C1603 Smuggling networks (1/2)

People all said that opportunities were left to those who were prepared, but in reality, more opportunities were left to the lucky ones. The ancient people all said that luck value was very good, for individuals, it was called luck, but for a power, country, or race, this kind of heaven-defying attribute was actually national luck.

A distant eastern storm that had been swept up by Xiao Letian had brought along too many people and too many powers involved. Xiao Letian, like a great god who was holding a sh * t stick in his hand, stood at the edge of the clouds and used two toilet papers to cover his nose, and started to forcefully stir up the large fecal pit outside of the fortress.

As the dust settled and the stench rose up, more or less unknown secrets surfaced. More or less old memories began to flood into his mind.

Old Lin looked at the accounts in front of him. When he heard the account, which had a deathly pale face, he was completely dumbfounded!

Throughout the entire Great Qing Dynasty, the problem of corruption had always plagued people like a tumor. Other than the fact that the rectification system had eased a little during the Yongzheng period, the rest of the time were filled with corruption that only officials could compare with.

Collect bribes, seize property, exorbitant taxes... All of these were just child's play. Those truly capable people had long been involved in the more lucrative industries. That was trade, especially that of transnational trade.

Xiao Letian had said more than once, that the Ancient China's so-called ”closed off the country” was actually bullshit. Those officials who shouted ”closed off the country” used all their might to brainwash the Emperor about how scary the world outside was, they definitely could not just switch it off or else the mountain would become unstable.

No matter how smart the emperor was, he could not match the number of people around him. Thus, after the Ming Dynasty, the policy of closing down the country continued for two dynasties on and off. Overall, it was still more time for seclusion and less time for switching off.

In fact, the trading system of tribute is also a perverted system that has been forced out of the country's policy of seclusion. Because commercial trade is one of the driving forces of national progress, civilization itself has the desire to integrate with other civilizations, and commercial trade is the most effective means of communication.

The Ming and Qing Dynasties desperately suppressed their desire to communicate with the civilization, but they found that they could not suppress it either. In the end, they managed to force out a system of tribute trade.

Including the first Ryukyu, why was the Shimadzu Family not willing to destroy the whole country? In fact, the core reason was still within the tribute trading system. The Ryukyu possessed the right to trade with the Ming Dynasty, which was the Gold Book Iron Scroll that Shang Tai and the others had saved their lives.

A scam! It was all a scam!

It was undeniable that some of the Confucian Scholars and officials who said ”Shut up and seal off our country” were idiots who had their brains washed. However, there were even more influential people who said that they wanted to use this policy to make profits.

Xiao Letian was very rich, he had taken out his own money to raise a large number of professional archaeologists and Expedition, this was entirely Xiao Letian's personal interests.

Under the leadership of the archaeologists and historians, some of these rich Expedition went deep into the jungles of the South America, some went deep into the Euphrates River basin, some went into the ruins of ancient Egypt, and some went out to study the civilization of the Mediterranean.

Of course, most of it was still the archaeological work in China and Asia. Each year, Xiao Letian's spending on this little hobby would be between one million and one million and five hundred thousand silver coins.

During the countless number of times that Xiao Letian had spent overseas in archaeology, Xiao Letian had verified his guess that during the past two to five hundred years, the so-called locking down the country was just a scam.

The ultimate purpose of closing down the country is to seek higher benefits for the smuggling group! There were officials, nobles, mega-merchant, and all the other coastal landowner class s … They hooked up into a big net and tried to close the country down before engaging in lucrative smuggling.