The shipping companies and trading companies in the Da Chu Empire caused a certain shock because of the Changlin of Zhenjiang First Shipbuilding Company.
Many people believe that this new type of ship has the potential to directly change the pattern of shipping.
In inland river and lake transportation, this kind of ship can make great use of headwind capabilities, and in ocean transportation, because of its extremely fast speed, it can transport some time-limited goods to export faster.
For example, tea!
In fact, not many teas from the Chu Empire were exported before, and even if they were, they were sold to the grassland areas in the northwest. For these nomads, the most important role of tea was not a drink to satisfy their appetites, but a Great supplement source of vitamins.
This is also the reason why in ancient times, China adopted relatively strict control measures on tea, salt, and iron in the trade of northern nomads.
Because for nomadic people, tea is a necessity for survival, even more important than iron.
However, as the Great Chu Empire continued to conquer the grasslands, Monan Mongolia was completely merged into the Great Chu Empire. Even Mobei Mongolia became a vassal of the Great Chu Empire and accepted the canonization of the Great Chu Empire. Therefore, the tea trade in these places, It has become an internal local trade and cannot be counted as an export.
As for the Mongolian Desert, this place is now the territory of Zhungeer, and the two sides are currently at war. Therefore, the Chu Empire has also implemented strict material blockade measures in the Western Regions. Strategic materials such as tea, salt, iron, gunpowder, etc. are not allowed. Export to the Western Region is allowed.
So now the export of tea from the Chu Empire to the nomads has stopped.
As for the overseas countries in the south, the export trade volume is not large, and only some of them are exported to countries in the traditional Chinese cultural circle such as Fusang, Annam in the Nanyang Peninsula, Siam, and Myanmar. This is partly because they are greatly influenced by Chinese culture. tea consumption habits, but overall the scale is actually not large. At least for the current export trade of the Dachu Empire, the tea trade is actually very small.
As for other places, India, Persia and parts of Central Asia also have some tea consumption habits, but the scale is smaller and not worth mentioning.
In addition to cultural influence, there is another more important factor that affects tea exports, that is, tea has a shelf life.
Especially if transported by sea, tea leaves can easily become moldy and rot if they float on the sea for a long time.
In fact, the Dutch had already started transporting tea to Europe for sale before, but because the transportation time was too long, the tea arrived in Europe and became moldy and spoiled. The most important thing is that this thing is the most popular oriental medicine from China in contemporary Europe. of.
In other words, in contemporary Europe, tea is not a beverage, but a medicine... This is nonsense.
Contemporary Europe has not developed the habit of drinking tea. In the original time and space, this habit took the Dutch several dozen years to develop.
But it was the British who really regarded drinking tea as a daily consumer product. The British gradually fell in love with tea from top to bottom in the late seventeenth century. After the eighteenth century, the whole country drank tea... and even developed the concept of afternoon tea. Unique culture.
The popularity of tea in Britain led to the birth of the real tea trade, and the trade deficit caused by large quantities of imported tea led the British East India Company to balance the trade deficit by exporting opium to the Chinese region, which ultimately led to the opium The outbreak of war!
Therefore, for the contemporary Chu Empire, the total amount of tea exports is actually very small. On the one hand, the shipping speed is too slow, and on the other hand, it is a problem of consumption habits.
However, although the total export volume is relatively low now, there are still some domestic tea export trading companies, many of which are quite large, such as Quanfu Trading Company.
This is a maritime trading company registered in Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian. Like many trading companies, its predecessors were part maritime merchants and part pirates. Later, it was officially registered and turned into a regular maritime trading company for operations.
There are two main routes. One is their old business, which is the Fuso route. Although Quanfu Trading Company was registered only more than ten years ago, in fact, including the maritime trade period before the Ming Dynasty, they were already operating in Fuso. It’s been twenty or thirty years.
Moreover, it focuses on tea trade and has established a large and stable tea trade system in the local area. A lot of tea is shipped there for sale every year.
In recent years, as the Chu Empire launched its Southeast Asian strategy, it has successively forced many indigenous countries such as Annam, Siam, Myanmar, and Aceh to fully open their markets.
Quanfu Trading Company, like other trading companies, followed the military's lead and fully invaded the local market.
As the largest tea trader in China, Quanfu Trading Company immediately organized and transported a large number of teas for sale, and has established a firm foothold in the above-mentioned countries.
But how can I put it, although there are many people in these places, the overall tea consumption market is still not very good. In addition, after long-distance sea transportation, due to factors such as the sea transport goods are easily affected by moisture, the long sea transport time can easily cause the tea to be damaged. Deterioration makes it difficult to guarantee the quality of the tea upon arrival.
