Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2302 Country Talk ([-])

"Life in this country is still very difficult." On April 1696, 4, in Yangloudong, Li Nanxian, a big comprador, was resting in a small mountain village.

At this moment, he was wearing a coarse cloth gown, sitting on a bamboo chair, pinching his thick and round chin, looking at the gurgling stream in front of him, looking bored.Coarse cloth green shirt, thousand-layer cloth shoes, listless, at first glance you can never think of a super comprador with a net worth of hundreds of thousands, but rather a wealthy rural landlord, sitting in front of his courtyard and basking in the sun.

However, the dozen or so men in short jackets around him betrayed his identity.A 1633-style flintlock rifle made in the East is not common in the countryside of these two lakes.Although Dashun's rule was difficult, the law and order was not bad, news of bandits was not often heard on weekdays, even if some landlords were timid and rich, they recruited some guards and martial artists to protect their homes, and their equipment was not only spears and swords , I was so desperate to buy some old matchlock guns scattered outside, when will I see such a magnificent "foreign gun".

Li Nanxian's home is located in Yanglou Cave. He is the first-class rich man in the town, and even in the entire Linxiang County and Yuezhou Prefecture, he is a very influential figure. , can also be treated with courtesy.This is not only because Li Nanxian has close relationships with many bigwigs in the DPRK and China, but also because this gentleman is a comprador of people from the East Bank, and his status is unusual, so he should not be easily offended.

The mountain village where Li Nanxian is now resting is not small, and makes brick tea as his main livelihood.The elders in the village are also very familiar with Li Nanxian because of many business cooperations.

"Look, in the town at the foot of the mountain, there are tea shops connected to each other, seemingly endless. The money rolling in every day is probably tens of thousands of yuan. It is really a treasure land." After getting up from the chair , Li Nanxian looked over the creek and landed on Yangloudong Town at the foot of the mountain.

There are several east-west avenues, each about [-] meters long, crowded with shops of all sizes.Except for a few that sell daily groceries, food and medicine, most of them are tea shops, that is, shops that deal in the import and export of tea.Among these shops, only one-third are run by local people. Most of the tea shops are run by out-of-town or even foreign businessmen. Li Nanxian's shop is among them, and it is one of the largest.

As one of the several tea compradors appointed by people from the East Coast, Li Nanxian, whose procurement base is in Yangloudong, did the best job.Camellia has been planted in this place since the Tang Dynasty, and the scale was already very large in the Song Dynasty. In the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, the tea industry in Yangloudong reached its peak, and there were hundreds of large and small tea shops, which were well-known far and wide.

Because of the relationship between Hunan and Hubei, Yanglou Cave is also an important military town.The court of Dashun set up a stockade in a dangerous place outside the town, and stationed a commanding musketeer.And in Linxiang County, dozens of miles away, there are two infantry battalions, one cavalry battalion, and one artillery battalion, with a total of 8000 people and horses, which shows the importance of this place.

The tea that Li Nanxian purchases is mainly brick tea.It was an inexpensive consumer product for the masses that was in great demand.The Bank of Taiwan in Dinghai purchases brick tea worth several 10 yuan every year and ships it back to the mainland on the east coast, and this amount is increasing every year. It is a big market that many people covet.Li Nanxian once sent his son to the east coast to investigate. The tea produced in the east coast is not only low in yield, but also very bad in taste. Even if it is made into brick tea, not many people like to drink it.After learning about this situation, Li Nan first circled many tea farms in Yangloudong with peace of mind, and invested in the construction of a roasted tea factory, which produced and sold tea by himself, and the business was booming.

The brick tea purchased by Mrs. Li (including those from her own tea farm) is mainly transported westward by cart, reaching the banks of the Yangtze River.Here, the ships of his Daihatsu Yonghang Shipping Co., Ltd. will be responsible for the transportation.Generally speaking, people from the east bank deliver with them in Wuchang, and sometimes in Baling or Madang, which are not as many as in Wuchang.

The delivery place in Wuchang is called "Nanshi", that is, the Baishazhou area.Because Hanyang, Hankou and other places in the north of the Yangtze River became military fortresses, and because of the land sinking of Hanyang Yingwu Island, many merchant ships that were originally moored there began to anchor in Nanshi. In fact, it is quite interesting to think about it. Emerging from the river and becoming a commercial center for thousands of years, it sank into the river at the end of the Ming Dynasty due to the diversion of the Han River, which is quite legendary.

Nanshi was once deserted during the revolution in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties.Later, Nanshi gradually prospered as a distribution center for wholesale commodities because of the task of transporting supplies to the military camps stationed in Jiangbei.After Dashun and the Manchus successfully confronted each other and the situation stabilized, other businesses in Nanshi also began to prosper slowly, gradually getting into the situation they are today.

