Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 795 Diplomacy and Crisis ([-])

"So, the French have completely closed the market to us?" Dongfang Port Admiralty was elected at the beginning of the year (early January 1650) at the new National People's Congress as the Chief of Staff of the National Armed Forces, the Navy Colonel Lu Ming, the minister, asked thoughtfully.

In the past, he would never have paid too much attention to these things, as the saying goes, if he is not in his position, he will not seek his own affairs.But now that he is the supreme commander of the military department and one of the executive committee members of the Central Committee, it seems logical to pay attention to these major national events.Moreover, he now consciously speaks more in these major affairs in order to increase his sense of presence and consolidate his position.After all, it is not an easy task to seize the post of Chief of Staff of the Military Department, which has been held by the Army for 19 years, as the Secretary of the Navy.To put it in an exaggerated way, it is safer for Lu Ming to live on a warship at night, otherwise what will happen is completely unpredictable-of course, the above is just a joke.

"Not to mention that it is completely closed, most of the profits will be lost." Xu Xin, who was also recently elected as one of the central executive committee members, smiled and said, "I have managed the Bordeaux commercial station for many years, and I know the situation there best. We have three major agents throughout southern France, one is the local Pasquale merchant family in Bordeaux, and the local Loris family-this family has a great say in the church, and the other is the Baron of Toulouse. A powerful person helped us sell the goods on the east coast to Aquitaine (ie Gascony), Lower Gallon, Provence, Languedoc and other central and southern provinces, which brought us 80 yuan a year before the tariff increase However, now the three of them unanimously request to stop importing white cotton cloth, which is the largest sales volume, but the high-end market of dyed cloth and printed cloth is growing slowly. They have also raised the tax rate separately, and the sales of Chinese textiles in the French market will definitely show a big collapse, and the annual loss of profits will be more than 50 yuan."

"In addition, the sales of products such as refined flour, dyed leather goods, medicines, and hardware tools that we have made great efforts to promote in the French market in recent years have also been affected to a certain extent. Although the increase in tariff rates is not as exaggerated as that of textiles, it is It is inevitable that profits will be compressed. The only thing that is not affected now is probably the steel bars that the French most urgently need, and the French have not raised tariffs." Xu Xin continued to introduce to Lu Ming that the east coast is getting more and more severe. He said: "If the expected future income is counted, it is certain that our country will lose more than 100 million yuan in profits in the French market every year. Lao Lu, this is a major crisis! Think about what we have now No matter how big the stall is, how many projects to invest in, and how many people to support, last year’s fiscal revenue was only a little over 300 million, but now it’s nearly 30% less, and this year’s fiscal revenue is probably going to be a huge deficit.”

"Hey, Qiang Quansheng has just become the Minister of Finance and the Executive Committee of the Central Committee, and he is facing such a mess. Maybe he will use the reserve gold stored in the Army's No. [-] Prison?" Lu Ming smiled wryly, and there was something in his words Worry for him.

"Using the reserve gold has another purpose!" Xu Xin didn't refrain from swearing in private, but he continued: "Nowadays, not only is there a shortage of money, but also the problem of industrial overproduction. There are so many commodities—and among them Textiles are the most typical and the largest quantity - who will use them after they are produced? No one will buy the goods after they are produced. With so many upstream and downstream manufacturers, the entire industrial chain will suffer losses. The income of workers will inevitably fall into a rapid decline. The domestic situation There will be twists and turns. At that time, a lot of money will be spent to maintain stability. It is simply a vicious circle. Sooner or later, we will not be able to persist. The crisis in the shipping industry a few years ago has taught us that the Great Depression caused by overcapacity is the most terrifying .”

"It is unreliable to engage in infrastructure construction at this time. It will seriously increase the level of domestic inflation and cause social unrest. In our multi-ethnic country, the cost of social unrest will be too high for us to bear." Xu The letter continued to analyze, "In the past two years, we relied on guiding social capital to invest in infrastructure and overseas plantation projects, which barely pulled back some inflation. At this time, we will conduct a second round of large infrastructure investment-I heard some fools advocate 400 million infrastructure investment, right? Domestic inflation has not risen to the sky? Now the average wage of workers has risen to 5-6 yuan from 7 yuan a few years ago. If inflation rises again, do you want to increase the national workers’ salary If the income level does not rise, their living standards will decline, and social turmoil will occur. If it rises, the manufacturing industry will already be so difficult. If the labor cost rises sharply, should we continue to operate? Should we compete with Europeans? Luo Qia The Genoa director of the textile factory has already complained to us twice that workers’ wage costs, material costs, and operating costs are all rising, which has weakened the profitability of the factory. Fortunately, their sales channels are strong, and the products of Luocha Textile Factory are generally The profit margin is also higher, otherwise it will be difficult in the second half of the year."

