Zhao Ming arrived in Nanjing on a boat and got ashore at the pier outside the city.

"Regent!" A group of officials in Nanjing stood on the dock to greet him.

Zhao Ming nodded slightly, "Go back to the city first, don't affect the merchant ship's docking."

At that moment, Zhao Ming got on the carriage and returned to the Regent's Mansion surrounded by many guards.

Zhao Ming took a shower first, changed into regular clothes, and came to the reception hall. Several major scholars had been waiting in the hall for a long time.

"Regent!" Everyone stood up to welcome him.

Zhao Ming waved his hand, walked straight to the main seat and sat down, and smiled and said, "Sit all! Let everyone wait for a long time."

Several senior officials sat down and the maid served the tea. Du Yinxi asked, "What did the Regent find out about this inspection of Jiangnan?"

Zhao Ming said in a deep voice: "I inspected several palaces and found that the problem of unsalable cloth in Jiangnan is quite serious. Many workers are unemployed, and the court must solve it as soon as possible."

The cabinet has long understood these issues, and Du Yinxi said in a deep voice: "I have discussed it before and found that this problem is indeed difficult to solve. The sales of Jiangnan cloth are mainly divided into two parts, one is internal sales in the Ming Dynasty, and the other is sales overseas. Now the workshop has reduced production, workers are unemployed, and the income of employees who work in the work is also decreasing, and internal sales are naturally sluggish. The overseas market has been declining in recent years. Since last year, due to the conflict between Yanping and the Dutch, and Li Chengdong went to war with the Spaniards in Dongzhou, the merchant ships of these two countries will no longer go to the Ming Dynasty, which can be said to have a sharp decline in sales."

Zhao Ming nodded slightly, he had basically understood these situations.

Most of the country are self-sufficient small peasant economy. Most people do not buy workshop cloth, but instead they will weave some local cloths themselves and sell them on the market.

The people who had consumption capacity in the Ming Dynasty were mainly urban residents, military personnel, and farm workers. The cloth was now unsold, affecting all walks of life and industry upstream and downstream, causing the city's military and civilian income to decrease, and farmers could not get raw material money, which led to a sluggish domestic demand.

In the overseas market, in addition to the war between Zheng Chenggong and Li Chengdong and the Spanish fighting with the Spanish, which affected trade, it was mainly due to the rise of Western handicrafts.

After all, when the textile technology is similar, the transportation cost of Jiangnan's cotton cloth and exported to Europe is too high, resulting in the price of cotton cloth five or six times higher than that of Jiangnan when it arrives in Europe.

Such prices will naturally have no competitiveness in the face of the rising handicraft industry in the West and will gradually be driven out of the market by Western capital. In the end, there may be only a few high-end silks and sales channels, while mid- and low-end cotton cloth will be replaced by textiles from Britain and other countries.

Zhao Ming nodded slightly: "This problem is difficult to solve, but the court must find a way to overcome the difficulties."

Several senior officials whispered to each other, and Du Yinxi asked: "What solutions are there after the Regent inspector?"

Zhao Ming said in a deep voice: "Solving this problem is to expand domestic demand and expand overseas markets."

Everyone nodded slightly, and they also knew that there were only these two methods, otherwise they would be able to recruit unemployed people and go to the border to cultivate land and open up the territory.

Zhao Ming continued: "These two square images will also be the specific direction of the court's policy next year."

The Grand Secretary hurriedly saluted: "Please give me a message!"

Zhao Ming is now at its peak of prestige, and undoubtedly from the emperor. Under normal circumstances, the cabinet scholars dare not object to Zhao Ming's opinions. Even if they have any different ideas, they will only express them in a more tactful way.

Zhao Ming was quite satisfied with this. It was not that he wanted to make arbitrary decisions. This was also a test to see whether the conditions for reform were ripe.

Zhao Ming explained: "First talk about expanding domestic demand. First, the court will support the bottom, purchase a batch of cloth, and reward the army. Secondly, the treasury issued bonds, renovated the national pass, cleared the canal, built water conservancy, and gave the people wages. Finally, the Ministry of Industry came forward and joined hands with major silk weaving workshops to study new textile technology, improve looms, improve cloth quality, and reduce production costs. The Ming Dynasty was vast, and many people in many places produced their own local cloth and did not buy Jiangnan cloth. This was not that Jiangnan cloth was not good, but that the people could not afford it, which was not cost-effective for them. Therefore, while the court increased the income of the people through various projects, and urged the workshop to produce products of good quality and low price, it would inevitably make more people buy factory cloth."

Du Yinxi and others nodded. If the Ming Dynasty had tens of millions of people, if Jiangnan cloth was used, the existing production of the workshop might not be enough.

However, they knew in their hearts that it was impossible to squeeze homemade cloth out of the market. If they had a population of 30% of them, it would be nice to buy Jiangnan cloth.

"As for expanding the overseas market," Zhao Ming continued: "The court must do a good job. For a long time in the future, the reality that Western-Japanese procurement will gradually decrease."

Du Yinxi said: "Your Highness, since the opening of the sea, the overseas sales of Jiangnan cotton cloth have accounted for the majority. Among them, Spain and the Netherlands have purchased the most. If the Western barbarians no longer purchase in the future, the overseas market may shrink!"

The Netherlands is known as the sea coachman. In the past, it turned the door to buy Chinese goods and then sold them all over the world.

However, now that the Netherlands is in decline and Britain is rising, and Britain has its own handicraft industry, it is unlikely to come to purchase Ming Dynasty cloth.

For more than a hundred years, most of the silver that Spain has dug in the Americas has flowed into China, making it the largest buyer of Chinese goods overseas.

Now, Spain and the Ming Dynasty have completely gotten into evil, and the Ming Dynasty has also lost this market.

Without these two Western barbarians, the overseas trade of the Ming Dynasty did shrink very significantly.

Zhao Ming suddenly asked, "New Year is coming. Are the envoys from Japan and South China countries coming this year?"

Everyone was stunned for a moment, and Dai Zhijun saluted and said, "Report to Your Highness, the envoys from all countries have arrived one after another."

Zhao Ming nodded and said in a deep voice: "The East Asian market is actually very large, but it has not been fully developed and opened up. I am ready to establish a Pan-Asian military and economic alliance dominated by the Ming Dynasty tribute system, integrate the countries around the Ming Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty, and form a huge market at the same time!"

These concepts in Asia have been introduced by Zhao Ming with the exchanges between the East and the West. Some names have been used, while others have used the names given to the world by the Ming Dynasty.

Pan-Asianism is a trend of thought that emerged in Asia after the rise of the West.

Sun Yat-sen once proposed that, however, China was too weak at that time and obviously could not lead this trend of thought. Later, Japan was used to build a tide. However, Japan was too small and did not care about the feelings of Asian countries, which brought disaster to both China and North Korea.

Later, when China developed and gained strength, it began to develop the China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Zone. Once these three countries formed an economy, they would become the largest economy in the world, and American imperialism naturally did not do it.

Therefore, whenever the China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Zone makes little progress, either the Diaoyu Islands cause trouble, the Sino-Japanese conflict intensifies, or the large-scale protests broke out due to the problems left over from the invasion of Japan and South Korea.

Under the interference of US imperialism, Pan-Asianism and the East Asia Free Trade Zone are still far away.

However, at this time, the Ming Dynasty was the overlord of Asia, and the Western Barbarians had not yet penetrated their tentacles into East Asia. Zhao Ming was fully capable of establishing a Pan-Asian alliance dominated by the Ming Dynasty to fight against the rising Western countries.
Chapter completed!