It was a good situation just now, but because of Lu Xiufu's words, it made lightning and thundering, and everyone was embarrassed. Everyone knew that in the past two years, as the little emperor fully controlled the government's affairs, his majesty became increasingly powerful, and the army had been subdued by him, and from top to bottom he followed his horse's head. Seeing that his Majesty was annoyed, his hands were all on the hilt of the knife, I was afraid that the little emperor would take the action without hesitation if he had a wink.

However, everyone also felt that Lu Xiufu was a bit too much. I have just seen the situation here. It was very hard for the young emperor to personally train the new army. Isn’t the purpose of restoring the country? And His Majesty has promised to hold a lecture after finishing military affairs, but he was too hasty, which made him furious and even asked them to give lectures to Kublai Khan. Now he really became a stealing chicken but would only push His Majesty to the side of the warrior.

"Haha, everyone doesn't know that Your Majesty is extremely smart. You can recite the Analects of Confucius in three days on the epidemic ship that day, which shocked me. After that, the governor, Jiang Shangshu and Deng Jingshi, taught Your Majesty that they are great scholars of the world, and your Majesty's talent is changing with each passing day. The Four Books and Five Classics have been read through the various aspects, and the miscellaneous calligraphy and painting are also understood by other things." Liu Fu stood up and smiled, "Did Your Majesty be annoyed by these long ago, so he doesn't want to hold a lecture again?"

"Well, Governor Liu knows my intentions well. Don't talk endlessly about the same things!" Zhao Bing's expression was a little slow, and he looked at Liu Fu with a wry smile.

"Your Majesty, everyone has their own strengths, and what I have learned is not unbiased, and I have learned endlessly. Even if I have mastered ancient and modern times, I dare not say that I have learned one in ten thousand. Your Majesty should also learn the strengths of hundreds of schools. Don't just stop learning by learning!" Ying Jieyan also stood up and said.

He knew that when His Majesty arrived in Qiong, he proposed the policy of keeping his strength, training elite troops, and developing the economy. However, the defeat of the Dynasty forced him to give up the idea of ​​keeping his strength and maintaining his strength in advance, but this also made His Majesty's plan to train the new army stand. However, it was obvious that he did not give up this goal. He was making up for the lessons at the moment, and Lu Xiufu was obstructing the "doctoral business" such as opening a lecture. He really chose the wrong opportunity, which angered the young emperor.

"What the sir said is reasonable. I am impatient. I hope the mainland will not blame him. However, when we are in a great enemy, we must not delay the training of the new army!" Zhao Bing knew that these two were smoothing out for him, so he quickly went to the scene.

"I dare not, it's me who is reckless!" Lu Xiufu said hurriedly. But he suddenly realized that the little emperor was not an ordinary child. He had his own opinions and ideas, and it was definitely not a few good words or coercive words that could change his mind. Too much trouble would only make the little emperor more disgusted.

"Your Majesty, I have an urgent matter to report!" Seeing that the situation had eased slightly, but it was still quite subtle, the Maritime Command promoted Pan An and said.

"Pan Aiqing, please speak!" The Maritime Service is now another wallet in Qiongzhou. Of course, Zhao Bing has to pay close attention, so he has been hosted by Pan An.

"Your Majesty, the current trade wind has risen. A large number of merchant ships crossing the sea pass through the strait and head to the countries of Xiyi. They often stop in Qiongzhou to replenish goods and add water and pay taxes." Pan An reported.

"That's right, aren't these things very normal? Is there someone carrying private goods?" Zhao Bing frowned and said, not feeling anything unusual.

"Your Majesty said it is right. Because Qiongzhou's taxes are very low and the surrounding area is peaceful, many inland merchants will transport goods directly to Qiongzhou and then trade with foreign merchants. Some even docked in Qiongzhou as early as last year to trade with inland merchants, so as to save a lot of taxes." Pan Anyan said.

"Isn't we implementing lower taxes to attract foreign merchants and inland vendors to trade in Qiongzhou?" Zhao Bing even more strange. Pan An was not a sloppy person, so why did he say something inexplicable today?

"Your Majesty, I found that there was an Ordo merchant ship among the ships that came to trade." Pan An said.

"Otu merchants?! Are the guys who are lending usury for the Tartars?" Zhao Bing frowned and asked back.

