As soon as Zhong Jinwei said these words, the vassal princes and clans immediately stopped talking and looked at him, expecting him to have any good reminders.
For them, the more reminders, the better.
"First, this North American route will end near the Arctic Circle, so the climate will be very cold. Your princes must prepare enough warm clothes to ensure that your troops and subjects can reach North America alive and start building for you.
vassal state."
When Zhong Jinwei said this, his expression became serious, and he said seriously: "If someone just recruits the people of the Ming Dynasty and leaves them alone to see if they can live in North America and use them again, the imperial court will have to take care of them. Although these people are
Although I am gone with you, I am still His Majesty’s people, please keep this in mind.”
Zhong Jinwei actually meant one thing: he did not want this North American route to become a road of blood and tears for the people of the Ming Dynasty.
If there were a vassal king who acted like Westerners pretending to be African slaves, and did not regard the people of the Ming Dynasty as human beings, but just loaded the ship and sailed away, regardless of life or death, this kind of behavior would not be acceptable to Zhong Jinwei.
Emperor Chongzhen also said seriously after Zhong Jinwei finished speaking: "I don't want what Master Zhong said to happen, otherwise I will never forgive him lightly."
When the King of Tang saw this, he quickly and solemnly expressed his position: "Your Majesty, don't worry, these people are also the subjects who established the vassal state and expanded the territory. They will never destroy the foundation stone."
Other feudal lords and clans also quickly expressed their stance that they would never do such a ruthless and unjust thing.
But no one knows whether any of them had this idea before.
After the palace became quiet, Crown Prince Fu hesitated for a while, and then said: "Marquis Zhongxing, the number of people our vassal country needs will never be small. How can we get so many things to keep out the cold?"
Upon hearing this, the vassal and clan members all nodded. This cold-proof object is not like a boat that can be used back and forth.
They looked at the world map and compared North America with the Ming Dynasty, and they could roughly figure out what the climate would be like there.
Each subject must have at least one set. They cannot be allowed to take it off when they arrive and send it back to the next group of people in the Ming Dynasty. It is not cost-effective to freeze to death and suffer frostbite when they get there!
This issue is quite difficult. Once it was put in front of everyone, it suddenly became an important factor restricting the number of people in the vassal country.
The vassal king's family, including the civil servants, all looked at Zhong Jinwei, wondering if they could get a good idea.
Zhong Jinwei did not disappoint them. He smiled and said: "There are two ways to solve this matter. I don't know if you have noticed that the imperial court has liberalized trade with Mongolia, and the road to Zhangjiakou is also being re-expanded..."
When Zhong Jinwei said these words, people with smart minds had already thought of what is the biggest specialty of Mongolia? It is fur! And fur is the best raw material for cold-proof clothing.
When these people thought of this, they couldn't help but be secretly surprised. It turned out that the imperial court had already begun to make arrangements. If they had not agreed to feudal overseas affairs before, maybe the imperial court would really use force.
In fact, they thought too much. Under Zhong Jinwei's suggestion, they initially increased mutual trade with Mongolia. This was just a decision based on dividing the country to win over and corrupt the Mongolians.
Zhong Jinwei also had an idea just now and thought of the benefits that expanding mutual markets could bring.
For this reason, Emperor Chongzhen, Wen Tiren and others had not heard what Zhong Jinwei said. At this time, they couldn't help but secretly nodded. The decision to open the mutual market in the first place really had many benefits.
What Zhong Jinwei said next was exactly what they expected, asking them to obtain enough furs to make clothes within ten years.
After saying this, Zhong Jinwei continued: "There is another solution, which is based on the first method just now. People who arrive in North America first can do business with the indigenous people there in exchange for their
Fur. You can prepare cold-proof clothing there and send it back, or you can send it directly back to Daming to be processed into cold-proof clothing."
After hearing this, the King of Tang felt that this method was indeed feasible, but he was still a little skeptical, so he asked: "Marquis Zhongxing, are you sure there are a lot of furs over there?"
Zhong Jinwei smiled, looked at Tang Wang and said: "The Indians' way of life probably involves fur most of all. If you don't believe it, you can ask Li Wei."
Some vassal princes and clans didn't react at once. Who was Li Wei? They looked around and saw that there seemed to be no such official in scarlet robes.
Fortunately, Li Wei heard Marquis Zhongxing's roll call and spoke, attracting their attention: "What Marquis Zhongxing said is absolutely true! On this route, all the way to North America, there will be different numbers of tribes encountered on the road.
of fur.”
The princes and clans saw the same thing said by the people who had been to North America, so they believed in the source of the fur. With these two methods, they should be able to make more warm clothes.
Emperor Chongzhen was listening to Zhong Jinwei's words on the royal chair, and secretly decided to open a few more mutual markets so that these vassal clans could obtain the most cold-proof clothing.
As a result, the Mongolians who had good relations with the Ming Dynasty were overjoyed. The price of furs in their hands increased, and their lives were greatly improved.
Then the Mongolians began to enjoy various luxuries produced in the Ming Dynasty and compete with each other. For example, when entertaining guests, they would be embarrassed to entertain guests without bringing out several sets of exquisite porcelain.
Of course, the huge sales of these luxury goods among Mongolians cannot be separated from the mastermind behind Zhong Jinwei.
When he was in later generations, he lamented that many people were obsessed with European and American luxury goods. The hard-earned money was just exchanged for a comparable luxury product.
He greatly admires those Europeans and Americans who can operate this way, turning a low-cost and dispensable commodity into a money-attracting stone and a cornucopia.
However, the reason why there will be a large number of people in later generations who admire Europe and the United States and are proud to buy European and American luxury goods is not only that the Europeans and Americans themselves know how to operate, but also has something to do with the history of the Chinese people.
In this current life, Zhong Jinwei believes that even in a few hundred years, the situation will only be reversed, and people all over the world will be proud to use the luxury goods of the Ming Dynasty.
Of course, these are all things for later.
The living conditions of the Mongolian tribes have been greatly improved by having good relations with the Ming Dynasty. This fact has attracted those neutral Mongolian tribes, and even the Mongolian tribes living in Mobei, have also expressed their goodwill to the Ming Dynasty, in order to obtain the benefits of transactions.
qualifications.
These additional benefits were something that the Ming Dynasty decision-makers in the palace had not thought of at this time. At this time, they were very satisfied with the current good linkage.
Zhong Jinwei looked at the situation in the palace, then walked to a screen, took the thin stick from the hand of the chamberlain, and then said: "I would like to remind you one more thing, it is about the situation in America."
Now among the vassal princes and clans in the palace, whenever Zhong Jinwei speaks, they all behave very quietly, for fear of missing something or not hearing it.