In March of the 28th year of Jiajing, Zhu Houxi's crown prince Zhu Zaili, who was the king of Yu, was made the crown prince in accordance with the order as the third son. Due to Sejong's superstitious Taoist priest's saying that "the two dragons do not meet", he was extremely indifferent to Zhu Zaikun. On the contrary, it was King Jing Zhu Zaizhen who was deeply favored by his father and was high-profile and extravagant. The new crown prince Zhu Zaikun was trembling and cautious. In December of the forty-fifth year of Jiajing, Ming Shizong died, and Zhu Zaikun, the king of Yu, ascended the throne and changed the Yuan Longqing to Ming Muzong.
In the first year of Longqing, the governor of Fujian, Tu **, asked to open to the outside world and change private sales to open sales. Soon after, the Yuegang of Zhangzhou Prefecture in Fujian Province was opened, and a supervision hall was set up as a place of governance, which was responsible for managing private overseas ** and collecting taxes. In the same year, Zhu Zaikun announced the lifting of the sea ban, adjusted the overseas ** policy, and allowed private people to sell the east and west oceans, known as the "Longqing switch" in history.
At the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, Emperor Hongwu, out of objective needs and limited vision, ordered that "not an inch of board is allowed to go to the sea". In the "Da Ming Law", it is even more stipulated:
If the traitors and the military and civilians build illegal ships with more than three masts without permission, they will take the prohibited goods to the sea, go to the country to buy and sell, sneak into the pirates, conspire to gather, and plunder the good people as a guide, and the offender will be punished according to his own law, and he will still show his head to the public, and the whole family will send border guards to fill the army. He built the sea ships mentioned in the previous paragraph, sold them to those who made profits, and compared them with those who went to sea with forbidden weapons, so they leaked the law of military affairs, beheaded the leader, and sent the army to the servant.
In the second year of Jiajing, two tributary missions of the Japanese vassal marquis broke out in Ningbo over the issue of tribute qualifications, resulting in many innocent Chinese people being killed or taken into captivity. It was also this incident that made the upper echelons of the Ming Dynasty generally believe that "the trouble of the Ming Dynasty began in the market", so they implemented a more stringent maritime ban policy.
Undoubtedly, under such a policy, private overseas ** is regarded as an illegal act. However, the trend of the times cannot be stopped by manpower. As a result, the non-governmental overseas ** was forced to embark on the road of abnormal development. The above-mentioned speculation about the composition of the "Nanwa" is also part of the development of deformity.
After Mu Zong succeeded to the throne, he finally realized that "if the city is general, the Kou will turn into a businessman, and if the city is forbidden, the business will turn into a businessman." As a result, the policy of prohibiting private overseas ** is no longer prohibited. At that time, the products of the Ming Dynasty were silk fabrics, porcelain, tea, ironware, etc., which were the most popular among all countries. Many countries, especially Western countries, due to the lack of products that can meet the domestic needs of the Ming Dynasty, had to pay for the purchased Ming Dynasty goods, resulting in a large inflow into China.
In Mr. Wang Yuxun's article "The Trial of the Amount of Domestic Mining and Foreign Inflow in the Ming Dynasty", it was mentioned that from 1567 to 1644, the total number of overseas inflows into the Ming Dynasty was about 330 million taels, equivalent to one-third of the total amount of production in the world at that time. It can be seen how significant the historical event of "Longqing Switch" is.
But a large amount of ** that flowed into the Ming Dynasty was actually just a rare metal, not wealth in itself. After hundreds of millions of ** flowed into the Ming Dynasty from overseas, they neither created new value nor promoted innovation, but were concentrated in the hands of a few businessmen and magnates.
* The excessive inflow of goods has caused the price of goods and the cheapness of silver. This makes land and real estate** incredibly expensive and simply unaffordable for ordinary people. The quality of life has declined further. Merchants and magnates used the ** they hoarded in their hands to buy real estate and annex land. Prices in the market are further inflated, and inflation follows. At the same time as domestic prices rose, the external ** began to shrink, and the impetus for overseas ** to flow into the Ming Dynasty began to decline.
In the early years of Wanli, Zhang Juzheng implemented the "One Whip Law". It stipulates that the land endowment, forced labor and other miscellaneous levies shall be one in total, and the silver taels shall be collected together and paid according to the conversion per mu. After the implementation of the "One Whip Law" in the early years of Wanli, it did work quite well, not only increasing the financial revenue of the imperial court, but also simplifying the cost of tax collection and alleviating the economic crisis.
In the Chongzhen Dynasty, the phenomenon of insufficient inflow was even more obvious. However, because of the "one whip law", the tax needs to be converted into **. The peasants had to ** crops in exchange for copper coins, which were then converted into silver taels to pay taxes. At this time, the price of silver has become the most important, and the taxes of the peasants have become even heavier. The tax collection was not even, and the arrears became even more serious, and the treasury of the imperial court was greatly reduced, and it was unable to pay the military salaries of Liaodong and the military expenses for the extermination of the peasant army.
From the current point of view, the "Longqing switch" itself is an open policy, and this reform should not produce such great drawbacks. Why did this attempt by the Ming Dynasty raise so many problems? After a closer look, I figured out the following reasons:
1. Restrict the opening of ports and modes of transportation
The Yuegang in Zhangzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province is the first port to be opened to the public, and it is also the only one engaged in foreign trade for the private sector. Therefore, the civilian merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty that did not dock at Yuegang were regarded as smuggling as long as they were found to be engaged in foreign trade. In addition, the imperial court also stipulated that foreign trade goods landed from Yuegang were not allowed to be transported by sea, and imported goods could only be transported by water through rivers, lakes and canals after being transported inland by land. The reason why the imperial court made this provision is not difficult to understand. At that time, communication was extremely inconvenient, and only by restricting the number of open ports and the means of importation could foreign trade be ensured to be carried out under the control of the government.
