Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 796 Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance
It is true that Gao Yushi came to them to discuss maritime trade, and this time the action will be big.

As early as after Gao Qi defeated the Fujian Sea pirate alliance, Gao Wushi had been thinking about one thing, to separate Jinghua's sea power from the private ports, and then slightly integrate them to form the North and South Ocean Fleets, that is, the Beiyang Fleet and the North Sea Fleet. Nanyang Fleet.

Although these two nouns are a bit tragic to Gao Pragmatism, they also do not have a sense of challenge.

Different from the Northern and Southern Ocean Fleets in the late Qing Dynasty, the North and South Ocean Fleets in the high-level planning are mainly inclined to the Nanyang Fleet.

This was determined by different eras and different interest weights. After all, in his plan, the Beiyang Fleet was responsible for a relatively small area, which was the northern coast of Ming Dynasty and the waters of North Korea and Japan, and the southernmost point was only South Zhili.

Of course, including Nanzhili also includes Suzhou Mansion and Songjiang Mansion, that is to say, the area of ​​Shanghai, the magic capital of later generations, is still within Beiyang's area of ​​responsibility.But that's all. From Zhejiang all the way to the south, up to the current Annan area, all of them are under the responsibility of the Nanyang Fleet. More importantly, the Nanyang Fleet will also be responsible for the Nanyang Fleet that will definitely set foot in the future.

But even so, the strength of the Beiyang Fleet will not be too weak. At least high pragmatism will definitely adhere to a "two-strong standard": the strength of the Beiyang Fleet must ensure that it exceeds the current combined maritime power of North Korea and Japan.

This standard is neither high nor low.

Whether it is high or not is because both North Korea and Japan have relatively limited official maritime power.Needless to say about North Korea, in the 200 years of Taiping, the army has not practiced war, and the soldiers will be arrogant and lazy. The maritime power can be expressed in a simple way-soy sauce.

Don't look at Yi sun-shin being blown away by the Koreans later, and even became the so-called "Asian No. 1 general", but everyone knows the habits of a big country in the universe. Before it was the Chinese's turn to speak, he was ridiculed by the Japanese ——Without the help of the Ming army, Yi Sunshin didn't even have the chance to play.

Moreover, even according to the South Korean side, Yi sun-shin led only "14 warships and 100 civilian ships refitted as combat ships" in the Noryong naval battle. To put it simply, the biggest problems with this ship are: low hull, unsuitable for long-distance voyages, weak firepower, and high cost.

As for the defense it is famous for... With the level of metallurgy in North Korea, it is difficult to say how big a layer of iron sheet can be. Firepower at sea.

Moreover, whether the hull was covered with iron sheets or some iron nails and iron cones were added, the historians of China, Japan and North Korea have not been able to give a credible statement until later generations.

There were no heroes at that time, so Zhuzi became famous.

Even "No Heroes of Time" had problems. The artillery of the Ming army's battleships at that time was probably enough to break through the defenses of the turtle ships. It's just that North Korea was lucky, and Ming's father was a friendly army.

In addition, Yi Sun-shin made his fortune late, and only won the martial arts examination five years ago. Although he is 37 years old now, he still doesn't know which corner he is playing in.

Comparing this horizontally, Gao Wushi feels that North Korea's current naval strength may not be able to resist the Jinghua Transport Fleet in Tianjin Port alone.

As for Japan, there is no need to worry too much this year. Although the Japanese pirates seem to be rampant, they have been making trouble along the coast of Daming for almost 200 years. The ratio is about one-tenth, and the rest are basically Daming's own pirates, just under the guise of Japanese pirates.

After Zhang Jing, Hu Zongxian, and Tan Lun fought against the Japanese, not only did a group of famous generals emerge, such as Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang, and Liu Xian, they basically wiped out most of the well-known Japanese pirates (pirate) groups. , Now there are fewer and fewer Japanese pirates.

Some time ago, the Fujian Sea Pirate Alliance's group-destroyed defeat accelerated the decline of the Japanese pirate (pirate) group.

Moreover, even in the worst period of the Japanese pirates, the Japanese pirates' own ships had no advantages to talk about. The truly reliable pirate ships used as the main force were almost all provided by the pirates of the Ming Dynasty...

On the contrary, Japan's official naval power is not very good. Just look at the deeds of "King of the Sea" Wang Zhi in Japan.Japan is very knowledgeable about current affairs, and they will make friends if they can't win, not to mention that Wang Zhi can get them advanced matchlock guns, so Wang Zhi even called himself the King of Hui in Japan.

But there is a premise in this situation that is very clear: Japan's sea power has nothing to do with Wang Zhi.

So if you compare it horizontally, the current Japanese official sea power is not worth mentioning.

However, the reason why he is highly pragmatic and believes that "low is not low" is because this year is already the ninth year of Wanli, that is, 1581 AD. Next year, the tenth year of Wanli and the tenth year of Tensho in Japan will change the Honnoji Temple.

After the change of Honnoji Temple, in a few years, Monkey will basically unify Japan, and by then Japan's sea power will increase rapidly driven by his ambition.

