The Ministry of Internal Affairs has given the old courtyard to the bag.

For seven consecutive days, more than 300 large and small businessmen from the provinces of Daming gathered in the old courtyard for a meeting.

This meeting is destined to go down in history, because after this meeting, the business rules of Daming will be greatly rewritten, especially the rules of foreign trade will be completely rewritten.

After this meeting, disorderly competition will be a thing of the past.

In their place, export quotas for various industries are introduced.

At this moment, Chongzhen sat in the attic of Meixiang Building, listening to the discussion of the silk merchants.

At this time, it was Shi Jiuke who was speaking on the rostrum, and Shi Jiuke was not used to speaking publicly on such occasions, so he seemed to stutter a little.

"Honorable Emperor, Your Majesty the Emperor."

"There are also business colleagues, good evening everyone."

"There's only one question I'm going to ask today."

At the beginning, Shi Jiuke couldn't talk well, but after really getting to the point, Shi Jiuke's speech gradually began to become clear.

"There's only one question I want to make."

"That is, our own people had better not fight in the nest."

"Our own people fight each other to the death, and in the end, we can only let Xiyi pick up the cheap."

Shi Jiuke was saying that, Gao Qiqian quietly walked over and attached Chongzhen's ear and reported: "Long live Lord, Sichuan is urgent." ”

Chongzhen immediately got up when he heard this, and then took Zhu Cihong to the private room next door, only to see that the Tang newspaper said that Qin Liangyu was not fighting well in Xuzhou and had retreated to Luzhou.

After reading the Tang Newspaper, Zhu Cihong also looked solemn.

"It's unexpected." Zhu Cihong frowned and said, "Yuan Tao, Wu Dading, Cao Xun and other traitors would collude with Zhang Xianzhong, so that the loyal marquis was caught off guard and suffered a loss. ”

"It's actually to be expected." Chongzhen shook his head and said, "What my father didn't expect was that Li Zicheng personally led an army of more than 100,000 to fight Sichuan, but was blocked by a mere 20,000 western troops in Yinping Road. ”

"That's what my father said." Zhu Cihong thought it was true.

"If it weren't for Li Zicheng's 100,000 troops being blocked by a mere 20,000 Western Army in Yinping Road, Zhang Xianzhong would not have easily mobilized the main force of the 100,000 Great Western Army to fight a decisive battle with the Loyal Marquis in Xuzhou, and the Loyal Marquis would not have suffered such a small defeat."

"It's not a big problem, though." Chongzhen said suddenly, "The army of the loyal marquis is pressing too tightly, Yuan Tao, Wu Dading, Cao Xun and other traitors will be the same enemy as Zhang Xianzhong, and now the loyal marquis has returned to Luzhou, choosing to temporarily avoid the edge, the contradictions between the thieves and the western army will soon become irreconcilable, and when they start to kill each other, the loyal marquis will be able to break the alliance between the thieves without much effort." ”

After a pause, Chongzhen instructed Gao Qiqian again: "Gao Companion, let the military department immediately send a reply letter to the loyal marquis, saying that there is no need to enter the army before the year, as long as you guard Luzhou, Zunyi, Chongqing and Kuizhou." ”

"The old slave commands." Gao Qiqian received Chongzhen's will and went to the imperial city with great strength.

When Chongzhen, Zhu Cihong, father and son returned to the hall, they saw that Shi Jiuke was still speaking on the rostrum.

"In view of this, we have to form an offensive and defensive alliance, and then agree on a minimum selling price every year."

"All my Ming merchants are not allowed to sell silk or raw silk at a price lower than the reserve price, and whoever violates the offensive and defensive alliance must be expelled from the Ming Chamber of Commerce, and in the future, all members of the Ming Chamber of Commerce are not allowed to have any business dealings with such treacherous profiteers."

Chongzhen's eyes couldn't help but light up when he heard this, isn't this an export quota?

Free trade? Free trade is impossible free trade, and there can never be free trade.

Almost all the producers agreed with Shi Jiuke's proposal, because they also suffered from the price reduction of the maritime merchants or the Xiyi, and in all aspects of the silk trade, they often contributed the most, but the bulk of the profits went to the maritime merchants or the Xiyi, and they had long wanted to change the situation.

However, the reaction of channel providers, especially maritime merchants, is more ambiguous.

To put it bluntly, the most profitable link in the silk trade is the channel.

The channel merchants are divided into three categories, one is the local silk traffickers of the Ming Dynasty, the other is the maritime merchants, and the other is the large maritime trading companies represented by the Dutch East India Company.

Among them, the most profitable are maritime merchants and large maritime trading companies.

Therefore, the maritime merchants did not have much enthusiasm to sign an offensive and defensive alliance.

Of course, maritime merchants will not fiercely oppose it, that is, it does not matter whether it is successful or not.

So in the end, Shi Jiuke's proposal passed smoothly, and the next step was to agree on the details of the covenant.

The punishment rules are clear, that is, if any member violates the covenant and sells silk or raw silk at a price lower than the reserve price, he will be expelled from the Chamber of Commerce, which is still very powerful.

Because the tentacles of the Daming Chamber of Commerce have extended to almost every industry.

Once you are targeted by the Daming Chamber of Commerce, you don't have to do anything.

