Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1239 Dinghai ([-])

Trade has always been a matter of life and death for the Southeast Asian region.The land below the wind has superior geographical conditions. It is located in the center of maritime trade between Daming, India, the Middle East and Europe. Whenever the tide of international trade is surging, this area becomes the darling of international trade. In the past, an Arab businessman rode the wind and waves After coming here for trade (and the spread of communism by the way), European merchants flooded into East India—a large amount of cloves, nutmeg, pepper, sandalwood, sumac, camphor, shellac and other commodities were continuously imported into the world. The market has created trade myths one after another.

And if the East Indies are counted as the core area, then Taiwan Island is a thicker tentacles extended by the Dutch East India Company.This island occupied by the Netherlands in 1624 developed dramatically due to the war in mainland China. The intermittent trade of raw silk, porcelain and tea made the Dutch pay more attention to the value of Taiwan Island itself. They rely on Taiwan to be quite fertile. The land vigorously developed the rice and sugar industries, and at the same time purchased deerskins and exported them to Japan, which effectively maintained the company's trade in nearby areas and accumulated a lot of profits and sent them back to Batavia.

However, with Zheng Chenggong’s powerful maritime power today, it is actually very difficult for the Dutch to buy goods from mainland China—only a little bit of raw silk, green tea and porcelain every year—if it weren’t for the people on the east coast If some Ningbo raw silk and tea are given to them, then the life of the Dutch East India Company's Taiwan trading station may not be easy.

Of course, there were no people from the east coast, and the Dutch were also actively helping themselves. They sometimes bought a lot of Tokyo raw silk (that is, the raw silk produced in Hanoi), Persian raw silk, and Siamese buckskin and sold them to Japan in order to maintain trade.But this is not the right path after all. The Dutch still have a considerable demand for raw silk, tea and even cane sugar from mainland China (only in the years when Taiwan’s cane sugar production is low), but they still cannot find sufficient sources of supply.Therefore, due to the above reasons, Shao Shuguang’s previous worry about the Dutch’s refusal to open a commercial station in Dayuan Port on the East Bank was completely overwhelmed. Shore's request.

Today is December 12th, Han Yin, who has just recovered from an illness, is running on the construction site of a commercial bank/bank.The trading house covers an area of ​​about one and a half acres, and the cost is only a little tea and raw silk. What is even more amazing is that the Dutch promised to recruit local people to build a "standard" trading station for the people on the east coast. , the condition is to buy a large backlog of sucrose in their hands.After discussing for a while, Han Yin and others also agreed to this condition. Anyway, sucrose is sold in Ningbo, Dengzhou, North Korea, and Heishui. Han Yin, who has been in the family business for many years, does not believe that with such a huge The market can't eat the backlog of Taiwan cane sugar. What they should worry about is just that they don't have enough funds on hand. This may require the Dutch to agree to temporarily credit.

Things went so smoothly that Han Yin and others couldn't believe their good luck.They also chatted for a while in their spare time, and finally agreed that the Dutch business in Japan has encountered great challenges, especially when an employee from southern Zhejiang pointed out that Zheng's overseas trade has flourished in recent years (The annual profit exceeds 250 million taels), and when they almost monopolized most of the Japanese trade, everyone has more or less understood the plight of the Dutch in Taiwan.

All of this can be traced back to the source, in fact, it is the "sin" of the East Coast people!Because of the continuous involvement of the east coast in the situation on the mainland, the situation in China has undergone tremendous changes compared with history. Most of Fujian, southern Jiangxi, and Guangdong and Guangxi are all in the hands of Nanming, plus the support of Zheng Cai and others. The King Lu’s regime fought against the Qing army several times in eastern Zhejiang, so most of the porcelain, raw silk and tea resources in southern China were concentrated in Zheng’s hands, and the Dutch could not get any goods at all.And misfortunes never come singly. Due to the frequent activities of the East Coast Navy in the east of Zhejiang, the mouth of the Yangtze River, and the north of the Yangtze River, even if the Qing court intends to trade with the Netherlands, it is very difficult. In a state of starvation.

