Song Dynasty: Yuan Dynasty, you didn't expect this, did you? I'm still alive.

In the spring of the ninth year of the Cheng'an era, Zhu Di's decree reached the ports along the coast.

Quanzhou, Songjiang, Guangzhou, and Ningbo—four cities—received the imperial edict on the same day. The content was identical: all goods from the Song Dynasty would be subject to a customs duty of 2,000 percent.

The imperial edict was written in a very formal style, but the meaning was very clear—it asked you to provide the machine, and you said it was difficult? Then don't do it!

Quanzhou Port, Day 5.

Su Jing came in person.

He's not here to pick up goods; he's here for a meeting.

The largest restaurant in Quanzhou was packed with people—compradors, local gentry, and several officials in plain clothes.

Su Jing sat in the main seat, read Zhu Di's imperial edict aloud, and then put it down.

"Gentlemen, that's the situation. The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty won't let us do business properly, so we'll have to find another way."

He looked around.

"From today onwards, goods from the Great Song Dynasty will no longer be transported through official ports. They will be transported through smuggling ports. Those of you present, if you have land, provide your land; if you have ships, provide your ships; if you have connections, provide your connections. Once the goods arrive at the smuggling ports, you will distribute and sell them yourselves. Customs duties—"

He paused, then smiled.

What is tariff?

Everyone at the table laughed.

After laughing, a middle-aged man in a blue robe raised his hand.

Su Jing recognized him; his surname was Zheng, and he was a judge in Chaozhou Prefecture, a seventh-rank official in charge of anti-smuggling.

An official in charge of anti-smuggling sat here listening to Song Shang explain how to smuggle goods.

"Master Su," Magistrate Zheng's voice wasn't loud, "I can turn a blind eye to the private port matter. But what if the imperial court investigates—"

"Lord Zheng." Su Jing interrupted him, pulled a piece of paper from his sleeve, and pushed it in front of Magistrate Zheng.

It wasn't a banknote. It was a land deed.

"A three-courtyard house outside Manila, Luzon Island. It has already been transferred to the owner's name."

Magistrate Zheng glanced down at the land deed, then looked up again.

That's not what I meant—

"There's another one." Su Jing pushed another land deed over.

Magistrate Zheng stared at the land deed, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"Master Su, I am an official of the Ming Dynasty—"

"You know Wang Jian, right?" Su Jing said.

Magistrate Zheng remained silent.

Wang Jian was the former prefect of Songjiang Prefecture.

He accepted a year's worth of silver from Su Jing, settled Su Jing's affairs for a year, and finally escaped on a Song Dynasty ship before the arrival of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.

This matter has already spread throughout the official circles along the coast.

When Zhu Di learned of his escape, he was furious and issued a warrant for his capture, ordering him to be wanted worldwide. Unfortunately, there was no extradition treaty between the Song and Ming dynasties, and the Ming dynasty's Imperial Guards could not enter Song territory to arrest him.

"Wang Jian is now the prefect of Sangzhou in the Great Song Dynasty." Su Jing picked up his teacup and blew away the foam. "Sangzhou (Tanzania, Africa), you may not have heard of it. With the money he made in the Ming Dynasty, he opened a gold mine there, and now it produces gold daily—"

He held up three fingers.

"Three ounces?"

"Three digits."

The table was quiet.

One hundred taels of gold. Daily output.

Magistrate Zheng carefully folded the land deed and tucked it into his robes. His movements were slow and steady, as if he were performing a trivial task. Then he looked up and said to Su Jing, "The goods have arrived. I will send someone to meet them."

Officials in the Song Dynasty were truly officials; they could not only engage in commerce but also mine.

This is like a lighthouse in the darkness.

Su Jing picked up his teacup and raised it towards him.

Two months later, Zhu Di's tariff decree became completely ineffective in the four coastal ports.

Goods worth one tael of silver in the Song Dynasty were subject to a tax of twenty taels.

Suddenly, the prices of goods in the Song Dynasty were on the same starting line as those in the Ming Dynasty.

But how could the officials and local gentry in the south, who had just experienced the wonderful things about Song goods, accept this?

Although the Ming Dynasty also had goods such as cloth, the economic benefits it brought were incomparable to those of the Song Dynasty.

Cloth in the Ming Dynasty was too expensive and could only be sold in the city.

The cloth in the Song Dynasty was so cheap that even farmers in the Ming Dynasty could afford it, which led them to abandon their own weaving and instead choose to buy Song cloth, freeing up their time and energy to focus on farming.

The potential market for Song cloth is more than ten times that of Ming cloth.

Then the benefits that officials and local gentry could obtain would be more than ten times.

Merchants from the Song Dynasty would not sell their goods in person in the Ming Dynasty, as this would take too long and would not be conducive to capital appreciation.

Therefore, Song Dynasty merchants simply transported goods to the port and then entrusted local compradors to handle the sales within the Ming Dynasty.

These compradors earned just as much money as the merchants of the Song Dynasty.

Most of these compradors were front men for local officials and local gentry.