If the quality is not good enough, it will naturally affect the further development of the market.
At the same time, it will also seriously affect the competition of several tea trading companies that mainly focus on land transportation, such as Quanfu Trading Company and Yunguiguang.
You must know that there was tea trade in the Nanyang Peninsula, but most of it was based on land transportation, that is, various caravans.
What Quanfu Trading Company has to do is not only cultivate the local market and tea-drinking culture, but also compete with these domestic land transportation trading companies.
After struggling for several years, the results were not great.
Ever since, Quanfu Trading Company has set its sights on other places...such as the Indian Peninsula, such as West Asia.
As for the European region... don't expect it. Currently, the Chu Empire has no ships that can go to Europe for trade. That is not the sphere of influence of the Chu Empire. Moreover, it is a long journey with no sea maps and no routes. , and there are no supply ports along the way.
Therefore, it is too difficult for the trading companies of the Dachu Empire to directly organize fleets to go to Europe.
And that’s not to mention the obstruction from other countries.
Whether it was the Dutch, the Portuguese, or the English, newbies in maritime trade, they did not want to see merchant ships from other countries sail around the Cape of Good Hope and then enter European trade.
They themselves fight back and forth, and when they encounter an opportunity at sea, they will directly rob each other. If the merchant ships of the Dachu Empire go, they will inevitably be attacked.
Therefore, don’t count on the market in Europe.
However, the Indian, West Asian and even North African markets make Quanfu Trading Company very jealous, especially every time they hear that Nanyang Trading Company has made a lot of money in India from cloth, weapons and other goods, they become even more jealous.
They also tried to engage in arms trade and cloth trade, but unfortunately they were not very successful.
But how can I put it, every other line is like a mountain... This kind of bulk goods trade is often not something you can do if you want to do it. You must have sufficient, cheap and high-quality supply, and you also need to have stable sales channels in the target market. .
Quanfu Trading Company has been deeply involved in the tea field in the past ten or twenty years. They have long-term cooperation with a large number of tea houses in China, self-built and cooperative tea processing plants, and have a stable long-term business in Fuso. The cooperative distributors at all levels are currently building tea sales channels in various places in Southeast Asia.
In the tea export trade, they dare to say that they are number one in the country, and no one dares to say that they are second.
But in other fields... they don't have any obvious advantages. They can do it, but the profit will definitely not be good. If they don't do it well, they may even lose money.
And if one of them fails, it can easily trigger hostility or even war among competitors!
There are many maritime trading companies in the Dachu Empire. Well, these maritime trading companies are companies with armed merchant ship licenses, and they are not the same nature as ordinary shipping or trading companies.
They have armed merchant ships, naval guns, gunners, marines, etc. Basically every family has gone overseas. At least hundreds of armed personnel have been pulled out, and as many as thousands of people have been pulled out to fight. It's also possible.
For example, the Nanyang Trading Company started a business with a local indigenous kingdom on the east coast of India at the beginning of this year.
When they went to India for trade, they wanted to build a port to serve as a supply port, so they found an excuse to start a fight... They found an excuse, but when they sent more than a hundred people ashore to fight, the indigenous kingdom opposite didn't say anything. Wude actually sent thousands of people over, including more than a thousand cavalry.
What's even more abominable is that they didn't foolishly come over and take the initiative to attack, but instead besieged them outside.
These natives obviously knew that they could not defeat the Chu Empire's ground forces relying on formations and artillery, so they only besieged them outside.
In the end, the landing personnel of the Nanyang Trading Company were besieged and had no choice but to gradually retreat to the coast, and finally ran away in disgrace.
This was the third time that the Nanyang Trading Company tried to build a port in India to serve as a trading base and failed.
Don't think that Nanyang Trading Company is not doing well because of its failure. You must know that Nanyang Trading Company went all the way to India to fight... and it still wanted to directly seize its large ready-made port. It still faced several problems. Thousands of indigenous regular troops, including thousands of cavalry.
If we had changed our strategy, for example, don’t make the target too big, and instead grab other people’s big ports as soon as we get there, we wouldn’t be in such an embarrassing situation.
But the Nanyang Trading Company only wanted to make money, and was unwilling to build a colonial city in a remote and desolate place. They just wanted to grab a ready-made one.
So... don't think of the twenty-seven armed trading companies in the Chu Empire as ordinary trading companies. Except that they have no colonial administrative power, they are no different from the Dutch East India Company.
