In January of the 42nd year of Haojing (1685), a newly launched magazine caused a huge sensation. The reason was simply that its content was too shocking.
After these years of Emperor Haojing's guidance and teaching, as well as foreign trade and expansion, the Ming Dynasty gradually understood the world.
No matter how stupid a person is, he can still achieve something in forty years. At least he can laugh about the news in the newspaper after dinner, otherwise he will really be stupid.
Emperor Haojing also followed the trend and asked the media group to launch a magazine about the world economy so that more people could understand the world's dynamics and once again conduct widespread science popularization.
It’s not that there were no economic magazines in the past, but their content scope was only about the Ming Dynasty, which was not broad enough and could not satisfy the readers’ growing appetite and curiosity.
"World Monthly" can just cater to some readers who are interested in talking. Even if a copy sells for two silver coins, buyers are still flocking to it. The first batch of 10,000 copies was sold out by the time it was launched.
Of course, the first issue must have some earthquake-level content. Emperor Haojing was very involved in this aspect because it was endorsed by similar magazines in later generations.
The main content of the first issue is the ranking of the world's strengths, covering economic, military, science and technology, culture, diplomacy and other aspects.
Participating in the ranking are the circle of friends of the Ming Dynasty, France, the Netherlands, the Ottomans, Sweden, Venice, Japan, Kimchi, Persia, Siam, and the New Inca Empire.
As well as neutral Switzerland, Annan, and Portugal, as well as Spain, Britain, Poland, Donglu, Denmark, and the Holy Roman Empire who are at war.
A total of twenty countries and regions have been compiled into the TOP20 rankings!
Rome was not included. That was because Emperor Haojing gave the Pope face, otherwise it would basically be in the bottom three.
The content of this magazine is almost a treasure that spies from all over the world dream of. They did not expect that intelligence gathering would be so easy.
On average, each embassy purchased hundreds of copies, and some even ordered thousands of copies, and sent people to Tianjin immediately by train so that they could board a ship and sail out to sea.
Emperor Haojing is not worried about leaks. The content that can be shown to others is insignificant.
Just like a duck, the surface of the water is full of elegance and calmness, while the two paws below the water are moving tightly...
In terms of economy, Daming is the only country in the world with an annual steel production of more than five million tons. It can also smelt one million tons of other metals, totaling more than six million tons. Its industrial strength naturally ranks first in the world.
But for the sake of fairness, industrial strength will not be calculated in terms of steelmaking and non-ferrous metals, but also in terms of oil refining and shipbuilding.
The Ottoman Empire was weak in steelmaking, but oil refining was its strongest point, even surpassing the Ming Empire.
The individual breakdown of the rankings only determines the individual rankings based on the amount of data, not the data itself.
For example, in terms of industry, the Ottoman Empire ranks first in oil refining, but its metal smelting ranks only fifth in the world, behind the Ming Dynasty, the New Inca Empire, France, and Kimchi.
Shipbuilding was a relative weakness of the Ottomans, and their original technology was inferior to that of Western European countries.
Now we are learning to build first-class ironclads, and we can only rank fourth in the world in terms of shipbuilding.
Therefore, Ottoman's industrial value is ten, which is the sum of the three items.
Light industry and automobiles are not considered by the magazine for the time being. Heavy industry is the true embodiment of industrial strength.
There is also oil in the New Inca Empire, most of which is buried in Bolivia. The roads have just been built and the oil fields are still in the early stages of development.
In terms of oil refining, it can only rank fifth in the world after the Ottomans, Ming Dynasties, France, and Persia.
Thanks to Chile's giant copper mines, it ranks second in the world in smelting metals.
The level of shipbuilding is not even as good as that of Sweden. Ironclad ships are all sold, and the strength of early wooden ships is also at the bottom, with an industrial value of 27.
France has local iron ore deposits and oil fields in Venezuela. France was also the first country to industrialize.
However, the scale of local iron ore mining was far inferior to that of the Ming Dynasty, and was even overtaken by the rising star Kimchi.
Venezuela's oil is easy to extract, but Emperor Haojing used the oil field location in exchange for a stake, accounting for 30% of the shares.
France ranks third in the world for metallurgy, third for oil refining, and second for shipbuilding, with an industrial value of eight.
The Ming Dynasty ranked first in metallurgy, second in oil refining, first in shipbuilding, and had an industrial value of four.
The smaller the sum number, the stronger the industrial strength.
The economic ranking includes three aspects: industry, agriculture, and commerce, and its value is also the sum of the individual rankings.