Zhao Bing knew that the Mongolians were developed in the inland Mongolia, and the resources were not abundant, and the basic living materials needed were traded by merchants. Since the Genghis Khan period, Mongolian nobles provided their own bank and entrusted Zhongya Musuman merchants to run business. Otu was a special commercial act during the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty. Its essence is that the capital of this kind of commercial activity came from Mongolian princes and nobles, and the operator was the Western Seme merchants who were called Hui people at that time. There are two main ways of operating this kind of business: one is to lend money to usury; the other is to sell goods from a distance.

Odu issued usury and used the official principal to collect high interest silver from it to maintain military expenditure and obtain luxury goods. It can be said that it was lending under the order. In the early days of Mongolia, the annual interest rate of usury was 100%. The next annual interest rate was converted into principal and resurrected. A ten-year store of silver could have a total of 1,024 ingots of capital. This predatory exploitation was called "lamb interest" at the time.

The pursuit of Otu's money debt will be very harmful to the residents. If the debtor is unable to repay it, he will have no property, or even lose his wife and children. The Mongolian Khan even stipulated that Otu was stolen or robbed and cannot solve the case within one year, and local residents will compensate for it. If compensation is not paid in time, it will be used as a debt and forced to pay "lamb interest". Otu's money debt has caused many households and even some local officials to go bankrupt, and fell into a situation where the wife sells her wife and his wife are not enough to repay the debt, causing serious social problems, comparable to the modern donkey rolling.

After entering the Yuan Dynasty, the royal family, concubines, and kings continued to develop. Due to various reasons, their status was very special. In addition, at that time, people were often divided into households according to occupations. The government ordered officials and businessmen to establish special household registrations for the Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imperial Imp

The merchants of Otuo continued to contribute rare treasures and large amounts of money and goods to the Yuan court and the kings, and of course they also received special protection. The Yuan government also repaid various privileges for Otuo. These officials and merchants held imperial edicts and orders, and could use post stations to lay horses and provide food and food. They either carried military weapons or had official guards. The goods could be tax-free. The boats were yelled and beat drums, and they did not pass by forcibly according to the time when the river opened the gate, and they beat the gate guards at any time. These privileged merchants bought salt to induce and bullied warehouse officials.

In addition, the Otu merchants also used public service to private funds to operate and make profits, making extra money. The Otuhu often did not serve as a servant, enjoying the same or similar preferential treatment as monks, Taoists, Li Kewen, Tashiman and other clergy. Judging from their responsibilities, they were similar to Zhao Bing's procurement office, but they all operated secretly and would never dare to do it blatantly, which made him admire Kublai Khan's "talent" and dared to be enemies of the world for money.

Although some court officials repeatedly stated that Otu was disturbing the people and harming the government and temporarily abolished the Otu organization, Otu usury business was an important source of exploitation income for the Yuan Dynasty's government, the royal family and the princesses. Soon it was restored and expanded its business scope and authority. Kublai Khan became the emperor. Due to years of conquests and long-term conquests, the country began to operate a large-scale "official-based" business. It was also one of the root causes of sharp social contradictions in the Yuan Dynasty.

"Your Majesty said it is right, but now there are differences. The thief chief ordered the dispatch of Otuke as a special envoy to overseas vassal states to purchase goods for the royal family and collect tributes. They also took the opportunity to sell goods for profit from it." Pan An reported.

"Oh, they are still Shanghai merchants now!" Zhao Bing nodded. He thought that it would take several years before Lu Shirong implemented the official ship to appear, but he did not expect that these Otu merchants had already become trade representatives of the Yuan Dynasty, foreign companies agents and import and export companies at the same time.

"That's true, many Otu merchants come to Qiong for trading!" Pan An knew that the young emperor was a good man to make money. Of course, he had some understanding of these Otu merchants, so he would be much simpler to speak. "Your Majesty, who I remember, once said that if you want to defeat the Tartars, you must not only kill their generals, but also destroy their economic foundation, so that they cannot be unable to fight. Therefore, I think that those Otu merchants are serving the thief chiefs and collecting wealth from the world. If they are detained, they can cut off their way to make money!"

"Well, Pan Aiqing said it well. These Otu merchants were all the tools of the Tartars to make money. Detaining them was equivalent to cutting off their financial path!" Zhao Bing was very relieved when he heard this. The most important thing was that some people in the court could understand their strategic intentions.

"Then I immediately ordered all the enemy ships in the port to be seized!" Pan An immediately asked for his order.