Faced with such a predicament, the Dutch could only adjust the structure of commodities exported to Japan. For example, Taiwanese sugar was used as a key commodity, and raw silk and deerskin were supplemented.But the problem is that Fujian and Guangdong also produce sugar, and the scale is not small, so the Dutch have to compete with Zheng for the Japanese sugar market, especially in Guangdong, which has been stable for many years instead of frequent wars in history. , the production of cane sugar reached a record high, and the Zheng family was also shipping in large quantities, which greatly hit the Dutch trade. If the East India Company does not want to ship the remaining granulated sugar back to Europe as ballast stones (because its traditional Persian sugar market has been "captured" by the East Coasters), it is best to find a nearby market and sell it. The funds can be quickly withdrawn to continue the next trade.

People from the east bank came to the door at such a time, and there was indeed a sense of helping the Dutch. After all, Governor Kuiyi was not a fool. This plays a vital role in revitalizing the economy of Taiwan's business stations.Perhaps some gentlemen in Batavia's 17-member committee were very angry at the East Coasters, blaming them for the influx of sugar from their new Chinese colonies into the Safavid kingdom of Persia (this is a shipment comparable to Japan for the Dutch market), and the people on the east bank obstructed their trade with the Qing, so they have always had no good looks towards them.But gentlemen, gentlemen, as the governor of Taiwan and the actual person in charge of the commercial station, Kui Yi is naturally responsible for the operating conditions of the Taiwanese commercial station. After all, this has a great relationship with his personal income. make life difficult for.

Besides, it is not that the 17-member committee did not advocate easing relations with the people from the East Bank. They believed that the Ningbo Mansion under the East Bank had stable production of raw silk and tea. People on the east coast strengthened their cooperation and imported raw silk, tea, and high-grade fur from them—especially tea, which is becoming more and more popular in Europe. It is a “golden partner” with sugar—exporting spices, sandalwood, camphor, Sugar and rice are undoubtedly an excellent bilateral trade model.Helpless, many gentlemen in the 17-member committee were blinded by long-term arrogance and could not see this trade route flowing with gold. Then, it is time for Kuiyi to break this layer of ice.

Under such a background, it is conceivable that as long as the demands of Han Yin and others are not too excessive, Governor Kuiyi will naturally satisfy all of them.So you can see that the construction land of the Bank of Taiwan was sold, with free construction, as if they were afraid that people from the east coast would not come to trade, which surprised Han Yin and others at first.However, at this time, they only reached some rough intentions with the Dutch (for example, they initially negotiated with the Dutch that the price of sucrose was 90-100 yuan per ton on the east coast, which is cheaper than the European market price, but this does not count. The details will have to wait for Shao Shuguang and others to discuss in detail), and the details of the trade will have to wait until the middle and late January of next year to finalize.

More than a month passed quickly in this way. On January 1660, 1, Shao Shuguang arrived at Dayuan Port by boat with seven or eight employees of the Bank of Taiwan and a dozen guards recruited in Ningbo.It is worth mentioning that this time, Commander Chang Kaisheng specially approved the flagship "Cadiz Rock" of the Blackwater Task Force to carry them to the sea off the Zeelandia Castle. When it drove to the sea, it even caused a commotion among the Dutch. It was really exciting, but it also gave an endorsement of force to the Bank of Taiwan headed by Shao Shuguang, and the benefits should not be underestimated.

After arriving in Dayuan Port, Shao Shuguang first went to a private banquet held by Governor Kui Yi, and met the leading figures of the Dutch East India Company in Taiwan. Discuss with the dozen or so Ningbo businessmen who went south with him—these people were introduced by Huang Yi, and most of them were pro-East Coast gentry in the stability maintenance associations of various counties. Save face, of course there is no shortage of profit-driven.

"Although we are not as vulgar as the Dutch red hair, we also put sugar in our tea, but to be honest, there are many places where rich household sugar is sold in the shops on weekdays. Sun Zhengxing, your Sun Chunyang South Store is used to selling sweet cakes and candied fruits. How about the sales volume?" Shao Shuguang asked by name while drinking the coffee sold by Xinhua from afar.

