However, Zhu Youzhen did not take the quarrel that occurred at the Ming Merchants' Congress to heart. Now the merchant representatives everywhere are like a group of crabs in a crockpot, they pull each other's hind legs, so that no one else can climb out of the crockpot, and they no longer want to negotiate interests with the court as they did at the beginning of the year.

And because of the businessmen's congress, a place where businessmen can speak out, this year's Jiangnan businessmen's enthusiasm for sponsoring scholars has also dropped a lot. Jiangnan merchants took out a lot of money to subsidize those poor scholars, or invested in academies and literary societies in various places, the main purpose was to make these scholars their mouthpieces and oppose the imperial court's increase in commercial taxes.

Now that there was a merchant congress, a place where tax rates could be negotiated with the imperial court, many merchants immediately curtailed or cancelled their investment in the literati. This behavior naturally aroused the resentment of the literati from poor families, and although the gentry from good families were not affected, their protection of the interests of merchants gradually caused conflicts among the scholars.

Jiangnan Shilin has always forged a very special relationship with the merchants. The scholars despised the status of the merchants and despised the various sinister acts they played in order to earn money.

But on the other hand, these scholars accepted the gifts of those wealthy merchants with peace of mind. Before they entered the official career, they often persuaded the local officials not to be too strict with the implementation of commercial taxes, and for the imperial court, they shouted that the taxes were too heavy and that they should reduce taxes. After entering the official career, he proposed policy changes to the emperor from the interests of merchants.

For example, the abolition of the Kaizhong Law seems to have caused the state to increase the salt tax on the surface, but the corruption of the grain reserve system of the border army has made the salt tax collected not enough to supplement the normal expenses of the border army. After the repeal of the Kaizhong Law, the combat effectiveness of the Ming border army began to decline rapidly, and the treatment between family members and ordinary soldiers became a world of difference.

As a result, a strong army that often suppressed the attacks of the nomads had to shrink the defense line significantly, and after the turtle retreated to the Great Wall, the offensive defense of the Ming Dynasty against the steppe peoples before Chengzu was completely collapsed. This change in defensive posture relieved the Mengyuan forces that had fled to Mobei and reappeared in the Monan area.

Later, the Mongols not only seized the entire Mongolian plateau again, but also extended their power to the edge of the Great Wall, and had several sieges of Beijing.

Therefore, when officials collude with businessmen, they can no longer see what the interests and safety of the country are, and they only think about the little money in their pockets.

And the reason why those businessmen were despised by the scholars and literati, and they had to smile and give them a lot of money for holding literary meetings and playing, was precisely because this was a lucrative business.

The reconciliation of the gentry and merchants eventually created such a huge political force as the Donglin Party. However, unlike the British, most of the new aristocrats who led the political reforms in England were merchants dressed as aristocrats, so their reforms fully represented the interests of the merchants, and eventually eliminated the feudal landlord class.

But within the political power of the Donglin Party, the merchant was just a cow providing money, and it was the gentry who still dominated the situation. The Donglin Party would defend the economic interests of the merchants, but would never improve the political status of the merchants, because it would obviously threaten their own power and status.

So this is also why, after making a fortune, Jiangnan merchants wanted to change their doors and promote themselves from merchants to the gentry class. And because of this upward channel, the merchant class has never been able to make its voice heard with the strength of the whole and demand to improve its political status.

This is also why, Jiangnan's commercial economy is on the eve of the industrial revolution, but it has never been able to take the last step. Because the passage through which the merchants were promoted to the gentry was like a pressure relief valve, constantly transforming the inflated power of the merchants into the power of the landlords and gentry.

In this situation, the wealth accumulated by the merchants was not transformed into a new source of wealth, namely industrial capital. Instead, he threw himself into the land market and turned himself into a member of the feudal landlords. The emergence of new landlords inevitably began with the seizure of land by yeoman farmers and small landlords.

That is, as long as there are yeoman farmers and small landlords whose land can be taken away, then there will be no lack of upward channels for merchants, and then commercial capital will not be diverted in other directions. However, according to the historical practice in China, the peasants who lost their land reached a certain level, and the peasant uprising that changed the dynasty should have begun. This is also the fundamental reason why the Ming Dynasty was unable to produce the Industrial Revolution naturally.

For Zhu Youzhen, the combination of the Jiangnan gentry and commercial capital not only hindered the transformation of production relations. The most important thing is that the power of such a political group is too large, and the Jiangnan region is almost becoming a country within a country.

