Zhu Jun squinted, his fingers rhythmically patted on the armrest of the chair, and the three scholars standing on the side glanced at each other, I don't know what the emperor was thinking, among the three, only Yang Side was the most insipid, Mu Tianbo and Zhou Mubai's open and secret battles He never participated, just like an old monk entering the house, he did his duty like an old monk.

It's not that Yang Side doesn't want to gang up, he was originally a head of the household department, and he was promoted to such a high position of power by the emperor at once, so he was naturally hated by some older ministers, and Mu Tianbo is the backbone of the old ministers, even if he doesn't have much disgust with him, the two can't get together. And Zhou Mubai is just a little showman, and he also joined the king of Burma in the past, and Yang Side, a person from such a background, disdains to be mixed with him, and he has not lost his identity. Therefore, Yang Side, who is not high or low, has become a stable neutral faction in the small court.

Mu Tianbo is different, he is a hereditary prince, calm, since entering Burma, his prestige has been increasing, almost all the ministers have united around him, many things he can't help himself, he has become the spokesperson of the mainstream courtiers, the mainstream is to exclude dissidents, but also to exclude dark horses, Yang Side is a dark horse that quickly came out, but it is not a dissident. And Zhou Mubai is almost like a demon, how many people have boiled their hair white and are not qualified to enter the cabinet, how many people are waiting for this position, this is good, a Xiucai who licked the butt of the King of Burma suddenly came out and robbed the jobs that many people have coveted for a long time, if the officials are not resentful, it would be strange, so Mu Tianbo had to stand on the opposite side of Zhou Mubai.

Zhou Mubai is different, he is more cunning, he understands people's hearts better, and it is useless for anyone to oppose him, because here, only one person can decide his official title, and only one person can give him rights, no matter how many people oppose him, as long as he hugs this person's thigh tightly. And this person's mind is very unpredictable, Zhou Mubai sometimes feels uncertain, but he knows one thing, that is, this person does not want himself to get too close to Mu Tianbo, otherwise it may endanger this person's imperial power.

Since then, a small-scale split began to occur in the entire small imperial court, forming two opposing political forces, one is the patriarchal faction with Mu Tianbo as the core, and the other side is led by Zhou Mubai, and then with more than a dozen shameless officials who are always out of the way, although the number is small, but Zhou Mubai's holy family is in full swing, but he is also in trouble with the patriarchal faction.

As long as there is power, there will be struggle, and when the struggle enters the white-hot stage, the individual struggle has become insignificant, so the party struggle has emerged, and Zhu Jun is powerless to stop this trend, and he does not want to stop it. As long as these people are not his stumbling block, there is no need for him to kick them out, on the contrary, the party struggle within the controllable range can also make his imperial power more stable.

"I have an idea." After being silent for a long time, Zhu Jun suddenly spoke, he pursed his lips, and said: "Yang Qingjia, you go and spread the word to all parties and tell all the merchants in Nanyang that as long as they move their business here, their business will be completely under my protection, and no matter where they want to transport their goods to Nanyang, my escort fleet will escort them for free." ”

"Your Majesty, if that's the case, won't our escort fleet have worked in vain?" Yang Si Deton felt a pain in his flesh, although he is now concurrently serving as the secretary of the Ministry of War, but he has always been in charge of the household department in the past, a lot of silver money is through his hands, he roughly estimated, if the escort fleet can be fully spread in the South Seas, the monthly surplus can reach at least 100,000 taels of silver, this is a great wealth, he knew for the first time, the original merchant is so rich, he already knew so, if Emperor Chongzhen can collect taxes and silver from the merchant, the treasury will not be overstretched.

Zhu Jun smiled and set his eyes on Zhou Mubai, Yang Side and Mu Tianbo are more honest, compared to Zhou Mubai Mumu, if someone can understand their meaning, I am afraid that only Zhou Mubai is present.

