Liu Jiaquan, whose name was placed on the coast of western Guangdong seven or eight years ago, was considered a famous pirate.
In his early years, Liu Jiaquan traveled to sea with his uncle, followed Liu Xiang, and later Zheng Zhilong, and later went alone with hundreds of brothers and several sea ships under his command.
Traveling to the coasts of western Guangdong and even Vietnam, they also do some maritime trade on weekdays, and grab a share when they have the opportunity. They are the most typical maritime merchants/pirates these days.
During the few years he spent in the coastal areas of western Guangdong, Liu Jiaquan managed to gain quite a reputation, which once gave the local navy a headache.
However, this happy life did not last for a few years. With the Chu Empire taking control of Guangdong and regaining the headquarters of the great pirate Zhao Xinhou, who was a little active along the Guangdong coast, its ability to control the Guangdong coast was greatly strengthened.
Later, the Chu Empire also built extensive coastal defense forts and built a fleet. Naturally, Liu Jiaquan would not foolishly come to offend the name of the Chu Empire's navy.
But if you ask him to submit to the Chu Empire and then become a junior officer in the Chu Navy, he is not interested.
Liu Jiaquan didn't want to be too constrained. Besides, he had no interest in being an official. He just wanted to make money, and make money freely.
So the Liu family simply took their men to the coast of Vietnam. Later, when they heard that the Chu Empire had opened up maritime trade, they came back again.
But it was still not to submit to the Chu Empire, but purely to do business!
Now that the Great Chu Empire had opened up its maritime ban and allowed various sea ships to do business, he naturally would not let it go. He immediately went to Guangzhou to register a maritime trading company called Liuhe Trading Company, named after his hometown of Liuhe Village.
After establishing Liuhe Trading Company and gaining an aboveboard status, Liu Jiaquan found that it was easier to do business overseas.
As long as you don't foolishly cause trouble in the offshore waters of the Great Chu Empire or the Eastern Ocean, or on several fixed south-ocean routes escorted by the Great Chu Empire's navy, then the Great Chu Empire's navy will basically not care about you.
Even if you go to other routes in Nanyang to plunder secretly, as long as you do it secretly, the Chu Empire's navy will not be able to detect it, no matter how powerful it is.
Of course, this kind of robbery of the Liu family has been done very little.
Because you can make a lot of money by going to sea to trade, and the safety is also high. But if you go to remote routes to plunder, it depends on your luck. After all, the sea is so big and it is on remote routes. It is not what you want. If you want to meet a ship, you can meet it.
Even if you meet...it's hard to tell who is the fat sheep.
Those who dare to leave the escort of official navies of various countries and run remote routes these days must either be powerful or not afraid of death.
For example, the three major trading companies directly under the Ministry of Industry of the Chu Empire and the merchant fleets of various European countries, mainly the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, among which the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United Kingdom all passed through the East Indies, which had a trade monopoly. The company's situation to trade.
No matter which company is mentioned above, their merchant fleets are large in size and possess powerful armed forces. When conducting ocean trade, they always drive armed merchant ships, and their armed merchant ships are often equipped with a large number of artillery.
The Nanyang Trading Company of the Dachu Empire is currently using a new type of armed merchant ship. It has a displacement of more than 800 tons and can carry more than 20 artillery pieces. Its combat effectiveness is more powerful than the main warships of many backward countries...
Only these powerful large-scale trading companies can trade in remote routes because they can ensure their own safety.
Liu Jiaquan and others, ordinary private trading companies, have poor merchant ships, not many cannons, and only a few manpower. Not to mention robbing others, they might even be robbed!
"The Point Guard Is Here"
Although Liu Jiaquan was a pirate, he was not stupid enough to risk his death, so in the past few years he had been running safe routes, mainly traveling between Guangzhou and Batavia.
Transport a large amount of cotton cloth, industrial iron products (including weapons), silk, tea, porcelain, etc. from the Chu Empire from Guangzhou to Batavia, and then sell them to local merchants, and then purchase spices, pepper, amber, linen, and cotton. , tin, lead, precious wood and many other goods from Southeast Asia or from India, West Asia, Africa and even Europe are shipped back to Guangzhou for sale.
This trade route seems simple, and the unit price profit is not high, but in fact, the profit from a round trip is still very high.
Especially in the past two years, the Chu Empire's various export commodities, especially industrial iron products and cheap cotton cloth, have become extremely popular commodities, with considerable profits.
Because it is very popular in these Southeast Asian islands and even the peninsula, and it is also very popular in India.
Everyone wants cheap and easy-to-use things. Because of the popularity of the Chu Empire’s cotton cloth, the handmade cotton cloth from India has no market in Southeast Asia. The difference between quality and price is too big, and they can’t compete with the Chu Empire’s. cotton.
Not to mention competing with the Chu Empire in Southeast Asia, even in India, Indian civil engineering was losing ground when faced with the Chu Empire's cheap machine-made fabrics!
With the industrial rise of the Chu Empire, the demand for various industrial raw materials is also very huge, especially the demand for cotton is almost endless!
Although the Dachu Empire also set off a wave of widespread cotton planting, the cotton cloth industry developed so fast that it required large quantities of imports.
