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As soon as Qin Mu arrived in Hangzhou, he rested for a night, and then took Sima Kai, Jin Lei, Yang Shen, Gu Junen, Shi Chunqiu, Lin Jihai and others to Ningbo Prefecture.
Ningbo was originally called Mingzhou, and was changed to Ningbo Prefecture in the 14th year of Hongwu. In the Song Dynasty, Ningbo had always been an important port for foreign trade. The Mingzhou Maritime Customs at that time was one of the three major Maritime Customs in the Song Dynasty.
Especially during the Southern Song Dynasty, the tariff revenue of the Mingzhou Maritime Customs accounted for nearly one-third of the fiscal revenue of the Southern Song Dynasty at that time.
When Zheng He made seven voyages to the West, he also used the Taohuadu area around Sanjiangkou in Ningbo Port as his main base for shipbuilding and material preparation.
Now Daqin also has a large shipyard at Taohuadu in Sanjiangkou.
The so-called Sanjiangkou refers to the place where the Yongjiang River, Yaojiang River and Fenghua River converge in Ningbo. After the three rivers converge in Ningbo, they form a river channel that can accommodate large ships and flow eastward into the sea from Dinghaiwei.
Gu Rong's navy was training off the coast of Ningbo. After Qin Mu arrived at Ningbo Prefecture, he first convened a meeting in the second hall of the prefectural government.
First, He Ningzong, the deputy commander of Yebushou, who was known as the poisonous scholar, was responsible for introducing the situation of the Zheng family.
"Now, ships from other countries cannot come and go without the flag of the Zheng family. The Zheng family collects 2,000 gold coins from each merchant ship. From this item alone, the Zheng family earns tens of millions of gold coins a year, making them rich enough to rival a country."
"At the same time, the Zheng family had a total of 3,000 ships, which traveled to Japan, Luzon, Siam, Temasek and other places to trade with the barbarians, earning countless gold and silver. Even other members of the Zheng family were rich enough to rival a country. For example, Zheng Tai, the cousin who guarded Kinmen, had a family fortune of no less than 2 million taels. In short, some were as rich as tens of millions, and some as little as a million."
"The Western barbarians do not produce silkworms, but they can only trade our silk back home and weave fine satin for people to wear. Therefore, 100 catties of Chinese silk is worth 100 taels in China, but it can be sold twice as much in Southeast Asia. Or even several times as much. Jiangxi porcelain, Fujian sugar and fruit are all loved by the barbarians. With these, the Zheng family's annual income is actually more than the national tax revenue of the Great Qin."
In fact, everyone has long known that the Zheng family is rich enough to rival a country, but after hearing He Ningzong's account, everyone still couldn't help but be amazed.
Qin Mu also sighed: "As long as the Zheng family is around, our Great Qin always feels like someone is strangling us. The annual income of the Southern Song Dynasty exceeds 100 million strings of cash, and at least half of it comes from maritime trade.
Our Great Qin has an annual income of not even 50 million taels, but even if it earns 20 million taels a year, that would be a lot of money to invest in people's livelihood.
The former Ming Dynasty was actually begging for food with a golden bowl in hand. After Longqing opened the sea, hundreds of millions of gold and silver flowed into China through trade, but the Ming court cried poor every day and could only increase salaries for the poor people.
The lessons of the past are not far away. Our Great Qin must not follow in the footsteps of the Ming Dynasty. We must not only take back the maritime trade rights as soon as possible, but also firmly control them. We must not let them become a channel for a few people to make huge profits. "
After hearing Qin Mu's words, Gu Jun'en and others felt deeply moved!
Since the opening of the sea in the reign of Emperor Longqing, countless amounts of gold and silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty. However, they did not flow to the imperial court, but were divided up by private individuals, making millions of wealthy people everywhere, while the Ming court was so poor that even the emperor's dragon robe had to be patched.
Obviously, Qin Mu would never allow such a situation to happen again.
After hearing what Qin Mu said, Gu Rong, the vice admiral of the Qin Navy, was undoubtedly under the greatest pressure. He hesitated and said, "King Qin, our navy has just been formed and lacks training. If we rashly engage in a decisive battle with the Zheng family fleet, I'm afraid we have no chance of winning."
