At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 584: The Three Kingdoms Competition in the Textile Industry and Friends Gathering
June 35, 6th year of the Han calendar, Chang'an City.

After returning to Chang'an City, Zhang Pijiang handed over this group of Mediterranean students to the officials of the academy.

The officials of the academy arranged these international students to Mozi College, Water Conservancy College, Law School, Rulin College, etc. according to their wishes.

Zhang Pijiang came to the Prime Minister's Mansion and reported to Prime Minister Li Shang what he had done in the past year, such as the construction of the Yanzhou Governor's Office, Su Yi's recruitment of workers for the canal, and the consulates established in various countries in Daqinzhou.

Li Shang smiled and said, "As expected, like father, like son. If Brother Zifang knew that you dared to be so outstanding, he would definitely be very pleased."

Li Shang was extremely satisfied with what Zhang Pijiang had done this year. After the establishment of the consulate general, the trade between Daqinzhou and the Han Dynasty grew faster and faster. The Yanzhou Governor's Office established by the imperial court to control Daqinzhou was developing smoothly, and even the construction of the Suez Canal had begun.

Zhang Pijiang said, "The trade between the imperial court and Daqinzhou is unbalanced. If the Han Dynasty wants to dominate the world, it must also establish a system to balance global trade. I think the imperial court should appropriately divert some industries to Daqinzhou to achieve a balance in trade. Moreover, with economic constraints, it will be easier for the imperial court to control Daqinzhou."

Li Shang looked at Zhang Pijiang strangely and asked, "Hu Hai's theory?"

This theory was not uncommon in the Han Dynasty. It was probably proposed by Hu Hai more than ten years ago. At that time, he believed that each place should have its own characteristic industry to complete the circulation and balance of trade. The Han court should take the initiative to consciously develop characteristic industries based on the geographical conditions of each place to form a large triangular trade.

This theory was first implemented spontaneously in Southeast Asia and India. The princes of the Han Dynasty and those big merchants intentionally or unintentionally formulated the country's industries according to this theory. Soon, as long as they followed this theory, the princes became rich, which attracted more princes in Nanyang to follow suit.

Now the trade among the Han, Nanyang and India not only maintains a dynamic balance, but also realizes the rational utilization of the fleet's space. Now when a fleet goes to India, the utilization rate of the space can generally reach more than 70%. This results in that even if the ocean freight rates are reduced, the fleet's profits will not decrease much.

Zhang Pijiang said: "Although Hu Hai is not a good person, his theory makes sense. This is the price that the Han Dynasty must pay for its global hegemony. The imbalance of the global economy will cause regional countries to resist the rule of the Han Dynasty. The court must find profitable industries for these countries. The industries distributed by the court are some low-end agricultural industries. In the long run, absorbing them into the global industrial chain of the Han Dynasty will be more conducive to the development of the Han Dynasty's industry."

Li Shang shook his head and said, "This is not easy. The court has to take care of 7000 million people in the Han Dynasty. It has already done its best to find jobs for them. If we want to divide the industry, I am afraid no one will agree. Just the cotton cloth industry, Indian cotton, Western cotton, and desert cotton are fighting fiercely at the Sage Conference every year. This is even more fiercely fought among my own family. Without representatives of interests in Daqinzhou, who would be willing to divide the industry."

Now the cotton cloth market in the Han Dynasty is in a three-way competition. The southern counties, led by Kuaiji County and Chen County, have been supported by cheap cotton from India. The cotton textile industry is like having its Ren and Du meridians opened up, and its production capacity can be increased by more than 20% to 30% every year. They have captured India and the Nanyang market externally, and launched a large-scale northern expedition along the Grand Canal internally. The traditional markets of Sanchuan County, and the Luoyang cloth markets in Dongjun, Yingchuan County, Liang State, and Wei State were defeated.

The city of Luoyang, which was once the center of the world's textile industry, can now only integrate into the Guanzhong textile industry chain. Of course, they do not suffer any loss. Luoyang is responsible for designing new clothing and promotion, and Guanzhong is responsible for production. To a certain extent, it is Luoyang cloth that has entered the Guanzhong market and occupies the upstream of the industry chain.