If you can't recruit workers, you can't buy raw silk, you can't carry your goods, and even the silver number is not willing to open an account for you, what else can you do?

In a word, he was expelled from the General Chamber of Commerce, and he just lay flat and waited for it to go out of business.

However, there was a disagreement on how to set the reserve price, because the silk merchants in Huguang hoped that the reserve price in Huguang would be lower, on the grounds that their freight was higher, but the silk merchants in Jiangnan wanted a bowl of water to be even.

When it comes to interests, they are unwilling to give in easily, and they soon quarrel with each other.

In the end, Kou Baimen, who was waiting for tea next to him, couldn't stand it anymore and proposed: "What's the point of you fighting for the bottom price here?" It's better to think about how to sell for a high price. ”

Kou Baimen's words woke up the dreamer, and the silk merchant was speechless for a while.

yes, what's the point of our fight for the bottom price? Fight for half a day in order to sell silk to maritime merchants or Xiyi at the lowest reserve price? Can't you make a little profit and set a high price?

But the question is, if you really set a high price, who will abide by it?

After a long time, Shi Jiuke arched his hand and asked, "But I don't know what Kou Nuxia thinks?" ”

"The slave family doesn't have a high opinion here, but there is a foolish opinion." Kou Baimen said, "Why don't you first check how many workshops there were under the Ming Dynasty and how much raw silk could be produced each year?" How many silks? And then use this as a quota, if the quota is not enough, they can only buy from other families, so that they can avoid lowering each other's prices? ”

Chongzhen was almost about to applaud, and Kou Baimen's proposal was very similar to the export quota.

However, the real export quota needs to be refined, because silk is not the same as silk.

However, Kou Baimen's words have opened the minds of silk merchants such as Shi Jiuke, there are many things, unthinkable is unthinkable, but as long as you get through a little bit, you can get through everything.

At present, Shi Jiuke and other silk merchants estimated a total amount of the fourteen categories of silk.

Then, according to this total amount, a quota was allocated to more than 100 large and small silk merchants attending the meeting.

The silk merchants also agreed with each other that in the future, a quota meeting would be held once a year to discuss and determine the production quotas of each silk merchant and the pricing of various types of silk.

Each kind of silk according to the quality of the level, divided into upper, middle and lower three, the price is also divided into the corresponding three grades, in the future maritime or Xiyi foreign merchants want to buy silk from the Ming Dynasty, can only according to this price, bargaining is impossible to bargain again, if you are unlucky to encounter a silk harvest, there is also the possibility of price increases.

The silk merchants also agreed to carry out the offensive and defensive alliance from before the end of this year.

According to the practice of previous years, there will be a group of foreign merchants to come to Daming before the New Year, and when these foreign merchants arrive in Daming, they will be horrified to find that the prices of silk, porcelain, tea, jewelry and other commodities in Daming have risen.

But even if the price rises, foreign businessmen can only obediently pay more real money.

Because the silk, porcelain, and tea of the Ming Dynasty are a seller's market and irreplaceable.

Thinking of this, the corners of Chongzhen's mouth hooked up a slight smile, and then got up to leave.

His participation in tonight's discussion is to achieve such an intention.

Now that the intention has been achieved, there is no need for him to stay on Mei Xiang Tower and stare at it.

Seeing Chongzhen get up and leave, Zhu Cihong also got up and left, and the father and son went downstairs, and Wang Chengen and Lu Jiude immediately came forward to put on armor for them.

It's still a mountain armor with a face armor.

Chongzhen has always attached great importance to personal safety.

Because he knows very well how many people want him to die.

After a while, the father and son put on the mountain armor, and then followed Yiding out of Meixianglou.

Lu Jiude was dressed in a golden mountain armor, and his face was also covered with a ghost armor as usual, and he rode a horse to the front.

It's just that by now, almost everyone in Nanjing knows that Lu Jiude is just a fake target used as a cover, so no assassin will be stupid enough to assassinate Lu Jiude again.

The group of Ming army armor soldiers who came out of Meixianglou quickly attracted the attention of pedestrians on the banknote street.

A moment later, someone recognized "Chongzhen", and then the cheers of "Long live" rang out.

Lu Jiude had long been accustomed to this kind of scene, and immediately raised his right hand from his horse in greeting.

"Hooray! Banzai! Pedestrians on the street burst into louder cheers.

More pedestrians flocked from afar, but no one stood in the way, and where the Yidingjia soldiers passed, the pedestrians who stood in the way of the street broke up and gave way to the sides of the street.

……

Luo Ling and Luo Hu were hidden in the crowd at this time.

There were even handcuffs hidden in the sleeves of their shirts.

At this time, the straight-line distance between the two of them and "Chongzhen" was only a dozen steps.

If you can determine who Chongzhen is, you only need a small lead, and you can easily send Chongzhen to meet his ancestors.

Unfortunately, they couldn't be sure which one was the real Chongzhen.

Anyway, the one at the front must be a fake, and any of the more than 100 Yiding in the back may be Chongzhen, so they can't step forward and open Yiding's face armor one by one to identify it, right?

"This dog emperor is really cautious."

Luo Ling scolded in a low voice.

(End of chapter)