2. Restrictions on people participating in foreign trade:
The imperial court stipulated that the owners and crews of ships engaged in foreign trade in Yuegang could only be Fujianese. Once it is found to be a citizen of other regions, it is also considered smuggling. This provision made it impossible for businessmen in Zhejiang, who were also commercially developed at that time, to participate overseas**. The imperial court made this decision to facilitate management. Letting as few people as possible deal with "outsiders" was the mainstream idea of scholars at that time.
3. Deadline:
The most direct way to limit the time for merchant ships to go out is to limit the distance to the sea. This regulation made Chinese maritime merchants afraid to engage in ocean voyages, and had to advance along the coast. As a result, the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty did not have the enthusiasm to open up ocean routes, and the farthest in Southeast Asia was to trade with Arab and European merchants and transfer goods back to China.
4. No trade with Japan:
At the time of Jiajing and Longqing, our overseas profits in Japan were the highest. However, the imperial court did not allow people to go to Japan without permission**. Of course, this was not only because Japan was at odds with the Ming court, and the imperial court was worried about the private sector selling intelligence and arms to Japan. It is more likely that it is due to the fact that there are fewer copper ores found in ancient China and relatively more in Japan. The upper echelons of the Ming Dynasty wanted to firmly grasp the biggest cake and did not allow the people to interfere.
5. Agricultural empire and ** concept:
It has to be said that as a super-large agricultural empire, the Ming Dynasty was self-sufficient. The common people mainly exchanged with foreigners for some furs, ironware, wine, dried fruits, seeds, glass products, etc. It can be seen that many of these things are not necessities. When everyone is not rich, they naturally don't have much desire to consume imported things.
Therefore, mainland residents are not too interested in whether the switch is or not. People who read poetry and books have always adhered to the concept of "** country", and they are not too interested in Western firearms and machinery. This concept lasted until the late Qing Dynasty, when it was possible to realize the "strong ships and guns" of foreigners.
Conclusion:
We often talk about "closing the country to the outside world". In fact, "retreat" and "seclusion" are two different things. "Closing the country" is common, but "retreat" only began in the Ming Dynasty. For the ancient regimes, man was the primary productive force. The more the population, the stronger the country. In order to avoid population loss, it is necessary to adopt a policy of closing the country. However, "retreat" is rare in China, and the ancient Maritime Silk Road has already taken shape during the Warring States period. The establishment of the first ** centralized dynasty did not hinder the development of this trend. Qin, the second died, and Han succeeded him. It not only opened up the Silk Road, but also strengthened the ** with the outside world. It was not until the beginning of the Ming Dynasty that Zhu Yuanzhang banned foreign trade, and the "closed-door" policy officially appeared on the stage of Chinese history.
"Despite many restrictions and drawbacks, Longqing switch has finally broken through the shackles. Due to the limitations of concepts and visions, this reform has gradually become deformed. For example, the Ming court, fearing population loss, imposed various restrictions on the need for sailors for ships. Once a large number of sailors fled or died during the sea voyage, the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty did not dare to return to China, so they could only settle in Southeast Asia.
This move by the Longqing Dynasty is the right direction for China to modernize. It's a pity that people can't see the fog at the time, and only use the "switch" as a mitigating agent for contradictions with the people, which eventually leads to deformity. What is even more regrettable is that even with this historical event, after the Qing army entered the customs, not only did it not learn a lesson, but on the contrary, it carried out even more frenzied ideological imprisonment and constantly strengthened the "retreat" policy. The famous "Thirteen Lines of Guangzhou", on the surface, seems to be larger in scale of foreign trade, but in fact there are more restrictions. is even more afraid of "Yiren". In the end, after the two Opium Wars, it was forcibly pried open and the "sea ban" was opened.
Mu Zong only accounted for a short period of 6 years in the more than 200-year history of the Ming Dynasty. In the past few years, there have not been many major events for the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, even in the historical monographs of the Ming Dynasty, there is little mention of this emperor. What's more, he only paid attention to the study of his "palace secrets" - because according to legend, he died of excessive intercourse. But his experience has not been uneventful. If Zhu Zaikun's experience is like the sea, sometimes he roars wantonly, overwhelms the mountains and seas, and sometimes he is hideous and unprosperous. Then he is a flat boat in the sea, swaying and like a bleak yellow leaf in the autumn wind, experiencing the confusion of life and the hesitation of death, and seeing through the warmth and coldness of the world.
Throughout the successive emperors of the Ming Dynasty, except for Renzong, the Mu clan was the most humble. Although he was not favored by his father and emperor since he was a child, he was not loved by powerful ministers, but he was still quiet and forgiving. Thanks to this, ministers have plenty of room to pursue their ambitions. Under the auspices of Xu Jie, Zhang Juzheng, Gao Gong and other cabinet ministers, Longqing can be called a great rule. "History of the Ming Dynasty" praised Zhu Zaikun for "being a widow and a widow, and being thrifty". Perhaps the "switch" was a last resort at that time, or perhaps Emperor Longqing himself did not realize how much impact this move had on future generations. But I have to say that it was this benevolent emperor who was pro-virtuous and willing to delegate power that created the "Longqing switch".