The verification team sent by the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry was very efficient and came back before the end of the year. Not to mention that the Zhou family reported truthfully. Even if there were some falsehoods, as the first merchant to join the initiative, Princess Kunxing would turn a blind eye.
Close one eye and agree.
So when the verification team returned to Nanjing, Princess Kunxing personally met with Zhou Xing. Not only did she appoint Zhou Xing as the second vice president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, but she also gave him a special gold medal representing the gold membership, as well as a plaque and related certificates.
distributed to him.
In accordance with the relevant regulations of the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Zhou Xing registered an official business name with both the Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Commerce. The name was Zhou's Trading Company, and the person in charge was Zhou Xing.
And in the name of Zhou's firm, he opened an account at the Royal Bank and deposited one million silver taels.
Currently, except for government offices and officials, ordinary people cannot open accounts at the Royal Bank.
Officials can only withdraw money from their accounts, but cannot deposit money. They can only withdraw money from the branch where the account is opened.
Although accounts at all levels of yamen can deposit money, they cannot transfer money. In the entire Daming Royal Bank, only accounts in the account department can transfer money.
In the future, in addition to the Account Department, all merchants registered with the Ministry of Commerce and the Chamber of Commerce will also have the function of remote transfer after opening an account at Royal Bank.
In order to expand publicity, the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry also held an admission ceremony, inviting all businessmen of all sizes in Nanjing City.
After Zhou Xing became the vice president, he did not return to Zhejiang. Instead, he directly stayed at the Chamber of Commerce to take charge of daily affairs, leaving all the family business to his eldest son.
In the past, those maritime dignitaries and officials who wanted to take advantage of the Zhou family immediately stopped. After the Zheng family received the news, they also immediately released all the seized cargo ships.
Even so, Princess Kunxing sent an official document to the cabinet and the Ministry of Commerce in the name of the president of the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, asking the cabinet and the Ministry of Commerce to thoroughly investigate the affairs of the Zhou family and severely punish the officials who blackmailed the Zhou family.
Use legitimate means to suppress the powerful maritime merchants who annexed the Zhou family's business.
As the news spread, the powerful maritime merchant officials in Zhejiang were all in an uproar. Even Zheng Zhilong from Fujian was a little nervous.
Seeing that the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry, especially the princess, actually personally safeguarded the interests of its members and was so serious about it, the businessmen in Jiangnan could no longer sit still.
The first to act were the maritime merchants in Zhejiang, who all eagerly applied to join the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry to avoid being suppressed by the Zhou family in the future.
In addition, there are some small and medium-sized businesses who also applied to join the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry without hesitation, preparing to completely get rid of the control and blood-sucking control of those official and scholarly families in the future.
In just one month, the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry has added hundreds of firms, including more than a dozen gold members, more than thirty silver members, and the rest are all bronze members. As for associate members, there are all
No.
Two to three million taels of membership fees were collected in one go, and Princess Kunxing was so happy that she couldn't close her mouth.
Compared with the New Deal, the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry was undoubtedly a blow to the big officials in Jiangnan, and the losses were considerable.
In Jiangnan, the real official families do not know how to do business, at least they do not know how to do business, especially maritime business.
Because once the family goes into business, and the family's children become high-ranking officials in the future, they will leave clues for political opponents and will be easily attacked and impeached.
Especially during the Apocalypse and Chongzhen dynasties, which saw fierce internal strife, the battles in the court had almost no bottom line, making all civil servants cautious.
Therefore, the real official and scholarly families in the south of the Yangtze River did not dare to do business openly, but only farmed the land, euphemistically called the family of farming and reading.
However, these official and scholarly families also held the right to speak in Jiangnan and even the entire Ming Dynasty, and influenced the political situation of the court.
This makes the merchants in Jiangnan have to rely on these official and scholarly families to survive, and they must contribute a large amount of wealth earned to these official and scholarly families every year.
Therefore, although officials and merchants in Jiangnan are clearly two classes, they are actually one entity.
