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Chapter 2771 Capital (one hundred and twenty-four)

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    At this moment, he looked at the scholar in front of him, but he had some doubts.  Can this person take on this important responsibility?

    He coughed slightly and asked: "You have always known the love of Kun. That being said, I am here to ask you: With the current situation in the world, how should you deal with the thief of Kun?"

    This is a proper question. Qian Taichong has simulated it in his mind countless times.

    If it were in the past, he would definitely have promoted "painful suppression".  However, after traveling around the capital these days and talking to "Mr. Le", he has changed his mind.

    The imperial court had neither the strength nor the will to "suppress" the thieves.  A penny can drive a heroic man to death. This is true in Zhangzhou Bay, and it is also true in the capital.

    Furthermore, if the imperial court wants to "suppress" them, what can the Zheng family do?  With such little wealth as my own, I can't even get out of Zhangzhou Bay. As for those relatives, it would be a good idea to fight them over without taking the Kun thief's money.

    Immediately: "The thief entangled the Guangdong and Guangxi, and its potential was gradually achieved. If you want to make a swarm, the court is not a priority minister, and he can't do it. It is just that the soldiers are lacking at the moment and it is difficult to raise it for a while "

    At this point, he slightly raised his eyelids to look at the emperor's expression. Seeing that Chongzhen's expression was as usual, he knew that he had figured it out well. He boldly continued: "the only way is to figure it out slowly."

    "Oh, how can we figure it out slowly?" the emperor asked.

    Qian Taichong immediately presented the strategy he had been thinking about for many days.  The previous points such as training soldiers, eliminating traitors, protecting armor, etc. are all cliche and have nothing new. Only when it comes to "raising wages" is it different.

    "Training soldiers is nothing more than paying. The world is troubled, and it is difficult for the court to raise wages. However, the Kun thieves are entrenched in only two provinces, but they have well-paid soldiers. The root cause is that there is industry and commerce.  The benefit!"

    Chongzhen actually heard a thing or two about why the Kun thieves had elite soldiers and lots of money, and he also knew that the Kun thieves were "emphasis on industry and commerce" and "light on agriculture".  But he didn't know exactly what kind of industrial and commercial profits it would bring.  Hearing Qian Taichong talk about it, he couldn't help but become interested.

    Although Chongzhen was not as greedy as his grandfather, his desire for "money" was not inferior to that of Naizu.  There are really places to spend money everywhere.

    No matter what ideas are used to increase revenue and reduce expenditure, and cause complaints between the government and the public, the money spent in vain may not increase much, and the money spent is increasing day by day.  Due to the sharp increase in expenditures in the Ministry of Household Affairs, the treasury is in ruins, and the left and right are in dire straits. The position of Minister has become a job that everyone fears.  Every time I call him, as soon as money is mentioned, there is a deathly silence.

    "Tell me, how did this thief get the benefit of industry and commerce?"

    Qian Taichong immediately recounted everything he had seen and heard over the years.  In fact, why Kun Thief is so rich? According to Qian Taichong's understanding, it is because overseas trade is developed and he earns a large amount of silver from abroad every year.

    Everyone in Ming Dynasty understands that overseas trade can make money.  But the court did not gain many direct benefits from it.  The reason is that tax administration is very backward.

    Although there is a tariff, the tax rate is actually extremely low and the collection method is unscientific.  The annual overseas trade volume is several million taels, but the tax revenue obtained from it is very little.

    Macau, the window for trade between the East and the West, earned hundreds of thousands of silver for Portuguese merchants every year, while the Ming Dynasty received only a few hundred taels of "land rent."

    Qian Taichong went on to say that the Kun thieves had a set of perfect and sophisticated methods for overseas trade.  The tax amount for maritime import and export goods will be adjusted in a timely manner according to market demand.  Customs alone collects a large amount of tax revenue every year.  Moreover, they continued to purchase scarce materials from overseas through maritime trade.

