To put it simply, when merchants from the Southern Song Dynasty went to Guangzhou and Quanzhou to do foreign trade business, they only had to pay taxes to the Municipal Shipping Department.
There is no such thing as tariffs.
Those with a strong background would not dare to mess with the Municipal Shipping Department, and those with a slightly weaker background would at most give some money to the Municipal Shipping Department officials or relevant big shots to ensure their safety, which is considered an extra expense.
But now Quanzhou and Guangzhou belong to the Ming Dynasty. If Jiangnan merchants want to transport goods to do foreign trade business, they must pay tariffs to the Guangzhou and Quanzhou customs under the control of the Ming Dynasty.
Not paying customs duties?
Yes, then your products are not allowed to enter Quanzhou and Guangzhou, let alone exported.
Customs taxes were collected. When merchants formally traded, they had to collect a trade tax that was originally owned by the Shipping Department of the Southern Song Dynasty before the goods could leave the port. Two taxes, two collections, and the Ming Dynasty made a profit.
However, such a situation will have a certain impact on Jiangnan State, their commodity exports, and will also directly affect Jiangnan State's fiscal revenue and the private income of various powerful and high-ranking officials.
So can we not ship from Guangzhou and Quanzhou?
Is it possible to ship from other places?
The answer is not that easy.
It is difficult to replace a commercial port that is widely recognized around the world, especially Quanzhou and Guangzhou, which already have a large number of foreign business bases and strong infrastructure.
Moreover, many foreign businessmen have settled in Quanzhou and Guangzhou, and there are a large number of supporting living facilities. They are very familiar with this place and have a certain sense of belonging.
If you want to reorganize your life and business activities in a different place, you will definitely not be able to do it within three to five years.
Three to five years...
The Ming Dynasty can swallow the entire Jiangnan Kingdom.
What's more, the navy of the Southern Song Dynasty has been basically destroyed and has no ability to protect maritime trade. The coastal areas are full of Ming navy. Even if they want to establish a shipping company with foreign merchants in other smaller ports to trade, the Ming Dynasty will not be able to protect maritime trade. They have no ability to resist.
At the beginning, the Shipping Department of the Southern Song Dynasty tortured the merchants of the Ming Dynasty, so that the merchants of the Ming Dynasty returned home in vain and got nothing. But now, the situation has turned, and in the thirty years of Hedong and thirty years of Hexi, the Ming Dynasty has come to take revenge on them.
Shen Gai was unable to resist this, and he did not dare to resist, so he could only accept it.
Regarding the relatively high tax rate proposed by Ming Guo, he tried to persuade Lin Jingchun to reduce it.
"Jiangnan has just experienced a war. The country is weak and the people are tired. I hope that the country will be more considerate and not increase tariffs too high. Otherwise, I am afraid that many people will have difficulty in food and clothing, and business will not be able to continue. This is too great for the people. It’s too cruel.”
But Lin Jingchun responded rudely to him.
"The tariffs target big businessmen, not ordinary people. Will big businessmen have difficulty in food and clothing? Mr. Shen, do you think I am stupid? I have been in this business for more than ten years and I understand very well that those big businessmen will not eat the delicacies of the world. , the tariff money is back!
Moreover, Ming Dynasty is very short of money because of the war, and you are the one who started this war. Not asking you directly for money is already an extrajudicial favor by His Majesty the Emperor. What else do you want? Your most important salt tax has not touched your property, are you still not satisfied? "
Lin Jingchun didn't like anyone who asked him to spend extra money, so he scolded Shen Gai so much that Shen Gai didn't even dare to say anything.
We relied on the Ming Dynasty militarily, and also relied on the Ming Dynasty politically. How could we be independent economically?
In desperation, Shen Gai dutifully signed a tariff treaty, stipulating that Jiangnan merchants would have to pay an additional tariff when entering port trade.
Being coward is really coward, but being helpless is also really helpless. Now Shen shouldn't have the slightest confidence to fight against Ming Guo, and can only watch Ming Guo use various means to make money.
Of course, this will cause dissatisfaction among some businessmen, but it is of no use.