The current Qin Navy has 25,000 troops, but the original 10,000-plus have been cruising along the Yangtze River and lack naval combat experience;
Most of the 10,000 newly recruited soldiers had been to sea as sailors and had seen wind and waves, but not many of them had experienced large-scale naval battles.
To be honest, only Gu Rong's original team of two to three thousand people had experience in naval warfare.
Qin Mu glanced at Gu Jun'en, Yang Shen and the others and said, "The enemy is strong and we are weak. What good strategies do you have to win?"
Sima Kai recalled Qin Mu's plan to join forces with the Dutch to attack Zheng Zhilong, so he said, "The Art of War by Sun Tzu says that the best strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, the next best is to attack their alliances, the next best is to attack their troops, and the worst is to attack their cities. I think we should first attack their plans and alliances. Although we can't count on the Dutch, we can still use the Portuguese in Macau and the Spanish in Luzon. I think it's not difficult to use them to attack Zheng's family by offering them some small benefits."
Shi Chunqiu, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Personnel, disagreed with this and said, "King Qin, I dare not agree with Lord Sima's strategy. The Western Barbarians often invaded our sea borders in the late Ming Dynasty and they are definitely not good people. I think that when our navy is still weak, inviting the Western Barbarians to attack the Zheng family is tantamount to driving a tiger out the front door and letting a wolf in the back door. Instead of doing this, it is better to keep the Zheng family."
Jin Lei also said, "I agree with Minister Shi's opinion. Inviting the Western Barbarians to attack the Zheng family is not only like driving out a tiger from the front door and letting in a wolf from the back door, but it will also take a long time and be difficult to coordinate. Moreover, the Zheng family has accumulated tens of millions of wealth over the years. Inviting the Western Barbarians to attack the Zheng family, even if they win, the wealth accumulated by the Zheng family is very likely to fall into the hands of the Western Barbarians."
After hearing this, Qin Mu couldn't help but look at Jin Lei. This guy had the same idea as him.
Qin Mu had long threatened to join forces with the Dutch and Portugal to attack the Zheng family, but he never did so. The biggest reason was the gold and silver treasures accumulated by the Zheng family.
The Zheng family has controlled the trade in Japan and Southeast Asia for many years. Qin Mu absolutely does not believe that the wealth accumulated by his family is less than 30 million taels.
These riches are in the hands of the Zheng family, and they can't escape. If they fall into the hands of the Western barbarians... Qin Mu couldn't help but think of the old lady Cixi. What's the difference between this and Cixi's "I would rather give it to foreign invaders than to my slaves"
Qin Mu said: "Since everyone disagrees with joining forces with the Westerners to attack the Zheng family, what else can we do?"
Yang Shen said, "King Qin, Fujian has many mountains and little land, and its supplies are limited. The goods that Zheng family trades with Japan and Westerners are mainly produced in Jiangnan. If our Great Qin prohibits goods from entering and leaving the port, it will definitely cause great losses to the Zheng family, and the morale of the Zheng family army will definitely be low. Moreover, the Zheng family is not a monolithic entity. Zheng Sen, Shi Lang, Tong Haifeng and others do not agree with Zheng Zhilong's approach. From the performance of these people, it is not difficult to guess that there must be many soldiers in the Zheng family army who are unwilling to leave their hometown and move to Fujian. When the time comes, our dynasty will increase the division and winning over of the Zheng family, and it will surely be twice the result with half the effort."
Economic sanctions are not something that only Uncle Sam of later generations would use. As early as the Ming Dynasty, "economic sanctions" were imposed on Japan, prohibiting merchants from trading with Japan.
If it is done slowly, Yang Shen's move is still very effective against the Zheng family hiding in Fujian, but economic sanctions are a matter of killing one thousand enemies but hurting eight hundred of your own, and the effect is slow, which is really not to Qin Mu's liking, so he pondered and did not comment.
On the first day of discussion, no one came up with any good ideas, so Qin Mu had to adjourn the meeting temporarily.
Afterwards, he took Niu Wanshan, Li Shi and other guards and strolled around Ningbo City under the guidance of Gu Rong and the prefect Cao Weijun.