    "When the Kun bandits first occupied Guangdong and Guangxi, food was scarce. They purchased cloth from India and rice from Siam to supply the market and stabilize prices. Therefore, the people in both places were confused"

    Just earning a lot of silver doesn't explain why they are so rich - the real reason was actually found out after Mr. Le came to visit him.

    That means that the Kun thieves did not save and hide the large amount of silver they obtained from overseas trade in warehouses and cellars like the Zheng family or other maritime merchants did. Instead, they changed hands and spent the money to buy various goods from overseas.

    Silver itself is not wealth. It took Qian Taichong several days to figure out this concept.

    "Gold and silver are not wealth, but are actually exchange items of equal value. Wealth itself is still rice, food, cloth, iron, and other things that people need to make a living"

    "If the imperial court can widen the borders and reform tariffs, it will not only be able to collect billions of silver every year, but also purchase weapons and food from overseas. Even if the harvest is insufficient, a few percent of the imports can make up for official expenses, and there is no need to send additional troops or impose additional taxes.  The common people can also take a breather. The rogue bandits are also a plan to draw fuel from the bottom of the cauldron."

    ¡°Rice is imported from overseas?!¡± Chongzhen was shocked.  Since ancient times, I have never heard of buying grain from overseas to make up for a bad harvest, he said.He said, "With billions of people in the world, how much rice can a mere Siam produce? How much money can the imperial court have?"

    "Your Majesty doesn't know something," Qian Taichong said. "When rice is sold in Siam, Luzon and other places, it only costs one or two coins per stone, including the cost of water. It only costs three or four coins to get to Guangzhou. Kun  The thieves can carry as little as 2,000 dan or as many as tens of thousands of dan in each boat, transporting them day and night in a constant flow. Every year, the rice imported from Siam and Nanyang is no less than a million dan!"

    Qian Taichong didn¡¯t know how much rice Kun Thief imported from overseas.  The specific number was provided by Mr. Le. To be honest, he thought it was too fantasy, but Mr. Le said that this number was only an underestimate, not an exaggeration.

    Since you want the emperor to accept your "advice", it's okay to be exaggerated.

    Sure enough, the emperor's face showed a look of surprise.  He pondered: "Sea trade is one, but what about the second?"

    "Sea trade is 'merchant', and the second is 'work'." Qian Taichong said, "The thieves often defeat more with less, relying on nothing more than strong ships and powerful guns; all kinds of Australian goods are just ordinary goods.  With a little processing, the price can be ten times or hundreds of times higher. The minister saw that there are a lot of Australian goods in the capital, and a mere box of Australian fire costs twenty or thirty cents. This item can only be sold in Guangzhou for ten cents.  The shop sells it in bulk, and each box only costs two or three cents. It's like turning stone into gold, how can you not be rich?"

    "There is nothing more profitable than industry and commerce." Emperor Chongzhen nodded and said, "I believe what the ancients said! It's just that what you said is the skill of a thief"

    Qian Taichong hurriedly said: "I am brave enough to propose a plan. I hope the emperor will forgive me."

    "What are you guilty of? But it doesn't matter."

    "Learn Kun's skills to fight against Kun!" Qian Taichong prepared this for a long time and finally said this.

    At this moment, he felt relieved.  He had heard this sentence and similar meanings said more than once by knowledgeable people in both the government and the public. He had also talked about similar words with the main leaders of the Zheng Sen Group.

    But this is just their private consensus.  Whether it is Liang Cunhou, Qian Taichong, Zai Xiang or others, they are all aware of the resistance they may encounter in the court.

    "Kun's skills do have advantages." The emperor recalled the "Southern goods" that Kun thief had in the palace, and asked, "But how to 'learn' them?"

    Seeing that the emperor was interested in this, Qian Taichong immediately learned what he had learned and sold it, and changed what Mr. Le had said to him in the past.

    "Kun thieves value profit over righteousness. As long as there are enough benefits, they will naturally be willing to teach."