Gu Yan
The Ming Dynasty is still the absolutely powerful party and has the final right to interpret all policy actions.
The Navy of the Ming Army [will always assume the task of combating smuggling crimes]. Anyone who fails to hand over the trading license issued by the Shipping Department in the offshore waters of the Ming Dynasty will be the target of the Ming Navy and will be sunk or captured. All crew members After questioning, all the goods were confiscated.
Order is written in black and white, but to be truly realized, it still depends on the range of the artillery shells and the ferocity of the navy.
It just so happens that on these two points, the Ming Navy is invincible in this era.
Therefore, although Fuzhou, Wenzhou, Taizhou, Jiaxing Prefecture and other coastal areas were not ceded to the Ming Dynasty, the rules of the Ming Dynasty were the rules of this coastal area.
Have you ever heard of long-arm jurisdiction?
What? Have not heard?
Well now you have seen it with your own eyes.
Su Yonglin also planned to establish a new naval establishment to increase the number of naval forces, and also planned to change the navy's designation and main station.
In his plan, the new naval division will have the size of an army corps, but there will be no corps establishment for the time being. It will only increase one naval division at the corps level, from two to three.
The Jiangping Navy Navy changed its designation to Beihai Navy and was stationed in three parts: Fuzhou Port in Liaoyang Province, Tianjin Port newly established under the Central Government and Ninghai Port in Shandong Province.
The Wei Navy Navy was renamed the Donghai Navy, with three stations stationed in Lin'an Port, Quanzhou Port and the newly established ports on Liuqiu Island after the destruction of the Song Dynasty.
The newly established navy was named the South China Sea Navy, and its stations were divided into three parts. They were established in Guangzhou Port, Qinzhou Port and Qiongzhou Port, which were enough to deter the entire South China Sea region.
This is the settlement after the establishment of the new navy in the future, which will help defend the entire maritime territory of the Ming Dynasty, control the maritime routes, and safeguard the maritime economic interests of the Ming Dynasty.
For now, the number of naval ports of the Ming Dynasty is not large, including one in Fuzhou, one in Ninghai, one in Quanzhou, and one in Guangzhou. Su Yonglin feels that a navy of this size cannot protect the maritime economic interests of the Ming Dynasty well.
It is also not conducive to the preparation of a powerful navy that can safeguard the maritime commercial interests of the Ming Dynasty.
If maritime trade really takes off in the future, it may be necessary to take the key nodes of maritime trade routes into hands and build them into military ports to safeguard the maritime trade interests of the Ming Dynasty.
That would inevitably require a powerful navy equipped with powerful artillery to gallop across the sea and cut through the waves. The ancient tradition of the land-based empire must begin to transfer to the ocean.
Now, controlling the ports of Jiangnan's foreign trade, and then controlling the lifeline of Jiangnan's foreign trade, and then further controlling the lifeline of Jiangnan's economy, this is what the Ming Dynasty has to do now.
Before Lin Jingchun set off, he gathered the elites from the Ministry of Finance and held a meeting with Su Yonglin to discuss how to fully control Jiangnan's economy.
Su Yonglin put forward some opinions, and then the elites from the Ministry of Finance supplemented them, and finally compiled a set of strategies that everyone thought were effective.
Of course, forcing Shen to sign a tariff treaty was not just for that little tariff.
What's that tariff?
It was less than a fraction of the profit that the Ming Dynasty made from selling private salt to Jiangnan Kingdom every year.
But tariffs do more than that.
Lin Jingchun planned to use various restrictions to suppress the profit margins of Jiangnan's own businessmen, causing them to fall into a dilemma of capital turnover, and then introduce the Ming Dynasty's business forces, that is, the Ming Dynasty Business National Team under the Ministry of Finance.
Use the national team of the Ming Dynasty to purchase or forcibly purchase the commercial resources controlled by Jiangnan merchants, and consume Jiangnan Kingdom's high-quality commercial resources in large quantities, so as to gradually control the economic lifeline of Jiangnan Kingdom and complete the economic control of Jiangnan Kingdom. .
Collecting tariffs is only the first step. There are many action plans that will not stop at collecting tariffs.
