Chapter 786 Ye Xianggao wants to borrow Xu Xingxia's light

(0786)

Nanjing, Xuanwu Lake, Liuyuan.

During the Mid-Autumn Festival, Xuanwu Lake has high sky and clear clouds, clear wind and blue water, which is the best season of the year. The autumn wind blows slightly across the lake, causing ripples. These ripples continue to expand to the shore, and slowly disappear from the lakeside. The willow trees by the lake are swaying comfortably in the breeze, just like the warmest girl, subtle and reserved to welcome the arrival of guests from afar.

At this time of year, tourists who come to Xuanwu Lake to enjoy the fun are in groups. It is quite difficult to find a relatively secluded place. Especially for several habitats, there are large groups of tourists. Among them, Liuyuan, located in the center of Xuanwu Lake, is a very important habitat. Tourists who are tired of playing generally choose to sit here. If they are wealthy, they will choose to drink tea here. However, today, near Liuyuan, it is quite quiet and there are no tourists.

At the entrance of Liuyuan, there were only some casual guards. They were wearing black samurai suits, distributed around Liuyuan, and intercepting pedestrians from afar. In a vague way, the shadow of the broken blade could be seen under their samurai suits. Those tourists near Liuyuan knew that there was a big figure in Liuyuan that appeared.

If it were in the past, the tourists would leave silently and dare not say anything. Because the one who could occupy Liuyuan must be the powerful people in the court. They could not afford to offend them. But now, the situation is different. The powerful people in the Southern Ming court have greatly lost their glory in the minds of ordinary people. They are no longer a lofty and inviolable existence. A tourist quietly cursed and said, "It's not the white-clothed army that has arrived, why are they showing off?"

Of course, this kind of curse can only be a quiet and quiet. Although the court is no longer the court of the past and the powerful are no longer the powerful, they still have means to deal with a group of ordinary people. In their hearts, they are secretly looking forward to the arrival of the White Army. After the arrival of the White Army, these powerful people in the court are worse than chickens with hair removal, and they no longer have the majesty of the past.

...

** Xing and Ye Xianggao were tasting wine silently, and were relatively speechless.

The two of them were the powerful people in the imperial court who dominated Liu Yuan. The scenery of Xuanwu Lake is very good and the service attitude of Liu Yuan is also very good, but the mood of both of them is still not very good. To be precise, the mood of both of them is a little dim. They are already old and have poor energy. They have been exhausted during this period, making them unable to eat, sleep at night, and are physically and mentally exhausted, and they become less angry.

The main reason for this result is of course the pressure of the White Army. The wedding of Zhu Yilan and Xu Xingxia did not relieve the pressure that the Nanjing court was under. On the contrary, with Zhu Yilan's wedding, more and more people from the White Army began to penetrate the southeast half of the wall in various names, bringing heavy pressure to the Southern Ming court.

What made the two of them laugh and cry was that this pressure did not come from military or political, but from commercial. According to incomplete statistics, in July of the first year of Taichang, the number of white-clothed military merchants or business groups active in the southeast half of the wall exceeded 300. This was still influential merchants or business groups. If both ordinary merchants and business groups were calculated, the number would be even greater.

The arrival of the white-clothed army merchants had a huge impact on the southeast half of the wall. These people were basically depressed and unsuccessful people, and had a deep hatred for the original vested interests. After they defected to the White-clothed army, they leaped on the dragon gate and flew up to the branches and turned into phoenixes, so they naturally wanted to show off their faces.

The main way these merchants, or business groups, show off is to constantly swallow the market and occupy the market. They want to take all the markets in the southeast half of the market into their own pockets. But they have the white army backing them, and they have great advantages in technology, quality, scale, cost, and publicity. Under their joint attacks, most of the markets in the southeast half of the market were quickly conquered by them.

In Jiangnan, many of the goods sold by major merchants are from the hands of white-clothed military merchants. They not only sell a large amount of cheap goods from the northwest, but also buy a large amount of supplies from the Jiangnan region and transport them to the northwest. They also have contact with Westerners, buy supplies from the Westerners, or sell certain goods to Westerners.

Even in Yuegang, Fujian, there were a large number of shadows of white-clothed military merchants. They used the advanced knowledge they learned from the white-clothed military and various business tips, collectively linked, cooperated with each other, advanced and retreated together, and achieved great victory. Now Jiangnan is no longer the dominant Donglin Party, nor is it Ye Xianggao and others.

