Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2402

After crackling and calculating for a while, Yuan Baodi put the ledger aside, lit a cigarette, and let out a long sigh of relief.

Tobacco is the "big general" produced in Jiaozhou, and the price is very cheap, but it is not cheap when it is transported to Lanzhou in the inland area for a long distance.But Yuan Baodi has a lot of money, and the food and clothing are very luxurious, so spending money on expensive cigarettes to smoke is really not a big deal.

In fact, Lanzhou has also introduced tobacco seeds in recent years and planted them in many places, just like the introduction of peppers, corn, potatoes, sweet potatoes and other crops back then.But it may be due to the influence of the soil quality. The tobacco leaves produced near Lanzhou always feel not very good to smoke, not as good as the "General" brand in Jiaozhou.But for ordinary people, they don’t smoke cigarettes at all, and those who have some money in their pockets usually go to the store to buy cut tobacco in bags, and then smoke them with a pot, a pipe, or a paper roll. It is very low, and it can be regarded as a rare pastime after hard work.

The "Great General" drawn by Yuan Baodi was brought over by his relatives in Tianjin.Along with him, in addition to a large number of books and magazines published by Denglai, there are also mechanical parts for seven or eight carriages.

If the components produced by Dongguo do not use North Korean rotten iron, the quality is still quite guaranteed.What's more, some of the parts they produced could be used in British machines.It's amazing, isn't it?To put it bluntly, it’s actually nothing!The machines of the British, I heard that the weights and measures are all made in the East, and many parts are completely copied from the designs of the East. It is not surprising that the two are interchangeable.

Yuan Baodi is a delicate person.He originally asked Clifford Matheson to purchase spare parts and consumables, but when he found that some products of Denglai overlapped with it, he immediately changed his mind and turned to buy cheap and high-quality Denglai products to reduce maintenance costs .There are still many Qing businessmen who have the same idea as him. They are basically new businessmen active in mining, textile, building materials and other industries. Business is business, not to mention that the court did not prohibit them from shopping in Denglai.

Compared with them, the eight major factories (military industrial enterprises) run by the imperial court are a bit pedantic.I don't know if they have an agreement with the British or what, from the complete machine to the parts, they all place orders through foreign companies and purchase goods from England.It is really strange to prefer to buy high-quality British-made products at high prices, and not to buy Eastern-made parts.

Yuan Baodi has been to Gao Factory (government-run Lanzhou Machinery Manufacturing Bureau) several times recently. This factory currently has five large and small steam engines driving forging hammers, blast furnaces and machine tools. Most of them are bought from British foreign companies, and the parts purchased for daily maintenance You also have to order from a foreign company. The cost of ocean transportation plus long-distance inland transshipment is quite high.In Yuan's opinion, it is actually possible to buy Denglai parts. The price is about the same as the ex-factory price of British products, but the shipping cost is much less.This secret was told to Yuan Baodi by a German technician in the Gao factory. This man seemed to dislike the British and was always excluded in the factory, but he helped Yuan Baodi a lot.

Yuan Baodi has a good relationship with the general office and the general office of Gaochang, and he once made such a suggestion.Helplessly, Mr. Xia, the general manager of the Gao factory, told him that they did not have independent purchasing rights, and any complete machines or spare parts needed had to be reported to the Ministry of Industry for approval, and they would be allocated to them after the Ministry of Industry bought them back from foreigners.

There is no other way!Gaochang is a small factory, unlike the big factories like Beijing Bureau and Jinchang, and it is trapped inland, so it is too difficult to buy something.In many cases, the things they bought back were even "loaned" by the Ministry of Industry to other bureaus and factories for use.It is conceivable that this kind of "borrowing" must be borrowed without repayment, which makes people very depressed.

Yuan Baodi lent a crank connecting rod to Gao Factory last month, which was manufactured in Denglai, and the foreign technicians in the factory agreed to use it.Cranks and connecting rods are not cheap, but Yuan Baodi has no intention of asking Gaochang for money. In fact, Gaochang is a major customer of his coal mine, and the relationship between the two parties is good.