In a sense, they even have a monopoly, but this monopoly is a tacit understanding formed after internal negotiations and is not recognized by official laws.
After more than ten years, many of these trading companies have gone bankrupt or been acquired due to market changes, shipwrecks, or other factors, but there are still as many as twenty-seven!
These twenty-seven armed trading companies are also competitors to each other, and in order to avoid internal friction, they will negotiate with each other under the coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.
Their respective spheres of influence have been regulated!
There is no explicit document, it is just a tacit agreement among everyone.
For Quanfu Trading Company, tea is their sphere of influence. Basically all the tea business in the huge Fusang belongs to their company.
In the Nanyang region, the tea trade monopoly of the Kingdom of Siam and the Kingdom of Aceh was also obtained, while the tea trade in Annan and Myanmar was divided up by other companies.
Except for tea, their company does not have monopoly rights recognized by its peers in other fields, so although it does some cloth or weapons trade on weekdays, its share is not large.
If they really expand their arms or cloth business, they will attract fierce countermeasures from other trading companies in minutes.
For example, the cloth business in the Kingdom of Siam was basically done by the Nanyang Trading Company. As compensation, the Nanyang Trading Company basically did not get involved in the arms trade or other iron products trade in the Kingdom of Siam.
The trade of other goods is divided up by other trading companies.
If Quanfu Trading Company wants to engage in cloth trade in the Kingdom of Siam, or even lower prices in order to compete for the market, Nanyang Trading Company may go crazy...
Not to mention some legal countermeasures, there is no guarantee that one day the two sides will have a chance encounter on the uninhabited sea... It's just that during the chance encounter, the Nanyang Trading Company's armed merchant ships will fly the skull and crossbones flag...
On the other hand, if other trading companies dare to get involved in the tea trade on a large scale and engage in vicious competition, Quanfu Trading Company will also organize a fleet to let competitors know why piracy is so rampant in Nanyang waters!
At the beginning, there were more than 60 trading companies with armed trade licenses in the Dachu Empire, but now there are only 27 left. Where are the other armed trading companies?
This is a question worth pondering!
In short, those who dare to engage in maritime trade in the Chu Empire these days are not good people. Nine times out of ten are pirates, and most of them have not given up the pirate business now...
Not to mention the private sector, even the three major official trading companies, many of the captains or crew members are also pirates. They used to be members of the Shibazhi Alliance, the largest pirate gang in East Asian waters.
To put it in more realistic terms, the twenty-seven armed trading companies in the Chu Empire were themselves an important part of the pirates in the Western Pacific.
As for the remaining part, they are naturally the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese East India Company... They are also very skilled in various maritime plundering businesses.
Of course, now the Portuguese have been driven out of the Nanyang Sea by the Chu Empire and the Dutch, and now only the Chu Empire and the Dutch are left.
Without these trading companies, piracy activities in the Western Pacific could be reduced by more than 90%.
Therefore, you cannot overestimate the integrity of armed trading companies these days!
If you dare to steal other people's business, they really dare to bring armed merchant ships to start a trade war with you!
It is precisely because of this situation that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Da Chu Empire took the lead in getting everyone to sit down together to chat and have a heart-to-heart discussion in order to avoid internal strife and regulate maritime trade.
The market is so big and there is so much business. There is no need for you to fight against each other and beat each other to pieces. We can sit down and talk slowly and divide the spheres of influence.
When these twenty-seven families were almost done talking, they came up with an unspoken rule for each other's sphere of influence.
For example, a certain kind of goods trade in a certain region belongs to a certain trading company. Other trading companies can do it incidentally to enrich the types of trade and meet customer needs, but they must not go too far.
If you dare to go too far, as soon as you make money on the front foot, you will be attacked by 'pirates' on the back foot...
Quanfu Trading Company is one of the twenty-seven trading companies, and in the unspoken rules of the twenty-seven trading companies, their Quanfu Trading Company is engaged in tea, and other trading companies will not get too involved in the tea trade, even if If you do, it’s just a small fuss.
Even though they are jealous of the cloth and arms trade, people in Quanfu Trading Company still don't have the courage to engage in the markets developed by the Nanyang Trading Company in India.
That place was also taken over first by the Nanyang Trading Company. The Nanyang Trading Company had already expressed its position to its colleagues that they did not care about other places or other businesses.
But in the markets in the Indian peninsula that they have developed, the weapons and cloth business belong to them. Don't do it, otherwise don't blame my naval guns for not recognizing people!
