Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 945 Invitation from Dunkirk

On November 1652, 11, Mo San sailed into the port of Dunkirk in the Southern Netherlands on a second-hand boat bought from the old ship market in Amsterdam. so terrible.

Perhaps because he was extremely bored, Mo San decided to take his entourage to inspect the business of the city of Dunkirk while sheltering from the wind.This city, which is under the shadow of the French military at the moment, is very typical in the Spanish Netherlands and even most of the lowland areas, and has certain reference significance.

After a few days of investigation, Mo San found that the city that used to be—and is now—the home port of the Spanish Netherlands Fleet is really lackluster in terms of commerce.Perhaps most of the powerful and capable lowland merchants have immigrated to the United Provinces. The city is full of merchants from Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. They transport goods from their home countries to Dunkirk for sale, and then Take away the wealth here, which makes the city more dilapidated.

And just when Mo San returned to the hotel where he was temporarily staying in disappointment, a strange guest suddenly came to visit - this person is also well-known in the business circles in the Beihai area, and he has a huge business in the British North American colonies , Mr. Morris Thompson, who is also one of the important shareholders of the British East India Company.

A while ago, Thompson went to Poland with his fleet for trade, but unexpectedly encountered a storm during the return voyage, so he also sailed into the port of Dunkirk to stop the ship to avoid the wind.And he, who has many eyes and ears here, soon heard the news that Mr. Mo San, the special envoy of the East Coast Republic of China, was also investigating business in the city, and out of curiosity, he came to visit him.

Maurice Thompson made his fortune in woolen fabrics in the early days, and later began to operate overseas trade. Currently, he has a large sugarcane plantation and a large-scale sugar factory on the island of Barbados.At the same time, he also monopolized the trade of a considerable part of the colonies such as Virginia and New England. In addition, he can also be seen in many trades in the Levant and Guinea. One of the great merchants.

In fact, it is almost the same. During the British Civil War, this gentleman heavily funded Cromwell. After the war, he used his influence to actively promote Britain's overseas trade, and vigorously advocated the necessity of developing trade with the East, India and even Africa. One of the many big businessmen who passed the "Navigation Regulations" in Parliament, he can be regarded as a representative figure in the political and business circles of Britain at this time.

Thompson has been traveling abroad for many years, and he speaks directly, wittily and humorously, so he chatted with Mo San very quickly.

"Well, Mr. Thompson, you said that your country has restarted the investigation into the stagnation and even decline of the woolen industry over the years? But as far as I know, your country has already started such an investigation as early as 1622. At that time, it was generally believed that the Dutch monopoly led to the decline of the British wool textile industry, so do you have any new conclusions now?" Mo San and Thompson sat on both sides of a table and asked casually.Their entourage stood aside, dressed in black and blue clothes, and some of them were armed with pistols or rapiers. They looked like the bosses of the underworld negotiating.

"We still come to this conclusion." Thompson shook the French brandy in his hand, not minding that he was talking about the secrets of the British government: "Because of the deliberate obstruction of the Dutch and the unfriendliness of the Danes who levied different toll taxes As a result, Chinese merchants are struggling in the Baltic Sea. Except for a few port cities in Poland, it is difficult to sell our wool, or even if it is sold, the profit margin is greatly reduced under the competition of Dutch wool. The Dutch, really is our worst enemy..."

In fact, even if Thompson didn't say that, Mo San could fully understand the information.

The decline of the woolen woolen industry in this country has not been a day or two. In fact, since the British government investigated the reasons for the decline of the woolen woolen industry in 1622, the export of British woolen fabrics has stagnated.As for the most important suede in the UK, its annual sales volume in the Nordic and Central European markets has been hovering between 30 and 5 pieces in the past 6 years, and the price has been kept at an average of 8 pounds per piece, sweeping a large market. The average profit margin of merchant adventurer companies in some woolen export business is only 27%, which is really a sad figure.

The main reason for this tragedy is undoubtedly the Dutch!Judging from Mo San’s recent visit to Leiden in the Netherlands, the woolen center of the Netherlands, due to the fierce competition of Leiden wool (production has increased five times in the past 80 years), European woolen The prices of all kinds of commodities in the market fell across the board, which was undoubtedly a fatal blow to the wool textile industry, known as the British national industry.

