When the New Year was approaching in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, Shanghai, the emerging industrial and commercial capital in the southeast of the Ming Dynasty, where the rivers and seas converged, was a prosperous and lively time.
Unlike Beijing, the imperial capital under the leadership of Chongzhen, which was becoming increasingly deserted, Shanghai, which was originally a quiet and leisurely land of fish and rice, began to take off more than two hundred years in advance, and now has a hint of the magic city of East Asia.
The dozens of streets near the Wusong River are full of shops with a thriving business. Some sell goods from the north and the south, some sell foreign goods, there are also firms specializing in export business, and there are also restaurants, teahouses, inns, and Chu restaurants that are full of customers. , the guys spoke with a southern and northern accent, shouting and selling at the door. Cargo carriers entering and exiting the Wusong River terminals roared through the streets.
In addition to the common people on the street, there were also officers and soldiers of the Royal Navy wearing blue satin military uniforms and speaking with "Hu Jian" accents, walking around, eating and drinking. These are all the "first generation old Shanghainese" who moved to Shanghai from Quanzhou Prefecture with the Zheng family. I wonder if there will be a bit of "Hu Jian" in the Shanghainese dialect in the future?
There are also many foreign devils here, including the Dutch East India Company, the British East India Company, the French East India Company, the Swedish East India Company, the Portuguese East India Company, the Danish East India Company... Oh, and there is also an Indian East India Company. (established by Persian merchants in India), all opened trading houses in Shanghai. From time to time, you can see businessmen or their families from various countries wearing Western clothes or Ming Dynasty costumes walking around on the streets.
There are also Japanese people wearing kimonos walking through the streets of Shanghai with narrowed eyes. The current relationship between the Ming Dynasty and Japan seems strange to later generations. On the one hand, the battle between the two countries around the Korean Peninsula continues, but on the other hand, the trade exchanges between the two countries are still active. Not only did the Zhusin ships of the Netherlands and Portugal (Portugal break away from the rule of the King of Spain in 1640) continue to travel between the two countries, but even the merchant ships of the Zheng family continued to account for the largest share of Japan's foreign trade.
The reason for this strange phenomenon is, of course, that both the Ming court and the Tokugawa shogunate needed to maintain normal and controllable trade exchanges, which was beneficial to both of them. Interrupting trade was something that neither the Ming Dynasty nor the Tokugawa Shogunate could do.
The Ming court also needed the Dutch East India Company to cooperate with its expansion in Nanyang and the Southern Continent, so it was impossible to prevent the Dutch East India Company from trading with Japan - raw silk of the Ming Dynasty was extremely popular in Japan, and Japanese lacquerware was sold far away. Western, how could the Dutch not do such a good deal? Therefore, prohibiting Zheng Zhilong from engaging in Sino-Japanese trade was equivalent to giving up the market to the Dutch East India Company in vain. The Dutch East India Company was developing too well, which was certainly detrimental to Ming Dynasty's maritime interests.
Rather than letting the Dutch become bigger, it is better to continue to let Zheng Zhilong control Japan's foreign trade.
On the other hand, Japan's Tokugawa shogunate was worried that the smuggling trade between the powerful southwestern feudal lords and Zheng Zhilong would develop too quickly... The shogunate, now deeply mired in the Korean battlefield, certainly did not want any more trouble in the country. Therefore, we can only turn a blind eye to the trade between the southwestern vassals and Zheng Zhilong.
The only way for the shogunate to curb the development of this smuggling trade is to allow Zheng Zhilong's Zhusin ships to continue to enter Nagasaki, Hirado, Osaka, and Mito (Japan is also on the path of founding a country, so it has opened up Hirado, Nagasaki, Osaka, and Mito). Mito, Naoetsu and other five trading ports) and other ports for trade.
However, the shogunate's open trade policy did not prevent the southwestern vassals from developing their own smuggling trade. Instead, it encouraged these powerful vassals to "go out" more boldly. By the seventeenth year of Chongzhen's reign, the powerful southwestern feudal lords including Satsuma, Tosa, Hizen, and Nagasu all opened shops in Shanghai through their imperial merchants. Among them, the Ryukyu House opened by the Satsuma Domain was the largest. It built more than a dozen rows of houses on Gubei Street in the southwest corner of Shanghai Commercial City, occupying a full quarter of Gubei Street.
