Chapter 2768: The Capital (Part 124)

At this moment, studying the scholar before him, the Emperor harbored doubts. Could this man truly bear such a weighty responsibility?

He cleared his throat lightly and asked, "You have always been familiar with the situation regarding the thieves. Given that, I ask you: considering the current trend of the world, how should we deal with the Kun?"

This was an inevitable question, one Qian Taichong had rehearsed in his mind countless times.

In the past, he would have invariably counseled "severe suppression"—a merciless campaign of extermination. But after his days spent navigating the Capital and his conversations with "Mr. Le," his thinking had shifted.

The Imperial Court possessed neither the strength nor the will to "severely suppress" the Kun. A single coin could stump even a hero; this was true in Zhangzhou Bay, and it was equally true here in the Capital.

Moreover, even if the Court desired severe suppression, what could the Zheng family contribute? Their meager family fortune could scarcely leave Zhangzhou Bay. As for their relatives—it would be fortunate enough if those kinsmen didn't accept the Kun's silver to turn against them.

He spoke without hesitation: "The Kun occupy Guangdong and Guangxi, and their power is steadily consolidating. To suppress them decisively in a single stroke, the Court would need to dispatch senior ministers and mobilize substantial forces. Yet at present, our troops are exhausted, provisions are lacking, and raising funds quickly proves impossible..."

At this, he raised his eyelids slightly to gauge the Emperor's expression. Seeing Chongzhen's countenance remain unchanged, he knew his assessment was correct and emboldened himself to continue: "...The only viable path is to proceed gradually."

"Oh? And how would one proceed gradually?" the Emperor inquired.

Qian Taichong immediately presented the strategy he had refined over many days. The first several points—training troops, purging traitors, implementing the Bao-Jia system—were familiar platitudes with nothing novel to offer. Only when he turned to "raising provisions" did something distinctive emerge.

"...Training troops ultimately comes down to a single word: provisions—pay and rations. The realm is beset by troubles, and raising provisions proves difficult for the Court. Yet the Kun occupy merely two provinces, and still their provisions are sufficient, their troops elite. When we investigate the root cause, we find it lies in the profits of industry and commerce!"

Chongzhen had heard scattered reports about why the Kun were so formidable and wealthy, and knew they "valued industry and commerce" while "slighting agriculture." But precisely what substantial profits industry and commerce generated remained unclear to him. Hearing Qian Taichong broach the subject, he could not help but grow interested.

Though Chongzhen was not as avaricious as his grandfather, his desire for "money" was no less acute than his ancestor's. There were simply expenditures everywhere demanding attention.

No matter how many methods they devised to increase revenue and reduce spending—even as complaints filled the roads from court to countryside—the gleaming silver never seemed to grow appreciably, while expenditures mounted daily. Because the Ministry of Revenue's costs had swelled dramatically, the treasury was stripped bare, funds were short on every front, and the position of Minister had become something everyone dreaded. During every imperial audience, the moment money was mentioned, a deathly silence would descend.

"Tell me—how exactly do the Kun obtain these profits from industry and commerce?"

Qian Taichong proceeded to report everything he had witnessed and learned over the years. In truth, according to his understanding, the source of the Kun's wealth was their thriving overseas trade, which brought in vast quantities of silver from foreign lands each year.

That overseas trade could generate wealth was something everyone in the Great Ming understood. Yet the Imperial Court had derived little direct benefit from it. The fundamental reason was that tax administration remained hopelessly backward.

Though customs duties existed, the actual tax rates were negligible, and collection methods were crude. Despite annual overseas trade worth millions of taels, the tax revenue extracted was paltry.

Macau, that window of trade between East and West, earned Portuguese merchants hundreds of thousands in silver revenue every year, yet all the Great Ming received was a few hundred taels of "ground rent."

