At this moment, the largest Galen ship in Red Hair is on board.

Captain Joe Swett was using a telescope to watch the Ming navy attacking in the distance.

"A group of small boats with few cannons and weak planks can be destroyed by just a few cannons," he said arrogantly.

"Your Majesty is right, these damn Ming Dynasty naval forces don't even know who is strong and who is weak. They will soon know how powerful your Majesty is!" an interpreter said humbly.

"Humph, first send them a semaphore and tell them that if they are willing to allow us free trade and use the current port as a free trade port, we will withdraw our troops. Otherwise, we will break their fleet and send them all into

Feed the sharks at the bottom of the sea!" the captain said arrogantly.

"Yes." the first mate replied.

Immediately send people to raise flags.

I saw semaphores here and there, but no one understood them.

Wen Rensheng naturally understood.

After all, he is always studying.

Learn all the knowledge you can find in this world.

"What are they talking about?" Commander Zhou Ming asked curiously.

"They are saying that we must agree to give them a free trade port," Wen Rensheng said.

"How can this be true? The imperial court has its own laws for foreign trade, so how can it be that they should be independent?" Zhou Ming suddenly became furious.

This is where the differences between the two sides lie.

In fact, Westerners at this time still viewed the Ming Dynasty as a behemoth.

Even the land of Australia was obtained through deception and bribery, and one had to constantly please local officials and do a lot of things.

It was only slowly that forts were built and their own rule established.

But Ming still has ownership.

What they want most is free trade and free buying and selling.

However, foreign trade has always been a means for the imperial court to control vassal states, with tribute trade being the mainstay.

Many small countries often choose to pay tribute several times a year, causing the court to suffer huge losses and have to limit the number of tributes.

Tribute was used to restrain and appease the vassal states when the Ming Dynasty suffered losses.

Why not open up free trade?

One is the worry that internal and external collusion will cause internal instability.

Second, they were worried that Westerners would enter the Ming Dynasty without permission and cause internal turmoil.

The third is the covert obstruction by the large merchants.

If the imperial court chooses free trade, how can their large merchants earn high profits by monopolizing foreign trade?

Therefore, they also had the motivation to push the imperial court to ban sea and trade.

Wen Rensheng did not explain to the commander-in-chief Zhou Ming that he knew that people's thoughts are difficult to change.

Especially these adults.

And he can't use advanced ideas to solve this problem now.

So he must find some existing ideas to solve it.

"The Master said, wouldn't it be nice to have friends from afar? Why doesn't the court welcome red-haired people?" Wen Rensheng asked in return.

"Of course it's the red-haired people who come to us and commit crimes, collude with Japanese pirates, plunder the seaside, and even cause trouble frequently." Zhou Ming said without thinking.

Wen Rensheng nodded.

None of what the other party said is false.

Maritime merchants these days are weak as merchants and strong as pirates.

When they came to the coast of the Ming Dynasty and looked at the prosperous villages, could they not have the desire to rob them?

It's impossible. If you pay money honestly for trade, that's in a big port.

If you anchor at the seaside and get ashore, it is impossible to expect the sailors who are going crazy with suppressed blood not to kidnap you.

And this just created too many problems for the feudal bureaucrats.

It's better to just ban it.

Anyway, the Ming Dynasty originally had the ancestral law of sea ban.

But now, the ban is only official rhetoric, and no one can really implement it.

Large merchants from all over the world prepared their own goods and traded with the red-haired people.

But the red-haired people are not satisfied with this trade model involving middlemen.

Profits will be severely shaved off a large part.

This is the case with raw silk, for example.

If you directly purchase 80 taels of silver per load, if it goes through the hands of maritime merchants, it will cost 140 to 170 taels, but if you resell it to an island country, it can reach 280 taels.

Who can not be jealous of such profits?

You should know that it is not too far from Daming to the island country.

As long as the goods are prepared and the joints are opened, the raw silk will be free money.

Why is demand so high?

Because silk is worn by the upper class. The upper classes have accumulated a lot of wealth, and their clothes need to be changed frequently.

Moreover, upper-class people do not wear old clothes, and extravagance and lust are the norm in peacetime.

With a large amount of gold and silver, among the basic necessities of life, clothing is the most frequently consumed.

Others have many restrictions.

This is why the industrial revolution first broke out in the textile industry. It is the same reason.

A wealthy family can buy new clothes every year, one hundred thousand pieces a year.

Some rich girls fill several rooms with just clothes.

But it is impossible to eat so much when eating, and it is not convenient to transport food over long distances.

As for the residence, it was built once and rarely built again.

When it comes to walking, many people just stay in one place for the rest of their lives.

It can be said that in feudal society, only clothes were a product with no upper limit on demand.

No matter how much we produce, as long as it meets the taste of the nobles, we can buy it for you.

Being extravagant and lustful is a realism.

For example, a nobleman has one thing before going to the toilet, and another thing after going to the toilet.

After going to the toilet, I threw away my underwear and gave them to the servants to wear while I changed into a new set.

At this rate, if you go to the toilet 700 times a year, you will need to change into 700 new sets of underwear.

exaggerate?

It's not an exaggeration. Look at Cao Xueqin's description of his family's life. A meal costs 2,000 taels of silver.

Just know that wearing these clothes is nothing.

Women from wealthy families do not wear old clothes. Clothes from last year or the previous season must not be brought into the next year.

Otherwise, your family background will decline.

Anyway, the big and small families that are on the rise, the families that are in their prime, all need to wear new clothes.

This is why during the Tokugawa shogunate period, the island countries were so hungry for raw silk.

There is an endless supply of fine silk.

At this time, Wen Rensheng continued: "It is easy to defeat the red-haired people for a while, but it is difficult to defeat them forever, just like the captives on the grassland. Because they are poor in winter, if they don't want to starve to death, they have to go south and take them captive. And they have been captives for many years.

They were not kidnapped because a large number of horse markets were opened. A large number of prairie barbarians could exchange cattle, sheep and horses for enough food for the winter without forced kidnapping. Over time, they fell into a contrast. As long as they exchanged, they could survive.

If you are kidnapped, you will be beaten to death."

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! "Of course there are still people who want to be kidnapped, so we will keep killing the kidnapped people, leaving only those who trade. In this way, traders will survive

Come down, and the captives will die."

"The only ones left are those who are willing to trade."

Wen Rensheng said this.

Zhou Ming was thoughtful.

This is not a new idea.
To be continued...