He was not a Manchu Qing Dynasty, and he could use force to clean up the entire population of Jiangnan, and then plan and develop Jiangnan's economy and politics according to his own requirements.

As a result, he had to give the merchant class a chance to raise their voice and elevate their political status in the form of a merchant congress.

When a group of landlords and gentry who were regarded as money slaves suddenly raised their voice, their first reaction was not to hear what they had to say, but to be enraged to eliminate it immediately. This has always been the case, present and future.

To be honest, with the character of a Ming merchant who covets comfort and is self-exclusive, he will certainly not be the opponent of the landlords and gentry who unite under the banner of Confucianism.

For example, just like now, for a little economic gain, businessmen everywhere are already almost tearing their faces at the meeting. Many radical businessmen even clamored for the restoration of the water barriers, and that the merchants in Jiangnan should not be allowed to ruin the livelihood of the local peasants.

While refuting this statement, Jiangnan merchants proposed a ban on north-south shipping, on the grounds that the freight of shipping was too low, so the goods on the Grand Canal were now decreasing, resulting in the unemployment of many laborers who depended on the canal for their livelihood, which was really a major factor in the instability of Jiangnan.

Of course, some businessmen hope to ban all kinds of textile machines developed in Beijing, they think that the use of machines for weaving not only damages the interests of Jiangnan weavers, but also deprives many small people of the opportunity to make a living.

Naturally, the merchant representatives of the North scoffed at such remarks, and they immediately cited examples to prove that the development of textile machinery in Gyeongseong not only provided the South with a large amount of cheap cotton yarn, but also absorbed the jobs of thousands of victims of the Gyeonggi disaster and fed thousands of families.

On the other hand, grain merchants in Huguang and Guangxi strongly demanded that the import of rice from all parts of the South Seas be banned, or at least tariffs should be raised, so that the grain would not hurt the peasants. However, this proposal was quickly rejected by merchants at various coastal ports, for whom the low price of rice determined the price of wages.

The hoarding of grain merchants has not only led to an increase in labor in other industries, but also caused a depression in the market, which has essentially harmed everyone's interests. Thus, as soon as this proposal appeared, most of the deputies, who had just quarreled, united to wage war against the grain merchants.

All kinds of controversies such as this not only made the merchants' congress a good place for the people of the capital to watch the excitement, but also caused a large number of officials to write to Chongzhen one after another, demanding that this naked and open competition for interests should be banned, and at least they should be driven out of the capital.

Zhu Youzhen was not surprised by what happened to the merchants' congress. These business representatives only restrained themselves from expressing their opinions with their tongues, which can be regarded as very civilized. Even in the modern society of later generations, those who claim to be educated representatives of the people do not hesitate to wave their fists for the sake of profit, so this little noise is nothing.

What made him more pleased was that in the past year, the number of donations from merchants from all over the world to the academy was less, but they donated funds to build hundreds of new schools. And Jiangnan Shiren, who have always spoken out for the interests of businessmen, have a much quieter voice. In this way, the relationship between the Jiangnan gentry and the merchant class is no longer as close as before, which is indeed a good phenomenon.

Now that his plan has already begun to take effect, why should he interfere with it? Regarding the officials' letters, Zhu Youzhen adopted the method of staying in the middle school. In response to the noise of the merchants' congress, he sent only two brocade guards to the chairman of the delegates elected by the congress, allowing him to expel the irrational delegates from the meeting hall when he saw fit and maintain the normal order of the meeting.

Chongzhen himself, on the other hand, focused on the congress of overseas traders and merchants that was being held, and on the negotiations with the Spaniards.

Compared with domestic commercial taxes, tariffs and profits from overseas trade are the indispensable sources of capital replenishment for the Ming Dynasty. It is also the largest amount of wealth in Chongzhen's hands every year. In the short term, the status of this income looks unshakable.

The agreement with the Spaniards was also important, as the world's sources of precious metals were Japan in the East and the Americas under the control of the Spaniards.

Before the construction of overseas raw material production areas, the flow scale of precious metals restricted the scale of overseas trade of the Ming Dynasty. Because the Ming Dynasty imported too few materials and exported almost infinite goods, under this huge trade surplus, almost all trade objects had to fill the gap with precious metals.

According to the research theory of later scholars, it is precisely because of this endless trade deficit that Europeans began to improve their labor efficiency, thus triggering the great process of the industrial revolution.