The Ministry of Internal Affairs took over the old courtyard.
For seven consecutive days, more than 300 merchants from all provinces of the Ming Dynasty gathered in the old courtyard for meetings.
This meeting will be destined to be recorded in history, because after this meeting, the business rules of Ming Dynasty will be greatly rewritten, especially the foreign trade rules will be completely rewritten.
After this meeting, disorderly competition will become a thing of the past.
Instead, there are export quotas for various industries.
At this moment, Chongzhen was sitting in the attic of Meixiang Building, listening to the discussion of the silk merchants.
The person who was speaking on the rostrum at this time was Shi Jiuke. Shi Jiuke was not used to speaking publicly on such occasions, so he seemed to stutter a little.
"Your Majesty, Your Majesty the Emperor."
"And to all my colleagues in the business community, good evening to everyone."
"There is only one question I want to ask today."
At the beginning, Shi Jiuke couldn't speak clearly, but after he really got to the point, Shi Jiuke's speech gradually began to become clearer.
"I have only one question."
"Then it's best for our own people not to fight among themselves."
"We ourselves are fighting each other to the death, and in the end, Xiyi can only take advantage."
Just as Shi Jiuke was talking, Gao Qiqian came over quietly and put his ear to Chongzhen's ears to report: "Long live Lord, urgent report from Sichuan."
After hearing this, Chongzhen stood up immediately, and then took Zhu Cixiang to the private room next door. He saw in the newspaper that Qin Liangyu had failed in the battle in Xuzhou and had returned to Luzhou.
After reading the Tang newspaper, Zhu Cixi also looked solemn.
"This is really unexpected." Zhu Cixiang frowned and said, "Yuan Tao, Wu Dading, Cao Xun and other traitors actually colluded with Zhang Xianzhong, so that Marquis Zhongzhen was caught off guard and suffered a loss."
"This is actually predictable." Chongzhen shook his head and said, "What my father didn't expect was that Li Zicheng personally led an army of hundreds of thousands to attack Sichuan, but was blocked by a mere 20,000 Western troops on the Yinping Road."
"That's what Father said." Zhu Cixiang said with deep approval.
"If Li Zicheng's army of more than 100,000 was not blocked by a mere 20,000 Western troops at Yinping Road, Zhang Xianzhong would not have been able to easily mobilize the main force of more than 100,000 Western troops to fight the decisive battle with Marquis Zhongzhen in Xuzhou, and Marquis Zhongzhen would not have suffered such a minor defeat."
"But it's not a big problem." Chongzhen said casually, "The army of Marquis Zhongzhen is advancing too hard, so the rebels such as Yuan Tao, Wu Dading, Cao Xun and others will share the same hatred with Zhang Xianzhong. Now Marquis Zhongzhen has returned to Luzhou and chosen to temporarily avoid the front.
The conflict between the rebels and the Western Army will soon become irreconcilable, and once they start killing each other, Marquis Zhongzhen will be able to break the alliance between the various rebels without any effort."
After a pause, Chongzhen ordered Gao Qiqian again: "Gao Banban, ask the Ministry of War to send a reply to Marquis Zhongzhen immediately, saying that there is no need to send troops again before the year, as long as Luzhou, Zunyi, Chongqing and Kuizhou are guarded.
That’s it.”
"Old slave accepts the decree." Gao Qiqian accepted Chongzhen's decree and went to the imperial city with great power.
When Chongzhen, Zhu Cihong and his son returned to the hall, they saw Shi Jiuke still speaking on the podium.
"In view of this, we have to establish an offensive and defensive alliance and then agree on a minimum selling price every year."
"No merchant in the Ming Dynasty is allowed to sell satin or raw silk at a price lower than the reserve price. Anyone who violates the offensive and defensive alliance will be expelled from the Ming Dynasty General Chamber of Commerce. From now on, no member of the Ming Dynasty General Chamber of Commerce will be allowed to sell silk or raw silk at a price lower than the reserve price."
Have any business dealings with such treacherous businessmen."
Chongzhen couldn't help but his eyes lit up when he heard this. Isn't this an export quota?
Free trade? Free trade is impossible. Free trade will never be possible.
Almost all manufacturers agreed with Shi Jiuke's proposal, because they also suffered from price reductions by maritime merchants or Western barbarians. In all aspects of the silk trade, they often contributed the most, but most of the profits went to them instead.
Haishang or Xiyi have long wanted to change this situation.
However, the response from channel dealers, especially maritime merchants, is rather ambiguous.
To put it bluntly, the most profitable link in silk trade now is channels.
The channel merchants are divided into three categories: one is the local silk traffickers of the Ming Dynasty, the other is the maritime merchants, and the third is the large maritime trading companies represented by the Dutch East India Company.
The most profitable among them are maritime merchants and large maritime trading companies.
Therefore, maritime merchants did not have much enthusiasm to sign an offensive and defensive alliance.
Of course, the maritime merchants will not object fiercely. It doesn’t matter whether it succeeds or not.
So in the end, Shi Jiuke's proposal was passed smoothly, and the next step was to agree on the details of the covenant.
The punishment details are clear, that is, if any member violates the covenant and sells silk fabrics or raw silk privately at a price lower than the reserve price, he will be expelled from the General Chamber of Commerce. This is still very powerful.
