When the official offices in the capital had been sealed and on vacation, Chongzhen was still as busy as ever. It took him a day and a half to finalize with the representatives of the Maritime Merchants Association the goals for the development of the region for the next year.

Xu Xinsu was in charge of exploring the seas north and east of Japan, and naturally no one objected, after all, it seemed to be just a wild and snow-covered place.

However, for the operation of Southeast Asia, Zheng Zhilong, Yang Tiansheng, and Liu Xiang all wanted to focus on themselves, but Liu Xiang himself was not present after all, and Liu Peng, as the representative of Liu Xiang's forces, obviously lacked prestige and was soon excluded from the battlefield.

Although Zheng Zhilong used to be the chief of the "Eighteen Zhizhi" and now holds the title of patrol envoy in the Taiwan Strait, Yang Tiansheng, who is more senior in the Minnan merchant group, obviously has no weaker prestige among maritime representatives than him.

Zheng Zhilong, who did not have the full support of the imperial court, naturally could not suppress Yang Tiansheng at the meeting. However, under the auspices of Chongzhen's residence, the two sides finally reluctantly reached an agreement.

It is bounded by Palawan Island, Borneo Island, and Riau Islands, and the west of this line is under the jurisdiction of the Ambuna Town Guard, and the east of this line is under the management of the Taiwan Strait Patrol Office. It is also agreed that if there is a dispute between the two parties, it must be arbitrated by the maritime association, and no private fight shall be carried out.

When the two sides encounter a challenge from a strong hostile force in their respective jurisdictions, they shall provide support, but the supported side shall give appropriate compensation to the supporters.

In addition, the two sides also promised that they had the duty to protect all ships and personnel belonging to the Ming Dynasty that sailed and did business in the waters under their jurisdiction. However, they also gained the power to inspect and collect taxes on ships sailing in the area under their jurisdiction, and could confiscate and fine goods prohibited by the imperial court.

For Zheng Zhilong, bringing under his jurisdiction Manila, Makassar, and Batavia, Southeast Asia's richest trading cities, has largely achieved its goal.

Yang Tiansheng was satisfied with the acquisition of the Strait of Malacca and the monopoly of the Indian saltpeter business, as for Li Kuiqi and Zhong Bin, although they could not confront these two forces, they also obtained the appointment of the governor of Palawan and the governor of West Borneo from Chongzhen. This can be regarded as the official recognition of the political status of the two by the imperial court, and they are no longer regarded as members of Zheng Zhilong's group, which makes them very excited.

As for Liu Xiang's side, since he was not present in person at the two meetings, even the maritime representatives felt that Liu Xiang did not seem to have departed from the pirate idea of occupying the sea as the king, and was a little too perfunctory for the imperial court.

Although Chongzhen did not criticize Liu Xiang, he only reiterated at the meeting that Liu Xiang was in charge of the Guangnan Sea, and it seemed that Liu Xiang's power had not changed compared to the beginning of the year, but in other meetings where the maritime sphere of influence had developed greatly, no change was equivalent to being weakened.

Liu Xiang's representative, his younger brother Liu Peng, was quite uneasy about this, but after the meeting, he was called by Chongzhen to appease him for a while, telling him not to worry too much and continue to develop the construction of Hong Kong after he returned. However, at the end of the conversation, Chongzhen also hinted to him slightly, asking him to persuade his brother to report more to the court on the situation in Annam and Cambodia, and not to be a mountain king.

Liu Peng was still very moved by Chongzhen's personal comfort, he felt that compared to his ** dictatorial brother, His Majesty the Emperor listened to his opinion more, which couldn't help but make him complain a little about his brother.

Liu Peng swore to Chongzhen that he would definitely make his brother change his mind and be a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty, rather than the leader of a group of overseas savages. Even, he told Chongzhen that even if his brother had other thoughts, he himself would be loyal to His Majesty.

Although Liu Peng's honesty surprised Chongzhen, it also made him very happy, Chongzhen not only greatly praised Liu Peng's actions, but also gave him the power to play a special game, so as to avoid the interference of Guangdong officials, so that the imperial court could not know the real situation in Hong Kong.

Although when the resolution of the maritime association came out, the representatives of all parties felt quite satisfied, but Xu Xinsu, Zheng Zhilong, Yang Tiansheng and other maritime leaders knew that this resolution was just a permission from the imperial court for them to develop maritime power, and if they really wanted to turn this permission into power, then it would take a long time to operate, and even shed blood.

With two days to go before the New Year, Chongzhen finally appeared at the merchants' congress, and after nearly half a month of bickering, these merchants finally reluctantly reached several agreements.

Among them, at the beginning of the year, they did not agree to implement, using a business license to stipulate the scope of doing business, large transactions must be transferred through the bank, and the principal of the business is used to distinguish between limited liability firms and unlimited liability firms.