However, the upper management of Gaochang is also very friendly to Yuan Baodi, a businessman with a deep background.No, I just placed an order this month to purchase millions of bricks from Yuan Baodi's brick kiln factory for the preliminary construction of the new factory expansion.

The so-called expansion of the new factory area is actually related to the current situation.Everyone knows that since Galdan, the hungry prairie wolf, was defeated in the desert north of Ningxia, the imperial court has been intensively preparing for the next offensive.And the target of the attack is also very simple, that is to inherit the Mongolian power of Junggar, and was once said by Kangxi in front of the Russian envoy that he would "never conquer".

Tsewang Arabtan currently controls parts of the Western Regions and Central Asia. Although the Kazakhs’ rebellion made him burnt out, and the Russians’ continuous offensive also caused him to lose a lot of blood, his strength still exists. The Qing court wanted to beat him. It is impossible to be fully prepared.

The Manchu court naturally understood the truth.It is the first step for them to expand the production capacity of the Gao factory, and the second step is to store a large amount of military materials in advance.The third step is to contact the leader of the Junggar Mongolia who refused to accept Cewang Arabutan, and at the same time secretly contact the Xueshan monk to persuade him to stand on the side of the Qing court.

It should be said that these three steps have achieved good results.Jiayuguan has stored a large amount of military supplies, and the five steam engines and dozens of machine tools of various colors newly ordered by the Gao Factory have also landed at Dagukou, and if there is no accident, they will arrive in Lanzhou within a few months.

In addition, there are also some signs of division within Junggar and Mongolia. Although it was forcibly suppressed by Tsengarabutan, there is no guarantee that it will break out again in the future.Of course, we must not forget the offensive of the Russians. Their army’s combat effectiveness has long been different from what it used to be, and they have attracted a group of Central Asian nomads, which have posed a serious threat to Junggar Mongolia. In the large-scale battle, the people of Allah Butan suffered heavy losses.

It can be said that the time is now ripe for the conquest of Junggar and Mongolia.And only by completely eliminating this tribe that dared to compete with the Qing court for the influence of the Mongolian world, can they really gain a foothold—if you ignore the people on the east coast who are expanding on the land of Mobei Mongolia.

At present, according to Yuan Baodi's understanding, the Qing government has dispatched more than 20 soldiers from all over the country to Gansu. This is the main force to conquer the remaining Mongolian forces in Junggar.Or someone may ask, the Junggar Khanate has a vast territory, why not mobilize an army of [-] to annihilate it with the momentum of goshawks and rabbits?

The reason actually lies in the poor local traffic conditions, and the supply of materials cannot keep up!The 7 army is already the best choice that the Qing court, which is surrounded by enemies, can make.As the saying goes, soldiers are expensive and elites are not expensive. As long as the combat effectiveness of [-] people is strong enough, they can still defeat Cewang Allah Butan.

Among the 7 people, the new army accounted for [-] and the old army accounted for [-].The new army is the main force in frontal field operations, while the old army has to undertake tasks such as transporting food and grass, occupying cities, controlling communication lines, and searching for remnants.In addition, there are more than [-] Manchurian Eight Banners.The Western Region is vast, and most of the population is concentrated in oases and cities. Most of the area is wilderness, and it is really troublesome to have no cavalry.The reason why the Manchurian Eight Banners cavalry was dispatched instead of the Shaanxi-Gansu Green Battalion cavalry was actually Kangxi's intention.He wanted these children to exercise more, improve their combat effectiveness, and stop playing around all day and wasting their lives.After all, the Eight Banners of Manchuria and Mongolia are the foundation of the existence of the Qing Dynasty. If they fail, the influence of Han officials and generals will be difficult to contain. This is the key to the survival of the Qing Dynasty and must not be ignored.

The [-]-strong expedition naturally brought countless business opportunities.Qin, Long, Jin, and Henan provinces were all mobilized, and food, draft animals, ordnance, ammunition, clothing, and medicine were sent to Jiayuguan and the newly established four towns in Guanxi.As the big city closest to the starting point of the army, Lanzhou naturally received large orders for military supplies. Manufacturing bureaus, small workshops and even individual craftsmen inside and outside the city began to rush to produce various supplies day and night.