The reason why the Guanzhong textile industry did not come to an end was because of the support of cotton from the Western Regions. The Western Regions were vast and sparsely populated. Although the land was dry, as long as there was water, it was a natural granary. The main cotton producing area in later generations was in this area. Sufficient sunlight and less moisture were both necessary conditions for producing high-quality cotton.

There are two pillar industries in the Western Regions now. One is the oil industry. They import tens of millions of dan of oil into the Han Dynasty every year. However, oil is no longer the main market as lamp oil. Instead, asphalt is the raw material for the construction industry, and the demand has skyrocketed more than ten times in the past few years.

At the same time, Dahan's chemical industry also began to progress. Lubricants were separated from petroleum. After the development of Dahan's aviation industry, the value of gasoline was transformed from military weapons to civilian industries, as well as cleaning products, etc. Now petroleum can be converted into more than a dozen products, and its value has skyrocketed.

The princes of the Western Regions all invested the money they earned from oil into their own irrigation networks. In history, the Han Dynasty built karez over tens of thousands of miles in the Western Regions, and now there is a karez network of more than 100,000 miles in the Western Regions. Relying on this huge water conservancy system and the global warm climate, the Western Regions have been built into the Jiangnan of the Han Dynasty.

In addition to a portion of the land in the Western Regions being used to grow grain to meet the needs of the princes in the Western Regions, most of the land is used to grow cotton. The annual cotton production capacity is not inferior to that of India. Especially in the past two years, the tractor industry of the Han Dynasty has developed. The Western Regions have to import more than 3000 tractors every year. In order to get cotton cloth, several counties in Guanzhong even gave their share of tractors to the Western Regions.

The princes of the Western Regions invested heavily in agriculture and achieved high output, with the production of cotton cloth increasing by more than 10% each year. More importantly, according to the rating of the Han Cotton Cloth Industry Association, a large proportion of the cotton in the Western Regions was first-grade long-staple cotton.

Relying on the high-quality and large quantity of cotton from the Western Regions, and while attracting outstanding designers and textile craftsmen from Luoyang, the Guanzhong tribe, while meeting its own needs, occupied the plateau Western Regions, moved westward to the Central Plains to compete with the high-quality southern cloth, and moved northward to Hebei, the desert and other places to compete with Linzi cloth. The high-end cotton cloth market was dominated by Guanzhong cloth.

The last one is Linzi cloth, which came later but arrived first.

Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Linzi has been a textile center and an economic center of the north and even the entire world. However, in the early Han Dynasty, Linzi fell behind.

In such a fast-developing and highly competitive industrial age, if you fall behind, it will be basically difficult to catch up. Sanchuan County was originally a wealthy industrial county in the Han Dynasty, but now the gap between them and Kuaiji County, Neishi County, and Chen County is getting bigger and bigger. The market share of the textile and steel industries is also being gradually eroded. This shows how fierce the industrial competition within the Han Dynasty is.

But the discovery of the New World gave Linzi County a chance to thrive. Originally only a second-tier city in the Han Dynasty, Linzi County, relying on overseas trade of over 10 billion yuan a year, saw its agriculture, industry and foreign trade industries develop rapidly like a rocket. The most important thing is that with the continuous development of the New World, this overseas market is still growing at a rate of 30% per year.

This provided strong impetus for the economic development of Linzi County, which surpassed Sanchuan County in just a few years and quickly caught up with the top three.

The Hebei region of the Han Dynasty was considered a prosperous place in the pre-Qin period, but during the Han Dynasty, its political and economic status declined. Most importantly, it lacked an economic core, and the loss of discourse power made Hebei extremely disappointed.

And now the rapidly developing Linzi County has become the savior of the people in Hebei. Relying on the right time, place and people, Linzi has integrated Hebei and made itself one of the centers of the world's textile industry again. Linzi cloth swept across Hebei, occupied Liaodong and the New World, competed with Guanzhong cloth in the desert in the north, and competed with Nan cloth in the Central Plains in the south.

Thinking of this, Li Shang sighed. It was not easy to be the prime minister of the Han Dynasty. He had great power and great responsibility. He had to manage agriculture and industry, and balance the relationship between the court and the princes. Now he had to learn how to be the captain of the country. There were more and more government affairs, and more and more conflicts to deal with every day.

Just for a textile industry, all the people in his family had their brains beaten into dog brains, and now they were going to be divided up. He couldn't even imagine how ugly the curses would be at the Sages' Conference.

