Quanzhou, the hot land that all merchants in the Ming Dynasty are flocking to, has finally welcomed its supreme ruler.

This place is praised by Grianchi as "Venice of the East" and is the most prosperous place between heaven and earth.

It is heaven and hell.

"After nearly forty years of recovery, Quanzhou's prosperity is even better than the past. Especially in the past ten years, Quanzhou has surpassed Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Zhujiang and other places with its unique location conditions, becoming the mansion with the largest number of merchants, the largest number of sea boats and the largest number of finances and taxes in Daming."

Li Qingquan, the governor of Quanzhou, received the sage, and was summoned by Zhu Yunwen to the imperial court to report.

"In the eighth year of Jianwen, there were more than 40 countries in Quanzhou's port trade, and its annual tax revenue reached 8.6 million taels. According to market value, it exceeded the level of Shaoxi in the Southern Song Dynasty.

Among them, there are nearly five million taels of current bank, and the rest are equivalent tickets from banks.

Most of these current silvers come from Nanyang and some Japanese names."

The annual tax is 8.6 million taels. The tax of one government exceeds the 31st year of Hongwu. What is the national current bank income for the whole year?

The achievements of opening up are huge.

Zhu Yunwen was also greatly encouraged, with a smile on his face, and he sucked his hands and exclaimed: "Okay, OK!"

Over the years, I have almost worn out the words of the Tang and Song dynasties. Until today, I am finally qualified to give this praise.

Quanzhou has brought glory to my face."

The emperor was very happy, and the officials from Quanzhou Prefecture also laughed.

After ten years of struggle, Quanzhou has also seen a surge in political weight in the Ming Dynasty with its unique economic strength.

Being the prefect of Quanzhou, progress is also a province that governs the government, so there is no possibility of slowly enduring political participation in politics.

The previous magistrate of Quanzhou even passed the local area and joined the Ministry of Commerce as the Left Minister.

"You just said that some of the cash is from Japan's daimyo?"

While happy, Zhu Yunwen suddenly remembered what Li Qingquan said just now and became a little confused.

He doesn't have much favorable feelings for Japan itself, and to be precise, he is biased against this country.

It is not only because of the position and history of war between countries, but also because the country refuses to admit the history of massacres and numerous crimes he has committed.

If you don’t admit what your ancestors have done, you will be beautify yourself by your life. How can you be the same as some people?

Because of this reason, it can be said that the vast majority of Chinese people are biased against Japan.

Because of the prejudice that was intertwined, Zhu Yunwen naturally had a lot of understanding of Japanese history.

In addition to being a vassal state for thousands of years in the Central Plains, in the Ming Dynasty, Japan belonged to Qi Jiguang's anti-Japanese war, which was considered a related historical fact. Although it was supported by many sources and local government records, the Japanese riots along the coast had no dimes with the Japanese government at that time.

"Yes, since the coastal Japanese pirates were eliminated, Daming from Japan has begun to look for cooperation in trade with our Ming Dynasty."

Li Qingquan seemed to remember something and quickly replied: "Your Majesty, the Japanese people called the Japanese pirates on the sea back then, and they were also hunting and killing them."

"Why do they want to kill these Japanese pirates?"

Zhu Yunwen was happy, and then said sarcastically: "Aren't these all the garbage produced in their country?"

"I heard from those Japanese merchants that their generals hope to be able to surrender to our Ming Dynasty."

History took a sharp turn in Zhu Yunwen.

In the 30th year of Hongwu, Japan was unified in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, and the Muromachi Shogunate was completely in charge of Japan's state affairs. Ashikaga Yoshiman, who was the general of the Congyi at that time, was ambitious to steal the power belonging to the Emperor. For this reason, he sent an envoy to the Ming Dynasty and paid tribute to Emperor Taizu Gao, but was rejected by Taizu.

Taizu believed that the emperor of Japan (called the king of Japan in Ming Dynasty) was the orthodox monarch, and did not recognize that officers from warlords like Ashikaga Yoshiman, who were like Cao Cao and Dong Zhuo, were tyrants and traitors.

In order to win the support of Taizu, Ashikaga Yoshiman also sent troops to clear out the "Japanese pirates" and presented the heads to the Ming Dynasty, but still no support or imperial titles were allowed.

After Taizu passed away, Zhu Yunwen ascended the throne and supported the reopening of the Hongwu sea ban. Ashikaga Yoshiman saw the opportunity to send an envoy to the Ming Dynasty again.

This time, Ashikaga Yoshiman got what he wanted and was named King of Japan by Zhu Yunwen. From then on, he was considered orthodox. Although Japan still does not support Ashikaga Yoshiman's political orthodox, Ashikaga Yoshiman is a veritable Japanese king in terms of international political status.

But in this time and space, Ashikaga Yoshiman no longer has this opportunity.

Zhu Yunwen, who had traveled through time, hated Japan very much. Japan sent a mission to the Ming Dynasty for the first time. Zheng Yi, who was the Minister of Rites at the time, reported to Zhu Yunwen, but the latter was too lazy to even see him and sent him away.

Later, Zheng Yi was beheaded for the crime of rebellion against poetry, and the successors of the Minister of Rites Wang Qian and Zhu Gaochi were even more lazy to care about the Japanese mission.

After so many years, Ashikaga Yoshima still couldn't get what he wanted.

Zhu Yunwen was not interested in Japanese history, but he is now particularly interested in Japanese silver.

There are silver and copper gold in Nanyang. Zhu Yunwen already knows it now. Judging from what Li Qingquan said just now, Japanese businessmen seem to be quite rich?

"The Japanese businessmen are very rich?"

"Yes."

