The invention of the steam engine heralded the beginning of the first industrial revolution.

And this beginning has now appeared at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty.

This is simply a horror story.

Today's Ming Dynasty was already at the top of the world economically.

Originally, because Lao Zhu banned the sea, trade on the sea route was not developed. Although the official trade was equivalent to a monopoly on the sea, in fact, the greater significance of sea trade in the Ming Dynasty was to promote national prestige, and

It is not economic trade.

A large amount of the economy on the sea has actually been swallowed up by smuggling merchants.

During the Yongle period, during Zheng He's first few voyages to the West, the apparent data often showed losses, which is hard to imagine.

This naturally has more to do with Zhu Di's good face. In fact, Zheng He's voyages to the West, although the cost of overseas trade was huge, Zheng He also purchased many rare things, especially spices from Western countries.

As a luxury product, spices played a huge role in Western trade and brought huge profits to trade in the early Ming Dynasty.

It was only at this time that Zhu Di made many expeditions to Mongolia, which caused the domestic economy to regress. Moreover, due to the supply of large armies and the recruitment of military service, even slight famines occurred, and local officials had no way to deal with them.

Military pay and salary were also a big expense, and the national treasury could not support them without any source of income. Therefore, the court could only issue more treasure banknotes to drink poison to quench thirst, which also led to the inflation of treasure banknotes becoming more serious.

Compared with what Zheng He brought back, the balance of payments was completely unbalanced. After all, although Zheng He was good at sailing, as a eunuch who grew up in the palace, he only had a little contact with merchants, and he didn't think about it.

To increase revenue to the treasury through sailing.

It's not that Zheng He didn't want to do it, but he didn't realize how big the business opportunities were.

It wasn't until after a few times, and with experience, that the voyages to the West began to be profitable.

For example, after Zheng He returned from his first voyage to the West in the fifth year of Yongle, the Ming Dynasty used peppercorns to convert a large amount of salary to officials and citizens, involving more than 200,000 people, and later used peppercorns as currency many times.

Materials are used to pay salaries to officials and soldiers.

This practice continued until the Chenghua period. Due to the large inflow of pepperwood and the decline in market price in the later period, officials no longer bought it, so this practice ended during the Chenghua period.

After Zheng He's voyages to the West, his income actually exceeded his expenses. Logically speaking, the court should be able to continue to implement this matter.

No matter how much you earn, you are still making money, and you can also promote the prestige of the Ming Dynasty. Why not do this?

In fact, there is also a factor of the lower class people here.

Zhu Di's period was very different from today's Zhu Ying. He still followed the same style of corvee service as in previous dynasties.

In other words, the ships that sailed to the Western Ocean required labor and craftsmen to build them for free, the wood was collected from the southwest and transported by labor, tea and silk were either taxed in kind or distributed at low prices, and the soldiers were all drawn from the guards.

This is tantamount to the imperial court continuing to prostitute the lower-class labor force for free. The so-called huge cost lies in the tribute trade and Zhu Di's rewards to various countries.

Moreover, this kind of free prostitution was low cost for the court, but it actually placed a huge burden on the people at the bottom.

However, if it was just Zheng He's voyages to the West, it would be nothing to the Ming Dynasty.

As a result, Zhu Di had many other aspects while letting Zheng He sail to the West.

The first was, of course, six personal expeditions to Mongolia, and the second was moving the capital to Peking. Other actions similar to the voyages to the West included Li Datong's expedition to the Western Regions, Haitong's arrival in Yibei, and Hou Xian's envoy to the west.

The costs of the last three are not huge, but the first three, if not mentioned individually, can destabilize the grassroots of the Ming Dynasty and shake the foundation of the country.

Unfortunately, each of these three cannot be solved in a short time.

It is equivalent to saying that after Zhu Di became emperor during the Jingnan Campaign, these three things were almost done together.

This period also included things like beating up Annan.

While Zhu Di was attacking Mongolia at the front, Zhu Gaochi was supervising the country from the rear, often quarreling with ministers over perhaps dozens of taels of silver.

Lao Zhu searched and searched all his life and almost lost all the wealth he had saved to Zhu Di.

In addition to economic factors, there are also internal political factors in the Ming Dynasty.

Moving the capital and personally conquering Mongolia were all carried out by Zhu Di. With the prestige left by Zhu Di's execution of the ten tribes, although the court was not afraid of Zhu Di as much as Zhu Yuanzhang, they were mostly afraid. Occasionally, Zhu Di would not read it if he said he would not read it.

The ministers just talk and talk, but the actual impact is of little significance.

The key figure among them is Zheng He.

Zheng He, the Sanbao eunuch, was the chief eunuch of the Ming Dynasty.

That's all. Zheng He led 28,000 people to the Western Seas. This was the beginning of eunuchs taking charge of diplomacy and military command.

In addition, eunuchs also gradually took over the power to supervise the army, divide towns, and assassinate the subjects. All this began in the Yongle period.