"My lord." Sun Zhengxing got up and bowed to himself when Shao Shuguang called his name, and said, "In the pickling room of our shop, we used to buy tens of catties of sugar every day to cook all kinds of food. It's not a small amount in a year. .In recent years, there have been endless wars, and the ships (mostly owned by the Zheng family) transporting Fujian sugar in the south and Guangdong sugar in the north have been intermittent, causing the price of sugar to rise. General Mao—well, it’s Taiwan—if Taiwan’s sugar is sold to Ningbo, I dare not say anything else, I’ll put down a deposit of [-] catties at Haisun Chunyang South Store.”

After Sun Zhengxing spoke on behalf of a retail "giant" like Sun Chunyang Nanhuopuo, other merchants also expressed that as long as the price was right, they could also eat an amount ranging from [-] to [-] catties.After all, Ningbo Prefecture has been in peace for ten years, with a population of more than [-]. Private commerce is gradually developing, and the people in the countryside are living fairly well. In addition, trade with North Korea, Denglai, Heishui, and even Japan is booming. A large amount of precious metals flowed into Ningbo, and the purchasing power of ordinary people is still quite large. It should not be a problem to consume some Taiwanese sugar.

Of course, if you take a long-term view and see the markets of millions of people in Heishui, North Korea, and Dengzhou, then this business is really achievable, and the profits during it are unimaginably huge. It is not impossible to eat half of Taiwan's sucrose production in a year at this time.

After talking about sucrose, Shao Shuguang chatted with everyone about the grain trade—there was no way, the Bank of Taiwan had too little start-up capital, and it was necessary to make full use of the stock funds on hand of these merchants, otherwise many jobs would not be able to be carried out.As we all know, there is a large backlog of immigrants on the east coast, and the food problem has begun to become a lingering shadow in the hearts of the bureaucrats of the Blackwater Pioneering Team. Therefore, it is logical to reach an agreement with the Dutch to import a large amount of Southeast Asian rice. matter.

All the businessmen present here have dealt with people from the east coast for a long time, and they are well aware of the inside information, and they understand that this is a good business that will last for a long time, so each of them patted their chests and expressed that they would take part of the funds from the Bank of Taiwan Buying rice—well, it’s okay to pay for the purchase of grain first. Anyway, many fields in Ningbo Prefecture have been converted to sericulture, and the grain is not so abundant, so we don’t have to worry about not being able to sell it.

Of course, Shao Shuguang also deeply understands that although the sugar and rice trade is also very important to the Dutch, it is far inferior to the raw silk and tea trade they have been coveting for a long time - tea has a market in Europe, and it has doubled in recent years ; while raw silk is related to the lucrative Japanese trade situation, it cannot be ignored.Therefore, he is also mentally prepared to increase the quota of raw silk and tea exported to the Netherlands several times—this is not a big problem, because the production of raw silk and tea in Ningbo Prefecture has also increased a lot in recent years—and Satisfy the growing appetite of the Dutch.

On January 1, when the construction progress of the Taiwan Bank headquarters in Dayuan Hong Kong was about to reach halfway, the first trade between the people on the east coast and the Dutch almost came to an end.Taiwan banks/commercial banks purchased 25 tons of sugar from the Dutch with a total of 7 yuan in starting funds, customer deposits, and merchant advances (in 85, Taiwan’s sugar production was the highest, at 1645 dan, or about 15 tons, which is now much worse than The market share has also shrunk greatly), 7500 tons of rice and a considerable amount of spices, camphor, sandalwood and other valuable commodities, almost all the money was spent.

However, if you think that there is a trade deficit on the east coast side of the trade with the Dutch, you are very wrong.Among other things, a large amount of raw silk, tea and some high-grade furs they brought with the ship-due to the monopoly trade rights of the Bank of Taiwan, these commodities must also be passed through the bank-sold at a high price, not only redeemed There is still a huge surplus for all purchases, which makes people sigh that the transnational raw silk trade is indeed huge profits, even in the Far East.

Under such circumstances, if the Dutch want to balance trade, in addition to exporting a large amount of precious metals, they have to export a large amount of rice according to the requirements of the people on the east coast. don't know.

On January 1660, 1, after leaving Han Yin, Hashiguchi Junnosuke and others to stay at the bank branch, Shao Shuguang and a group of Ningbo businessmen, who had finished their small test, boarded the long-awaited "Jia" The battleship "Si Rock" quietly embarked on a journey back to Dinghai Port.

(End of this chapter)