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

Chapter 625: The display window of Han civilization and the asset tax of Ptolemy

On October 45, 10th year of the Han calendar, Yanzhou Governor's Office, meeting room

Theodos, the minister of the Ptolemaic court, once again found his old friend Zhang Pijiang and said flatteringly, "Ambassador Zhang, our two countries are allies. The Han Dynasty cannot treat its allies like this."

Zhang Pijiang looked at Theodos with a headache and said helplessly: "As early as half a year ago, I informed your country to pay attention. After the Suez Canal was opened, the Han Dynasty no longer had any demand for food. You must prepare in advance. What preparations have you made in the past six months!"

With such execution ability, the Ptolemaic State was not even as good as a small vassal state in the Han Dynasty. In recent years, in order to build the Suez Canal, the Han Dynasty had to purchase 500 million shi of grain in the Mediterranean region every year. Among them, the Ptolemaic State, relying on its local geographical advantages and the fertile granary of the Nile Delta, sold 300 million shi of grain to the Han Dynasty every year, which could earn the Ptolemaic State almost million coins in foreign exchange. Grain trade has become the country's first pillar industry.

But now that the canal has been completed, most of the workers who built the canal have been disbanded, and a small number have become farmers on the desert peninsula. The development of the desert peninsula by the Yanzhou Governor's Office over the past decade cannot be said to be completely self-sufficient, but there is no shortage of food.

Diodos said with a bitter face: "At that time, our country was still thinking that we still had the Yanzhou Governor's Office, but we never thought that your country really didn't need any food at all."

Zhang Pijiang said: "Didn't I propose to your country to expand the area of ​​cotton planting? You can also develop animal husbandry and breeding, and provide pork and poultry for the Governor's Office, but your country has not made any progress in all these years."

Theodos had a hard time speaking out. They had raised some cattle and sheep before, but the desert peninsula was not short of cattle and sheep. The Yanzhou Governor's Office itself sold oxen and sheep on a large scale.

They really have no experience in raising pigs, and the same is true for poultry. The nobles and priests of their country can't even grow crops properly, but they expect them to get rich by raising poultry. What kind of joke is this? Ptolemy is not a country, we don't have the ability. But this kind of words cannot be said.

Zhang Pijiang could only look at Theodos with a helpless look.

The welfare standards of the Han army were above average in the Han Dynasty, so much so that the academic circles of the Han Dynasty said that the current emperor supported a million soldiers.

There were 3 Han army officers in the Yanzhou Military Governor's Office, and their daily food expenses were 18 coins. The entire military governor's office spent almost 6 coins a day, which means more than 2000 million coins a year.

Soldiers in the Governor's Office eat more than just wheat, beef and mutton. Pork, chicken, duck, goose and various vegetables are a considerable expense, not to mention that the Governor's Office in Yanzhou has hundreds of thousands of herdsmen who originally did not eat pork, but over the past decade or so, they have been influenced by the Han army and have also started to eat pork and other poultry. In addition, the Governor's Office provides good treatment, and the income of these people is comparable to that of citizens in Mediterranean countries, and even the knight class. Therefore, providing logistics for the Governor's Office in Yanzhou alone can generate several large industries.

There are also horse-drawn carriages and chariots that the Governor's Office needs to purchase for daily operations. You must know that the Han Dynasty's field army is now equipped with mules and horses. The Yanzhou Governor's Office needs 20,000 war horses and thousands of field vehicles of various types.

Soldiers' four-season uniforms are used as combat uniforms. Assuming that one-third of the soldiers are rotated every year, 1 sets of these clothes will be needed.

The treatment of the Han soldiers made the kings, scholars, and nobles of the entire Mediterranean stunned. He was just an ordinary soldier, but the treatment he received in terms of food, clothing, housing and transportation was even more exaggerated than that of ordinary nobles. The food, clothing, housing and transportation of many lower-class nobles in small countries could not even compare with those of the Han soldiers.

The Han people can support 3 nobles, but they cannot. These Mediterranean kings are also complaining in their hearts. Aren’t they here to ruin things? The Han people have raised the treatment so high, how can they recruit some cheap cannon fodder in the future?

Those mercenaries had no self-awareness. They carried a tattered iron sword and a musket that they found from somewhere, but they dared to say anything like, "There must be meat for three meals a day and regular clothes for all seasons. Otherwise, the soldiers will have no morale to fight. Where did you come from, savages? Do you deserve such treatment?"

Now the Yanzhou Governor's Mansion is like a huge display window, showing the lifestyle of the Han civilization. There is no king in the entire Mediterranean who does not envy, jealous and hate it. The noble knights in the Mediterranean really envy these soldiers who serve the magnanimous and generous Han emperor. Now many Mediterranean knights have gone to the Yanzhou Governor's Mansion, intending to join them.

Of course, this also provides huge business opportunities for the countries around the Mediterranean. It is impossible to transport so many logistical supplies to the Yanzhou Governor's Office from the Han Dynasty. Even if the local prices are two or three times higher than those in the Han Dynasty, the Yanzhou Governor's Office can only solve the problem in Daqinzhou.