In the past, the Ye Xianggao family could make at least more than 500,000 taels of silver every year through business. At its peak, the annual profit was even more than 3 million taels of silver. However, now, the Ye family's business profit has been greatly compressed, less than 200,000 taels. Moreover, there is a trend of continued shrinkage.

Ye Xianggao was of course unwilling to give up his own interests. He wanted to hang all the merchants who defected to the White-Clothing Army on the walls of Nanjing City. However, he could only think about this idea for a moment and dare not implement it seriously. Because behind those merchants, Xu Xingxia and the White-Clothing Army were standing, which he absolutely could not afford.

Since even Ye Xianggao could not afford Xu Xingxia or the White-Clothed Army, there was no need to mention other businesses. It was precisely because of Xu Xingxia's existence and the existence of the White-Clothed Army that the original merchants in the southeast half of the east did not dare to act rashly, so that the White-Clothed Army merchants bloomed everywhere. This was also a situation that Xu Xingxia tried hard to create.

Some things do not need to be solved bloodily through bayonets. If you change the method slightly, the effect will be better, the cost will be lower, and the impact will be more profound.

"Did we just give up like this?" **xing said meaningfully.

He actually hoped that Ye Xianggao would take action and suppress those white-clothed military merchants. In any case, he could not be as frustrated as he is now. However, Ye Xianggao did not dare. Not only Ye Xianggao did not dare, but other important officials in the Southern Ming court dared not.

"This Xu Xingxia is not simple!" Ye Xianggao said bitterly.

His words were definitely not entirely slandering. He was indeed inspired. In fact, he absolutely agreed with Xu Xingxia's vigorous promotion of the development of industry and commerce, encouraged commercial trade, canceled commercial barriers, unified commercial taxation, and regulated the commercial market. If he had this ability, it would have been implemented before Xu Xingxia. Unfortunately, he did not have this ability. So, the development of things took another fork.

Many people think that Ye Xianggao is selfish and wants to occupy the commercial trade in Yuegang, Fujian alone. Before, the Ye family suppressed Shanxi merchant Sun Dakun. In fact, this is a completely isolated case. Ye Xianggaoeng has served as the chief minister many times, and is definitely not a person without knowledge. He has keenly realized that with the development of the times, the status of commercial trade will become more and more important. The profits generated by commercial trade will become larger and larger.

The most typical example is the Ye family itself. The Ye family has fertile land, which is hundreds of thousands of acres. However, the Ye family does not obtain much net income from fertile land every year. Because the cost of cultivating fertile land is also very high, and after deducting all expenses, there is not much left. It takes a long time to accumulate huge wealth, at least thirty years.

On the contrary, commercial trade is different. At that time, commercial trade was basically small investment and large returns, and it was simply a money tree. As long as you find the right way to commercial trade, you can quickly accumulate a large amount of money. After less than ten years of commercial exchanges with the Nanyang region, the Ye family has already had a lot of money and a lot of money.

However, in an irregular commercial market, even Ye Xianggao, who is the prime minister, dare not take it lightly. Because the Ye family's commercial trade is closely related to his official position. The higher his official position, the greater the power, the greater the benefits the Ye family will gain and the smaller the resistance they encounter. However, if there is any problem with his official position, the Ye family's commercial trade activities will inevitably be restricted and the resistance they encounter will become greater and greater.

Before, Ye Xianggao retired and returned to his hometown in Fujian to recuperate, many other officials tried every means to seize the profits of commercial trade from the Ye family. Suppressing Shanxi merchant Sun Dakun and seizing Sun Dakun's goods was actually a counterattack by the Ye family. The final result was that Xu Xingxia's intervention was left alone. It was not until Ye Xianggao re-elected as the chief minister that the situation improved. Unfortunately, the white-clothed army had risen at this time and the glory of the past was no longer there.

Now, Ye Xianggao is even older and is 80 years old. He knows that he can no longer stay in the court. One day, he will leave completely. Once he leaves, the Ye family will be suppressed by emerging powers and wealthy people, and commercial trade activities will definitely be robbed. Even the Ye family may be destroyed because of the suppression of others.

Therefore, what Ye Xianggao is most eager to hope for now is a fair commercial trade market that does not have much power to participate in. Only in this way can the Ye family use the wealth accumulated in the past and the background of commercial trade to continue to develop forward. In other words, he hopes to continue to extend the glory of the Ye family with the light of the policies of the White Army.

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