When Li Qingquan mentioned the money, he suddenly became excited: "This group of Japanese merchants have been buying from our Quanzhou over the years. The account opened at Quanzhou Bank was directly deposited with 10 million taels in the first transaction!"

10 million deposit if you open an account?

Zhu Yunwen's face immediately became brighter.

It’s good to be rich. Zhu Yunwen’s favorite thing now is the rich leeks.

"Where did this group of things get so much money?"

"The country in Japan is rich in gold and silver."

The one who took over Zhu Yunwen's problem was Gu Yu next to him.

"When you are the president of the Imperial Chamber Branch in Quanzhou, you also dealt with this group of Japanese people. Their mainland is frequent and there are a large number of open-pit silver and gold mines.

These Japanese names have always been very good at making great contributions. At that time, the Japanese people found officials, hoping to buy blessing ships from our Ming Dynasty to expand their shipping.

At that time, the minister reported this matter to the cabinet for approval, agreeing that the Japanese people would buy a lucky ship at a price of 300,000 taels. The Japanese people bought a total of twenty ships in one breath."

The cost of the Fuzhou Shipyard is between 40,000 to 50,000 taels, and 300,000 yuan is considered to be ruthless.

But Zhu Yunwen was still feeling a little uncomfortable. He had known that Japan was so rich at this time, and he would have to sell for 500,000 or 800,000 whatever he said.

"Are there Japanese people in Quanzhou's maritime merchants?"

While happy, Zhu Yunwen suddenly thought of such a serious problem.

"Yes, I have."

Li Qingquan replied without even thinking about it: "Not only are there Japanese people in the Quanzhou Chamber of Commerce, but also several large-scale businesses in Quanzhou Maritime Merchants, all have Japanese shares.

These Japanese people are generous in their work and always carry out several ships of silver. The clerks of the shipping department, who have to work hard for a few days every time they weigh the weight of silver."

How could Zhu Yunwen know that in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries, more than one-third of the silver in the world came from Japan.

The smooth implementation of Zhang Juzheng's one-whip method relied on the transportation of silver from Japan at that time, which caused the country's cash bank to soar in the late Ming Dynasty and also gave birth to the germination of capital.

Later, the Japanese government introduced policies to restrict the outflow of silver to the Ming Dynasty in the early 17th century, which directly led to a sharp decline in the inflow of silver in the Chongzhen Dynasty and a severe deflation in the country, causing the collapse of the economic system of the late Ming Dynasty, which was already overwhelmed.

The insufficient import volume of current silver has also caused the exchange rate of copper coins to depreciate and private inflation.

The two completely contradictory economic points, austerity and expansion, actually occurred at the same time in the Chongzhen Dynasty. It seemed incredible, but they happened exactly together.

In fact, Zhu Yunwen's current Ming Dynasty will also happen, but the establishment of the bank suppressed this matter. On this point, Grianqi explained to Zhu Yunwen before the establishment of the bank.

"For bulk trade, merchants use silver currency, while in daily life, people use copper coins to trade.

Copper coins themselves are an independent monetary system and do not simply exist as auxiliary coins of silver. In this way, there is a problem of exchange between copper coins and silver.

However, the exchange relationship is not stable. Once the cash bank inflows excessively and the foreign trade surplus expands infinitely, domestic copper coins will increase in value instead, because silver is not valuable. If you want to exchange one or two cash silver coins for one thousand coins, it will not be accepted by the market itself.

Small-value transactions among private parties are the basis of the national economic system. It is inconvenient and inappropriate to settle purely with high-value silver currency.

Therefore, if you want to stabilize the exchange rate, the country must monitor it.

When the trade surplus reaches a certain point, the state must conduct monetary regulation, including but not limited to large-scale issuance of copper invoices, repurchasing cash bank on the market, and replacing bulk silver currency through bank priced tickets that are not valuable but have credit value.

In short, the country needs to provide a guarantee for the commonly used copper coins monetary system among the people, so as to stabilize the exchange rate between copper coins and silver without too much fluctuation."

Zhu Yunwen was confused when he heard these knowledges involving the national economic system, but he still felt that what Griance seemed to be saying was reasonable and looked very powerful.

Otherwise, how could he be willing to let a foreigner like Grianchi serve as the first deputy governor of the central bank?

There were banks in the Jianwen Dynasty, but not in the Chongzhen Dynasty.

So when Japan restricted silver exports, the bad economy of the Chongzhen Dynasty, which had long been overwhelmed, was directly blown up.

Zhu Yunwen suddenly realized that governing a country seemed to be not as simple as he thought. It was not just about improving domestic internal affairs, but also fighting foreign wars well.

The main purpose of his visit to Quanzhou was to investigate the monopoly of the royal merchants, but Quanzhou's capital seemed to be highly developed, the economic system here was perfect and countless individuals benefited from it, and the relationship was even more complicated.

If he just did a one-size-fits-all approach now, would he have severely damaged this economic thigh?

Judging from the current situation, what needs to be solved most urgently in the Ming Dynasty's economic system is not the monopoly problem of the royal merchants, but a group of foreign travelers who have already reached their tentacles into Quanzhou.

Being able to attract foreign capital injection is itself a precursor to the rise of capital.

"Send people to Nanjing and summon Grianqi to Quanzhou."

Zhu Yunwen doesn't understand the matters involved in the economic field, so he has to choose to use a person who knows what he knows about it.

No matter whether it is bound by the distinction between the country and the region, it is no pity for high-end talents who can be useful to the Ming Dynasty.

"Now, besides the Japanese people mixed in Quanzhou, are there any businessmen from other countries?"

"There are also countries called Arabia by His Majesty."
To be continued...