As for who becomes an official and who does business, it depends on the family's imperial examination method. The ups and downs of competition are quite fierce.
Now the establishment of the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry is like a knife, forcibly dividing the government and businessmen in Jiangnan.
Merchants who joined the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry were guaranteed to be able to do business while taking the imperial examinations. They were not willing to give up the large amount of wealth they earned every year to those official families who were fishing for fame.
Compared with the wealth that I contribute every year, the membership fee is nothing at all.
In fact, the capital in Jiangnan has already completed primitive accumulation. The reason why capitalism cannot appear like in the West is because the national conditions are different.
After Chinese businessmen make money, their first thought is definitely not to make more money and expand the scale of their business, but to become an official.
Because in the eyes of businessmen, if there is no official in the family and no one can speak among the officials, no matter how much wealth and property they have, it will be nothing.
Killing the county magistrate and confiscating the house and prefect are not just words.
This is just one of them.
The second is that China has been a society where monarchy has supremacy since ancient times. Once capital grows, it will definitely threaten the imperial power, and the result will be suppression by the emperor. Once the imperial power cannot suppress capital, it will be the collapse of the dynasty and the reshuffle of the cards.
And capital is also unable to call the shots and control society.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, it was because the imperial power could no longer suppress capital, which led to economic collapse and serious wealth imbalance, which in turn triggered people all over the world to rise up and overthrow the Ming Dynasty.
In the end, no matter who becomes the emperor, he will still choose to suppress capital and stabilize imperial power. This is what the Manchu Qing Dynasty did. If Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong were replaced, they would definitely do the same thing.
Therefore, although there were sprouts of capital in the late Ming Dynasty, these sprouts would never have the chance to grow into a big tree.
Precisely because the idea of the supremacy of monarchy is deeply ingrained, merchants in China are always vassals of officials and cannot be like the West that turns against customers.
But now, as the Ming Emperor, Zhu Cixiang should have tied up the tiger of capital and beat it, but now he has raised the tiger instead and took the lead in building royal capital.
The Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry was also established, adding the most important protective cover to capital and completely releasing the man-eating tiger of capital.
The reason why Zhu Cixiang dared to release the capital tiger was because he was sure to control it.
The officials and scholarly families in Jiangnan were naturally unwilling to let those businessmen escape their control and let the emperor take away the wealth that should belong to them.
Although they no longer dare to use their power to oppress merchants as before, they are not without means to check and balance merchants, because 80% of the land in Jiangnan is in the hands of these official and scholarly families.
The mulberry farmers and tenant farmers were also in their hands. In addition, tax fines and heavy losses were incurred. After the beginning of the new year, almost all the landowners and gentry chose to increase rents.
Those noble and scholarly families who controlled large amounts of mulberry fields even raised the price of raw silk to sky-high levels, frightening the silk merchants out of their wits.
Not only that, those official and aristocratic families also began to reverse course, preparing to restore the previous practice of men farming and women weaving, allowing mulberry farmers to raise their own silkworms and draw silk, and then go home to weave cloth. The tenants' rents were also changed from cash to silk.
Although those female workers who could weave were concentrated in workshops opened by merchants to reel and weave cloth, the contracts of selling themselves were in the hands of those official families. This caused the entire Jiangnan textile industry to fall into chaos and stagnation.
status.
The businessmen had already anticipated this situation, so they did not panic. Instead, they waited for the reaction of the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry or the emperor.
If the emperor refuses to ask or solve the problem, then they will have no choice but to withdraw from the Royal Chamber of Commerce and Industry and continue to rely on those official families. If the emperor is really determined to support business, then they will be able to completely get rid of the shackles of those official families in the future.
"Brother Emperor, what should I do? Almost all the textile workshops in Suzhou, Changzhou and Yangzhou have stopped working. Either the workers have ran away or there is no raw silk."
Princess Kunxing obviously did not expect this to be the case.
"It seems that the emperor has also been deceived by these literati and gentry in Jiangnan. It turns out that they have always controlled the lifeblood of capital. The matter is far more complicated than I imagined."