In this process, a large amount of cotton from various places, especially India, was transported by merchants to the Chu Empire, and the Great Chu Empire collected almost as much cotton as they could, and the purchase price was not low.
The Nanyang route has become a treasure trove for many maritime merchants in the Chu Empire, making huge profits.
Not only the Chu Empire, but also many merchant fleets from other countries operated like this.
But there is an exception, and that is that other countries cannot participate in the Eastern Sea Route. This is the private territory of the Chu Empire.
Due to their own needs, the Fuso Islands took measures to prohibit merchants from the Dutch and other countries from coming to trade, that is, they closed the country and only allowed Ming Dynasty and Korean merchants to trade.
After the Ming Dynasty was replaced by the Chu Empire, only the Chu Dynasty and the Goryeo Lee Dynasty were allowed to trade.
After the Goryeo Lee Dynasty also fell, only the Dachu Empire was left that could go to Fusang for trade.
In order to protect this exclusive route, the Chu Empire and the Dutch secretly fought several times in the name of pirate attacks.
The Dutch were unable to win, and the Fuso people themselves were unwilling to deal with barbarians like the Dutch, so they were eventually forced to abandon the Fuso route completely.
As a result, the Fuso route, also known as the East Ocean route, has completely become the exclusive route of the Da Chu Empire. In order to maintain the normal operation of the route and avoid malicious competition and maritime merchants from messing around and destroying the market, the Da Chu Empire requires people to go to Fuso for trade. Maritime traders must apply for an Oriental Trade License.
Of course, this is not to restrict, but to regulate the market. As long as the trade is carried out honestly and does not disrupt the imperial trade, then it will basically be approved.
This east-ocean route has brought great benefits to the Chu Empire!
Not only can it bring a lot of trade profits to the Chu Empire, but there is a large local population, and these people are all customers of the Chu Empire's industrial products. It is important to make the industrial products well, but what is more important is Or the market.
Without a market, no matter how good the product is, no one will buy it.
For the company itself, this may be an issue such as product competitiveness, but for a country, this may be a political or even military issue.
This is also a typical feature of post-industrial countries, that is, most of the country's political and even military power is to provide protection for its industrial system.
When your own company's products cannot be sold in a certain region, especially when they are blocked by some non-commercial factors in the local market, then you need battleships and artillery to support the company.
The current Fuso market is undoubtedly the exclusive market for the trading companies of the Da Chu Empire. In order to monopolize this market, the Da Chu Empire did not hesitate to fight with the Dutch several times before.
Although it was all under the banner of pirates, there were a lot of naval battles.
Just because they were concerned about the overall situation of maritime trade, both sides did not break up. In the end, because the Dutch gained great benefits from the trade with Chu, the Dutch finally gave in completely.
The sign of its complete concession was that last year, the last colony on Da Yuan Island under the control of the Dutch East India Company was handed over to the Dachu Empire in an all-round and unconditional manner, announcing that the Dutch forces had completely withdrawn from the Fuso route.
The Dachu Empire, which monopolized the Fusang trade, naturally benefited greatly from it. Not to mention exports, imports also benefited a lot from Fusang.
Fuso is rich in gold and silver, especially silver. In addition, there are also local specialties such as sulfur, which are also needed by the Chu Empire.
The Da Chu Empire had almost endless demand for industrial raw materials such as sulfur, saltpeter, cotton, and even wool, shipbuilding wood, and other industrial raw materials.
Not only large quantities are imported from Fuso, but also large quantities are imported from Nanyang.
At this moment, Liu Jiaquan was leading his two merchant ships all the way from Nanyang to Guangzhou.
This is actually not the most suitable season for returning from south to north, because the monsoon to Nanyang blows southward around November in winter, and in spring and summer around April, the monsoon begins to blow from south to north. .
In ancient times, many ships took advantage of the monsoon winds to travel faster.
However, this is only a general situation. If necessary, ships can also sail against the monsoon and sail against the wind.
This does not mean that a sailboat cannot sail against the wind, but sailing against the wind is more troublesome, slower and takes longer.
In the past, the overall scale of trade between the Huaxia region and the Nanyang region was relatively limited, so the sailing time followed the monsoon. However, when the Chu Empire opened the sea ban and encouraged maritime trade, the trade volume between the Chu Empire and the Nanyang region increased significantly.
At the same time, market demand will not decrease just because the monsoon is not suitable. On the contrary, because the monsoon is not suitable, the corresponding material prices will be higher, and therefore the profits will be higher.
Therefore, in recent years, many captains have simply gone to sea against the monsoon in order to obtain higher profits.
This has also led to the trade between several ports in China and Nanyang, with ships sailing all year round.
Liu Jiaquan was one of them, and relying on his and his subordinates' higher navigation skills, he engaged in anti-monsoon sailing.
Although it takes longer, is more troublesome, and even more dangerous, the corresponding profits are also higher.
The Liu family stood on the corridor outside the captain's room, holding on to the railing and looking at the empty sea around them, and then at the sailors who were busy adjusting the sails.
But he was already thinking about how much money he could make from this voyage.
