"Oh God!"

A group of Europeans stood on the deck, marveling in unison.

The Haining Tower, which is more than 60 meters high, is also built on the top of Zheshan Mountain, with a vertical height of more than 300 meters to the sea. Everyone stood on the deck and looked at it, as if they saw the stars in the night sky radiating bright light.

At this time, the Ming envoy team was left with only one sealed boat and more than a dozen sea boats, and the rest returned to their respective naval garrisons.

The fleet gradually entered the port, and along the southern coast of Haining County, there were densely packed with large and small sea boats. The Fengzhou Wang Chong was riding was too large and could not find a suitable berth to dock.

After revealing his identity, officials from the Maritime Bureau rushed over and directed the merchant ship to quickly make a seat for Feng Zhou.

Alfonso stared at his eyes and said in shock: "This... is this China's harbor? I thought Guangzhou Port was already very prosperous, but I didn't expect Hangzhou Port to be even more incredible."

Prince Henry smiled and said, "China is invincible. There are more ships anchored here than those in the entire Europe."

Alfonso actually forgot to argue with Henry and said to himself: "Yes, it's invincible, Spain must not go to war with China."

Today, there are four major ports in the Ming Dynasty, namely Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Tianjin and Fuzhou.

Relying on silk, tea, cotton, paper and other commodities in Jiangnan, Hangzhou Port became the most well-deserved largest port in the Ming Dynasty.

Guangzhou Port became the second largest port of the Ming Dynasty based on tea, porcelain and other commodities from Lingnan and Jiangxi. The most exported porcelain here, and also engaged in arms smuggling. There are many illegal arsenals in Foshan Town, and maritime merchants and pirates can even buy new artillery in Guangzhou.

Tianjin Port mainly relies on the textile industry to export large amounts of cotton cloth to North Korea and Japan. At the same time, the goods needed by Northern Zhili are often shipped to Tianjin by sea, and a large amount of gold, silver and copper ingots are shipped from Tianjin to Beijing every year.

The trade targets of Fuzhou Port are mainly Ryukyu, Luzon, the Spice Islands and the Shimazu family of Japan. Merchant ships returning to Yinzhou also landed in Fuzhou.

In addition to these four major ports, there are many second-level ports, including Ningbo, Quanzhou, Zhangzhou, Chaozhou, Dengzhou, Laizhou, Lushun, Haizhou, etc. By the way, there are Yong'an, Qinghua, Hue, Chameng, Huaying, etc. in Jiaozhi, among which Chameng's number of ships second only to the four major ports.

After struggling for a long time, the Maritime Bureau finally made a berth for Fengzhou.

The next morning, officials, crew members and European students landed happily and enjoyed the landing.

"I like this place, as prosperous as Guangzhou." Prince Henry smiled all the way, just like Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden. It felt strange to see anything at the pier.

Catherine said: "There are too many Chinese people, and the number of people at Hangzhou Pier is probably comparable to the entire Florence."

Prince Henry wondered: "Is there no Black Death here?"

"Perhaps, Chinese doctors can treat the Black Death," Katherine said.

Even though Qiantang Waterway has been vigorously rectified, mud and sand have gradually accumulated at the estuary, which often causes accidental stranding of sea ships.

In order to prevent stranding, almost all the berths in Hangzhou have been moved to Haining County. Of course, the old port built by Wang Yuan is also in use, but only rivers are moored to transport ships.

That is, goods from all over the country, taken by canal, Qiantang River or land, were transported to the old port for storage. Then, they were transported to the new port of Haining County through dock ports to ship and ship to sea. The Haining magistrate has become popular, and has no connections or outstanding political achievements, so he would never be sent to Haining to be the magistrate of the county.

Wang Chong took his entourage to a dock restaurant and was preparing to improve the food, but he heard several merchants discussing it.

"Have you heard that? Shanghai County is going to open a port too!"

"Really? If Shanghai opened a port and Nanzhili goods would go directly from Shanghai to sea, Hangzhou would be in disgrace in the future!"

"Not only in Nanzhili, even in Huzhou Prefecture, Zhejiang, the goods must go out in Shanghai. There are also goods from Sichuan and Huguang that go directly to Shanghai along the Yangtze River. How could they work hard to run to Hangzhou?"

"Is this news accurate? Hangzhou Port is Wang Xiang's political achievements. Once Shanghai County opens a port, isn't it slapping Wang Xiang's face?"

"Is Wang Xiang the person who cares about his achievements?"

"That's right, we have to prepare early."

“…”

Hearing this passage, Wang Chong was stunned at first, then smiled and shook his head.

The opening of Shanghai County has been discussed for ten years, but now it seems that the dust is finally settled.

There are two factors that prevent Shanghai from opening a port: First, once Shanghai County is listed for business, it will have to snatch at least half of Hangzhou's supply, and Hangzhou Port is one of Wang Yuan's important achievements; Second, Wang Yuan's cabinet and six ministries are filled with a large number of Zhejiang people, and these people of course have to prevent Shanghai from opening a port.

Xia Yan and other officials in Southern Zhili, joined hands with officials from Sichuan, Huguang, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang Huzhou Prefectures to constantly submit memorials to the court to build ports in Shanghai. It is also due to interests that as long as Shanghai opens a port, the goods from these places will go to sea, which will greatly reduce transportation costs and transportation time, and Jiangxi porcelain will no longer have to cross mountains and rivers to Guangdong.

Therefore, Guangdong officials also stood up to oppose it and joined hands with Zhejiang officials to jointly oppose the memorial of "Shanghai Port Opening".

