After the American War ended, America was born, along with the enormous war debt that accompanied the new nation.
Louis XVI chose to raise taxes to cover the deficit caused by the war, while ships from New England returned home laden with pepper, silk, and other goods.
Free competition could improve production efficiency, which was why merchant ships from two cities in New England gave people the impression that they came from two different countries. It was also because Chen Hongmou introduced outside merchants that copper mining capacity improved, allowing the Qing Dynasty to become self-sufficient in copper.
During Wanli Emperor's reign, three large-scale wars took place: the Ningxia Campaign in the Ming dynasty's northwestern frontier, which suppressed a Mongol rebellion; the Bozhou Campaign on its southwestern frontier, which suppressed a rebellion by Miao native chieftains; and the Korean War against Japan.
All three wars greatly helped consolidate China's territory and preserve the Ming dynasty's dominant position in East Asia, but Nick believed that their costs had also been immense. After the wars, Wanli would likewise have faced the problem of a wartime deficit.
The simplest solution was to print paper currency, but the paper money of the time, the Great Ming Paper Notes, was not trusted by the market. Another option was to expand foreign trade. The Ming dynasty enforced a maritime ban, though it varied in strictness. The ban was harshest during the Jiajing era and loosened somewhat by Wanli's reign, even though Japanese pirates remained rampant. The third option was taxation. Wanli Emperor dispatched eunuchs to collect mining taxes, an act condemned as a tyrannical policy that brutalized the people. It was not only Yang Rong; mining commissioners elsewhere also sparked popular uprisings. The court was therefore divided between those who supported collecting mining taxes and those