This gives the Great Qinzhou country an opportunity. The annual maintenance cost of the Yanzhou Governor's Office is close to 500 million coins, which is an extremely huge piece of cake.

The King of Greece personally went to the Governor's Office to invite agricultural scholars to go to Greece to help them establish a pig farming industry chain. Now Greece can provide 50,000 live pigs to the Yanzhou Governor's Office every year. This industry chain alone can earn Greece 60 to 70 million in foreign exchange every year. For a small country like Greece with a population of more than 100,000, having such an industry chain is enough to maintain domestic stability as long as the nobles are not too arrogant and extravagant and buy too many luxury goods.

Small countries such as Macedonia and Thrace have also established poultry farming industry chains in their own countries, which can provide 1,000 tons of eggs and millions of chickens, ducks and geese to the Yanzhou Governor's Office every year. These small countries with small populations have established complementary industry chains with the Han Dynasty. They have barely gained a foothold in this wave of globalization. The domestic situation is not like that in other countries, with slave uprisings and citizen uprisings everywhere.

The Ptolemaic people had eaten too much fat meat and looked down on these small things. Now that there is no fat meat left to eat, the whole country is dumbfounded.

Zhang Pijiang thought for a moment and said, "The Seleucid Empire is at war right now and they are extremely short of food. This ambassador can find a way for your two countries to communicate."

Theodos shook his head and said, "The Seleucid Empire is now poor. Antiochus IV has long sent envoys to Alexandria, hoping to buy two million dan of grain from our country, but he can't come up with real money. He wants us to borrow first and repay him double after he successfully suppresses the rebellion. To use your Han words, Antiochus IV is just trying to get something for free."

The Seleucid Empire, which was in a state of war, was undoubtedly the region with the greatest food shortage. The country had been at war for almost a year, and fields in many areas had been left fallow. So the Seleucid Empire, let alone two million shi of grain, would hardly be able to meet their needs even if they doubled or tripled the amount.

But they had no money. Antiochus IV had used the last bit of gold and silver to buy arms. How could he have the money to buy food?
Even though the Ptolemaic Empire knew that the Seleucid Empire was short of food, they had no money and could not give food to the Seleucid Empire for free.

The current situation in the Mediterranean region is that there is a food shortage, an extreme food shortage, but they have no money, and because of the war they cannot even produce goods for trading.

But in places where there is no shortage of food, the grain harvest is a bit excessive. Now Carthage is constantly reclaiming wasteland on the three Celtic islands, and the Romans are also constantly reclaiming wasteland in the three northern provinces. These two countries are both big countries, and their large-scale grain exports have directly lowered the grain prices in the Mediterranean region by 20%.

Zhang Pijiang said, "Then this ambassador can do nothing. This year's grain will have to be consumed by your country, Ptolemy. I suggest you cultivate more cotton fields next year. The water and heat conditions in Ptolemy are very suitable for cotton cultivation. Except for the Western Regions, no other region in the Han Dynasty can compare to this place. Agricultural scholars even believe that the origin of cotton may be your country. With cotton, Ptolemy can develop the textile industry. Even if there are not enough textile machines, it can earn a lot of foreign exchange by selling them. Now all countries are short of cotton textile fabrics."

Zhang Pijiang is not making this up. Compared with the steel industry and the machinery industry, which are technology-intensive and capital-intensive industries, the textile industry can be entered with just a steam engine. Now the textile industry in Ptolemy is booming, and Carthage and Rome are developing even faster. These two countries already have a textile industry of a certain scale. However, the cotton area cannot keep up with the growth rate of textile machines. In recent years, the price of cotton in the Mediterranean region has increased by 30%.

At this time, the Han official of the embassy came to Zhang Pijiang and said, "The Roman envoy has arrived."

Zhang Pijiang nodded and said, "I will be there right away."

Then he said to Theodos, "I have other matters to attend to, so I will not entertain you."

After hearing this, Theodos returned disappointed. He arrived at the gate of Yanzhou Governor's Mansion and saw a large team of horse-drawn carriages slowly entering the camp under the command of the soldiers of the Governor's Mansion. He casually counted and found that there were dozens of carriages, and the escort personnel were Romans.

He said with a bit of envy and jealousy: "Damn Romans, I curse you to have a civil war sooner or later."

The Yanzhou Governor's Office's external bidding was almost open. Among them, the Carthaginians received orders for various horse-drawn carriages from the Governor's Office, with a value of about 2000 million coins. The Carthaginians not only wanted to produce military carriages, but also had orders for thousands of horse-drawn carts.

The Romans received orders for military uniforms from the Governorate. Two years ago, when the Suez Canal was still under construction, the work clothes for the craftsmen were also made by the Romans. The Romans received the highest annual order of more than 6000 million coins by making these clothes. The Ptolemy Kingdom at that time did not look down on this order, after all, their grain trade was as high as million coins.

But now their grain trade has disappeared, but the Roman clothing orders still exist, which makes Theodos jealous. Meeting room.

