Chapter 34503452【Abolish the clan】

Xiang Nan did not pay attention to the resistance of the feudal kings and clans.

 Because after Zhu Di rebelled and won the throne, he wanted to avoid having his throne taken away by other vassal kings. Therefore, after he succeeded to the throne, he began to continuously reduce the power of the feudal king and the clan.

 Deprive them of their right to protect, that is, their military power, and move them from the frontier to the interior in order to strengthen control over them.

After Zhu Zhanji succeeded to the throne, he continued to reduce the vassal status and formulated new regulations, which further weakened the power of the vassal king and restricted the personal freedom of the vassal king.

For example, the vassal king is not allowed to interfere in local administration; royal officials are not allowed to concurrently hold local official positions; the vassal king is not allowed to marry with relatives and nobles in the court; the vassal king is not allowed to come to Beijing on his own to pay homage; the vassal kings are not allowed to meet with each other; the vassal king is stationed in the fiefdom, You are not allowed to leave the city at will...

After a series of vassal reductions, these vassal kings and clans now only enjoy financial privileges, but their military and administrative powers have been deprived.

Without administrative power, they cannot influence the local area and can only bully ordinary people; without military power, they have no confidence to rebel.

In the eyes of the people of Li, they may be noble nobles, princes and grandsons. But in fact, in Xiang Nan's eyes, these vassal kings were just fat pigs raised in captivity and had no deterrent effect at all.

Xiang Nan now even wished that these vassal kings and clans were making more troubles, so that he could use this to deprive them of their titles, confiscate their fields, and expel them from the clan.

 In this way, the root cause will be eliminated directly.

Therefore, Xiang Nan subsequently issued an order to demote the vassal kings and clan members who were causing trouble, reduce their status, and confiscate their property. As for those vassal kings who raised troops to rebel, they directly dispatched troops to quell the rebellion.

The feudal kings raised their troops in a hurry, with few soldiers and incomplete armor. It can be said that they had no combat effectiveness at all.

 In fact, let’s not talk about them. During the Zhengde period, the Ming Dynasty’s military strength was greatly inferior to before, but after King Ning’s rebellion, it was still put down in more than forty days.

 What's more, the Ming army still has some fighting strength today. Moreover, Xiang Nan also had the ability to recognize people, and the generals he sent completed the task very well. In less than two months, all the rebels against the king were wiped out.

In the end, these rebel kings were executed on the spot, their fiefs were taken back by the court, and their heirs were stripped of their titles and clan status. From then on, they were no longer allowed to call themselves sons and grandsons of the dragon, but just ordinary people with the surname Zhu.

Those who rebelled were killed, those who cried in the temple and those who went up to the temple were also scolded. The other vassal kings and clans had no choice but to give up.

Those who have a family will eat from the family's wealth, those who have the ability will support themselves, and those who have neither a family's wealth nor ability will have no choice but to wait to starve to death.

 In any case, Xiang Nan had no affection or affection for these clans and vassal kings, and he had no sympathy for their plight. Even if they were in despair or starved to death, there would not be the slightest ripple in his heart.

In this way, Xiang Nan completely abolished the vassal king and clan, and also saved the court a lot of expenses. Not to mention anything else, the annual salary and lumi alone are enough to support hundreds of thousands of troops.

Xiang Nan happened to spend the money saved on armaments.

 …

 While Xiang Nan was cutting vassal vassals, merchants in the southeast also fought with Japanese pirates.

The reason is also very simple. After Xiang Nan lifted the maritime ban, merchants along the coast immediately spotted the business opportunities and built ships to go to sea to prepare for business with Nanyang. In fact, before this, although the imperial court banned the sea for a time, the merchants along the coast had never lost contact with Nanyang.

 Most of them make money through smuggling, and they even have a cooperative relationship with the Japanese pirates.

There are historical records: “In the early days of the Republic of China, unruly people from Guangdong, Guangxi, Zhangzhou and other counties fled to the sea to make a living.” “People who were close to the sea often traded incense and goods privately to lure barbarians into thieves.” There are many people on the island and I am fleeing to Zuo Kou"...

 However, the scale of smuggling will be limited, and it will inevitably be intercepted by the Ming Dynasty navy. Therefore, after the opening of the sea, most merchants choose to trade at the customs.

 In this way, it is legal and compliant. Although taxes have to be paid, they will no longer be intercepted or seized by the Ming Navy. More importantly, the larger the scale of the transaction, the more money will be made, so there is no need to cooperate with Japanese pirates.

 After all, since it is a legal business, why let the Japanese pirates get involved?

 The businessmen chose to part ways with the Japanese pirates and no longer let them take a piece of the cake. Naturally, the Japanese pirates were not willing to give up their interests, so the two sides began to have internal strife.

At that time, most of the businessmen in Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangsu and Zhejiang were two-faced. When they entered, they were merchants, and when they left, they were thieves.

Just like the great pirate Wang Zhi during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, he "purchased prohibited goods such as saltpetre, silk and cotton, and sent them to Japan, Siam, and Western countries for trade."

His subordinates could even openly buy and sell with the people on the streets of Suzhou and Hangzhou, and the people rushed to send their children to Wang Zhi's fleet.

At that time, Wang Zhi only the imperial court tacitly allowed him to open a "private market", that is, the maritime ban was lifted without knowing it, but it tacitly allowed him to do business in coastal, Japanese, Nanyang, and Western countries. Therefore, Wang Zhi vigorously helped the imperial court suppress bandits and pacified many countries. Japanese pirates and pirates harassed the coast.

Now that the imperial court has really lifted the maritime ban, in order to protect their own interests, those merchants have spontaneously organized armed forces to protect the safety of their ships and cargo.

 Just like a land-based trading company transporting goods, they will also be escorted by bodyguards. However, the sea is more lawless, and no one will care about killing people.

 According to the memorial received by Xiang Nan, from the opening of the sea ban the year before last to the present, the merchant groups formed by coastal merchants have fought dozens of battles with the pirates and Japanese pirates entrenched along the coast, and each has been at risk of life and death.

 But generally speaking, the business group is stronger and has a higher winning rate.

 The reason is actually very simple. Those who can do overseas trade are all local wealthy businessmen who take advantage of others.

Just like Shen Wansan, the richest businessman in the world in the early Ming Dynasty, he made his fortune by doing overseas trade during the Yuan Dynasty. The amount of money made Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor, jealous when he saw it, which shows what it is like to be rich.

 Furthermore, businessmen from Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong and Guangxi are relatively united. Every time they go to sea, they go together. Hundreds of ships left the port together, and the scale was extremely large.

In order to protect these goods from pirates and Japanese pirates, they will naturally spend a lot of money to hire strong men and equip them with advanced weapons to compete with pirates and Japanese pirates.

 And there must be brave men under the heavy reward. After the guards take the money, they will naturally be willing to risk their lives when fighting against Japanese pirates and pirates. As the saying goes, the brave will win when they meet on a narrow road. Those guards who dare to fight tooth and nail will naturally have a higher winning rate.

Unlike the Ming army, they all came from military households. Not only did they have no personal freedom, they were always bullied by their superiors, and they even lacked food, pay, and weapons. Therefore, even if they faced dozens of Japanese pirates, they would collapse at the first touch and have no fighting spirit, so they let Japanese pirates have been arrogant along the coast for many years.

 (End of this chapter)