After Zhang Pijiang and the prime minister reported their positions, they came to the prince's mansion.

Then he saw a surprising scene and said, "Hero, Chen Mai, are you guys here too?"

Chen Mai smiled and said, "I knew you were coming back today, and I wanted to pick you up at the train station, but the affairs of the Internal Affairs Department were too busy, so I could only wait for you at the Prince's Mansion."

Now that Xu Aimin was preparing to succeed the throne, all the government affairs of the Internal Affairs Bureau were handed over to Chen Mai, the Chief Secretary.

Now the Neishi is in the midst of a fierce transformation. Chang'an City is undergoing a large-scale demolition and reconstruction. The original dilapidated and low-rise lifangs are demolished and new buildings are built. At the same time, districts replace lifangs. The entire Chang'an City is divided into 12 districts, which are 12 county-level units. They need to be equipped with 12 county-level management systems. This can be said to be a complete transformation of the Neishi Office. Such a major reform encountered many problems and contradictions, and the accumulated government affairs are naturally numerous.

This reform was initiated by Xu Aimin. In order to maintain Xu Aimin's reputation, Chen Mai did not dare to make any mistakes. Now he almost sleeps in the office every day. It was only today that he knew Zhang Pijiang would come, so he came to the Prince's Mansion to wait for him.

Xu Aimin smiled and said, "Tell us what's going on in Daqinzhou."

Zhang Pijiang shook his head and said, "Although the national systems of Daqinzhou are different, some are republics, some are empires, some are nomadic tribes, and some are similar to India, but the foundation of these countries is still a slave state. These countries are very poor, so poor that apart from slaves, they have nothing else to sell to the Han Dynasty. However, the court has started recruiting workers for the canal that connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, so I think it has already started construction."

Chen Mai said: "This is a good thing. With the opening of the Suez Canal and the Maya Canal, our Han merchant ships will be able to save tens of thousands of miles of sea space."

Then he smiled and said, "These two canals have shown the people of the Han Dynasty how powerful the maritime merchants were. The imperial stock exchange raised 230 billion yuan for the construction of these two canals, but within less than a month of issuing the stocks for these two canals, they were all sold out. Many wealthy people in Hebei, the desert, and the Central Plains were unable to buy the stocks before they could react."

Which force would benefit most from the construction of the Suez Canal and the Mayan Canal? It would definitely be the Han Dynasty's maritime merchant groups. They would not need to bypass Yanzhou or go to Nanyinzhou. These two points would save them nearly half of their time. Many commodities that were originally not cost-effective would become cost-effective after saving tens of thousands of miles of sea routes. The volume of maritime trade would increase, and they would be able to make more profits, not to mention that the canal itself would bring huge profits.

There is a precedent for this. In the past few years, all the merchants who invested in the Guanzhong Railway and the Central Plains Railway made a lot of money and obtained stable crops for 30 years or even more.

Of course, the construction of the Western Regions Railway, Liaodong Railway, Jiangnan Railway and other railway networks later on cooled down the trend of building railways in the Han Dynasty because the construction costs were too high. Businessmen understood that only in places like the Central Plains where construction costs were low and the area was wealthy could they make money by building railways. For places like the Western Regions, which were originally poor areas and had long routes, it was basically impossible to make a profit through railway operations.

Therefore, merchants in the Han Dynasty generally invested in railways that could make money. For example, railways that had to cross mountains and rivers, had high infrastructure costs, and were located in poor areas were generally invested by the Han court itself. After all, those cold and poor places were also frontier areas, and the Han army's deployment capabilities were needed to suppress local separatist forces, and railways were needed to boost the local economy. The Han court had to settle political accounts.

However, the future prospects of the Suez Canal and the Mayan Canal were foreseeable. Such important transportation routes could not lose money at all. The most they could earn was a dozen or several times the profit. So they began to raise funds. The sea merchants who had come to Chang'an City bought canal stocks one after another. You had 200 million yuan, I had million yuan. In less than a month, more than billion yuan of funds were raised.

This also brought financial shock to the people of Chang'an City. For the first time, they saw the wealth of maritime merchants. They could easily throw out a small target. The princes of the Han Dynasty were not as rich as them.

Yingxiong also complained: "The court should also establish a stock exchange in the south. I wanted to buy 5 million shares to support the court, but I didn't catch up with this trip."