The inflow of large sums of money and orders also drove Yuan Baodi's business.Coal, bricks, and briquette all increased in sales with the increase in demand, especially coal, which accounted for the largest sales volume, was simply a money-making machine, earning countless profits for Yuan Baodi.Even after the war ends, the abnormal prosperity stimulated by the war ends, and everyone's business generally ebbs, the increased productivity level is solid, which is actually a good thing for the entire country.

And from here we can also see that Shunguo in the south makes money by exporting light industrial products to the east coast economic circle, and the improved productivity level is mainly in this aspect, that is, the total efficiency of social production of daily necessities is improved, the total cost is reduced, and the total The types of commodities increased; while in the Qing Dynasty in the north, military demand was used to stimulate the economy, and the improvement of productivity and technological level mainly fell on mining, machining, metal products and the manufacture of transportation equipment. The country’s guns, armor, knives, The production costs of medicines, vehicles and metal tools were greatly reduced, and the efficiency was rapidly improved with the help of foreign technology.

One big head is light industry, including part of heavy industry, and the other big head is heavy industry, including part of light industry, completely different production methods.On the surface, it seems that the productivity level of the country is improving, but in fact it is different. Because of the abundance and cheapness of light industrial products in the South, Shunguo allows the domestic people to enjoy more benefits and dividends of development. Although the future development faces challenges There are great restrictions and bottlenecks, but in the short term it can improve a certain standard of living.

As for the Qing Dynasty, only businessmen and workers involved in the manufacturing industry enjoyed the dividends. Most farmers who were taxed still could not buy cheap light industrial daily necessities, and their living standards did not actually improve, or even declined.Although in the long run the upper limit is higher than that of Shunguo, in the short term, the public's complaints are even greater.

Yuan Baodi also vaguely felt this now.It seems that the imperial court invested a huge amount of money, the merchants got rich overnight because of the orders, and the workers who worked overtime also made a little money, but the prices of daily necessities such as flour, salt, oil, and cloth on the market did not fall. It has also risen, so that the workers at the bottom are clamoring for processing money, otherwise they will not be able to continue working, which makes him very depressed.

"I heard that there are large-scale oil mills, rice mills, flour mills, cotton mills, and sugar factories in the south. The salt industry also uses the latest technology from Dongguo, and a large number of machines for cutting cloth have been bought from Dongguo. machines and sewing machines to produce quilts, so that the prices of such things on the market fell again and again. On the other hand, in the Qing Dynasty, I produced so much steel and coal that I couldn’t eat or wear it, alas!” Yuan Baodi is a person who likes to think , although he got rich by relying on coal, he always feels that there is something wrong with the economy being so partial, and he is afraid that there will be problems in the future.

"If the imperial court gathers hundreds of thousands of troops to go south to annex Shunni and seize those factories after solving the decision-making arrogance, it seems to be a good complementary method." After thinking for a long time, Yuan Baodi came up with an idea. Such a simple and crude method.

Indeed, as he said, the south is dominated by light industry, while the north is dominated by heavy industry. If the two can be merged into one, and goods from the north and the south can flow into each other, the economy will be revitalized.However, as the five feudal clans on the east coast and the Far East who have been paying attention to the situation in China for a long time, they may not allow the two countries to unify easily.

"Hehe, I don't know about the success of the Southern Expedition. It's the year of the monkey. Right now, we still have to see whether the Western Expedition goes smoothly. It is said that Fei Yanggu will be the commander of the army this time, accompanied by newly-rising generals such as Yuan Weiting, the general soldier of Ningxia. , should be so sure. Once Cewang Arabtan is wiped out, the north will be almost peaceful, and then we can go south with all our strength to deal with obedience and rebellion. There is a lot to be done in the state affairs." Yuan Baodi finished his cigarette, looking a little excited .

(End of this chapter)