    These days, Qian Taichong has been thinking about what Mr. Le said, and based on his conversations with Liang Cunhou and other "people who know Kun" in the past few years, as well as the contents of newspapers and books about Kun Thief that he has read.  Suddenly a new strategy came to mind.

    This strategy is no longer a simple introduction of technology like setting up a sugar factory, but to fundamentally improve the situation of the Zheng family.

    If the emperor wants to support the Zheng family, he must make the Zheng family "useful" again.  Just setting up a sugar factory in Zhangzhou Bay can only improve the economic situation of Zhengsen Group, but it cannot change the situation of being trapped in the city.

    Staying in Zhangzhou Bay, Zheng Sen will have no future.  Even if the imperial court is willing to support the Zheng family, under the tight blockade and division of the Kun thieves, it will not be possible at all, and they will be abandoned by the emperor sooner or later.

    The only solution now is to jump out of Zhangzhou Bay and seek other development.

    Although the old saying goes, "A man is cheap when he leaves his hometown", but in Zhangzhou Bay right now, all the original branches of the Zheng Group are eyeing the young master and trying every possible means to seize the property.  Staying there is just a public criticism.

    Only by jumping out will you have new opportunities.

    Originally, when Zheng Zhilong was alive, he focused on running Taiwan.  However, since the Kinmen War, the Zheng family property in Taiwan has been taken away by the Kun thieves, and the area is not suitable for development.

    "I ask the emperor to open Shanghai as a treaty port, just like what happened in Guangzhou." Qian Taichong reported.

    "Open Shanghai as a port?" Chongzhen was surprised.

    "Yes, now that Guangdong and Guangxi have been captured, Guangzhou has been captured by thieves. All the revenue from sea trade has gone into his pocket. If a port is re-established in Shanghai and the Shipping Department of Tiji City is re-established, it will be responsible for the foreign ship trade and collect tariffs every year.  The imperial court will receive more than 200,000 taels of tax money!"

    "Two hundred thousand taels!" This number made the emperor's eyebrows move slightly.  Even for the imperial court, two hundred thousand taels was not a small amount. In the first year of the Apocalypse, Zhejiang and Nanzhili, the two richest provinces among the eighteen provinces, shipped only 3.25 million taels of silver to Taicang, the capital; in the seventh year of the Apocalypse, from  Guangdong transferred 370,000 taels of silver from the treasury to Beijing, and the vassal treasury was completely empty.  At a Shanghai port, you can earn 200,000 yuan by collecting tariffs from foreign merchants?  !

    "But when Zheng Zhilong was alive, it was already rumored that his shopkeepers, stewards, and generals had hundreds of thousands or even millions of properties.  After the Anping War, Jin Yiwei secretly went to Fujian to investigate and said that the Kun thieves had stolen "three million taels of silver" from Anping.

    ¡° Putting it this way, a tariff of 200,000 taels a year is not outrageous.

    Seeing that the emperor was moved, Qian Taichong boasted about the benefits of setting up a port in Shanghai: Shanghai is backed by the prosperous areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and is rich in products, whether it is raw silk, satin, cotton, utensils, dried and fresh fruits  ¡­They are all ¡°pretty goods¡± favored by foreign businessmen.  The Yangtze River also has convenient shipping. Products along the Yangtze River can be transported directly down the river to Shanghai for export.Three million taels of silver is a surprise."

    ¡° Putting it this way, a tariff of 200,000 taels a year is not outrageous.

    Seeing that the emperor was moved, Qian Taichong boasted about the benefits of setting up a port in Shanghai: Shanghai is backed by the prosperous areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and is rich in products, whether it is raw silk, satin, cotton, utensils, dried and fresh fruits  ¡­They are all ¡°pretty goods¡± favored by foreign businessmen.  The Yangtze River also has convenient shipping. Products along the Yangtze River can be transported directly down the river to Shanghai for export.
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