Cao Weijun led the way while introducing Qin Mu, "Ningbo City was built by Liu Ji at the end of the Yuan Dynasty. The city wall has a circumference of 18 li. The wall is more than 30 feet wide and has six city gates: Dongdu, Lingqiao, Changchun, Wangjing, Yongfeng, and Heyi. Later, in the Jiajing period, in order to resist the Japanese pirates, the prefect Zhang Zhenghe made a large-scale repair. The city wall was raised to 26 feet, and moon gates were built outside each city gate.
Today, the city has a population of 360,000, of which more than 40% make a living by doing business or sailing, and more than 20% are engaged in handicrafts, freight and other industries. The goods sold from Ningbo to overseas mainly include porcelain, pottery, silk, cloth, books, lacquerware, musical instruments, umbrellas, combs, fans, tea, sugar, wine, rice, salt, and medicinal materials.
The commodities imported from abroad into Ningbo mainly include jewelry, spices, medicinal materials, daily necessities, and daily necessities. Among them, jewelry includes gold, silver, ivory, rhino horn, coral, tortoise shell, emerald feather, agate, cat's eye, etc.
Spices include agarwood, cinnamon, ambergris, rose water, sandalwood, incense, light incense, benzoin, raw incense, musk wood, etc.
Medicinal materials include sappan wood, asafoetida, nutmeg, pepper, cloves, costusroot, deer antler, white cardamom, poria, ginseng, musk, etc.
Daily necessities include Jibei cloth, Fan cloth, Korean silk, silk cloth, pine boards, Luo boards, mats, ebony folding fans, etc. Military supplies include sulfur, Japanese swords, leather goods, tendons and horns, etc.
Cao Weijun spoke eloquently, showing that he was very familiar with the business situation in Ningbo. Qin Mu nodded frequently. Looking around, there were a constant stream of vehicles and boats coming and going in the streets, and the noise of people. The prosperity was almost as good as that of the capital, Jinling.
Cao Weijun sighed, "King Qin, if there were no conflict with the Zheng family in Fujian, there would be more merchants coming and going. Ningbo has a registered population of more than 300,000, but the number of merchants who actually come and go in Ningbo all year round is more than double that. There is a Fanfang in the city, where people from Persia and other places live together, with a population of up to 20,000."
Qin Mu listened as he walked, and soon he climbed up the east gate city wall. Looking around, he saw three rivers converging in the city, with clear green waves, green willows and pink peaches along the banks, and a picturesque scenery.
East of the city, the big river rolls toward the sea, on which boats are moving in a constant stream, their sails fluttering; inside and outside the city, the voices of people can be heard everywhere.
On the southwest city wall, there is a three-story wooden pavilion with an octagonal roof. Its majestic momentum attracted Qin Mu's attention.
Cao Weijun immediately said, "King Qin, that is Qingyun Tower. It was built by Wang Yinghua, the former deputy envoy of Ningbo Sea Route. There is a big bell in the tower, which echoes with the Drum Tower in the city. If the enemy comes from the sea, the bell in Qingyun Tower will ring to warn, and the Drum Tower and Haishu Tower will respond, so as to notify the soldiers and civilians in the city to prepare for battle."
When Qin Mu first saw that Qingyun Tower was built tall and majestic, even more majestic than Yueyang Tower, he thought it was another face-saving project done by some official. He did not expect that it was actually used for military alarm.
"Please look, King Qin. That is Haishu Tower. It is named after the line from the poem "Reply to Jinling Lu Cheng's Early Qin Tour View" by Du Shenyan, a Tang poet: 'Only an official on the road is surprised by the new weather. Clouds and mists emerge from Haishu, plum and willow trees cross the river in spring.'"
"Clouds emerge from the sea at dawn, plum and willow trees cross the river in spring..." Qin Mu murmured to himself, but in his heart he was thinking about the Maritime Customs Office. Because the city had just been conquered, the Qin Dynasty had not had time to set up a Maritime Customs Office in Ningbo, and trade matters were still managed by the Ningbo Prefecture. This was not okay!
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ps: The next few chapters will mainly describe the pk with Zheng's fleet and the establishment of customs. There may be a wonderful naval battle, so stay tuned. Brothers, please cast your monthly tickets and recommendation tickets to support us.
Passion, I need passion! I need monthly tickets and recommendation tickets!
.(To be continued..)
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