The Nanyang Trading Company worked hard to develop markets on the Indian Peninsula, and fought a lot of small-scale battles for this purpose. It finally opened up several markets. Although it has not reached the level of a colony or a trading stronghold, it has It can be said that you can run over to berth ships, replenish supplies and conduct trade.
It's okay for you latecomers to take advantage of the Nanyang Trading Company's early development efforts and use these ports to rest and supplement business. But if anyone dares to sell weapons or cloth in these places, don't blame them for ignoring the friendship between compatriots.
Of course, if you can open up new markets for weapons or cloth in other places, that is your responsibility, and Nanyang Trading Company has nothing to do with it.
Based on these factors, even if Quanfu Trading Company is jealous, it is difficult to get involved in the arms or cloth trade in the above-mentioned areas. As for opening up new markets in other places, the risk is too great...
If you don’t see it, a behemoth like the Nanyang Trading Company would be in trouble if it went to the Indian Peninsula!
The long distance means that it is more difficult to project troops and replenish supplies. Without the strength, it is impossible to do this kind of work of opening up new markets.
Therefore, Quanfu Trading Company's idea is simple. If they don't go to new places to open up markets, the risks will be too great and there will be too many uncertainties.
They went to several places on the Indian peninsula that had been initially developed by the Nanyang Trading Company. They did not engage in the lucrative cloth and weapons business in these places. They still planned to focus on the tea trade.
It's just that the Indian peninsula is too far away from the mainland, and tea has a time limit, especially when transported by sea, which is more susceptible to moisture and mold.
Therefore, if you want to do tea business in the Indian Peninsula, the shipping time must be shortened and the ship speed must be increased.
The Changlin ship type produced by Zhenjiang First Shipbuilding Company meets their needs very well!
And they are also the second company after Jinling Shipping Company to place large-scale orders for new ships, and also the first armed trading company.
However, they did not directly place an order with Zhenjiang First Shipbuilding Company. To be honest... they still didn't think highly of the technical capabilities of First Shipbuilding Company. They found First Shipbuilding Company just to order sails. As for the hull, they It is planned to be built by Luohua Shipyard.
After all... what they want to order is a fully loaded clipper ship with a displacement of thousands of tons, and it is also an armed merchant ship!
Although the Changlin ship type, a typical clipper ship type, is not suitable for deploying a large number of artillery pieces as a warship, it is still barely possible to deploy a small amount of light and medium-sized artillery pieces for self-defense.
But this also tests the design and construction capabilities of the shipyard. Obviously, the No. 1 shipyard without any experience in building armed merchant ships will definitely not be able to do it.
Therefore, Quanfu Trading Company found Luohua Shipyard to carry out the work. Luohua Shipyard is the fourth largest shipyard in the country. It not only has rich experience in building armed merchant ships, but also has experience in building warships. Building an aircraft There is no problem with the cut-shaped armed merchant ships.
There is no need to deploy many artillery pieces anyway, as long as there are a small number of light artillery for self-defense.
In fact, judging from the current maritime situation, clipper ships can only operate in sea areas with special terrain restrictions, such as when entering and exiting ports and straits.
In normal sea areas, there is no need to worry about being attacked by pirates...
Because the clipper ship can run fast enough, ordinary pirate ships cannot catch up...
If you can't catch up, why attack?
After Quanfu Trading Company came to express its willingness to purchase sails separately, the First Shipbuilding Company simply agreed after some bargaining and agreed to provide Quanfu Trading Company with twelve sets of advanced sails.
This order also attracted the attention of others. Many people followed the example of Quanfu Trading Company, ordering sails and hulls separately, looking for other shipyards to order hulls, and ordering sails from the No. 1 shipyard.
However, as the number of sailing orders increased, Daiichi Shipbuilding Company found that it could not even produce sailings alone, so it also began to license the sailing patents at high prices.
When the large domestic shipbuilding companies saw that there was such a good thing, they immediately purchased patent licenses one by one, and then produced these advanced sails on their own.
Although you have to pay a high patent fee, if you have the new sailing equipment in your own hands, you will be more confident and confident when taking subsequent orders.
The First Shipbuilding Company has also made a lot of money by relying on a large number of sail installation orders and subsequent patent authorizations, and as patents are liberalized for external authorization, there will definitely be more and more in the future. Shipyards produced and sold these new ships.
By then, if there is not one more ship using the new sail rig, the First Shipbuilding Company will be able to obtain a large amount of patent fees.
It’s like making money while lying down, and making a lot of money!
This has shocked many colleagues in the shipbuilding industry. They all say that the shipbuilding industry is full of gold. In fact, there are indeed a lot of opportunities to make a fortune.
But why am I not among the rich?
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