The eunuchs' interference in government was bound to deprive the foreign bureaucrats of their power, and the role and influence of the courtiers began to decrease. In this case, the courtiers' resistance to Zheng He's voyages became a kind of resistance to the eunuchs' interference in government.

I don't care whether you make money or not, but you can't affect my power.

The more successful Zheng He's voyages to the West were, the more the emperor gave power to the eunuchs.

Since the time of Zhu Yuanzhang, he has had a very high level of distrust of officials, believing that anyone seeking to be an official must be greedy.

Zhu Di was actually greatly influenced by Zhu Yuanzhang, and this was also the case in all aspects of his behavior.

And because the throne was not given by his father, but snatched from his nephew, Zhu Di always felt a lot of discomfort in his heart. He was afraid that after his death, he would be embarrassed to face his father underground.

Zhu Yuanzhang's influence was so great that even when he was choosing his successor, it was because of a dream about Zhu Yuanzhang.

In the dream, Zhu Yuanzhang handed Zhu Di a big gui, and then said to Zhu Di: "Pass this on to your descendants, and you will be prosperous forever!"

In the dream, Zhu Di was so frightened that he took the Dagui while trembling.

After waking up from the dream, Zhu Di told Empress Xu the whole dream.

As the daughter of Xu Da, the famous founding general of the Ming Dynasty, Queen Xu had been familiar with classics and history since she was a child, and had her own unique understanding of things. She quickly expressed her understanding of this dream: "The blessings of descendants!"

It was at this time that the good news came: Zhang, the concubine of the crown prince Zhu Gaochi, gave birth to a son.

This child is Zhu Zhanji, Zhu Di's eldest son and grandson.

Zhu Di, who originally disliked the crown prince Zhu Gaochi, hesitated to establish a crown prince after he ascended the throne. It was because of this incident that he decided to appoint Zhu Gaochi as the crown prince.

Zheng He's voyages to the West continued. Although there were memorials during the Yongle period, they were of no use.

After Zhu Di died and Zhu Gaochi took office, the ministers became more and more enthusiastic about attacking Zheng He on his journey to the west.

In secret, Zheng He's voyages to the West also dealt a very heavy blow to smuggling merchants.

After all, the policy of banning seas has always been in place, and the trade profits of smuggling merchants are huge. Zheng He's fleet can be said to be the overlord of the sea. How can these smuggling ships compete?

Not only the fleet, but also the imperial court's attention gradually shifted to the sea, and the crackdown on smuggling merchants was intensified from many aspects. Among them, Zhu Di once again set the record for Jin Yiwei.

After Zhu Di passed away, Zhu Gaochi himself was naturally not as strong as his father Zhu Di. He had been hit by Zhu Di when he was growing up.

However, Zheng He is of great significance.

In particular, Zhu Gaochi passed away less than a year after taking the throne, which put great pressure on Zhu Zhanji.

Zheng He is very important.

Many people see Zheng He's seven voyages to the West, but ignore his identity.

When Zhu Zhanji came to the throne, Zheng He could be said to be the elder of the three dynasties, and since Zhu Di Jingnan ascended the throne, he has been the head of the officials.

Coupled with Zhu Di's distrust of officials and the interference of eunuchs in politics, Zheng He at this time seemed to have become the most powerful eunuch in the Ming Dynasty.

Even if they were six ministers, they could only be respectful in front of Zheng He.

In fact, in the Ming Dynasty, although the eunuchs were corrupt, their loyalty to the emperor was unquestionable. Even the 9,000-year-old Wei Zhongxian, who was despised by thousands of people in later generations, was very loyal to the emperor.

Although Wei Zhongxian was greedy, he knew that his power came from the emperor, and at least he would not covet the border military pay.

Zheng He was also loyal to Zhu Zhanji.

Therefore, Zheng He contributed a lot to the stabilization of Zhu Zhanji's power.

At the same time, Zheng He was also a serious problem for the civil servants, but they were temporarily unable to fight against him.

During Zheng He's seventh voyage to the West, Zhu Zhanji encountered great resistance, but he could still carry it out.

But after Zheng He died of illness on the road, it was difficult to carry out the eighth time.

In fact, even at this time, the imperial power still had great dominance. At least Zhu Zhanji had the right to decide what the court wanted.

But only two years after Zheng He's death, Zhu Zhanji also passed away.

This made the Ming Dynasty imperial power somewhat embarrassed, and Zhu Qizhen was only nine years old when he came to the throne.

Zhu Shaoguo suspected that the imperial power of the Ming Dynasty began to decline sequentially from this time on.

The Wenchen Group naturally rose up along with the trend.

Zhu Ying is different.

First of all, when he came to Ming Dynasty, he was a businessman and a smuggler.

At the same time, with the benefits from his previous life, he pays more attention to reality rather than falsehood.

Unlike Zheng He's voyage to the West, Li Jinglong's voyage to the West was due to political factors, but Zhu Ying did not care about it.

What he wants is money.

A large amount of goods was prepared when we set out.

If the Ming Dynasty is the manufacturer, then the coastal areas of Champa, Chenla, and Siam are wholesalers.
To be continued...