Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 6 Maritime Trade
Everyone in Zizhang knows that the Javanese Yuan and the Ming Dynasty have been hostile for a long time.Therefore, Guo Kang is very skeptical that asking Sun Shiwan for help is asking for trouble.

If you count the vassal states and tribes, the power of the Javanese Yuan covers almost half of Nanyang, and it seems to be very powerful.But in fact, their territory is dotted, rather than contiguous like the Central Plains of the Ming Dynasty, the Hezhong of the Timur Khanate, and the Balkans of the Zizhang.The real territory of the Javanese dollar is a series of large and small seaports and surrounding subsidiary areas.

Merchants used these port networks to provide supply stations and safe havens for ships to maintain the shipping lanes.Outside the port area, there are generally handicraft clusters, and then there are large plantations, mines and forest farms.

A large number of artisans gathered in the handicraft industry area must maintain ports and ships on the one hand, and produce various commodities for trade on the other hand.Woodlands provide timber for navigation, mines provide raw materials, and plantation manors provide rations for nearby residents and commercial crops for trafficking.

Outside of these places, it has little to do with them.

Between the various ports, outside the reclamation area of ​​Java, there are many large and small groups of indigenous people.Some are just primitive tribes, while some have formed relatively complete states.The Javanese dollar is generally interested in them, and only requires them to obey themselves, join the trade network, abide by the trade rules set by themselves, and pay a variable amount of tribute.Some tribes with relatively reliable planting ability will be required to plant specified crops, which will be purchased by merchants.The upper limit of jurisdiction is generally the same.

In the past, the big countries and overlords in the Nanyang region all adopted this structure, which was called the "Dala System" in later generations.For the natives, although the Javanese dollar is more in charge, the overall nature is not much different.This is also a tacit understanding with the local people that has gradually formed over a hundred years since the Yuan Dynasty conquered Java.

On the other hand, the Javanese dollar actually cannot trust the locals.

The backbone of the armed forces of the Javanese Yuan was the households and fleets of wealthy merchants such as the Sun family in Yangzhou, the Chen family in Fujian, and the Wu family in Lin'an.In addition, there are the Ruan family and Hu family who came to defect after An Nanguo (Vietnam) was annexed by the Ming Dynasty; the Dali Duan family who fled after the defeat of King Liang, and so on.These Jiangnan Han people, Jiaozhi people, and Dali people formed the core part of the army.

Since the number of people is still too small compared with the Ming army, the Javanese Yuan will also organize a larger peripheral army as a supplement, and Champa and Siam are one of the main sources.They oscillated between the Ming Dynasty and the Javanese Yuan in an effort to maintain their independence, and so tended to turn a blind eye to the latter's efforts to recruit troops on its turf.

In addition, the Javanese dollar also widely recruited mercenaries to fight for itself.To the east, there are gangs of ronin from Japan.To the west, there are Turkic armed forces in exile after the Delhi Sultanate was defeated by Timur.Although these people's combat effectiveness is uneven, they are also a supplement to the military strength of the Javanese Yuan.

As for the natives on the Nanyang islands, Java Yuan has little confidence in their fighting power.In the earliest days, the indigenous troops of the vassals were also mobilized to fight, but their extremely poor performance made the Javanese Yuan officers believe that the side effects had outweighed the positive effects.

Most of the native troops have almost no effective effect except to replenish their numbers, and they will only consume supplies in vain.On the battlefield, they will always collapse quickly, bringing negative psychological effects to friendly troops.This kind of person, you might as well not bring him with you.

Theoretically, if trained strictly, the indigenous army should not be so bad in combat effectiveness.However, the Javanese Yuan has dealt with various indigenous forces.Many of them only surrendered temporarily, resentful of their actions for scrambling for ports and land.Therefore, Java Yuan was not at ease to train them, but only occasionally selected a few vassals to serve as cannon fodder, and could not even face the Ming army, but could only suppress other tribes.

With the expansion of trade, the ocean-going trade routes became more and more smooth, and they gradually discovered some new ways.

Timur's expedition to the west broke through the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, bringing this place into a long-lost unified situation.Afterwards, the unobstructed trade route allowed an endless stream of Slavic slaves to start from Southern Russia, pass through the Caucasus, enter the Persian Gulf along two rivers, and then transport them all the way to the East.Soon after, the Purple Horde also joined in and opened the route from Constantinople to the port of Damascus, allowing the flow of slaves to continue to increase.

These white slaves were not familiar with the place and language.For the Javanese dollar, native slaves were unreliable and easily aroused the anger of local relatives and tribes, but white slaves did not have these shortcomings.Those who are more loyal and robust can also be supplemented in the march.

So, from then on, the Javanese dollar became one of the main buyers of white slaves, filling them into plantations in places like Java, Luzon, and Borneo.

Since the Ming Dynasty monopolized a large number of handicraft products and tried to crack down on the Javanese dollar trade all day long, the Javanese dollar has been trying to replace the smuggled goods of the Ming Dynasty with their own products, which have become more risky and unstable in recent years.Although there are still some problems with these silk, pottery and iron wares, they also have a considerable market in the West, allowing them to get a lot of profits.

However, Western buyers often cannot provide valuable and long-term supply of bulk products, so that the ship can be pulled back.It would be too much of a waste of precious shipping capacity to return without being full.The slave trade across the Indian Ocean just made up for this deficiency.

(End of this chapter)