"Let me think about it for a while!" Zhao Bing waved his hand. He wanted to think about the pros and cons of it to get the greatest benefit. When the others saw the little emperor knocking on the case lightly, they naturally stopped talking, but they all looked at him with a steady attitude.

"Since we want to do it, we have to let it go." Zhao Bing pondered for a long time and slapped a few times. "The capital held by these Otu merchants is official and has a special yamen, which means they belong to the pseudo-dynasty. We can regard them as enemies, not only to seize their ships and goods as enemy funds, but also to intercept them at sea. They are not allowed to pass through the straits, and those who force pass through will sink them!"

"Your Majesty, if this is the case, wouldn't it anger the enemy chief and attack Qiong again?" Xu Zongren said with some concern when he heard this.

"Shangshu Xu, now our Qiongzhou is strong and powerful. As long as they dare to come, they will have no return!" Jiang Yu retorted without waiting for the emperor to answer.

"What Secretary Jiang said is right. We cannot worry about the enemy's attack just because we just seized their merchant ships. Otherwise, how can we talk about restoring the country?" Lu Xiufu was very supportive of this and said.

"What Lu Prime Minister said is that we have just repelled the land of the offensive Qiong and sent troops to attack the enemy's hinterland. Nothing is more important than seizing several of their ships. If we are worried about the enemy's revenge, how can we talk about restoring the country?" Liu Fu said unsatisfiedly.

"Your Majesty, I am not thinking that this is my intention. I am worried that it will attract the attention of the enemy chief and then strictly prevent it. I will not allow merchant ships to arrive in Qiong, so that our dynasty will greatly reduce tariffs, which will affect the income of finance and taxation!" Xu Zongren did not expect that his words would actually arouse the opposition of the ministers, and quickly explained.

"Shangshu Xu's words are not unreasonable, but whether this matter is bad or good depends on how it develops. But I think we cannot allow the enemy country to gain benefits from us just because of this, and we cannot allow the enemy to enter and exit our door at will because of small profits." Zhao Bing said.

"Your Majesty is wise, I am short-sighted!" Your Majesty made things happen for him, and Xu Zongren was naturally grateful and bowed to his mistake.

"Shangshu Xu doesn't have to do this. We monarch and ministers discuss matters just to speak freely. We can speak out directly if we have any opinions. Is the reason the more we argue, the more we become clearer?" Zhao Bing raised his hand and helped him down and said slowly, without any intention of blaming him.

Although Zhao Bing thought about the time when intercepting the Otu merchant ships that seized the Yuan court, he also analyzed the pros and cons. From the moment he saw, a large part of the goods operated by Otu were gold, silver, jewelry, precious fur, gold, brocade, grosgrain and other luxury goods for the royal family and nobles to enjoy. He could make a fuss at first, and he would be reasonable in any aspect of the attack on the enemy merchant ships and would not arouse opposition. However, this year the Yuan court would inevitably lose a lot of financial resources, and a group of Mongolian princes and nobles led by Kublai Khan would also feel heartbroken. Thinking about their furious appearance, they were already very happy.

In the long run, the Yuan court's finances are very dependent on the fiscal revenue hosted by the Semu people. Although the Silk Road from the Western Regions to Eurasia was reopened by the Mongols, Kublai Khan and the Mongolian kings had already turned against each other due to the Khan throne, and all parties were in a state of hostility and were actually cut off, so they rely more on maritime trade to maintain their financial needs. Blocking the strait by themselves forbidding their official ships was equivalent to robbing one of their money, which would inevitably lead to a sharp drop in their fiscal revenue.

Zhao Bing certainly understood that "cutting off people's wealth is equivalent to killing parents" that Kublai Khan would definitely not give up and would definitely try to retaliate, but he must also understand that several defeats in naval battles have made Kublai Khan understand that with the strength of his navy, it is difficult for him to cross the Qiongzhou Strait. The most likely thing to be to block the southeast coast, and take Chameng and Annan as soon as possible, cut off Qiongzhou's connection with the outside world, and strive to trap them on an isolated island.

However, Zhao Bing was not worried about this, but hoped that this would be the case. At that time, he could not bear it and formally promoted these Otu merchants. Don’t underestimate these people. They managed financial resources for the Mongolian Yuan, and their tentacles had already penetrated into all aspects of the Yuan court, and had won over many Mongolian princes and nobles, and had the strength to influence the direction of the court and determine the country’s policy.
Chapter completed!