Xinshun 1730

Chapter 466

The rich merchants turned their heads to the youngest Honma Gusaku, and Honma Gusuo, who has gained more knowledge since he went to Edo and Osaka and thought that grain speculation can make a lot of money, also had a heartbeat.

The wealthy businessman who ran the boat answered Liu Yu's question first.

"We generally don't do rice business. The surplus rice of each domain is usually stored in Osaka. Usually, the goods are released a few months in advance, and there is no spot, but the price is set. When the time comes, it will be either delivered or sold. Lead to others."

When Liu Yu heard it, he also became excited. It's okay to play with a closed mind, anyway, the fluctuation will not be too big.

In terms of switches, there are Siamese rice, Ezo rice, and even Songjiang rice, as well as Dashun's huge funds. Isn't it a death to play like this?
He had been staring at these people just now, and saw that these wealthy merchants had been looking at a young man, so he asked: "Could it be that the young man who just got the crown is actually in the grain trade?"

Homma Guzuo suppressed the excitement in his heart, and he knew in his heart that if he could climb into the ranks of the Dashun Merchant Group, how could he not make a fortune?

Taking advantage of the situation, he got up, offered a toast to Liu Yu, and introduced himself.

The rise and fall of a family's wealth depends on the struggle of the family, but also on the course of history. The Honma family can be regarded as standing on the cusp of history.

As soon as Tokugawa Yoshimune came to power, he slapped his head to make decisions, and came up with an order prohibiting the renting of land.As a result, there was trouble for two years, the price of rice jumped, and the people suffered unspeakably. After two years, they gave up hastily, knowing that "regression" could not go back, so they followed the times and encouraged farming.

Of course the common people are not happy to cultivate the fields.

On the one hand, it is necessary to report and pay taxes for cultivating land. Farmers point to this secret private field that does not need to pay tribute to grow some radishes to eat.

Besides, farmers have no money.

Under the orthodox feudal system, all feudal rulers hoped to protect the interests of small farmers, and did not want to have an intermediate class between small farmers and lords, such as landlords.

But the reforms carried out by Tokugawa Yoshimune proved that retrogression will not work.

Farmers had no money to farm, so they had to relax their control over businessmen.

Encourage businessmen to spend money to cultivate fields.

Since businessmen are to be encouraged to cultivate land, the interests of businessmen must be guaranteed.

It cannot be said that merchants are encouraged to spend money to cultivate land while prohibiting merchants from renting land and then collecting rent.In that case, the businessman is not stupid, so he will not invest money. The purpose of investing money is to make money, not to serve farmers.

In the eighth year of Xiangbao, that is, the year when Yoshimune Tokugawa patted his head to abandon the land tenancy and mortgage prohibition order, the shogunate issued "Machi People Please Be Responsible for Changes to the New Field Order", "New Field Development Announcement" and so on.

On the one hand, in the form of decrees, the tenancy activities during the disintegration of the feudal economy were allowed; , is the territory of each vassal; the wasteland that is not registered on the Shigao inspection land is reclaimed to pay tribute to the shogunate.

The feudal lords were suffering, and the merchants were eager to try. The Honma family took the opportunity to reclaim a large amount of wasteland and became a well-known landlord.

Then, there is the great famine.

The cold summer and insect plagues along the coast of the Seto Inland Sea have little impact on Mutsu, Dewa and other places in the northeast.

At the same time, catching up with the development of the "Caomi" route of the previous westward route, the transportation is guaranteed, and the loss rate and sinking rate are reduced.

At this point, the Honma family suddenly prospered.During the Xiangbao famine, the price of rice skyrocketed. When the famine was over, the Honma family was already a well-known wealthy businessman.

However, Kosaku Honma's father was rather old-fashioned and believed that "business must follow the right path", so he did not participate in the speculation of rice futures in Osaka, so he was just an ordinary rich man, but he did not reach the level of "Harushi Sakata" when Kosaku Honma later speculated on futures. , Dojima overcast, Edo Zuraqian rain drifting" degree.

This is roughly the same as the history of the Netherlands and the East India Company today: when it was hard, it was engaged in industrial fishing, fishing, fishing, shrimp spinning, and woolen fabrics. The advanced stage was to engage in transportation, buy low and sell high, and now feel that it is too tiring to engage in trade. It is better to lend and speculate and engage in finance. So much so that he almost didn't die after the South China Sea bubble exploded.

What Dashun has to do at this time is to go from growing mulberry to growing mulberry, raising silkworms, picking tea, and spinning textiles, to the step of buying low and selling high for overseas trade.

On the contrary, Honma Kosaku has already begun to think about directly engaging in financial speculation.However, on this occasion, Honma Kosaku couldn't say that he wanted to tell his father about his idea of ​​speculative trading. He could only introduce his family's rice business and how it developed.

The speaker is interested, and the listener is interested. Liu Yu is looking for an agent who has some basic experience in grain trading. Hearing the introduction of his family's rice plantation in the ancient work of Honma, he thought that this is indeed a suitable candidate.

Due to the blockage of the Korean Peninsula and the existence of the Songliao watershed around Jinghai, transportation is extremely inconvenient.Regardless of land or sea transportation, it was impossible to sell grain to the Central Plains where there was a shortage of food before the advent of railways.

Only by relying on the Japanese market can we commercialize the grain in the Jinghai area, promote business investment, and complete the immigration plan around the Jinghai area as quickly as possible.