After Zhou Mubai hesitated for a moment, he suddenly brightened up, and couldn't help but sigh: "Wonderful! If the merchant moves his property here, we can naturally collect additional taxes, and they are more stable than the convoy, and even if we don't become pirates in the future, we can continue to collect taxes, which will definitely be beneficial in the long run. ”

Zhu Jun couldn't help but be a little disappointed, no matter how smart people in this era are, I'm afraid they also have his limitations, he got up awe-inspiringly: "Think about it, after the merchant moves the industry here, is it just silver?" What about their families? Even if they don't dare to bring their families here, they will always bring a few servants with them, right? Do they need to be taken care of by someone in their business? Does their store need a guy? Since their store is here, where do the goods come from? Will there be a processing workshop here? Does the workshop need a craftsman? With so many people coming here, do you need to eat? Do you want to get dressed? ”

Zhu Jun asked a few questions in a row, and everyone was still a little puzzled, but they felt that they had some clues, but they hadn't discovered it for the time being.

Zhu Jun stopped playing dumb riddles, he continued: "I have roughly calculated, if there are a hundred merchants stationed here, they will be accompanied by at least nearly 10,000 craftsmen, courtiers, men, and domestic servants. And this increase of tens of thousands of people also need food, clothing, housing and transportation, so in addition to maritime merchants, some rice shops, restaurants, inns, gambling stalls, clothing stores, carriage and horse shops merchants will also settle in with them, these inland merchants also have families, and also need men, so think about it, if not a hundred maritime merchants, but a thousand, ten thousand? What I lack now is not silver, what I really lack is people, and if people are prosperous, everything will be prosperous. I have been sleeping all night, thinking about it and thinking about it, and then I understand the key, otherwise what is the use of being rich and rivaling the country? ”

Zhu Jun can think of this, completely learn from the experience of reform and opening up, use the advantages to attract foreign investment, after the construction of foreign capital will need a large number of workers, so that you can attract more people to work in the city, the scale of the city began to increase, the population began to increase, and then the use of taxes to build infrastructure, the industrial chain also began to improve, more and more factories, in the end, these originally asked grandpa to tell grandma to invite foreign capital can not be driven away.

Zhu Jun's plan is to use coercion and inducement to attract some merchants to come in the early stage to form a primary industrial chain, and then invest a part of the gold and silver to build docks, warehouses, roads and other infrastructure, so that the first batch of merchants can make a lot of money, so that more merchants will pour in, and the snowball of the industrial chain will be bigger and bigger.

With a business, there is no need to worry about no one coming to work, and with a job, there is a population. After all, in this era, most people are struggling with the poverty line, and if there is a place to eat and eat, I am afraid no one will refuse.

"My emperor is wise, and Weichen sighs to himself." Zhou Mubai reacted first, although he still hadn't figured out many details, he definitely couldn't let Mu Tianbo take the lead, and he had already bowed down and admired before the rest of the people came back to their senses.

"Although this strategy is feasible, but the merchants' industry is often deeply rooted in the local area, if you want them to move the nest you have to have some extraordinary means to succeed, otherwise, the convoy security should be set to half of the cargo of the sea vessels, all the cargo ships that accept the protection of the convoy must hand over half of the cargo to accept our protection, otherwise let the sailors chase them on the sea, so it will not be long before many maritime merchants weigh the pros and cons and choose to move the industry here, after all, half of the goods must be taken out each time, After all, it's a heart-wrenching thing. ”

"Not really." Mu Tianbo muttered a few words, he was different from Zhou Mubai, everything had to be weighed in his stomach before he stood up and spoke: "There are seven or eight sea ships of the Navy Division, and the sea is vast, and these warships alone may have more than enough strength to threaten the maritime merchants." Your Majesty, according to Weichen, the current security of the escort fleet should not be too high, otherwise the maritime merchants would rather take the risk of sailing than pay such a high amount of insurance, and after we have enough money to buy sea vessels, we can divide the sailors into ten teams and cruise around the South Seas. ”

"Although Mu Shoufu is seeking the country, it is inevitable that he will be a little obedient." Zhou Mubai sneered and said: "If the sailor intercepts a large merchant ship, he can transform them into a warship, although the power is not great, and there are not a few artillery, but it is always more than enough to deal with the maritime merchants, the emperor only needs to recruit some more sailor soldiers, after March, as long as the sailors of the Nanyang countries do not dispatch, our fleet can block the major routes in the Nanyang, so that the maritime merchants are obedient." ”