After thinking about it for a while, he calculated it again silently.
The profits from these voyages, coupled with the money he saved in the past few years, should be enough for his trading company to order a real sea ship.
It is not a medium-sized ship like the one below that can only carry two to three hundred tons of cargo, but a new type of large-scale ship that can carry thousands of tons of cargo.
His two lucky ships are still a bit small, and they don't carry much cargo. In addition, in order to avoid risks and cost problems, the goods he trades are not goods with particularly high value per unit price, but are ordinary bulk goods. goods.
In this type of trade, the amount of cargo carried is critical.
The combined cargo capacity of his two ships is just over five hundred tons.
But if there is a new large-scale ship that can carry thousands of tons of cargo in one trip, the profit will naturally be higher.
He has heard from colleagues before that there is a new shipyard in Guangzhou that can also build and sell thousand-ton large-scale ships. Although he has not seen the goods in stock yet, he heard that the technical specifications are not much worse than those of the government-run Guangzhou Shipyard.
The new large-scale ships built by the Guangzhou Shipyard are good things. They can load a lot of cargo, run very fast, and carry strong firepower.
Although there are not many superstructures, the captain's living space is not very good. If it is attacked by pirates, it is not reliable to play gang-hopping.
But there are many cannons, and the ships are large enough to carry more crews.
When there are many artillery pieces, if you encounter a pirate ship, you can knock it down with just a few volleys of fire. Even if the other side dares to get close, you have many crews and are equipped with a large number of muskets. After a few rounds of volleys, the other side's crew will be defeated. There must be heavy casualties.
This new type of large-scale ship has advantages and disadvantages, but overall the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages.
It's just that the supply of new large-scale ships at Guangzhou Shipyard exceeds demand. Basically, the large-scale ships produced in recent years have been contracted by the three major government-run trading companies, and there is no share of other ordinary trading companies at all.
Trading companies like Liu Jiaquan either use old ships or can only order some Fu ships and some medium-sized Galen ships.
But now that there is another Li's shipyard in Guangzhou that can build this new type of large-scale ship, Liu Jiaquan is naturally tempted.
Liu Jiaquan was not only tempted, but he actually did it.
When he led his two Fu ships to Guangzhou, and before the goods could be sold, he hurriedly found Li's Shipyard and proposed to order a new large-scale ship capable of carrying thousands of tons of cargo.
But what made him dumbfounded was...he was late after all. There was more than one maritime businessman who had the same idea as him, but a large number of them!
Although Lee's Shipyard always accepts orders, its production capacity is limited. There are only so many dry docks that can build large ships of 1,000 tons, and the number of orders far exceeds its production capacity.
His order just had to be queued...and it was four years later!
Four years... the cucumbers and vegetables have gone cold, who knows what will happen in the next four years.
At this time, Lee's Shipyard also proposed a solution: they expected that a new shipyard would be put into use in one month, and they could arrange a small number of orders for priority production.
However, you must pay more than half of the deposit, and the selling price is higher than the normal queue order. The more urgent you want it, the more you have to pay.
As long as you can afford the money, they can even start urgently building your ship order starting this month. If there is no dock, they can directly recruit people to build a temporary dry dock.
As long as you have money, the shipyard can actually be built quite quickly. At worst, you can just use the human sea tactic to build it day and night!
Workers and materials can also be swapped.
The premise is that you have to pay for the increased expenses caused by rushing to work!
The Li's Shipyard is a serious private shipyard, wholly owned by the Li family, and it is all about making money when it enters the shipbuilding industry.
When they discovered that 1,000-ton large-scale ships were very popular and the orders were full, they started to take ordinary orders through normal production queues.
For some customers who are pressed for time, a special expedited service has been launched, which allows you to jump in line and even build a new dock specifically for your order.
After hearing this, everyone in the Liu family... had dark faces!
Nima, as a seafarer, I pride myself on being ruthless. If I meet a fat sheep at sea and have the opportunity to do something neat and tidy, I will not hesitate to do it if there is no news.
But in the Li family, they didn’t use swords or guns, they didn’t even shout, they just lay down and robbed... They acted like I was doing it for your own good, and I would not provide the distinguished service to others!
My heart is darker than mine!
Damn it, if you meet them on the sea, the Liu family will definitely let the Li family know why the flowers are so red.
It's a pity that the Li family doesn't go to sea!
In the end, Liu Jiaquan walked out of the office yard of Li's Shipyard with some helplessness, without even negotiating an order.
A rush order would be a sure mistake. He was not willing to do such a stupid thing.
For orders that are normally queued up, the earliest start time is four years, and delivery is five years away.
Moreover, Li Jiaming said that this five-year delivery still takes into account the increase in production capacity of Lijia Shipbuilding in the following years. If the increase in production capacity does not go smoothly, the delivery time may be postponed to six years or even longer.
For this reason, the latest delivery time specified in the contract is eight years later!
What a fucking nonsense. Eight years from now, all members of the Liu family may not be alive until then.
Just when Liu Jiaquan came out, a middle-aged man wearing a scholar's robe and holding a folding fan quickly walked out of the teahouse on one side of the street and went directly to Liu Jiaquan.
