The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 44: Was the negotiation a little too easy?
Zhu Jianxuan wrote down his thoughts and put them in a drawer for two days, mainly to let his mind clear.

I took it out again two days later and made some minor revisions and added some details.

Then he took his plan to the Qianqing Palace and gave it to his father, the emperor, for evaluation.

After reading it, the emperor asked uncertainly:

“Are you planning a national power structure or writing a business cooperation agreement?

"What can a king do that requires him to sign a law with the local authorities and specify the remuneration?"

Zhu Jianxuan smiled and said:
“Americans are mainly businessmen and farmers, and the ones who actually have the say are mainly businessmen.

"So dealing with them using the same approach as negotiating with businessmen may be the most efficient way."

The emperor still found it hard to accept:

"Are you really going to promise to completely ignore these eleven so-called free states?
"If they don't ask you to sign the law at all and don't give you any power, what can you do?"

Zhu Jianxuan said with a smile:

“If nothing unexpected happens, they will take the initiative to find the king and the royal court and hand over some of their power.

"In the political atmosphere of the United States, how much power a king or other ruler can obtain is basically affected by only two factors.

“One is how much power is given to the king or ruler, and how much additional benefits the king and ruler can bring to them.

“Second, if the king or ruler is not given certain powers, what risks and threats will they face.

“The benefits may not be easy to assess, but the threats are very intuitive.

“To give a very basic example, if several Free State merchant ships were hijacked by pirates in the Mediterranean.

“And these pirates were quite powerful, like the Barbary pirates in North Africa.

"Except for Britain, France and Spain, all other merchant ships that want to cross the Mediterranean must pay protection fees.

“These American free states are definitely not going to win, and they are no longer British, so what should they do?
“After years of debate and discussion, they finally decided to give money to the king to build a navy.

"Let their king take the fleet out and beat up these pirates, so that he doesn't have to pay protection fees, right?"

The reason why Zhu Jianxuan says this now is because this kind of thing happened in the original history.

The year was 1784, the year after Britain recognized the independence of the United States and the year after American merchant ships were no longer allowed to fly the British flag.

An American merchant ship was hijacked by Barbary pirates in North Africa.

The Americans exhausted all diplomatic means and struggled for ten years, but finally had to pay a ransom to get the crew back.

Both the French and the Spanish advised the Americans to just pay up.

But it is not just the first ransom that needs to be paid. A protection fee of one million US dollars must be paid every year to ensure that American merchant ships will not be hijacked again.

This figure is as high as one-fifth of the US federal budget.

The U.S. federal government is powerless.

The federal army had only 780 people, and the federal navy had only one 74-ton sailing ship, which was funded by Washington himself.

In the end, in order to avoid having to continue paying protection fees to pirates, the states decided to set aside funds to build the U.S. Navy.

The key was the decision to authorize the US president to command the Navy to operate outside the United States.

The power of the US president began to expand.

The Ming Emperor knew about the Barbary pirates, and he immediately understood:

"If it were the pirates in the Mediterranean released by the Ottomans, the free states of the United States would really be helpless against them.

"The Americans must unite and build a navy large enough to be able to avoid paying protection fees to pirates.

"The king will thus obtain the funds to build a navy and the power to command naval operations.

"If there is a threat in the future that they cannot resolve without unity, the power of the king and his government will continue to increase."

Zhu Jianxuan would like to add that the continuous expansion of the power of the Emperor of Shenzhou and the constant division and integration of the northern nomadic tribes should actually have a lot to do with the existence of the other party.

However, the topic of Shenzhou's imperial power was very sensitive, so Zhu Jianxuan was very tactful and did not say it directly:
"So, my condition should be more easily accepted by the Americans.
“They must now feel that they don’t need the Royal Government to do anything, and the most they can do is spend money to buy a noble title.

"But once this general direction is established, the momentum of the king and the royal government's growing power will be difficult to reverse." The king can even use this feature to proactively create greater external threats.

"To create a persistent enemy that is difficult to eliminate quickly."

The emperor is the emperor after all, and he is most sensitive about matters of power.

When Zhu Jianxuan put forward this idea, the emperor immediately understood many things.

Then the emperor looked at his youngest son with a smile on his face:

"Okay, let's do this. I'll have Adams come to the palace tomorrow, and you can talk to him face to face."

The next morning, the Ming Emperor summoned American representative John Adams to the Wuying Hall.

Just like the last time he met Adams, Zhu Jianxuan sat in a special armchair on the side under the emperor's throne.

Adams got a simple wingback chair this time.

After Adams saluted, the Ming Emperor immediately showed a cold attitude:

"The conditions you put forward are not sincere at all. I don't want my son to be a puppet king in the two states.

"So I am prepared to follow the minimum plan we agreed upon at the beginning and provide the most limited support after you achieve a decisive victory."

Adams has worked hard to learn the writing and language of the Ming Dynasty over the past two years.

As a talented lawyer, Adams has a good talent for languages ​​and can now communicate in basic Chinese.

Adams anticipated that the Ming Dynasty might have such a reaction, and explained directly at this time:

"These are the conditions we proposed. If Daming is dissatisfied with anything, you can propose amendments again. Everything is open to discussion."

The emperor looked directly at Zhu Jianxuan on the side:
"Xuan'er, what do you think?"

Zhu Jianxuan looked up at Adams and told him his idea in a halting manner:
"... Lawyer Adams, these are my assumptions. You can consider this a deal..."

Adams was stunned after hearing this, and was so surprised that he couldn't believe it.

The free state plan proposed by Zhu Jianxuan this time directly touched his heart as an American.

Truly absolute autonomy and freedom. If you want any support, you can sign a separate agreement with the king. If you don't need it, there will be no interference.

The rights and obligations are also clearly visible. You only pay taxes for the services you need, and you don’t need to pay taxes for things you don’t know about.

In Adams' view, if such a system could really be established, it would be the perfect country of his dreams.

One of the key reasons why Americans want independence is that they feel that their taxes are not paid clearly.

Americans don't actually pay much in taxes, but most of it goes directly to Britain.

The Americans were not given a political response and were not allowed to elect members of the British Parliament.

This created a psychological gap, making these people who were used to freedom feel very uncomfortable.

The solution now proposed by Zhu Jianxuan is to conduct transactions in a completely clear and understandable manner, without any unreasonable taxes and restrictions.

As for the conditions for establishing all newly developed lands as provinces of the kingdom, if we take them out separately, it would of course be a little difficult to deal with.

However, as a transaction term for establishing a real "free state", it becomes relatively acceptable.

Those who want true freedom live in the eleven free states.

Those who like the traditional social order led by the king can settle in the new provinces in the future.

In this way, the two management methods and social systems can complement each other.

This is a perfect system.

So Adams was a little hesitant, as this plan should be very easy to pass in the Continental Congress.

But I'm here to negotiate after all, so should I try to lower the price?

However, this proposal itself is sincere. If I continue to lower the price, will the Ming Emperor think that I am insincere?

If we just accept it directly, wouldn’t this negotiation be too easy?

(End of this chapter)