Qian Taichong continued, explaining that the Kun had developed comprehensive and precise methods for overseas trade. Maritime merchants adjusted tariff quotas in real time according to market demand for imports and exports. From customs alone, they collected substantial tax revenue each year. Furthermore, through these maritime merchants, they continuously purchased scarce materials from overseas.

"...When the Kun first occupied Guangdong and Guangxi, food was scarce. They immediately purchased cloth from India and rice from Siam to supply the market and stabilize prices. Thus the people of both regions were won over by them..."

Yet earning vast quantities of silver alone could not fully explain their wealth—the true reason was something he only grasped after Mr. Le came to visit him.

The key was this: the enormous silver the Kun obtained from overseas trade was not hoarded in warehouse cellars like the Zheng family or other maritime merchants did. Instead, it was reinvested, spent again to purchase various goods from overseas.

Silver itself was not wealth—this concept had taken Qian Taichong several days of contemplation to understand.

"...Gold and silver are not wealth in themselves; they are merely mediums of exchange. True wealth consists of rice, grain, cloth, iron, and all manner of goods that sustain the people's livelihood..."

"If the Imperial Court can open ports widely and reform customs duties, not only can it collect immense silver annually while sitting idle, but it can also purchase military weapons and grain from overseas. Even in years of poor harvests and scarcity, importing a few tenths of what is needed can make up the shortfall for official use, without requiring additional levies and taxes—allowing the common people to catch their breath. Against the Roving Bandits, this also serves as a strategy of drawing fuel from beneath the cauldron."

"Importing rice grain from overseas?!" Chongzhen was visibly startled. Since ancient times, he had never heard of purchasing grain from abroad to compensate for a bad harvest. He shook his head. "There are millions of people within the seas. How much rice grain can a mere Siam produce? How much silver can the Imperial Court spare?"

"Your Majesty may not be aware," Qian Taichong replied, "when rice is sold in Siam, Luzon, and similar places, it fetches only one or two mace of silver per picul. Including water transport fees, it costs only three or four mace by the time it reaches Guangzhou. The Kun ship anywhere from two thousand to ten thousand piculs per vessel, transporting day and night in an unending stream. The Siamese and Nanyang rice they import annually amounts to no less than one million piculs!"

Qian Taichong did not know precisely how much rice the Kun imported from overseas. The specific figure had come from Mr. Le. Truthfully, he too found it fantastical, but Mr. Le had assured him this number was an underestimate, certainly no exaggeration.

Since he wished the Emperor to embrace his "offered strategy," a touch of embellishment was hardly unacceptable.

Sure enough, surprise and delight flickered across the Emperor's face. He murmured to himself, "Maritime trade is one benefit. Then what is the second?"

"Maritime trade is 'Commerce'; the second is 'Industry,'" Qian Taichong replied. "The Kun repeatedly triumph despite being outnumbered, relying on nothing more than sturdy ships and sharp cannons. The various Australian goods are likewise ordinary items, yet with a little processing, they sell at premiums of ten or even a hundred times their cost. This humble official observes that many Australian goods circulate in the Capital. A single box of Australian matches costs twenty or thirty wen. That same item sells for only ten wen in Guangzhou. Workshops sell them in bulk for merely two or three wen per box. With such alchemy—turning stone to gold—how could they not grow rich?"

"The thickest profits lie in industry and commerce." Emperor Chongzhen nodded. "The words of the ancients are truly reliable! Yet everything you describe, sir, are the skills of the Kun..."

Qian Taichong spoke quickly: "This humble official ventures to offer a strategy and begs the Emperor's forgiveness for any presumption."

"What transgression could you have committed? Speak freely."

"Learn the Kun's skills to expel the Kun!" Qian Taichong had been laying the groundwork for this moment, and now the words finally emerged.

As he spoke them, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders. He had heard men of insight—both at court and among the public—express this sentiment and similar ideas more than once. He had discussed comparable notions with the principal leaders of the Zheng Sen faction.

But this remained merely their private consensus. Whether it was Liang Cunhou, Qian Taichong, or the others, all of them understood clearly the resistance they would encounter at court.