People like Zhou Wenrui, who obtained sales agency rights solely through their connections with Song people, were a minority.

If you've always earned a thousand taels a month, that's fine. But if you can earn ten thousand taels a month for a period of time, can you still settle down and continue your previous business?

The answer is impossible.

As a result, Song Dynasty merchants and Ming Dynasty compradors bypassed Ming Dynasty ports and chose smuggling.

When the Ming Dynasty merchants saw that they had paid significantly less customs duties than before, they were overjoyed and told the Song Dynasty merchants that they should have done this a long time ago.

In the past, twenty Song Dynasty ships would dock at the official port of Quanzhou every month.

In the first month after the decree was issued, zero ships were dispatched.

Guangzhou Port: Zero ships.

Ningbo Port: Zero vessels.

Songjiang Prefecture was slightly better; it had one.

The ship's owner was a novice who didn't know the rules and docked at an official port.

At the entrance of the customs office in Guan Gang, a tax collector sat on the steps, basking in the sun.

They used to collect taxes until their wrists cramped, now they're so idle they keep a tank of goldfish in front of the government office.

Meanwhile, from Chaozhou to Fuzhou, from Wenzhou to Taizhou, private ports along the coast sprang up like mushrooms after rain.

Some private ports are natural harbors where boats can dock with just a few planks; others are fishing village wharves where fishermen move their boats to make room for Song boats; still others are simply barren beaches where boats cannot dock, so small boats are used to transport them ashore one by one.

These private ports had one thing in common: they had no customs offices, no government officials, and no trace of the Ming Dynasty.

When the goods arrived, the purchasing agent took them away and distributed them to local distributors, who then exchanged them for silver. The silver was then exchanged for banknotes, which were deposited into the Song Dynasty Royal Bank.

Throughout the entire process, the Ming Dynasty's national treasury did not receive a single penny.

In the spring of the tenth year of the Cheng'an era, Xia Yuanji, the Minister of Revenue, sat in his office and opened the financial report for the year.

He checked the tariffs first.

Hmm, not bad.

Customs revenue at Quanzhou Port has dropped by 100% compared to last year.

Songjiang Prefecture saw a 100% decrease.

Guangzhou saw a 100% decrease.

Ningbo saw a 95% drop—that 50% was due to a blind merchant ship owner who went to the wrong port.

Xia Yuanji closed the customs booklet, his expression unchanged.

With tariffs being increased, a tariff reduction was expected.

Since Song people no longer used official ports, customs duties naturally disappeared.

But it doesn't matter, the tariffs are lower, and local businesses can get tax refunds.

He opened the tax registers of the four coastal prefectures.

Ninety percent.

Hmm, not bad.

The increase of 90% in local commercial taxes along the coast is barely enough to make up for the deficit caused by the tariff increase.

and many more.

What does it mean to have dropped by 90%?

Tariffs have been reduced, and local business taxes have also been reduced?

Did the people of the Ming Dynasty become immortals, or did they all turn into wild men, barely clothed?

We won't buy cloth from the Song Dynasty, nor will we buy cloth from the Ming Dynasty.

He opened his eyes and placed the two booklets side by side on the table.

He picked up his pen and began writing a memorial to the throne.

He wrote very quickly, his thoughts flowing like a spring, his pen moving like a dragon and a snake, producing three thousand words in a long and flowing style.

From customs duties to commercial taxes, from commercial taxes to smuggling, from smuggling to private ports, and from private ports to the collusion between local officials and Song Dynasty merchants.

Finally, he wrote: "I believe that the Embroidered Uniform Guard should be dispatched to all coastal prefectures to thoroughly investigate private ports and punish them severely without leniency."

After finishing writing, he held up the memorial, blew on the ink to dry it, and read it from beginning to end.

Well written. Clearly organized, with solid evidence and explicit recommendations.

This is the best memorial he has written since becoming Minister of Revenue.

He was about to hand it to Zhu Di, but then stopped after thinking about it.

He was just a Ministry of Revenue official; what gave him the confidence to be so certain that local officials were smuggling?

Moreover, how many officials in the court are engaging in smuggling behind the scenes? If he exposes them first, wouldn't it be like a tree that stands out in the forest being felled by the wind?

What if he angers Zhu Di and gets his entire family executed?

"Forget it, forget it," he said to himself, using a southern dialect phrase he'd heard somewhere, "Let Chen Ying go scout ahead."

Alas, Xia Yuanji was such an idealistic and ambitious scholar back then, but who would have thought that after entering officialdom, he would become such a cautious and timid person.

He spread out a new sheet of paper and rewrote it.

He wrote the second memorial very slowly. He carefully considered the wording and the tone. Halfway through, he crumpled the paper and started over with a new one. When he had written two-thirds of it, he crumpled it again and started over once more.

The final version of the memorial was only three hundred characters long.

Only state the facts, without expressing opinions or suggestions.

Three hundred words, and nothing was said.

Xia Yuanji put both memorials into his sleeves and went to court.