With the implementation of the secret folding system and the on-site supervision of the supervision team, the advancement of the one-whip method has been greatly accelerated.

 First of all, the supervision team is all imperial envoys, with great power and on-site supervision and guidance, so officials dare not shirk responsibility and act perfunctory; secondly, the implementation of the secret system has caused officials to be wary of each other, watch out for each other, and supervise each other.

 Originally, local officials and gentry were all vested interests, and they united with each other to fight against the New Deal. But now the imperial court implements a secret report system, allowing officials to directly submit reports to the emperor. Moreover, reporting is rewarded and exposing is rewarded.

As a result, they can no longer unite and focus on the outside world. This effectively dissolved their alliance and led to their split.

 This also leads to a reduction in resistance and greatly speeds up the advancement of the New Deal.

 …

 When the courtiers' attention was focused on the New Deal, the border trade was also opened.

 On the mutual market, you can buy all kinds of goods, even the iron pots that were banned in the past are among the goods for sale.

However, these iron pots are all made of Guangzhou Iron, which is iron produced in the south. This type of iron is relatively brittle and thin, so it is not suitable for forging weapons.

 The most important thing is that buying an iron pan is not free, you need to replace it with a used iron pan. Otherwise, vendors selling pots and herdsmen buying pots will be severely punished.

 After the opening of the mutual market, trading was very prosperous. Merchants from the Central Plains and herdsmen from the grasslands came to the mutual market to do business. Naturally, the imperial court could also collect a large amount of taxes in the mutual market. It is very necessary to replenish the national treasury.

Xiang Nan is not worried about whether the opening of mutual markets will have the effect of benefiting the enemy and causing the Oara and Tatars to invade the Central Plains.

 Because the Khan of the Oara tribe was assassinated in the fourth year of Emperor Jingtai's reign due to internal strife in the tribe. After Ye Xian's death, Wala did not have a strong leader, so it gradually declined and split into the Dulbert tribe and the Junggar tribe.

As for Tatar, it was first suppressed by the Oara and the Ming Dynasty. Later, after the decline of Oara, Tatar was still in a state of chaos. It was not until 1480, after Dayan Khan succeeded to the throne, that Tatar experienced a brief resurgence.

 Therefore, in today's desert, neither the Oara nor the Tatars have enough strength to invade the Central Plains. At most, they only have a few groups of cavalry harassing the border.

The purpose of their harassment was to force the Ming Dynasty to open up mutual markets, so now that Xiang Nan has opened up mutual markets, they naturally stopped harassing them.

However, Xiang Nan also knows that once Oara and Tatar develop, they will inevitably march into the Central Plains, so he is in urgent need of strengthening his strength.

 The construction of steel plants and the implementation of the New Deal are for this purpose.

 …

 In addition to the opening of borders to each other, overseas trade along the southeast coast also began.

During the reign of Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty, he once ordered a ban on the sea, which was known as "No one is allowed to enter the sea."

 The reason for this is, firstly, that the overseas trade policy of the imperial court at that time was very strange, and it adopted a tribute trade system. It means that foreign envoys come to China with their ships, carriages and horses to carry out trade on the premise of paying tribute.

Since foreign envoys paid tribute, the Ming Dynasty, as a large country, naturally had to return gifts, and the gifts they received in return were several times or even dozens of times more than what they received from paying tribute.

As a result, foreign businessmen frequently pretended to be envoys and came to the Central Plains to pay tribute and do business. It also caused the Ming Dynasty to suffer extremely heavy losses in foreign trade transactions and simply could not make ends meet. Therefore, the court did not allow foreign envoys to come to the Central Plains to pay tribute.

 Another reason is that in the early Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates were prevalent along the southeastern coast and were powerful. In order to prevent coastal traitors from colluding with Japanese pirates, Zhu Yuanzhang issued a decree prohibiting people from going to sea privately.

However, Xiang Nan knew that overseas trade actually had more benefits than disadvantages for the Ming Dynasty.      Once you come to overseas trade, you can make money. Chinese tea, silk, porcelain, cloth, etc. are very popular overseas. And gold, silver, jewelry, and spices from overseas are not good things for the Central Plains.

 Secondly, overseas trade can also promote cultural exchanges. Now that the Age of Discovery has arrived, European navigators are exploring the entire world. In half a century, they will discover the American continent.

 At that time, the vast American continent will provide them with a large amount of arable land, population and wealth, allowing them to grow rapidly.

As for the Japanese pirates, they are nothing more than a disease caused by mustard moss.

 The reason why it is difficult to eliminate them is not actually because of how powerful the Japanese pirates are. If they were really powerful, they wouldn't be reduced to pirates.

 In fact, most of the Japanese pirates were disguised as common people in the Ming Dynasty.

 Because of the imperial court's maritime ban, coastal people lost their livelihood, so in order to survive, they participated in smuggling and cooperated with Japanese pirates to raid coastal towns.

Wang Zhi, a great pirate during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, started his career through smuggling. He gathered his gang and Japanese pirates, established himself as king at sea, and traded with merchants from Japan, Portugal, and Spain. His business was very large.

Local people rushed to send their children to Wang Zhi's command and join him in the smuggling business. Therefore, the real culprit of the Japanese pirate rebellion is the forbidden sea.

As long as the imperial court lifts the maritime ban and allows merchants to go to sea to do business, those Japanese pirates will not even be strong enough for merchants to kill.

Just like the Taiping Rebellion in the late Qing Dynasty, more than a million people participated in the rebellion, but in the end they were defeated by the Tuanlian Hunan Army and the Huai Army organized by the landlords.

No matter how many Japanese pirates there are, they are still incomparable to the Taiping Army. Therefore, if they dare to block the way of wealth, Xiang Nan believes that there will be no need for the court to send troops, and those businessmen will stop working.

Therefore, Xiang Nan set up customs in Guangdong, Quanzhou, Mingzhou, and Hujiang, opened the ports, allowed merchants to do business abroad, and prepared foreign businessmen to do business.

However, the location is limited to these four cities. Without an edict issued by the court, you are not allowed to leave the four cities at will to facilitate management.

 …

 Opening up border trade was also a new thing for the Ming Dynasty.

Although there were some objections from the courtiers, their voices were not loud. The reason is very simple. Opening up markets to each other, although it can be considered a violation of the ancestral precepts, does not touch their interests after all.

 But the "One Whip Law" is closely related to their interests. Just one of them, "quantifying the acres of land," would offend many people.

After all, in the Ming Dynasty, once a scholar was admitted, he could be exempted from the tax on eighty acres of land; if he was admitted as a civil servant, he could be exempted from the tax on four hundred acres of land; and if he was admitted as a Jinshi, he could be exempted from the tax on two thousand acres of land.

Therefore, once one is admitted to be a scholar, a scholar or a scholar, a large number of villagers will come to donate, hoping to put the land in their name.

 Because of the mutual protection of officials, the fields under the names of many juren and jinshi actually far exceeded the scope of the pardon. But because they would all be officials in the future, the local officials pretended not to know.

In this way, these officials and gentry will not pay taxes, and the common people will have to pay more taxes.

If the court inspects the land, their affairs will not be concealed, so they vigorously resist the "one whip law" and are not so particular about opening up mutual markets.

 But in fact, mutual trading is what Xiang Nan wants to do most.