest of this expedition to the Japanese kingdom gave him a clue.

After reading the list of seizures handed over by Li You, and by the way, after playing with the three artifacts of the Wa Kingdom, Lan Luzhi and Wang Xizhi's calligraphy and ink treasures for a while, the Wanli Emperor began to carefully ask Li You about the attack on the Wa Kingdom, Li You answered one by one, and the Wanli Emperor did not ask about the origin of the Zheng Jiajun, but focused on the situation of overseas countries.

Of course, Li You refused to let go of this good opportunity to help Da Ming open his eyes to the world, and immediately sent the globe he ordered to build to introduce the pattern of today's world one by one, especially the rise of the Western Age of Discovery, "Your Majesty, in the past, when the Three Treasure Eunuchs went to the Western Ocean seven times, my Daming's ships and navigation technology were among the best in the world, but since then, my Daming has given up this advantage, and now it is behind the Western Yi people, and this time the fleet led by Weichen is among the best, There are many warships built by righteous people imitating Western ships, which are indeed above our Ming sailors; And now the fleet of Westerners has arrived in the Nanyang area, Tianzhu, Boni and other countries have gradually become Westerner colonies, in the reign of King Sejong they even used the excuse of exposing goods to steal Macao, it can be seen that the Westerners are already eyeing our Central Plains, if I still don't care, these people will become my Ming's henchmen in the future. ”

"What does it mean to be colonized?" Emperor Wanli became very interested in this term, and asked after asking about the distribution of Westerners' power in the Nanyang area.

"Colony is a Western term that refers to an area ruled by a suzerain, without political, economic, military and diplomatic independence, and completely under the control of the suzerain. They plundered wealth from colonies around the world to feed their overlords, squeezing colonies to alleviate internal tensions and strengthen themselves. Li You was secretly happy in his heart, he knew that the Wanli Emperor had developed a strong interest in these, "The alliance that Weichen concluded with the Wa State this time is also a reference to the strategy of the Westerners to expand the colony, controlling the port and stationing the army in order to maintain the status and interests of our Ming Dynasty in the Wa State; The purpose of occupying the mine is to send a steady stream of resources to our Ming Dynasty, and these mountains of gold, silver, and copper are enough to alleviate the problem of lack of gold and silver in our Ming Dynasty; The purpose of setting up the merchant hall is to plunder the wealth of the Japanese kingdom to compensate me for the ...... of the Ming Dynasty."

"As long as the commerce of the Wa Kingdom is in the hands of my Da Ming, even if they pay off the indemnity after 20 years, my Da Ming can still obtain a steady stream of wealth from the Wa State." Li You explained the meaning of this contract one by one, as long as this contract can be guaranteed to be implemented truthfully, then the Japanese Kingdom will be reduced to a semi-colony of the Ming Dynasty.

"Well, it's much more affordable than the kind of foreign tribute that came before." The Wanli Emperor had long been dissatisfied with the tributary system of the Ming Dynasty and the surrounding vassal states, and this way of paying tribute to the Ming Dynasty and returning the rewards to the Ming Dynasty did not do much good to the Ming Dynasty except that it could barely maintain the stability of the frontier.

For several days in a row, Li You came to the palace every day to explain to the Wanli Emperor how the Western countries plundered wealth from all over the world in the Age of Discovery.

"Your Majesty, the reason why many gentry in the south of the Yangtze River oppose the sea trade is just to monopolize the benefits, thinking that in the Southern Song Dynasty, they could obtain a lot of wealth just by relying on the sea trade to support the imperial court to resist the attacks of the Jin State and the Mongols, and now how much benefit can I Ming collect from the sea trade? Haven't all the interests been taken up by the gentry in Jiangnan? Li You was not afraid of offending the Jiangnan gentry, so he unceremoniously revealed the mystery, "If the imperial court can manage the maritime trade, it will be easy to obtain tens of millions of taels of silver from it every year, and the overseas land is vast, if the immigrants open up the wasteland for cultivation, it can greatly alleviate the increasingly serious problem of land annexation." ”

"But if according to what Chen Aiqing said, these overseas places are far from my Ming Dynasty, and if I open up colonies extensively, I'm afraid it will be difficult to manage?" Although the Wanli Emperor was moved, he still had many scruples, the territory of the Ming Dynasty was already very broad, if he expanded the colony, how to manage it became a problem, and how to attract the people of the Ming Dynasty to the sea?

"Your Majesty, Weichen has a bold idea about this matter, I don't know whether to talk about it or not." Li You's gaze swept over the eunuchs and palace maids next to him.