This is the ultimate goal of Dashun in the Northeast region. Once the war against Japan is over, not only the trading company must be considered, but also the border immigration issue at a higher level.

Although the Ezo land is still a wasteland, the soybeans in Liaodong and the cold-resistant rice of the Koreans, these agricultural technologies already exist, and the Little Ice Age has passed, the weather is getting warmer, and with the existence of the Tsushima warm current, it is no longer difficult to cultivate.

Ezo has no food yet, but the grain trade has to be established first. We can first use Siamese rice and Liaodong beans to stop the market first.It also needs the cooperation of an agent. After all, bulk grain needs the cooperation of Japanese compradors.

Whether this person is available or not is not known yet, and Liu Yu is not good at talking about his plan directly at this time, so he secretly remembers this person called Honma Guzuo.

He nodded at him, drank the glass of wine with dignity, and then stopped talking about the grain trade.

Homma Guzuo was young after all, he couldn't hold the momentum in his heart, he thought to himself that you asked about the grain trade, but you didn't talk about it, what's going on?

But seeing Liu Yu began to talk about other topics, he couldn't interrupt and ask more questions, so he could only wait silently.

During the dinner, Liu Yu didn't mention the grain trade again, but asked about the sales of Ezo's special products, the prices of the goods they imported from the Seto Inland Sea along the way, what they were selling, and so on.

More specifically, Xu Tao and other maritime merchants went to discuss it.

After the banquet was over, Honma Gusaku, who had a lot of doubts in his heart, received an invitation.

Unable to suppress the excitement in his heart any longer, he took a few breaths and calmed down, and then followed the invited person to the boat.

There were no other people, only a translator and Liu Yu were present.After the meeting, Liu Yu asked about the price of rice in Osaka.

Honma Kosaku gained a lot of experience in Osaka. He not only considered the idea of ​​rice speculation, but also carefully studied rice speculation for a long time.

After questioning and answering, he didn't take the initiative to say anything else, knowing in his heart that since Liu Yu came to him alone, there must be something interesting.

During the period, Liu Yu asked about rice futures, and Honma Guzuo replied: "The ones that only have material references but no real rice are called tented rice. There is no need for spot goods. According to the three seasons of the year, you can pay when the time comes. It was approved by the shogunate."

"Trading usually starts in the morning and rests at noon. At the end of the afternoon, trading starts again. At that time, an iron cannon matchstick will be ignited, and the length is determined. The moment the matchlock burns out, trading will stop."

"The starting price of the next morning's transaction is the price at the moment when the match was burnt out yesterday."

After the interpreter finished translating, Liu Yu asked, "What's the minimum entry limit?"

"A hundred stones. A minimum of one hundred stones."

"Which year was this approved by the shogunate?"

"Enjoy 15 years of insurance."

After counting the days, Liu Yu understood why the shogunate, as a feudal ruler, would allow such a weird thing to appear.

That year was two years before the Xiangbao famine, which happened to be Japan's once-in-a-century harvest. In addition, the previous recasting led to high gold and silver content, which led to deflation. The price of rice in Japan was extremely low. This caused Tokugawa Yoshimune to stabilize the situation with great difficulty, and as a result, the finances collapsed again.

Cheap grain hurts farmers, and it hurts soldiers even more.

Officials in Dashun are paid wages, receiving silver and rice, but Zhang Juzheng's reform has continued to the present, basically the silver standard, and currency has replaced real goods.

On the Japanese side, the salary of the samurai is still rice.

If the rice is too cheap, the samurai will be dissatisfied.

Under such circumstances, Tokugawa Yoshimune knew that this was a big pit, and this accounted rice futures could only be traded underground before, but in order to raise the price of rice and ensure the interests of the samurai, he had to admit it with his nose.

It can be said that the main line of the entire Xiangbao reform is that the shogunate must ensure the hierarchy of scholars, farmers, industry and commerce, and suppress the profits of merchants.But the shogunate is not a centralized Dashun, and businessmen can't hold it down at all.

Mortgage of leased land is prohibited, and the merchants directly ruined it; the previous high-silver conversion made the merchants force the lowest rice price in history; the development of Xintian made the merchants take advantage of the situation and told the shogunate that without the merchants, you can't even think about developing. ...In the end, they could only issue a policy in a desperate manner. The shogunate no longer cares about the loan disputes between samurai and merchants, allowing the samurai to renege on their debts reasonably. The lords of the feudal lords didn't dare either. After they defaulted on the debt, no one would borrow it, and the finances of all the vassals were in a mess.

The businessman dug a big pit for the shogunate in rice futures trading. In order to increase the price of rice, the shogunate could only admit it, and only wanted rice to maintain a higher price as a speculative commodity.

No matter how low the price of rice was, the samurai class would collapse.

But once this pit is dug, it will be difficult to ban it.

All the domains are short of money, and the rice of each domain is expected to be sold at a high price in Osaka. The shogunate has been too involved, and the shogunate can no longer move.

In order to confirm that the tail is too big to lose, Liu Yu asked again: "Aside from Osaka, is this kind of tent rice also traded elsewhere?"

"Yes. Not only in Osaka, but also in Otsu and Shimonoseki in Shogun Tenryo, Matsusaka in the Kishu Domain, and the castle towns in the Kuwana Domain. The shogunate also allows such transactions."

(End of this chapter)