Maritime Empire: The Origin Of Zheng Organization’s Relationship With Its Merchants,1625-1683

In the late16thcentury，The Great Navigations established new tade routes, andreintegrated the existing trade circuits. The establishment of global market increasedthe demand for Chinese goods. Facing the soaring profit of maritime trade，thearmed trade of western merchant，and Coastal Prohibition of Ming government, theChinese merchants gradually united and formed some powerful armed trade group.The Zheng Organization is a famous one of them. It was established in1625and riserapidly since1628Zheng Zhilong received an amnesty from the Ming governmentand was appointed as a military officer. After the collapse of Ming, ZhengOrganization continued to resist the Qing until1683.The Zheng Organization established a set of system including tax, organizationand finace to support its merchants; applied different trading strategies in a flexibleway to protect and expand the trade interests. Its powerful navy provided a strongguarantee for the implementation of the above measures, and protected or fought forthe trade interests.directly some time. All of this made Zheng organization’s tradedominance in the Far East seas and gave a setback to the Western countriesworldwide expansion. Unlike the Ming and Qing government’s policy towardsmerchants which was neither encouraging nor restrictive, Zheng organization’srelationship with its merchants was similar with that in Western Europe.Why the Zheng chose to practice that kind of relationship with its merchants?From a global perspective, Zheng is group that based on the soaring profit ofmaritime trade which is caused by the establishment of the global economy，so it is amerchant group in essence. Then it is for granted that Zheng actively involve inforeign trade and support its merchants. From a regional perspective,The political changes in the late Ming and early Qing made it possible thatZheng gain some public authority and also gave Zheng tremendous pressure tosurvive. And plus the pressure which resulted from Minnan’s geography and environment and Zheng’s political ideals, Zheng had to choose to support and protectits merchants in order to relief the military and financial pressure.