Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2227 Reform and Transformation

"You said the things from the east coast are really good." At the trade market in Kaffa Port, an important city on the Crimean Peninsula, a middle-aged man wearing a flower hat picked up a heavy ax and weighed it. After weighing it, he said with a smile.

"They must have been blessed by Allah." The ax seller was an old Tatar man. He pointed to the large row of shining metal products behind him and said, "Axes, knives, arrowheads, spearheads, farm tools, Both are high-quality goods. Durable and strong, it is the best choice.”

"It's just that the price is a bit expensive." The middle-aged man in the flower hat put down his ax and said with some reluctance.

Of course he agreed with what the shopkeeper said.He lives in the outskirts of Kaffa, and he knows that many local businessmen like to go to Haji Port, the leased place of the people on the east coast, to buy goods. Once they buy a lot of steel bars, they will process them by themselves when they come back.Almost most of the knives, agricultural tools and other metal products on the Crimean Peninsula come from this way, and they are better than those processed by traditional methods. This is indisputable.

Of course, there are also a lot of ironware sold by Dutch or English merchants in the local area, and they are basically produced in England or North Germany. The quality of the former is better, and the quality of the latter is worse.But although these products are better than the iron products of the Crimea or the Ottoman Empire, they are not as good as products processed with steel bars from the east coast, unless these British goods are also processed with steel bars from the east coast-to make a digression, England is the largest European buyer of east coast steel bar.

In addition to the above-mentioned products, there are also some finished products imported directly from the east coast, and the quantity is quite large, but the price is relatively high, and they are basically high-end products.These hardware products native to the east coast are a little bit extravagant for the people in the Black Sea area with a low per capita income. After all, they sometimes even use the ironware made by the local subway, let alone spend money to buy them. Imported East Coast hardware products too.

From this point of view, the gap between the rich and the poor across Europe is immediately apparent.Western Europe is richer, followed by Central Europe, and Eastern Europe is the poorest, which is basically the same as later generations.The reason is probably related to Spain and Portugal!Of these two countries, one brought back a large amount of gold, silver and tropical products from the Americas, and the other brought back a large amount of Chinese and Indian goods from the East, which lasted for more than 100 years.After gold and silver flowed into Europe, it greatly promoted the development of local commerce, and the so-called "price revolution" (to some extent, serious inflation) occurred, which in turn promoted the development of industry and commerce. With rapid improvement, the overall productivity of society has greatly improved, and the wealth produced has naturally increased significantly.Some of the oriental goods brought back by Portugal were sold locally in Western Europe, and some were exported to Eastern Europe. This further plundered the local funds accumulated from selling timber, grain, livestock, ore and other primary commodities, and then fed back the industrial and commercial development of Western Europe.

In this way, it is a matter of course that the social living standard of Western Europe is much higher than that of Eastern Europe.The sales data of East Coast Hardware basically supports this point. 60% of the sales volume is in Western Europe, which is very telling, the purchasing power of the people is indeed high!

The Crimean Khanate has relied on the support of the people on the east coast over the years to vigorously develop agricultural product planting and entrepot trade, and the accumulation of wealth is still very fast.Even better, the total population of this country is more than 100 million but less than 200 million, but less than a third of them are real Tatars, and the rest are slaves.That is to say, as long as they are a Tatar with a legal status, they basically have enough money to purchase goods from the east coast, not only hardware products, but also clocks, musical instruments, cloth, leather goods and a large number of daily necessities. The market is solid now.

Of course, the market of tens of 10 people is still a little small, and the existence of a large number of slaves is also an unstable factor.Therefore, with the support of the people on the east coast, in the past 20 years, the successive khans of Crimea have tried to find ways to pardon some slaves and give them the legal status of Crimean nationals, which certainly aroused the vested interests in the country There was strong opposition, but fortunately, the magnitude was not large, and with the strong support of the people on the east coast, Grail Khan was able to suppress the scene for a while.

And from this we can also see how difficult it is to reform a backward country!To be honest, the reform foundation of the Crimean Khanate is quite good. It has just won two external victories, and the results are very brilliant. The newly formed new army played a huge role, which made the royal family's prestige reach a level. To a very high degree, many tribal leaders who originally opposed the military reform were temporarily speechless, as they acquiesced in the royal family's move to form a new army.

In terms of economy, several Great Khans have persistently won over the feudal lords of Greek and Italian descent in the country (all of whom defected to the Crimean Tatars at the end of the Golden Horde), allowing them to establish a large amount of agriculture on the northern shore of the Black Sea. The manor, relying on the local fertile black land, produced a large amount of agricultural products and exported them to Italy and Spain, earning a lot of profits.Gelai Khan even established some deep processing enterprises of agricultural products, sun salt farms, gun repair factories and other facilities with the help of people from the east coast, all of which have gained a lot of income.As the so-called economic foundation determines the superstructure, the success stories of these feudal manor owners have also greatly inspired those nomadic leaders who used to only know how to plunder abroad. Some enlightened people among them also began to follow the example of establishing agricultural manors to obtain productive benefits. .