The British tried various methods for this, but to no avail, and in the end they could only resort to war.But it seems that their measures (war) are more effective this time, because the Dutch commercial transportation system is in dire straits under the attack of the English navy. things.

"...Mr. Mo, I heard that your country has reached a secret agreement with the Netherlands to strengthen trade cooperation, isn't it?" After a long silence, Mr. Thompson suddenly said something earth-shattering.

Mo San's heartbeat suddenly accelerated when he heard it at first. How did this peaty British guy know the news?Nima, is this still a secret agreement?Can the leaky houses in Amsterdam and The Hague keep even a little secret?That's right, most of the low-level and mid-level officials in the Hague's three-level council betrayed the news. Well, officials from the Amsterdam City Council and the Dutch Provincial Council are also suspected. God, the Netherlands is a really unreliable country!

In fact, the news that Mo San suspects that low-level Dutch officials betrayed government secrets is no longer news. In The Hague and Amsterdam, it has almost become an industry.A large number of foreign envoys or spies gathered here, and they only needed a little money every day to get many manuscripts of government documents from the middle and low-level officials of the Amsterdam City Council, the Dutch Provincial Council, and the three-level council in The Hague.They didn't have the slightest sense of guilt about betraying national interests, and sold almost everything. Mo San bought many hand-copied versions of Dutch government documents, studied them carefully, and learned a lot.

It's just that now that Thompson also learned about the secret treaty of Donghe in this way—I don't know which step he learned about—Mo San is always very embarrassed, so at this moment he can only fool around and say: "Our government We have no intention of participating in the ongoing war between your country and the Netherlands. Please rest assured that our government has always adhered to a neutral position. The strengthening of business ties between our country and the Netherlands is nothing more than that, and there is no other in-depth cooperation. "

"To be honest, I understand your government's actions and logic, which is normal." Mr. Thompson took a sip of wine and said with a smile: "Perhaps you also know that I am a member of the House of Commons. The passage of this is the masterpiece of me and a group of old friends. Please forgive me, it is not worth the loss to communicate with a country like the Netherlands, which is doomed to decline. Really! Mr. Envoy, maybe you should really go to England to see Take a look, look at the vibrancy of England, look at the ever-changing face of England, and then maybe you will have a different opinion. You can take this as my official invitation. If you want, maybe I will introduce some London People from the political and business circles here are here for you. We can sit down and discuss business issues together. Our government does not have no demand for your country’s products. In the past, the business here was monopolized by the Dutch, but now everything is different. ,Is not it?"

I have to admit that Morris Thompson's proposal is very tempting. Compared with countries in continental Europe, the UK is relatively rich, and its business is also very developed, which often means that the residents' purchasing power and willingness to purchase are quite strong.If you take into account that the UK has a population of nearly 1000 million (of which England has a population of more than 520 million, Scotland is about 270 million, and the rest is the population of Wales and occupied Ireland), this huge market is hardly inferior to that of France. The attraction of industry and agriculture on the east coast is still quite huge.And Mo San, as the spokesperson of the interests of the East Coast in Europe, faced the temptation of entering the British market at the moment, it was natural that he couldn't hold back.

In fact, after careful calculation, there are still a lot of materials that Britain can export to the east coast, such as livestock (mainly referring to horses), small metal products that are not easy to process on the east coast, Virginia tobacco leaves that are very popular on the east coast, Indian luxury goods, leather , lead, tin and even labor and so on.The thinking of the people on the east coast is different from that of the British who are deeply influenced by mercantilism. They are more willing to spend most of their trade surplus on hand, and they don't like to keep precious metals in their hands, because it is likely to damage the domestic economy of the east coast. Economic development, and this kind of extravagant customers will obviously be welcomed by the British who are crazy about precious metals-they didn’t have this opportunity for cooperation before, but now they do, don’t they?

"I am very happy to go to England for a while. Dear Mr. Thompson, I am honored to accept your invitation." After a moment of silence, Mo San, who later studied in London, immediately responded positively to Thompson's invitation. I heard him say: "I still have some aspirin medicine here, I heard that it is very popular in your country, this will be a gift from me as a friend, Mr. Thompson, thank you for your invitation, I accepted it, I think it is necessary for me to go to England take a look, it will help the cause of our government."

(End of this chapter)