A group of carriages and horses meandered into the commercial market from Yan'an Gate near Gubei Street and headed eastward along the long Yan'an West Street. This team of chariots and horses attracted the attention of many people, because the guards at the front and rear were all plate-armored cavalry, and they also rode extremely beautiful sweat-blooded horses. The carriage they were guarding was a four-wheeled carriage with glass windows.
A window of the car was open, and from time to time, two women's heads poked out, looking at everything around them with bright eyes.
These two women, one slender and slender, the other round and round, are Zhu Cihong's main concubine Zheng Chagu and side concubine Shen Qian.
That's right, this is Zhu Cixiang's team. Zheng Chagu and Shen Qian, two Shanghainese, followed Zhu Cixiang home for a visit... although they were still very unfamiliar with their hometown of Shanghai.
The purpose of Zhu Cixiang's coming to Shanghai was, of course, to enable the newly opened Salt Bank to quickly open up the market in Shanghai.
Although the Salt Bank can absorb a large amount of deposits from salt merchants, it is unlikely to lend money to salt merchants - salt merchants are essentially tax-paying merchants, and they do not need a large amount of funds. Instead, they will generate a large amount of money in the course of their operations. of cash flow.
The industry and commerce here in Shanghai require a lot of investment. Whether it is building ships to go to sea or setting up handicraft workshops in Shanghai, investment is required. The cost and scale of capital directly determine whether Shanghai's industry and commerce can quickly cross the threshold of capitalism.
Therefore, the key to the success of the Salt Bank is to absorb cheap salt merchants' funds, and then lend them to Shanghai's industry and commerce at high prices, earning a large price difference.
In addition to a large amount of low-cost funds, Zhu Cixiang's trip will also bring huge orders to Shanghai's industry and commerce - Zhu Cixiang did not agree to transport 130 million taels of silver to Beijing, and he would not be able to spend it. How can it be possible to absorb so many orders with Tianjin's little industry and commerce?
In today's Ming Dynasty, only the Shanghai Commercial Market, located at the mouth of the river and the sea, can handle so many orders. No matter how big the order is, it can reach the Shanghai Commercial Market through the Yangtze River and the canal (the Wusong River is connected to the canal). , the southeast water network and the vast sea diverge. Moreover, through these convenient waterways, population, technology, and raw materials can also be quickly gathered into Shanghai, allowing Shanghai's factory handicraft industry to develop rapidly.
In comparison, Tianjin's conditions are much worse. The port conditions are very poor and will freeze in winter. The radiation capabilities of the Wei River (Hai River) and canals are also weak, making it impossible to obtain sufficient population and raw materials for Tianjin. Moreover, Beizhili is still short of food, and millions of stones have to be transported by sea from the south every year to maintain supply. If Tianjin Commercial City develops into an industrial and commercial metropolis with a population of several million, the amount of grain transported northward every year will be worth tens of millions of stones!
Therefore, before the emergence of railways and steamships, it was very difficult for Tianjin's commercial city to develop as much as Shanghai's commercial city... and before steam power was effectively utilized, it was also difficult for the rich coal and iron resources in the north. be developed on a large scale. Because there is no extensive water network to support low-cost water transportation, high transportation costs (not only the transportation of coal and iron, but also the transportation of daily necessities for miners and their families, and the transportation of livestock feed) will make the product completely uncompetitive.
And before the arrival of the second industrial revolution, it was more than enough to carry out the first industrial revolution relying on the iron ore, coal mines and trees (charcoal) in the Yangtze and Huaihe river basins. After the first industrial revolution in history, the total steel production in the world was only one to two million tons.
Therefore, Zhu Cixiang knew very well that the future of the Magic City and the southeastern part of the Ming Dynasty was bright... There was no other way to stop the development here except the butcher's knife.
However, once the magic city of Shanghai develops, Ming Dynasty, which already has an imbalance in development between the north and the south, may face a more serious situation where the south is strong and the north is weak...
Just when Zhu Cixiang was worried about the future conflict between the North and the South in the Ming Dynasty, Zheng Chagu suddenly shouted: "Master Qiansui, my father and the others are here to greet us!"