Zhu Cixiang also had a solemn look on his face.
He originally thought that the businessmen in Jiangnan were simply attached to the scholarly families of officials. As long as he gave them a safety guarantee, he could completely separate the government and businessmen.
Who would have thought that this would be the case. Not only were the raw materials of raw silk from the mulberry fields in the hands of those officials and scholarly families, but also the female workers who weaved and spun yarn were in their hands. Those businessmen were completely puppets. To put it bluntly, they were responsible for selling cloth.
The workshop bears their name.
If those scholarly and scholarly families were allowed to return to men farming and women weaving as before, then the industry would stop developing, and the businessmen who joined the Chamber of Commerce and Industry would become sellers instead of producers.
Zhu Cixi knew that if he wanted to completely solve this situation and continue to develop industry, he had only two options.
The first is to nationalize the mulberry fields of those official families and distribute them to the mulberry farmers once and for all. However, this is no different from attacking local tyrants to divide their fields. It will push almost all the gentry and landlords in the world to oppose the imperial court.
.
The second is to allow those wealthy official families to open workshops and do business, so that in the future there will really be no distinction between government and business, and the capital tiger will really lose control.
While he is alive, he may still be able to suppress it. Once he dies, the result will be like in Europe, where capital will take control of everything and completely evade imperial power.
This is something Zhu Cihong will never allow to happen. Officials and businessmen must be separated. Although he has not said it explicitly now, in the future these capital businessmen who have been supported will definitely not be able to be officials.
Officials can only be selected from civilians and from scholarly families with a long history of farming and studying.
In the end, Zhu Cixiang decided to wait until King Chuang and the Eight Queens were dealt with before going back to completely solve the land issue.
Because by this time he had understood that unless the land issue was completely solved and the people of the world were freed from the control of the gentry and landlords, any reform would only address the symptoms but not the root cause.
After some thought, Zhu Cixi decided that he could only compromise for the time being and use force to force the officials and aristocratic families to take a step back. He also took a step back and the two sides compromised with each other.
Because this matter is said to be complicated, but it is actually simple. It is nothing more than the emperor and the officials and scholarly families in Jiangnan competing for the industrial and commercial capital of Jiangnan. Zhu Cixiang, the industrial and commercial man in Jiangnan, will never let go, but for the time being, some of the wealth earned can be divided among those
A family of officials and scholars.
After all, they control the raw materials and textile workers, and it is not realistic for the time being to completely exclude them, unless they allocate land to local tyrants.
Of course, it is not possible to ask those noble families and big landowners to take a step back and not give them some color.
Therefore, Zhu Cixiang first asked the cabinet to select some large landowners with the highest land rents in various places and bring them to justice.
If the land rent exceeds 80%, the property will be confiscated and beheaded, if the land rent exceeds 70%, the property will be confiscated and the property will be distributed, and if the land rent exceeds 60%, there will be no chance of taking the imperial examination.
Of course, the court was reasonable and could not punish these landlords and gentry by saying that the land rent was too high.
Instead, he used other excuses, such as being in a fish and meat village, causing harm to the people, etc. He believed that as long as he checked carefully, no landlord's butt was clean.
Then he secretly released the rule he set. I believe anyone who is not a fool will understand what is going on.
As for the officials and aristocratic families who control the mulberry fields, the price of raw silk can be increased, but it cannot exceed three times the previous price, and the female workers cannot be hindered from working in the workshops.
Moreover, cloth is not like food, it is also a commodity. As long as ten pieces of cloth are sold a year, it is equivalent to doing business.
"Brother Emperor, what if those big landowners don't agree?"
"Tell them that if they don't agree, they will cut down all the mulberry trees and plant food instead. Anyone who dares to destroy farmland in the future will have their homes confiscated and charged!"
Zhu Cixi waved his hand and decided to cheat a little bit. There was no other way. In ancient times, if you didn't cheat and be reasonable, you couldn't win against the landlords and gentry.