There is no doubt that these manor owners supported the Khan family politically.They don't think much of those domestic people who have a heavy habit of wandering. In the past, they made some troubles when they sent troops with the sweat. Now that they have money, they don't pay much attention to them.However, the series of reforms carried out by the Great Khan at the request of the people on the east coast are very appetizing to them, so they are very supportive of the Great Khan, encouraging and even instigating him to deepen reforms and completely change the face of the country.

Fortunately, people on the east coast know that reforms are always gradual and cannot be accomplished overnight.It is already a success to let some nomadic leaders and their followers settle down.The next step is to let those ordinary herdsmen who have settled down have jobs, have income, and live a relatively better life, so as to form a demonstration effect.It was for this purpose that the people on the east bank helped the Great Khan build some factories before. After all, the nomadic leaders can build agricultural manors (the manors themselves will also employ some people), which can make a lot of money, but ordinary herdsmen do not have this capital.Therefore, the most important thing is to let those who are willing to farm the land, and those who are not or unwilling to farm the land, have job opportunities.If this cannot be done, the reform will suffer from a lot of problems in the future, and it may even turn history back.

Of course, these manor owners now support the Great Khan family, and it may not be so when the whole country is almost settled down.Over the years, successive Great Khans have been pardoning slaves as much as possible (mainly in the form of rewarding military exploits). This policy has been developed to the extreme, and it is inevitable that slaves will be pardoned nationwide and a thorough serfdom reform will be carried out. This will inevitably violate these manors. The interests of the masters, and then lead to fierce conflicts.

Fortunately, these are all things in the future. At present, they only exist in the top-secret plan of the East Coast Ministry of Foreign Affairs and have not yet been implemented.But we just need to be clear that there are reasons why a country like the Crimean Khanate lags behind. It is also very difficult to reform, and it will take a lot of hardships. If it is not handled properly, the country will fall into chaos or even civil war, and then reform fail.But correspondingly, once the reform is successful, the country will be completely reborn from the ashes and embarked on the fast track of development.

In this matter, Da Khan's head is still clear, because the people from the east bank have been raising points by the side.He is now steadily implementing the policy of the Great Khan of the previous generation, carrying out small and fast reforms in the political, military, economic and social fields, at the same time creating and improving the writing system, and establishing some school education talents. It can be said that he is silently accumulating strength. , wait for the opportunity.From this point of view, this original semi-feudal and semi-nomadic country may not have no hope of success.

Compared with them, the reforms of the Oirat Mongols across the sea are more difficult.Their starting point is much lower than that of the Crimean Tatars. They are complete nomads. We want them to change their living habits and become settled residents, and then they need to develop industry and commerce and create wealth—wealth means national power. This is the core strength of their confrontation with Tsarist Russia-this difficulty is not ordinary.Moreover, their external environment is not very good. Tsar Peter’s intention to obtain access to the sea in the south is already very obvious. Before Princess Sofia’s regency, she had twice encountered a wall in the Crimean Khanate. In the future, it is inevitable that he will not think about it. With a "change of luck", a breakthrough was made in the North Caucasus.After all, a considerable part of this place used to be Russian territory (the coastal part is in the hands of the Turks, and the rest of the two sides are intertwined). If it is recovered, Peter's reputation will be greatly enhanced, so the possibility of him taking military adventures here is still quite high. of.

In other words, the timing of the Oirat Mongols' reform is not very good now, and they do not have a relatively stable external environment.They must win one or two beautiful victories during the Russian invasion, and cut off the idea of ​​​​the Russian invasion from this direction in a short period of time before they can carry out social reforms. Otherwise, they will only cause domestic chaos and give the enemy something to take advantage of. opportunity.

Based on this consideration, the current plan given by the people on the east bank is to give priority to reforms in the military field, that is, to improve the cavalry strength of these Mongols first, including but not limited to the introduction of excellent horse bloodlines, the update of cavalry equipment, and the development of new tactics. Learning and so on, the focus is to strengthen their cavalry advantages so that they can have a fighting power when the Russian army invades.Almost all the males in their country have lived with horses since they were young. Their riding skills are very good, and they also have some effective traditional tactics (otherwise, the Russians would not have repeatedly made deals with them and asked them to send troops to help fight the war), If you seize this point and strengthen it, it should still have some effect.In short, get through this wave first, otherwise everything will be in vain.

Of course, these Mongols are so poor now that the initial investment will definitely require blood transfusions from others.The poor people on the east coast earn only a million yuan from trade in the Black Sea every year, and it is estimated that half of it will go into it. Although it is necessary, it always hurts to think about it.Therefore, they are also actively active in Istanbul now, trying to persuade the Ottomans to let them bleed a little-not to ask them to pay, they really don't have that-that is, to "donate" a little bit of military supplies they don't want or surplus Come out and give them this nominal vassal state.After all, it was all for the purpose of beating the Russians and reducing the pressure on their flanks. I believe the Ottomans would not be too stingy!

(End of this chapter)