Therefore, whether the Beiyang Fleet's two-power standard can succeed depends on whether it can suppress Japan in the next few years, and it has little to do with North Korea.

Although Gao Yushi is rich, he does not intend to rely solely on the Jinghua Group to conquer the world. Whether the Beiyang Fleet can suppress the ambitions of Japan after reunification, he does not intend to rely entirely on the Jinghua Group to support it-Jinghua Group is still a business group after all. , is to pursue profit, if a large number of pure warships are produced, even if the Ming court does not pay attention, he himself thinks it is a serious waste, so warships are only the core, and the strength of the periphery depends on armed merchant ships, which is also popular in this era .

But Jinghua also has a "political mission" at the same time, which is to drive a group of high-level Ming officials who only knew how to occupy land to turn their attention to the sea and overseas, instead of focusing on grabbing the land of poor guards and poor people. Pragmatically, you can't eat alone, you have to mobilize their enthusiasm.

It is too extravagant to talk about patriotism in this era, so we have to talk about interests, and only interests can make these people turn their attention.

But before talking about benefits, it is still necessary to let these people know what the ocean trade is all about, and what capital is needed to make money on the ocean.

This is the work of Gao Qi and those master ship craftsmen today.

How profitable is maritime trade?

Da Gama has a record, he did it 70 times.You are not mistaken, and I am not mistaken, it is 70 times the profit.

However, Jinghua's profit is not so high at present, because Jinghua can't even go to India, let alone Arabia or even Europe.

The farthest trading place Jinghua can reach at present is Malacca, trading with the Portuguese - it can also be traded in Macau, but it can earn more by transporting to Malacca.If it is directly traded in Macau, the profit is only two to three times, but once it is sent to Malacca, the profit rate can be increased to more than 7 times for the lowest, and nearly 15 times for the highest.

why?Because the Portuguese in Macau can trade with Cantonese businessmen nearby, and there are much fewer Cantonese businessmen who can go to Malacca to do business.In addition, due to its size advantage, Jinghua can monopolize certain goods to a certain extent, such as the simplest item: Junci from Henan (Zhu Yijun is now taboo, called Yuci), this item is only in the hands of Gao Yushi There are genuine products, and the profits are so high that it is frightening: all of them are more than 30 times.

There is also Husi embroidery. Since Wei Guogong (Xu Bangrui, who was held up by Gao Yushi) and Linhuai Hou have become Jinghua's hard-core partners, these cutting-edge silk products near Nanzhili are now basically monopolized by Jinghua. However, it is not easy for maritime merchants in Suzhou and Hangzhou to get goods.

In this way, it is difficult for the corresponding Portuguese to obtain goods at low prices, and these goods can be sent to Malacca all the time due to Jinghua's ocean-going capabilities, and profits will naturally come up.

Only Cantonese embroidery is not easy to control. The main problem is that Portugal’s Macao stronghold is too close.

It's a pity that Gao Yushi still has too many things to do, and it's not time to turn against Spain and Portugal (the Commonwealth of Monarchs), otherwise he will definitely try to get rid of this stronghold and take back Macau.

Of course, this is a matter of time, and Portugal has other uses at present.

I heard that the profits of ocean trade can be multiplied several times at every turn, and some can even be multiplied by more than ten times. All the nobles are not calm, and can even be described as restless.

Gao Wushi watched quietly in the dark with a smile on his face. The appearance of this group of people seemed to have missed the red envelopes sent by the bosses in the WeChat group, as if they had accidentally lost [-] million yuan.

However, there are also those relatively stable nobles who began to ask questions, such as the cost of the ship, the daily maintenance cost, how long does it take to change the ship, the employment cost and daily expenses of the crew on board, how much damage may be caused in case of encountering pirates, etc. , involving all aspects.

Although Gao Qi did not change his career in maritime trade for a long time, he has made a lot of achievements with his single-mindedness, and his hard work is extremely profound. It is not difficult to explain these problems.

Although they don't know how to fight, the nobles who are very good at settling accounts discussed in private, and quickly came to several conclusions:

First of all, maritime trade cannot fight alone, otherwise it is easy to be blacked out, and it must form a joint force to be strong and safe.

Secondly, there must be experienced veteran drivers leading the team, otherwise a lot of profits will be lost if you mess around. How can you feel happy when you earn twice as much as earning ten times?
Again, a large number of people can create the kind of "monopoly effect" that Jinghua said, although it seems that they can only mix with Jinghua's Beiyang Fleet, that is, only North Korea and Japan can do it. If they go to Nanyang, Nanjing Xungui was afraid that he would not agree.But it doesn't matter, first test the waters with North Korea and Japan, and if Nanyang is more profitable at that time, then talk to those bastards in Nanjing-Yanjing's Jingnan line of honor is more popular than Nanjing's founding line of honor!
So the final conclusion is obvious: You must board the giant ship Jinghua in order to make money and make a lot of money!

To be more precise, it is to join the "Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance" proposed by Gao Qi just now in a highly pragmatic manner!
(End of this chapter)