Yuan Hongdao's "Climbing Qingchuan Pavilion and Looking at Wuchang" once described: "Hundreds of sails, walls and thousands of miles of water, one layer of city walls and several layers of mountains; far away, the lush and green land is only in the bustle and bustle", which means that it is closely related to the original Yingwu Island. The prosperity of the connected Baishazhou (Nanshi).It can be said that Nanshi has inherited the status of Yingwuzhou commercial center, and it is the money bag and logistics distribution center of Wuchang City. In fact, after the sinking of Yingwuzhou land, Hankou is the best choice to take over its mantle. Unfortunately, here is In the military area, there are several battalions of the horse infantry artillery of the Dashun Right Battalion stationed, so it is really not suitable for a commercial center.

The current strength of Dafa Yonghang Shipping Co., Ltd. is really not the same as it was at the beginning.This company, which can be called the number one shipping company in Shunguo, basically monopolizes the shipping business among famous commercial ports such as Baling, Wuchang, Shatou City, and Laohekou, and has further extended its power to Jiangxi and Sichuan (opening irregular routes) , business is booming.Perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that it is a bit of an exaggeration, but there is a profit of 10,000+ yuan a year.

Not only has he mastered the source of commodities (tea farms, roasted tea factories), but also has his own distribution channels, and at the same time there is no shortage of positions. It is really difficult for Li Nanxian to think about the business.In comparison, Zhang Shaozong, another big comprador, is inferior.This gentleman is taking the textile route, which cannot be sold at a high price on the east coast, and the Chinese in the agricultural society will not buy it themselves. The market sales are limited, and it is mainly for government procurement and limited urban markets.Zhang Shaozong's real source of income is still selling cotton yarn and handmade coarse cloth to Ningbo's east coast textile enterprises, but it certainly cannot be compared with tea.

"It's a pity that the imperial court's taxes are too heavy, which makes all businesses difficult. If the princes of the imperial court do not extort excessively, and the banks and banks give their best to help, this tea shop can increase several times, and the population of the entire Yanglou Cave can reach five. Ten thousand." Li Nan walked up and down by the stream with his hands behind his back, his eyes never leaving the street below the mountain.

In fact, to be honest, the court of Shunguo was very supportive of industry and merchants.They have given a higher social status that has not been given in the past dynasties, allowing businessmen to be legally equal to scholars, farmers, and workers (only in law).Moreover, this country is relatively open-minded in terms of thought—well, some people say that the monarchs and ministers with mud legs do not understand Neo Confucianism—there is no suppression of any school of thought, and there is a feeling of a hundred flowers contending.The only downside is probably that they are too poor, and they especially like to conquer, fighting against people every day.After beating the Tartars and the chieftains, after beating the chieftains and beating the Nanming, after beating the Nanming and almost fighting with the East Bank, I don’t know what it means, but the money is spent like running water, and the final burden is not to be passed on to ordinary people and businessmen. ?

"The imperial court also has difficulties with the imperial court." A middle-aged man with a long beard and white face came over and said with a sigh: "Fortunately, this war is almost coming to an end. Guangxi is also like that, and the situation in Yunnan is becoming clearer. Just some broken soldiers and bandits scattered in the mountains need to be cleaned up. A considerable part of the more than [-] troops from the Southern Expedition has already returned, and the remaining one or two years will be complete. It will recover, business will prosper, and this business will prosper."

"That's right." Li Nan nodded first, and said, "Silver Gun Xiaojie Army has withdrawn several battalions, and the situation in the south has become more and more stable. What is especially gratifying is that the relationship with Dongguo is also improving day by day, and business is slowly recovering." Yes. For people like me, this is more important than anything else. Otherwise, it will be a difficult life to be caught in the middle and suffer at both ends."

In other words, the court of Dashun basically broke up with the people on the east coast in Guangxi.The two sides have formally signed the demarcation treaty, which has fixed the current line of actual control in the form of legal provisions.In Yunnan, under the instruction of Li Laiheng, Hao Ping, the commander of the Yinqiang Xiaojie Army, reached an oral agreement with the general in charge and Sichuan Jiedu envoy Liu Zhonggui, each controlling some counties in Yunnan, appointing officials, and developing the economy.

The Dashun court, which solved these two problems, could basically withdraw most of the troops from the southern expedition.After fighting for so many years, the treasury can almost run a horse without a single copper coin.Moreover, there are still a large number of seriously depreciated banknotes in circulation among the people, and the people are miserable. It is time for everyone to relax, otherwise it will definitely not last.

From Li Nanxian's point of view, now Dashun urgently needs to restore the amount of trade with Dongguo to the level before the Southern Expedition against Ming.In this way, they can obtain a large amount of machinery, livestock and other commodities from the East, improve the production efficiency of tea farms, cotton mills and other factories scattered in various places, and create more wealth for the society. Dashun's factories have really suffered a lot. Many of them are only half-operated or even closed. How can this be done?

And only when wealth increased, the imperial court would have the spare power to do other things, such as the construction of roads and docks that had been going on before the war, such as the Northern Expedition to the Central Plains to unify the world.

(End of this chapter)