Reborn Ming Dynasty as Emperor

Chapter 531 The Flourishing Opium Trade in the West
Zhu Youxiao could tell that Zou Yingquan, the imperial servant, was obviously addicted to drugs, so much so that he couldn't control himself and had to take two mouthfuls when he was in the court, and he didn't care what the occasion was.

Although there is now an internal factory, which is dedicated to cracking down on the tobacco and soil trade, which is gradually rising and spreading, so that it cannot be poisoned by the people, but it is inevitable that there will be a legacy among high-ranking officials.

In order to express his determination to strictly prohibit the trade and smoking of tobacco and soil, Zhu Youxiao wanted to pull out the minister of Taipusi and execute him directly without saying a word. This is still rare in this dynasty, even if he dealt with Donglin rebel There is no such example of beheading without going to prison first.

But now that the imperial prestige is in full swing, no one dares to disobey Zhu Youxiao's tiger beard.

Zou Yingquan's addiction had already broken out at this moment, he was trembling all over, hugging his head and hitting the ground, he didn't even realize that he was going to be executed by Zhu Youxiao immediately, even after Jin Yiwei pulled him out and pressed him to the ground, he was still like this, but Unexpectedly, an embroidered spring knife flashed by galloping like the wind, his head, which was full of drug addiction and shaking non-stop, immediately moved, and the person became quiet, and quietly closed his eyes.

This may also be a relief for him.

"Decree, in the future, anyone who smokes tobacco, whether it is an official or a civilian, will be executed! Those who sell tobacco will be punished with a higher crime, and their family property will be copied!"

Zhu Youxiao immediately issued such a decree, and ordered that all prefectures, prefectures and counties be promulgated immediately. among.

Because His Majesty wants to crack down on the sale and smoking of tobacco and soil, the internal factories that specialize in controlling the tobacco and soil trade continue to expand their scale, and have established offices in various prefectures and counties. All were captured.

In this way, there is no sign of smoke and soil flooding in Daming, but in the distant Europa, it is flooding because of the development of Daming's ocean shipping business.

A decisive battle between the Ming Fleet and the Western Combined Fleet in the South China Sea did not make the Western countries completely sever their ties with Ming, and perhaps they could not afford to do so, after all, they still depended on the huge market of Ming.

On the contrary, the exchanges between Ming Dynasty and Western countries became more frequent, and Jin Yiwei even sent offices in France, Holland, Great Britain, France, Prussia and other countries.

These Western foreign fans are also polite to the people of Ming Dynasty, they dare not neglect them, and are even very curious about the life of the people of Ming Dynasty. Basically, when the Jinyiwei's Ming clothes appear in the bustling market, they will attract a lot of attention, which is far away from their homeland. The failure of a naval battle on Java Island did not bring them much ethnic hatred, and the tea ceremony, music and excerpts brought by these Ming Dynasty guards also attracted a lot of fans.

However, according to the report of these Jinyiwei, the favorite of these Western fans is still the cigarettes produced by Daming, especially the king of tobacco - Meisheng tobacco.

Zhu Youxiao does not allow domestic sales and smoking of tobacco soil, but asks the Royal Academy of Engineering to help Meisheng Company set up a research institute to specialize in the development of various tobacco soil products.

The addictive rate of these chemically processed eyebrow cigarettes is dozens of times higher than that of traditional cigarettes, but the appearance is more beautiful, or it is shiny like white powder, or wrapped in exquisite paper rolls, which is no different from modern cigarettes, or it can be turned into pills. Even chicken intestine skin was tanned and processed into a coating to wrap granular drugs into capsules of the Ming Dynasty.

Even in order to attract these Western aristocrats to buy, they specially painted Western paintings on the small cigarette boxes, and even engraved one or two exquisite English letters under the Chinese characters. They all chose sentences from famous Western writers, and some even specially Let some Western princes do the endorsement.

In short, since the tobacco and soil trade cannot be carried out in the Ming Dynasty, the major surviving tobacco and soil merchants can only make money in Europe and other places by changing the law.

The current eyebrow smoke has already made the entire upper level of Europa a miasma. Many princes and dukes almost went bankrupt because of smoking eyebrow smoke. , causing several turmoil in the Europa countries that were about to enter their heyday and rise one by one.

William Lauder, who was appointed as Archbishop of Scotland by King Charles I of England, was lying on a soft couch with his mistress. This kind of soft couch was imported from the Ming Dynasty. Comfortable, but now this soft couch has become a place where he and his mistress smoke eyebrows.

William Lauder was only wearing a nightgown, lying on the couch, his bamboo pole-like legs curled up on the table, and he was smoking desperately with a silver pipe produced by Meisheng Company. His mistress was also a smoker. Like clouds and fog, the look on his face is more enjoyable than when he was doing the Wushan thing.

Coincidentally, even the queen of Charles I, the younger sister of King Louis XIII of France, Rietta Maria is no longer obsessed with equestrianism or gambling with one or two noble ladies. She now prefers to be with one or two noble ladies in her own manor, With good wine, beautiful boy, and beautiful cigarettes, one smokes for a whole day, and does not go back until the whole person wakes up from the daze.

Cromwell was born in a declining nobleman at the bottom of England. He was the leader of homesteaders and handicraftsmen. As a legendary historical figure who overthrew the Stuart dynasty and made great contributions to the constitutional monarchy in England, he naturally did not want to see his British Empire become This is what it looks like now.

Cromwell urgently expressed to Charles I through the Parliament the serious phenomenon and foreseeable terrible consequences caused by the opium flooding of the Great Ming Dynasty in the British Empire. There are no soldiers to fight, and there are no people to raise soldiers. The country will become more and more decadent, paganism will inevitably come back, and the British Empire will fall into division, civil strife and even perish. I implore King Charles I to be the future plan of the British Empire. and so on.

Seeing his wife getting thinner and his other royal children becoming insensitive, Charles I also felt the serious crisis brought by the flood of Ming Dynasty's opium soil to his dynasty.

Therefore, Charles I broke the rules and met the political rookie-Cromwell directly in his inner garden.

In fact, Charles I didn't like to see Cromwell, a political upstart who represented the interests of low-level farmers and handicraftsmen, because this person always opposed his frequent wars against sectarian unity.

And Cromwell did not have a good impression of this militaristic king, but now that the country is in crisis, he can only unanimously speak out.

After seeing Cromwell, Charles I was very moved by his demeanor, and he became more determined to ban smoking, so he directly named Cromwell Earl of Holderness and made him hold an important position. Opposed by other opium-addicted aristocrats, he specially allocated the Cromwell silver and ordered him to train a new army among the bottom-level yeoman and handicraftsmen and implement the policy of banning smoking.

(End of this chapter)