“Expand sea trade?”

When the civil and military officials heard this issue, they subconsciously wanted to stand up and oppose it, but when they thought of the fate of Li Daozheng and the officials, they were about to take the steps back.

And if you think about it carefully, Chongzhen's intention to expand the sea trade actually has no interest in the court officials. The court officials who are truly interested have been stripped of the court ward and expelled from the court by Chongzhen. For the benefit of the Donglin Party members, what's wrong with him?

It’s no wonder that the court officials were slow to react. After all, they were also members of the gentry class. When the interests of the court and the interests of the gentry were in conflict, they naturally stood on the side of the gentry class.

Whether to open the sea or not is undoubtedly an irreconcilable contradiction with the court and the gentry class. Although officials from the north, northwest and southwest did not have their foothold in the sea trade, as a member of the gentry class, they naturally had to advance and retreat together and support the Southeast gentry group.

Moreover, in order to prevent the court from opening up the sea, the Southeast Shishang Group had to take out some of its benefits to buy the nobles in the court.

Therefore, in the repeated struggles between the emperor and the Southeast Gentlemen Group on the issue of opening the sea, it is not difficult to understand that all the civil and military officials of the dynasty have always stood on the side of the Southeast Gentlemen Group.

But today, the photographed Chongzhen is extremely majestic and grand, and the quiet needles in the court can be heard.

Zhu Youjian looked around the court officials. Most of the court officials subconsciously avoided Zhu Youjian's gaze and did not dare to look at him.

Zhu Youjian didn't care and said lightly: "Although I have never left the capital or seen the sea, I know how great the maritime interests are. Don't try to refute me with the excuse of "competing for profit with the people". This is meaningless.

As for the excuses of violating the ancestral system, we should not mention them. As we all know, in the early days of the founding of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates rampantly plundered the coastal areas, and Zhang Shicheng was remnants of coastal islands, colluding with Japanese pirates, threatening the security of the Ming Dynasty's coastal defense.

At that time, the Ming Navy's strength was too weak to defend against the long coastline of the Ming Dynasty. In view of this, in order to protect the safety of the people in the coastal areas, Taizu decisively implemented the maritime ban strategy and effectively defended the people along the Ming coast.

However, the times change and the world change, how can there be a way for the world to change for all generations?

With the continuous surge in the population of the Ming Dynasty, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the Middle Land to feed the people of the Ming Dynasty. It has become the top priority of the Ming Dynasty.

Fortunately, Mr. Longqing was foresighted and decisively announced the lifting of the maritime ban in the first year of Longqing, adjusting overseas trade policies, and allowing private private individuals to trade east-west and west.

From then on, private overseas trade gained legal status, and private overseas trade in various parts of the southeast coast entered a new era. During this period, our Ming Dynasty also ushered in the rule of Longwan, and the national power reached an unprecedented peak in all dynasties.

Facts have proved that Long Qingye’s policy of opening up the sea is a good policy with vision and knowledge, which is of great benefit to the country and the people.

But this is far from enough!

It is true that the sea is full of crises. We must not only be careful of pirates, but also be careful of natural disasters in the ocean. If one is unlucky and encounters a typhoon suddenly, a whole fleet sinks, and all crew members are killed.

But even so, the smuggling of maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty was still extremely rampant, and maritime merchants still had great enthusiasm for maritime trade investment. What is the reason?

At the end of the day, excluding various costs and unexpected losses, maritime merchants can still have several or even dozens of profitable benefits.

The world is bustling for profit, and the world is bustling for profit. As long as there is profit, anyone will be bolder, let alone a few times or even dozens of times the profit.

The imperial court's previous implementation of maritime bans directly led to the severance of the Ming Dynasty and overseas trade, but how much benefit does overseas trade have? Just think about the territory far larger than that of Middle-earth, you can easily draw conclusions.

I would like to ask everyone, in the past, everyone always said that the court opened the sea to compete for profit with the people, but is this "people" really the people?"

When the ministers heard about Chongzhen's problem, they were extremely embarrassed and avoided this problem.

Since ancient times, the "people" in the study population have never been the common people thought by later generations, but the nobles, relatives and gentry class compared to the royal family.

Only the nobles, honors and relatives and gentry class can represent the "people". The "the emperor competes for profit between the people" mentioned by the ministers is not the emperor and the people's competition for profit, but the emperor competes for profit between the nobles and relatives and the gentry class.

As for ordinary people, in their eyes, there is no difference from livestock. How can they be called "civilians"?

The ministers did not answer, and Zhu Youjian asked and answered: "You don't answer. I understand that this "civilian" has never been a literal commoner, but a huge aristocrat and gentry group, especially the Southeast gentry group that controlled the smuggling of the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade.

Because the imperial court implemented a ban on sea, the threshold for maritime trade smuggling was raised, and the civilians were directly removed by the imperial court and could not participate in maritime trade smuggling.

In this way, the only people who can go out to sea to smuggle maritime trade are the Southeast gentry groups that have huge capital and land.

Relying on the court's policy of banning the sea, Southeast gentry groups made a lot of money in maritime smuggling trade, and were as rich as a country.

Therefore, the people who have always opposed the imperial court's policy of opening up the sea are never the people they call for, but the Southeast gentry group that monopolizes the benefits of maritime trade.

Once the imperial court opens its sea to expand its sea trade, a large number of small and medium-sized merchants will inevitably join the sea trade. At that time, the Southeast Gentlemen Group will not be able to monopolize sea trade. They will definitely experience a plunge in their interests that have been under control for more than two hundred years.

Although the court has profits from opening the sea, they have to pay tariffs to the court with competitors and have to pay tariffs, and the profits are likely to drop from several times or dozens of times to one or even a few percent. As long as they are not fools, they will of course strongly oppose the court's opening the sea.

I know that in the past two hundred years since the founding of the Ming Dynasty, the Southeast Gentlemen Group has spent a huge price to make friends with civil and military officials of the court and used all means to prevent the court from opening the sea. At the same time, it is widely publicized in the stern and people that the court opened the sea to compete with the people for profit.

If in this case, if someone still wants to get involved in the maritime trade, then they will join forces to suppress them, and even collude with Japanese pirates to rob the newly joined maritime merchants.

In order to monopolize the benefits of maritime trade, both the imperial court and the new maritime business forces were the targets of their efforts to attack. For this reason, they did not hesitate to trample on the laws of the Ming Dynasty and had reached the point of lawlessness and being crazy.

But I will never allow it, and the benefits of the Ming Dynasty's maritime trade cannot be allowed to be controlled by the Southeast Gentlemen Group.

I have decided that the court will implement the policy of expanding sea trade no matter what, and the gods block the gods and the Buddhas block the Buddhas."

Chongzhen's long speech shocked the civil and military officials of the court. They all thought that Chongzhen grew up in the hands of women in the deep palace and should not have a good understanding of the benefits of maritime trade.

But I never expected that Chongzhen would understand even more in-depth than them, and he was very clear about all the tricks!
Chapter completed!