Zhang Pijiang curiously asked Yingxiong, "What have you been doing in Jiangnan these years? Why are you so rich?"

He was not surprised that the sea merchants were rich. He had been wandering on the sea for many years and had seen many sea merchants from the Han Dynasty. To say that they were as rich as a country was not an adjective. But although the princes of the Han Dynasty were rich, they had to support a country, so in terms of wealth, they were not as rich as those sea merchants.

Yingxiong suppressed his smile and said, "I didn't do anything. I just learned from my father's policies and continued to plant cash crops. Over the years, I opened up a lot of rubber plantations and started some small industries. I made a little money over the years."

Xu Aimin laughed and scolded, "Don't listen to what the hero says. He has made a fortune in recent years. He is the richest among us brothers."

"He has planted more than 30 mu of rubber plantations over the past decade. Rubber is very expensive now, more than yuan per kilogram. He can make hundreds of dollars from one tree and tens of thousands of dollars from one mu of land. It is not an exaggeration to say that he is extremely rich. He has also expanded into upstream industries and built a tire factory. Now % of Dahan's tires are made in Britain. He is not only the rubber king but also the tire king. He has more money than even a prince like me."

Zhang Pijiang's face was full of surprise. The Han Dynasty was a country of horse-drawn carriages. Even if they did not have tens of millions of carriages, they must have millions of them. Producing 10% of them as tires was indeed an incredible number.

The hero suppressed his smile and said, "This is because rubber is so scarce in the Han Dynasty. When the rubber plantations of other princes also start to produce rubber, the income will still drop. The most I can earn is the hot money in the next few years."

Of course, this is just a humble statement. Even if the light, climate, and rainfall are suitable for rubber trees, it takes six or seven years of planting before tapping can begin. Not many of the Han Dynasty's major princes planted rubber, and the reason was very simple. The initial investment was too high, and the growth cycle of rubber trees was too long. Before the first person to try it out appeared, the Han Dynasty's princes were unwilling to build rubber plantations on a large scale. After all, a lot of money could be made from planting sugarcane and spices.

This resulted in the fact that apart from the imperial court's plantations, Britain had the most plantations. With this wave of rubber craze, he could at least make money for a few more years.

Of course, not all the credit goes to the heroes. Ying Bu also contributed a lot. When rubber first came into the Han Dynasty, Xu Fan casually mentioned to Ying Bu that growing rubber trees would be a profitable industry in the next few decades, and asked him to set up a few rubber plantations.

Ying Bu obeyed Xu Fan's orders. Since His Majesty said that this was profitable, it must be a very profitable industry. So he planted 10,000 to 20,000 acres of rubber plantations almost every year. You should know that the price of transporting rubber seeds and rubber saplings to the Han mainland was not low at that time. This was the reason why ordinary princes did not dare to build rubber plantations on a large scale. The investment was too high. Only wealthy princes like Ying Bu could afford it. When the hero took over the vassal state, he also instructed him, which is why there are tens of thousands of acres of rubber plantations in Britain.

Chen Mai said bluntly: "Your country, England, not only has elementary school tuition been waived, but also middle school tuition has been waived. This is unique among the Han princes. Even the imperial court cannot do this."

The hero smiled and said, "It's not difficult for me to do this since I'm a little Englishman. Don't look up to me."

Zhang Pijiang punched him on the shoulder and said, "When I was in school, I didn't see you listening carefully, not copying homework, and even had a hard time passing the exams. But I didn't expect you to govern the vassal states so well. You are better than your teacher, and each generation is stronger than the previous one."

The hero could no longer suppress his smile, he had been trying to show off.

Then Zhang Pijiang asked in a low voice: "Your Majesty is really going to abdicate?"

He still wanted to be sure. Chen Mai and Yingxiong also looked at Xu Aimin.

Xu Aimin said, "It's true, but my father said he wasn't abdicating, he was retiring. He said he had worked hard for the Han Dynasty until he was 60, and he didn't want to make his remaining years so difficult. He also said something very confusing, saying that extending retirement was the most annoying thing."

Zhang Pijiang and the other two looked at each other. From what Your Majesty said, being an emperor was a very difficult job, and it seemed that Your Majesty was trying to avoid it.

(End of this chapter)