Emperor Chongzhen, in his quest to raise funds, set his sights on maritime trade. Theoretically, the pie of maritime trade is limited in the short term. If he were to take a slice, others would receive less, thereby damaging the interests of the vested parties.
Who were these vested parties? In the late Ming Dynasty, ocean trade was largely monopolized by merchants from Guangdong and Fujian. They grew incredibly wealthy yet refused to pay a single tael of silver in taxes to the Imperial Court. This was something Emperor Chongzhen could not tolerate, so he decided to wage war against these merchants.
However, the merchants of Fujian and Guangdong were not fighting alone; they were backed by their powerful clans, the gentry, and local officials. Emperor Chongzhen’s imperial authority could not touch them. He had initially hoped to defeat them through commercial competition and take a share of the profits, but he had underestimated the financial power of the Fujian merchants. The pirate group led by Zheng Zhilong, in particular, could easily produce millions, or even tens of millions, of taels of silver to support one another. Under their counterattack, the Jiangxi merchants led by Zhang Tongchang were defeated. Not only did they lose hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, but the confidence of the Jiangxi merchants was utterly shattered.
Chapter 697