In the agricultural field, Ming Dynasty received about 8 million tons of grains (including rice, wheat, millet, corn, and sorghum) and 3 million tons of potatoes and sweet potatoes last year.
This is only on paper, because farmers in the North are not taxed at all on their harvest, otherwise their annual income from potatoes would double or triple.
Potatoes in Beidu City are also very cheap. Even beggars can afford them. This is due to the bumper harvests in the North and Northeast.
Agriculture is France's strength, especially after acquiring the entire Iberian Peninsula, half of the Apennine Peninsula, and half of England.
The climate and soil in these places are very suitable for the growth of crops, and combined with the territory of North America, France's food harvest has increased rapidly.
With Colbert's help, Louis XIV now no longer had to worry about the poor peasants opposing him, because each peasant family had been allocated enough land.
It doesn't matter if you can't afford it, the Bank of France will provide farmers with loans to buy land. During the loan period, farmers can use wheat or potatoes to repay the debt.
After the banks obtained the crops, they sold them to the war-torn Central and Eastern Europe, allowing Louis XIV to obtain a large amount of jewelry, artwork, and precious metals.
Since the European Emperor provided relatively convincing data, Emperor Haojing naturally gave him face and set France's agricultural harvest at 13 million tons, becoming the world's largest harvester.
Emperor Haojing didn't want to get to the bottom of it as to what the specific data was, there was absolutely no need.
According to Fang Yizhi's report after returning from France and the intelligence collected over the years, even ordinary farmers in France can hire Uncle Black to farm their fields.
Farmers can pay directly to buy out the ownership of Uncle Hei in one go, or they can get a loan from a bank and then pay for the crops in installments.
Emperor Haojing was very happy to see that Louis XIV's France was gradually being darkened by himself...
The third largest land-grabbing country in the world is the New Inca Empire. After seizing the former Spanish Viceroyalty of La Plata, Polo can finally realize his desire to be self-sufficient in food production.
Originally, Emperor Haojing did not plan to add animal husbandry and fishing to agriculture, but considering the situation in the Ottomans and Persia, it had to be added. Animal husbandry was their strong point.
After successively acquiring grasslands and Central Asia, Ming Dynasty's animal husbandry also made great progress, especially the number of livestock reached an unprecedented height.
There are 370,000 cattle (including cattle, beef cattle, and yaks), 4.05 million horses (including war horses, draft horses, and farm horses), 8.66 million sheep (including goats and sheep), There are 5.52 million pigs, and the total number of donkeys and mules is over one million.
There is no big problem if the number of registered people ranks first in the world. Even the Ottomans cannot compare with the Ming Dynasty and can only rank second in the world.
The slaughter of cattle was prohibited in the Ming Dynasty, but in the Western Regions, the court had no control over how people ate it. Even the garrison troops liked to eat beef.
It is easy for local Ming people to eat beef. They only need to buy overseas beef shipped by refrigerated ships.
Before overseas beef leaves the shore, it must be slaughtered on-site at a local epidemic prevention point set up by Daming and directly inspected before it can obtain an export license.
With this arrangement, even if something goes wrong with imported beef, we can trace it back to the source and quickly find the source of the problem.
The number of registered livestock is indeed quite large, but compared to the two to three hundred million people of the Ming Dynasty, it is by no means too large.
This is why Emperor Haojing advocated sea fishing and built large-scale fishing boats every year.
Ming people may not be able to do other professions, but when it comes to food, they can definitely be the ancestors of others!
With less than six million pigs, there is no way it can bear the burden of being divided among so many rice buckets!
In order to protect the relative safety of pigs and other livestock, Emperor Haojing had no choice but to take action on river fresh food and seafood.
In terms of sea fishing alone, not counting overseas vassals, there are nearly 70,000 registered fishing boats in the mainland and Southeast Asia.
Among them, there are nearly 900 large-tonnage steam-iron fishing boats.
There are nearly 3,000 modified steam fishing boats, that is, wooden boats equipped with steam engines.
Most of these refitted ships are older merchant ships, bought cheaply by fishermen to engage in sea fishing.
After installing a steam engine, on the one hand, it can increase the speed in headwind, and on the other hand, it can place a freezer to ensure that the seafood does not deteriorate.
There are steam models and oil-fired refrigerators. The former can be powered by a marine steam engine. The advantage is that it only needs to be added with coal. Coal is cheap in the north, so ship owners prefer this style.
The fuel model is suitable for southern boat owners who are short of coal. They do not need to buy a steam engine or make major modifications to the fishing boat. They only need to buy a refrigerator and a fuel generator to go to sea and set nets.