"The Kun's skills do indeed have their strengths." The Emperor nodded, recalling the "Nanyang goods" throughout the palace, and asked, "But how does one 'learn' them?"

Qian Taichong, seeing the Emperor's interest, immediately drew upon his recent education, reframing what Mr. Le had told him.

"The Kun value profit above righteousness. So long as sufficient profit is offered, they will naturally be willing to teach."

These past days, Qian Taichong had been pondering Mr. Le's words, synthesizing them with the conversations he had shared over the years with "Know-Thief personages" like Liang Cunhou, as well as the content he had absorbed from the Kun's newspapers and books. Suddenly, an entirely new strategy crystallized in his mind.

This strategy was no longer a matter of simple technology introduction like establishing a sugar factory. It aimed to fundamentally transform the Zheng family's situation.

If he wanted the Emperor to support the Zheng family, he had to make them "useful" again. Merely remaining in Zhangzhou Bay to operate a sugar factory might improve the economic circumstances of the Zheng Sen faction, but it could not alter their predicament of sitting besieged.

Remaining in Zhangzhou Bay, Zheng Sen would have no future. Even if the Imperial Court proved willing to support the Zheng family, under the Kun's strict blockade and containment, they could never gain real momentum, and would sooner or later be abandoned by the Emperor.

The only viable course was to leap beyond Zhangzhou Bay and seek development elsewhere.

Though the old saying held that "a man away from home is worth less," in present-day Zhangzhou Bay, the original branches of the Zheng faction watched the Young Lord like tigers, scheming ceaselessly to seize his property. To stay would only make him a target for all.

Only by breaking free could new opportunities arise.

Originally, when Zheng Zhilong was alive, he had focused his efforts on developing Taiwan. But since the Battle of Jinmen, the Zheng family's holdings in Taiwan had fallen to the Kun, making that island unsuitable for development.

"Your subject requests that the Emperor open Shanghai as a trading port, following the precedent of Guangzhou in former times," Qian Taichong petitioned.

"Open Shanghai as a port?" Chongzhen started.

"Yes. Now that Guangdong and Guangxi have fallen, Guangzhou is in the Kun's hands. All maritime trade revenue flows directly into their pockets. If a new port is established at Shanghai, restoring the Supervisorate of Merchant Shipping to manage foreign vessel trade and collect customs duties, the Imperial Court can obtain more than two hundred thousand taels of tax silver annually!"

"Two hundred thousand taels!" The number made the Emperor's eyebrows twitch slightly. Even for the Imperial Court, two hundred thousand taels was no trivial sum. In the first year of Tianqi, Zhejiang and Southern Zhili—the wealthiest among the eighteen provinces—had transported only 3.25 million taels of silver to the Capital's Great Granary. In the seventh year of Tianqi, when 370,000 taels of treasury silver were transferred from Guangdong to Beijing, the provincial treasury had been emptied. Could a single Shanghai port truly earn two hundred thousand taels in silver simply by taxing foreign merchants?

Yet when Zheng Zhilong was alive, rumor held that the shopkeepers, stewards, and assistant generals beneath him already possessed fortunes of hundreds of thousands or even millions. After the Battle of Anping, the Secret Police had covertly investigated in Fujian and reported that the Kun plundered "more than three million taels of silver" from Anping and surrounding areas in a single sweep.

Viewed in that light, an annual tariff revenue of two hundred thousand taels was hardly outlandish.

Seeing the Emperor was moved, Qian Taichong elaborated further on the advantages of establishing a port at Shanghai: Shanghai was backed by the wealthy and prosperous lands of Jiangnan, abundant in products. Whether raw silk, silk fabrics, cotton cloth, utensils, or dried and fresh fruits—all were "hot goods" beloved by foreign merchants. There was also the convenience of Yangtze River shipping; products from along the river could flow downstream and be transported to Shanghai for export.