At the beginning of the year, the merchants believed that these clauses restricted the merchants' freedom to buy and sell, violated the ancient adage of not revealing wealth, and that money placed in banks could be forcibly taxed by the imperial court.

Today, however, they feel that they may be able to use these clauses to scare away some competitors, or to set a barrier for certain industries to reduce commercial competition.

Although the proposal to restore the past customs was rejected because of the opposition of the majority, the majority of businessmen believed that the vehicle and vessel use tax should be appropriately collected as a maintenance fund for the maintenance of canals and roads, and that supervision over the taxation of goods should be strengthened to prevent some illegal businessmen from attacking the rights and interests of legitimate businessmen through tax evasion.

The illegal traders these businessmen are obviously not small smugglers who take the wrong path, but businessmen who accept the protection of officials and do not pay taxes or pay less taxes.

For these requirements, Chongzhen naturally will not object. At the meeting, he also vigorously praised these merchant representatives and made a correct example for the Ming merchants.

It was at this meeting that Chongzhen also awarded a medal to 34 businessmen in recognition of their contributions to the victims of the disaster in Shaanxi and Zhejiang in the past year, saving the lives of many victims.

The medal is made of enamel and has a royal blue medal with the words "Wind of Benevolence" on it. In addition to the medal as a recognition of the good deeds of these merchants, Chongzhen also announced that the merchants who received the medal had the right to directly submit letters to themselves in addition to political power such as not bowing to officials.

Of the 34 merchants, 12 were awarded to the representatives of the merchants who were present, and 22 were awarded to local merchants. The 12 business representatives who received the medal were naturally ecstatic, and the business representatives who did not receive the medal were also quite excited, and they seemed to have found a goal other than making money.

Of course, the merchant representatives brought Chongzhen not only benefits, but also things that made him feel headaches. The southern cloth merchants agreed that the widespread use of machinery in the cotton textile industry should be restricted, and they believed that the large-scale use of machinery would rob the southern people of the industry on which they depended for their livelihood.

In addition, many merchants in the inland provinces, after seeing the long description of overseas trade profits in the Ming Times, were also eager to devote themselves to overseas trade.

However, these merchants have no way to come, second, they do not know anything about the situation overseas, and third, the shipbuilding industry is now in the hands of several maritime groups, and after the development of the sea ban, it is too late to build their own ships, and they are willing to build ships for these inland merchants and compete with themselves.

Zhu Youzhen naturally did not approve of the suggestion to restrict the use of machinery, but in order to appease these powerful cloth merchants in the south, he still made some concessions.

For example, it was agreed to establish a cotton cloth market in Shanghai, and the price of standard cloth in Beijing sold in the south of the Yangtze River within three years was determined by the agreement between the Jiangnan cloth merchants and the Beijing cloth merchants, and the annual price reduction of various types of cloth should not exceed 3% of the previous year. Based on the number of Beijing standard cloth sold in Jiangnan this year, the annual sales growth rate does not exceed 25%.

Since less than 10,000 pieces of standard cloth were sold in Jiangnan this year, representatives of businessmen expressed their willingness to accept it. However, Zhu Youzhen quickly warned the merchants that these protection clauses were limited to three years, after which the imperial court would no longer interfere with the free trade in cloth.

Therefore, the textile industry in all parts of the south of the Yangtze River should introduce all kinds of textile machinery in the capital as soon as possible, and negotiate a production standard with the textile merchants in the capital, so as to unify the price and sales, and avoid unpleasant conflicts between each other again.

Although they did not fully meet their expectations, they were relieved to be able to get a three-year buffer period. Although some people are still counting on three years to come, some are already planning to go back this time with some textile machines and mechanics.

As for the requests of many merchants who were eager to participate in overseas trade, Zhu Youzhen said that the imperial court would definitely find ways to assist merchants from various provinces to participate in overseas trade.

However, in view of the fact that there are not enough ships in the Ming Dynasty, there are not enough captains and sailors who are familiar with the routes, and most people do not know anything about the situation overseas, if they rush into overseas trade, they will obviously lose all their money.

Therefore, he suggested that the merchants of each province should first establish an overseas trade operation company to be responsible for the import and export trade of the province, so as to concentrate capital and reduce unnecessary competition; Second, it can also concentrate resources to develop overseas markets.

The emperor's proposal naturally aroused everyone's interest, and what made them even more interesting was that the import and export company was only responsible for trade and sales in the domestic and foreign markets, and did not have to handle the intermediate shipping affairs on its own.

In this way, the disadvantage of these merchants who were not familiar with maritime affairs was avoided and they could concentrate on dealing with foreign merchants. Not having to pay for the maintenance of ships and crews can undoubtedly greatly reduce the cost of overseas trade.

After all, in this day and age, the idea that you need to have a ship if you want to trade overseas is deeply ingrained. But with the exception of the East India Company, a commercial conglomerate backed by state power, ordinary private traders did not have the capital to support a vast merchant shipping network, nor did they have so many goods to meet the needs of the end market.