According to data reported from various coastal areas over the years, as well as the actual collection results collected by factory guards, the average sea catch in Daming over the past three years was approximately 2.4 million tons.
This is the data for pure seafood protein, excluding plants such as kelp and seaweed.
This is equivalent to 4.8 billion market jins. On average, each Ming Dynasty person can eat more than 20 jins.
It seems like a lot, but in fact it’s only two kilograms per person per month, and the hinterland only relies on river fresh food.
Emperor Haojing believed that this level was far from reflecting the industrial strength of the Ming Dynasty, and the number of steam-iron fishing boats launched every year must be increased.
If the total number of sea-caught and imported seafood reaches 10 million tons, one ton would be enough for an average of thirty people, and each person would need sixty or seventy kilograms of seafood to eat.
At this time, everyone's fishing skills were very limited, and only the Ming Dynasty had steam fishing boats.
If there is no large-scale sea fishing, how long will it take?
Seafood is a powerful supplement to meat and can greatly relieve the pressure of foodies on livestock...
Merchants from Japan and Kimchi both saw the size and potential of the market, so they all joined the ranks of sea fishing.
At present, the vassal states of Northland and Southland, as well as Siam, Kimchi, and Wa are the largest seafood suppliers to the Ming Dynasty.
After thousands or even tens of thousands of tons of refrigerated ships are launched, the New Inca Empire will also join the team.
Being able to exchange cheap seafood for goods from the Ming Empire was probably the most economical and cost-effective way to barter.
The types of cans on the market can prove this from the side, as long as you have money in your pocket.
Tuna, grouper, salmon, cod, snapper, sardines, hairtail, mackerel, anchovies, cloves...
If you don’t think it’s enough, the store also sells canned clam meat, scallop meat, conch meat, razor clam meat, etc.
There are also ways to eat without spending any money, of course it's not the King's meal, but joining the army.
Even private soldiers with the lowest rank can eat canned seafood of various flavors as long as they serve on the border.
As a result, veterans with more than three years of experience will have an instinctive reaction when they see canned seafood. Eating cricket skewers tastes better than this.
Most of the time, canned food is the most reliable companion for the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty.
Especially for the soldiers of the Western Expedition, they would not panic as long as they had cans in their bags.
Ming Dynasty ranks first in the world in crops, livestock, and sea fishing. Naturally, its agricultural value is three, making it the first in the world.
In terms of business, compared to European countries, Daming was originally a younger brother.
Later, Emperor Haojing was forced to pull onions from the dry land and brought him up.
Among the businessmen who were lucky enough to attend the prince's lectures, some are now as old as dust, some are over seventy years old, and the youngest has turned gray.
However, there are still people who can become more active and younger because they take the elixir given by the emperor.
Two little aunts like Zhou Xin'er and Qi Yu'er have very scary incomes now.
It was through taking the elixir that the miracle of white silk and black hair was achieved.
Emperor Haojing's evil intention is to let these two little aunts live to be a hundred years old, and then each find a young man to marry...
Various hubs are also commercial places. If the boss has good connections and manages the business properly, it is not a dream to earn hundreds of thousands of silver coins a year.
After excluding all expenses, as long as you work hard in Beidu, it is not difficult to make a net profit of thousands of silver coins in one night.
Even if it's icy and snowy outside, it's as warm as spring indoors, and there are many programs to keep guests entertained.
Many programs in similar venues in Western countries are also passed on through oral narration or movie introductions by foreign businessmen.
Daming's entertainment industry is well-deserved to be number one in the world, and it is far ahead in terms of revenue, program types, number of viewers, etc.
If you add movies, you can pack up a bunch of peers behind you and fly away.
Movies are classified as products of civilization, which means they belong to the cultural industry, and their status is much higher than that of the entertainment industry.
Not counting the commercial import and export contracts previously signed with various countries, the total import and export volume of the Ming Empire has ranked first in the world in the past twenty years.
The main imported commodities are ores, trees, grains, seafood, fruits, meat, metals, furs, black uncle, etc., while the exported commodities are spirits, tea, tobacco, sugar, salt, spices, silk cloth, porcelain, machinery, and kitchen utensils. , stationery, furniture, watches, medicines, ships, weapons, refined oil, optical equipment, medical supplies, and household appliances.
It can be said that the types of goods exported by Ming Dynasty are far more than the types of imported goods, which has formed a trade surplus that is increasing year by year.
As of last year, the surplus reached approximately 170 million silver coins.
Even so, no country dared to launch a war against the Ming Dynasty to smooth out its trade deficit.