Because the reach of the Daming General Chamber of Commerce has extended to almost every industry.
Once you are targeted by the Ming Dynasty General Chamber of Commerce, you don't have to do anything.
You can’t recruit workers, you can’t buy raw silk, the horse and carriage companies are unwilling to carry your goods, and even banks are unwilling to open an account for you, so what else can you do?
In short, if you are expelled from the General Chamber of Commerce, you can just lie down and wait for bankruptcy.
But there are differences over how to set the base price, because the silk merchants in Huguang hope that the base price in Huguang can be set lower because their shipping costs are higher, but the silk merchants in Jiangnan want a bowl of water to be fair.
When it comes to interests, they are not willing to give in easily, and the quarrel soon becomes violent.
In the end, Kou Baimen, who was waiting for the tea next to him, couldn't stand it anymore and suggested: "What's the point of you guys arguing about the lowest price here? It's better to think about how to sell it at a high price."
Kou Baimen's words woke up the dreamer, and the silk merchant was speechless for a moment.
Yes, why should we fight for the lowest price? We have to fight for a long time just to sell silk to maritime merchants or Xiyi at the lowest lowest price? Why can't we make a profit and set a high price?
But the question is, if a high price is set, who will abide by it?
After a long while, Shi Jiuke raised his hand and asked, "But I wonder what Kou Nuxia has to say?"
"I don't have any good ideas here, but I have a humble opinion." Kou Baimen said, "Why don't you first check how many workshops there are under the Ming Dynasty, how much raw silk can be produced every year? How many pieces of silk? Then use this.
Because of the quota, if one company doesn’t have enough quota, it can only buy from other companies, so doesn’t this prevent each other from undercutting each other’s prices?”
Chongzhen almost applauded, Kou Baimen's proposal was very similar to export quotas.
However, the real export quota needs to be refined, because silk is different from silk.
However, Kou Baimen's words have opened up the thinking of Shi Jiuke and other silk merchants. There are many things that are unexpected, but as long as they are understood, they can be solved.
At that moment, Shi Jiuke and other silk merchants estimated the total amount for each of the fourteen categories of silk.
Then based on this total amount, quotas were allocated to the more than 100 large and small silk merchants participating in the meeting.
The silk merchants also agreed with each other to hold a quota meeting every year in the future to discuss and determine the production quotas of each silk merchant and the pricing of various types of silk.
Various types of silk are divided into upper, middle and lower grades according to their quality, and the prices are also divided into three corresponding grades. In the future, maritime merchants or Western merchants who want to buy silk from the Ming Dynasty can only buy silk at this price. It is impossible to bargain.
You may have to negotiate the price again. If you are unlucky and encounter a poor silk harvest, the price may increase.
The silk merchants also agreed to implement the offensive and defensive alliance before the end of this year.
According to the practice of previous years, a group of foreign merchants will come to Daming before the end of the year. When these foreign merchants arrive in Daming, they will be horrified to find that the prices of silk, porcelain, tea, jewelry and other commodities in Daming have increased.
But even if the price increases, foreign merchants can only obediently pay more real money.
Because silk, porcelain, and tea in the Ming Dynasty are sellers' markets and cannot be replaced.
Thinking of this, a slight smile appeared on Chongzhen's lips, and he immediately stood up and left.
The reason why he participated in this discussion tonight is to achieve this intention.
Now that his intention has been achieved, there is no need for him to stay upstairs in Meixiang and watch.
Seeing Chongzhen getting up and leaving, Zhu Cixiang also got up and left. The father and son went downstairs, and Wang Chengen and Lu Jiude immediately came forward to help them put on their armor.
It's still a mountain armor with a visor.
Chongzhen has always attached great importance to personal safety.
Because he knew very well how many people wanted him to die.
After a while, the father and son put on their mountain armor and followed Yi Ding out of Meixiang Tower.
Lu Jiude was wearing a golden mountain armor, and his face was also covered with a ghost mask as usual, riding a horse and walking in the front.
But now, almost everyone in Nanjing knows that Lu Jiude is just a false target used as a cover, so there will be no assassins stupid enough to assassinate Lu Jiude again.
This group of Ming army soldiers coming out of Meixiang Tower quickly attracted the attention of passers-by on Chaoku Street.
After a while, someone recognized "Chongzhen", and then cheers of "Long live" rang out.
Lu Jiude had long been accustomed to this kind of scene, and he immediately raised his right hand from his horse in greeting.
"Long live! Long live!" The pedestrians on Chaoku Street suddenly cheered even more enthusiastically.
More pedestrians swarmed in from a distance, but no one blocked the way. Wherever the Yiding soldiers passed by, the pedestrians blocking the street split apart like waves and moved to both sides of the street.
…
Luo Yi and Luo Hu were now hidden in the crowd.
The two men even had muskets hidden in their sleeves.
At this time, the straight-line distance between the two people from "Chongzhen" was only a dozen steps.
If we could determine who Chongzhen was, we would only need a small lead to send Chongzhen to meet his ancestors.
Unfortunately, they were unable to determine which one was the real Chongzhen.
Anyway, the one at the front is definitely a fake, and any one of the more than a hundred Yiding at the back may be Chongzhen. They can't go forward and open the Yiding visors one by one to identify them, right?
