Lu Jiude secretly remembered Zheng Cai's appearance, opened his mouth to appease the arguments of everyone in the hall, and then said: "Your Majesty has a preliminary plan for the military salaries of all of you after being recruited, as well as the military salaries of all the Daming Water Divisions in the future. The first is to allocate a fixed amount of money from the newly opened coastal city shipping companies in various places; Second, His Majesty decided to select from among you and the sailors from all over the country who were unfit to fight, and set up an overseas trading company, with a part of the profits from the trade as the military salary of the sailors; Third, in the future, the Daming Naval Divisions of the southeastern provinces will be unified under one yamen, and the responsibilities of the Daming Naval Divisions will no longer be limited to guarding the southeastern coastal areas, but will control the seas between Japan in the north and Southeast Asia in the south. All merchant ships sailing in this sea area must pay taxes to our Ming Dynasty, and merchant ships that do not pay taxes will be the target of our Ming sailors. All smuggling merchant ships that do not pay taxes will be seized for auction of goods and vessels until the taxes are sufficient. Fifty percent of this part of the income will be left by the water division, and the remaining fifty percent will be handed over to the state treasury..."

Lu Jiude said a lot, but after Zheng Zhilong heard that Chongzhen planned to use the Daming Navy Division to collect taxes at sea to fill the military salary, he knew that the general trend had gone. Collecting taxes on merchant ships at sea was a plan that Zheng Zhilong had been thinking about for a long time, but he was not strong enough now, so he could only shelve this tempting plan.

Zheng Zhilong, who was familiar with maritime trade, certainly knew what a huge source of revenue it would be to collect taxes on merchant ships in this area. However, Zheng Zhilong still asked with the last trace of luck: "I don't know how Your Majesty plans to collect taxes, is it only those merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty?" ”

Zheng Zhilong secretly prayed in his heart that the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty had better retain some moral bottom lines and not be so ugly like a pirate like him.

Zheng Zhilong's question made Lu Jiude pause, and after he coughed a few times, he said in a slur manner: "Ships below 200 materials, ships between 400 materials a year, and ships above a year are 3,000 taels a year." Your Majesty said that the territory of the Ming Dynasty is not only on the land, but also in the territory of the Ming Dynasty, so as long as you enter the territory of the Ming Dynasty, you must pay taxes to the Ming Dynasty. ”

As a Confucian-educated eunuch of the Ming Dynasty, Lu Jiude felt very awkward in his heart when he said this. Since ancient times, gentlemen have not spoken of profit, but this Chongzhen Emperor put interests first as soon as he came to power, and he didn't know whether this was a good thing or a bad thing.

If Lu Jiude was allowed to accept bribes, he would not be so embarrassed, but talking about money made him feel that he didn't want to be a eunuch, and he was a bit like a businessman.

However, Lu Jiude knew that this envoy was his performance, and if he messed up the task given to him by the emperor for the first time, with his understanding of His Majesty, it was estimated that it would be difficult to trust him again.

With this errand, Lu Jiude was acting with 120,000 vigilance. And things have developed so far, and they have been quite victorious.

Lu Jiude's words did not make these pirates despise the emperor and love money too much, but made these pirates quite resonant. For them, an emperor who loves money is more suitable for dealing with than an emperor who talks about morality all day long.

Zheng Zhilong was finally discouraged, he knew that he could only endure it for the time being, the conditions proposed by this Chongzhen Emperor were too difficult for these pirates to refuse. If he continues to entangle, he may arouse the disgust of the eunuchs around the emperor, which is not a good thing for Zhao'an's officialdom career after Zhao'an.

Although Zheng Zhilong wanted to control this sea and monopolize the foreign trade of the Ming Dynasty, he still didn't have any idea of dividing the land after all. For him, getting a high-ranking guerrilla general, and then returning to his hometown in fine clothes, has fulfilled most of his life's wishes.

If the imperial court is as pedantic and mediocre as those civil officials in Fujian, Zheng Zhilong doesn't mind building an independent kingdom of his own on the sea, but there is an emperor like Chongzhen in the imperial court who only sees real benefits and does not admire false fame, Zheng Zhilong immediately put away his careful thoughts.

"No matter what, the Ming Emperor will never come to the sea. As long as he still has the name of these ships, he will still have the opportunity to control this future Ming Sailor after all. Zheng Zhilong thought relaxedly.

Seeing that Zheng Zhilong and the others no longer continued to ask, Lu Jiude couldn't help but wipe the fine sweat on his forehead. However, Zheng Zhilong, Lu Jiude and others didn't notice that Cai Shanji's face had become very ugly.

As for what Lu Jiude said, occupying the sea to collect road taxes, this scholar was extremely ashamed, and he thought that this idea must not have been thought up by Emperor Chongzhen, who was only 16 years old.

Maybe it was a cronie eunuch next to the emperor, in order to curry favor with the emperor, he simply lost the face of the Ming Emperor.

"The Ming Dynasty ruled the world with benevolence and filial piety, which occupied the sea and collected taxes by force, which is simply unheard of. If this matter spreads, will Da Ming's face still be raised in front of overseas feudal states? Cai Shanji thought hatefully that after going back, he would inevitably write a letter of advice to stop the emperor's absurd behavior.

"Just sent a Wei Zhongxian, and an unknown eunuch will come out immediately, my generation of scholars really has a long way to go, and the current affairs of the Ming Dynasty are really difficult." Cai Shanji took a sip of tea to hide his gaffe.

In this conversation, Lu Jiude was completely singing a one-man show, and often the pirates raised a question, and Lu Jiude had already thrown out the whole solution, or the principle of doing things.

Compared with Lu Jiude, who had been prepared for a long time, although Zheng Zhilong's side planned to recruit An, he did not consider the detailed conditions after Zhao'an at all, so the momentum of the conversation was completely suppressed by Lu Jiude.

These pirate leaders, who originally had a little contempt for the white bearded little eunuch, thought that this talk of Zhao'an was just a formality, and after they went ashore to become an official soldier, what did they want to do, could those remnants of the defeated soldiers in Fujian still be able to stop it?

When Lu Jiude explained in detail all the rules and regulations after Zhao'an, these pirate leaders first confirmed that the imperial court really wanted to recruit the leaders of Zhao'an, rather than sending them to the vegetable market to be beheaded.

The second point is that according to the classification of the court's recruitment conditions, not only those strong young people have been resettled, but even the old, weak, sick and disabled and their families have been properly resettled. In this way, once they go ashore and become officers and soldiers, they will not want to incite these low-class pirates who have been guaranteed to live again, and then follow them to the sea to be pirates.

As a result, the pirate leaders, who had been a little perfunctory in the negotiations, began to seriously discuss each article one by one.