In order to carry out the reform smoothly, Wang Yuan tried his best to ease the conflicts within the reformists, which led to the delay in opening the sea in Shanghai. Now there is no need to suppress it. First, the reform has been on the right track, and second, Shanghai has become the largest smuggling base in the Jiangnan region!

The capital of Shanghai County in the Ming Dynasty was probably in the Shiliupu in the city of Shanghai in later generations.

The place is like Hangzhou. It has various surrounding lakes and fields, rivers and ponds to seize land, resulting in severe silt and silt. The rivers have been diverted several times, and new land has been continuously formed - Shanghai Pudong Airport, which is also on the sea surface at this time, and most of the area south of the airport is the sea.

However, during the Zhu Di period, water control caused the confluence of rivers and Pu, and the Huangpu River had become an excellent waterway. Shanghai became increasingly prosperous during the Hongzhi period.

Under Wang Yuan's leadership, the cabinet has made a decision:

First, Shanghai County allowed the opening of a port to build a port in Baoshan Yi Generation.

Second, all coastal garrisons in the Ming Dynasty were abolished, and all military households were converted to civilian households on the spot. To put it bluntly, the coastal garrisons were used to prevent pirates and Japanese pirates, and they had long lost their due role. Of course, the garrisons used to guard the salt field were not removed by Wang Yuan this time.

When Wang Chong left Hangzhou while sitting in a boat, the cabinet's decree was finally delivered to the place. The commander of Zhejiang was so angry that he wanted to curse.

Just because Zhejiang is a severely affected area for Japanese pirates and pirates, a large number of coastal garrisons have been set up over the past hundred years. After a document was issued by the imperial court, Zhejiang directly abolished 28 thousand households. I don’t know how much oil and water the commander of Zhejiang has lost.

As for the hereditary military officers who were laid off, the court directly spent money to buy out the official position.

Anyone dissatisfied?

Haha, Jiangnan has been living a peaceful life for a long time, and all military officers are useless. Do they dare to make mutinies like border towns? There are really some fierce people who cannot be excited and make waves, because Wang Yuan still has room for them, so these fierce people can participate in the martial arts.

By the way, the Dengzhou Guards in Shandong were also laid off.

Qi Jiguang, who was only eight years old, no longer had to be controlled by military households. He studied the Four Books and Five Classics since he was a child. After his father was bought out of his military official position, he was encouraging his sons to take the imperial examination and become civil servants. General Qi might be able to become a chief official in the border area.

Hangzhou.

A large number of poor and old military households who were converted into private households brought their families to Haining Port, hoping to immigrate to travel to Southeast Asia.

Their land had long been occupied by military officers. Even if Wang Yuan did not lay off the garrison, a large number of military households fled every year. Because they could not live on, they could only become sailors or go to Nanyang to make money. Now without the constraints of military registration, the whole family was dispatched in an instant, and finally there was no need to be trapped in their hometown and wait for death!

This phenomenon not only occurs in Hangzhou, but also occurs generally in the entire coastal areas.

The coastal military households had no land to grow. In the past, they were serfs for officers and had difficulty pursuing food. After they became private households, they had no food. They either worked as tenants to farm or went to the city to work, while traveling to Southeast Asia became the priority.

These coastal military households are not inland people with hidden news. Every year, they hear that anyone makes money overseas.

Wang Ce, Wang Fang, Tianzhu Cotton Association, various maritime merchants, and the heads of Yinzhou colonial leaders instantly heard the news and sent sea boats to recruit immigrants.

Yinzhou has the best offer. For ordinary immigrants, each person is allocated 100 acres of land. Those who know the text and literals are allocated 300 acres of land. Anyway, as long as you go to Yinzhou, you will be a landlord. Of course, you have to open up land and cultivate yourself, and you will not have to pay taxes within ten years.

Nanyang offers the most trasty price, and some even recruit workers, but because they are closer, there are more immigrants to Nanyang.

Wang Ce’s offer in Luzon was 30 acres of land per person. The government gave seeds for free and rented oxen for free. Immigrants only need to work hard to open up the land.

This wave of coastal immigration caused a huge sensation in various places, and even ordinary farmers were eager to try it out. Especially in provinces such as Nanzhili, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, and Shandong, due to the implementation of the One-Whip Law, landlords transferred taxes to tenants, which made tenants' lives even more difficult.

Now, the tenants are moved by immigrant military households and have also gone to sign up for going out to sea.

In the coastal areas, tenant farmers were famine, and the landlords suddenly found that they could not summon all tenant farmers. Especially in areas close to the big harbor, there were already a large number of landless farmers who went to the city or dock to work. Now there was a sudden wave of immigration, which further caused the shortage of tenant farmers.

In desperation, the landlord could only reduce the land rent and at least restore to the level before the one-whip method.

At the same time, the landlords and gentry united to put pressure on their parents and officials from all over the country. Local officials had to submit a memorial to the court and requested that farmers be prohibited from going to sea, otherwise no one would cultivate the coastal areas.

At the center of the court, there were quite a lot of people responding to this matter. Even Mao Ji said to Wang Yuan: "Agriculture is the foundation of the country, and the coastal farmers are all pursuing profits. In the long run, the wasteland will be abandoned more and more. I am afraid that the country's food will be insufficient and food shortages will occur everywhere."

Wang Yuan smiled and said, "If it weren't for the excessive exploitation of the gentry, how could anyone stay away from their hometown and go to the barbarians overseas to make a living?"

According to historical statistics from later generations, in the seventh, eighth, and nineth three years, at least more than 500,000 coastal people immigrated. Most of them went to Southeast Asia, a small part went to India, and a small part went to Yinzhou, which is known in history as the "Shaofeng tide to the sea".
Chapter completed!