What Xu Xin said is indeed the reality that the East Coast is facing now. In this export-oriented economy, any disturbance from the market will strongly affect it.There are only two ways to get rid of this unfavorable situation. One is to expand the domestic market, change the economic growth model, and change external demand into domestic demand. However, the domestic population is sparse, and factories produce far more commodities than they need. Under such circumstances, this road is doomed to fail in the short term; the second is to open up new markets and get rid of the heavy dependence on a single market through diversified regional markets. The big Spanish market, the Russian market that Mozan in Europe is trying to develop, and the Persian market that the naval expedition fleet just visited, etc.If these markets have been successfully developed, then perhaps the incident of France's brazen tariff increase will not lead to such a serious crisis.

As for the Indian market and the Daming market that some people in China yearn for wishfully, according to the analysis of the Ministry of Trade, there is basically no market in Daming at this time, and the market in India is also very limited.Not to mention that Ming Dynasty was in the midst of war—and the people of this country are not used to buying other people’s things even in peacetime. They prefer to do everything by themselves, even if the cost is high—the Indian market is far away. Not as big as people think.

First of all, the wealth of this country is very concentrated, and it is basically among a very small number of people such as princes and high castes. Do they have any good things?Still need your junk?Another point that is worse is that this country is now regarded by Portugal, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and even Denmark, and people from the east coast will become the target of public criticism if they go there.Therefore, even if there is a possibility for a small number of middle-income earners in this country to buy goods from the east coast, it is really not cost-effective to rush there, because it will arouse the envy of other countries.

After such calculations, the markets that may replace the French market in the short term are nothing more than the markets of Persia, Russia, and Great Spain.Among them, the growth of the Greater Spain market is stable, and the profit is steadily increasing. It is indeed a high-quality market. The sales channels of the Genoese are indeed very strong, but the volume is still much lower than that of France; the Russian market is not realistic in the short term. All three felt that they would definitely not be able to make profits in the first three years, and it would be hard to say after three years; the Persian market is possible, but it also depends on the results of the "gunboat diplomacy" of the Second Fleet of the East Coast Navy. Everything is still variable.

Of course, the Peruvian smuggling trade that the Southern Railway Company has just fiddled with is also a way.To be honest, if the market is well managed, the prospects are still very good, because the Spanish policy of brain damage has caused most of the production and living materials needed by millions of people in the entire Viceroyalty of Peru to be imported from distant Europe, that is to say This area has almost no industrial production capacity, and is completely an agricultural society.

What's even better is that this is still an agricultural society with a high degree of commercialization. Residents are used to buying goods that they don't produce, and they are not more inclined to produce by themselves like the Chinese. This is really an industrial country. Custom-made goods dumping place ah!It’s no wonder that after the 18th century, the United Kingdom would firmly dominate the South American market, using it as a place to dump its goods and import raw materials. After South America became independent, it became a place for British capital exports, sucking 300 dollars for the British Empire. Years of blood—well, it seems that it is still being sucked by a certain big country.

The Peruvian market is adjacent to the east coast, and the transportation is extremely convenient. Moreover, the local colonial officials and native white elites are happy to see the smuggling trade with the east coast, and many of them even act as compradors for goods on the east coast run.The downside may be the dissatisfaction of the Spanish Royal Government, as well as the dissatisfaction of European smugglers and monopoly merchants. Their profits have declined. This is a huge conflict.But the people on the east coast are the local snakes in South America, so they just don't have to be afraid of these people's tricks. If there is any conflict, it's not certain who will suffer.

"I'm looking for you this time. It's actually the intention of the other members of the Executive Committee. I'll communicate with you in private on behalf of them." Xu Xin said with some seriousness, "The country may have a series of measures in the future, including political In terms of business, your navy spends so much military expenditure every year, it is time to stand up and protect the country. Our policy will hurt many people and cut off many people's financial resources. It is not surprising that anything happens at this time. Therefore, the navy should not be vague at this time, and must stand up firmly when it is time to stand up. Well, I won’t say much about the specifics. Tomorrow is the work meeting, and you will know the details by then.”

(End of this chapter)