Fabius said solemnly: "This batch of clothing includes 9 sets of short-sleeved shirts, 12 sets of camouflage combat uniforms, 6 sets of cashmere casual uniforms, 6 sets of cotton spring and autumn uniforms, 4 pairs of rubber shoes, and 2 pairs of leather shoes."

The more Fabius spoke, the more excited he became. He was really grateful to the God King Jupiter, who had allowed them, the Romans, to catch up with the opportunity when the Han army changed its uniforms. He directly tripled their production capacity, allowing them to produce the Han Type 45 military uniforms. They had originally worried that after the Suez Canal was dug, it would be difficult to continue the clothing business. Unexpectedly, this year was their most profitable year. They made nearly 3000 million from this business, which was enough to build a medium-sized steel plant.

Zhang Pijiang asked several soldiers to put on the new military uniforms, but he frowned when he looked at them, feeling a little awkward. These uniforms seemed to make the soldiers more energetic, but they were not the traditional right-side-opening ones, but symmetrical in the middle. Moreover, the pockets on the outside of the clothes also made him feel awkward. The copper buttons that shone with golden light also made him feel that they had the temperament of a nouveau riche.

Over the past decade or so, because of the two major fashion weeks in Han Dynasty, there have been more and more new styles of clothing, but this is the first time that clothing that completely subverts Han traditions has appeared.

But he couldn't make any comments because this was a new type of clothing made by the retired emperor. It was called Taizu clothing in the Han Dynasty. At first, there were only workers wearing Taizu clothing. Because it was designed by the retired emperor for the workers, it was also called Mo clothing.

This then attracted the attention of students, so the universities in the Han Dynasty began to design new student uniforms. As a result, now when Xu Fan goes to class, he can see rows of Chen Zhen, which makes him feel quite interesting.

The Han newspapers and periodicals have demonstrated from all aspects that the groundbreaking symmetrical design of this suit of clothing, with its simplicity and elegance, is a breakthrough development in Han aesthetics.

Eventually, even the military had to develop their own Taizu uniforms, which led to this major military uniform change.

Unlike Zhang Pijiang, the soldiers prefer this winter coat because it has rows of brass buttons on the outside. There are more than a dozen such buttons on one piece of clothing, which makes it look very prestigious.

Not long after, the officer who was checking the quality of the uniforms said to Zhang Pijiang: "Ambassador, this batch of uniforms is of qualified quality, there is no problem."

After saying that, he took out a quality inspection certificate signed by him.

Zhang Pijiang nodded and took out a stack of checks, wrote down more than 1 million yuan for the purchase of clothing, and then used the seal of his consulate general.

Then he said, "Have Governor Ding sign your name and stamp it, then you can go to Feihai Bank to collect the money."

Fabius took the check and said excitedly, "Thank you, Ambassador Zhang."

But he thought about it and asked again: "Ambassador, do you think my Roman clothing can enter the Han market?"

The Yanzhou Governor's Office has only 3 soldiers, and can only sell hundreds of thousands of sets of clothes every year, making only a few million yuan at most. He knows that opportunities like this year's are hard to come by, because these are new clothes and the profit margins are also the highest.

But if they could sell their clothes to the Han Dynasty, with the current population of over 8 million, and according to the annual consumption of soldiers in Yanzhou Dudufu, the Han Dynasty would have a consumption market of 1 million pieces of clothing each year, which is a huge market worth hundreds of billions. Even if the Roman Empire occupies 10%, it can earn nearly billion yuan every year. With this foreign exchange, they will have no shortage of start-up funds for building steel mills, railways, and machinery factories.

Zhang Pijiang said calmly, "Venerable Fabi is ambitious, but unfortunately your Roman clothes are not competitive in the Han Dynasty. The clothes you make are generally 50% to 100% more expensive than those in the Han Dynasty. That's why Yanzhou Governor's Office is too far away from the Han Dynasty, so we need to go to Rome to order them."

法比乌斯不敢相信道：“这怎么可能？我打听过大汉女工最低的俸禄也超过了2000钱，如果我们罗马女工的俸禄却只有三百多钱，只有大汉1/5到1/6之间。”

Zhang Pijiang said calmly: "The women workers in the Han Dynasty can probably weave about 70 to 80 pieces of clothing a day. How many are there in Rome?"

Fabius looked gloomy when he heard this. He was the one who managed the garment factory. The best female workers in Rome could not weave 20 garments a day, and most prices in Rome were higher than those in the Han Dynasty. This was because in Rome, the production costs of raw materials such as grain, cotton, and linen were higher than those in the Han Dynasty, which greatly increased the cost of a piece of clothing.

This resulted in the salary of Roman female workers being only one-fifth of that of the Han people, and the cost of producing a piece of clothing was even higher than that of the Han people.

Rome has a long way to go if it wants to sell clothing to the Han Dynasty.

On the other hand, Theodos returned empty-handed, which made the king and nobles of Ptolemy feel bad. Two years ago, they listened to Zhang Pijiang's advice and built five small industrial zones in the suburbs of Alexandria, specifically in preparation for the construction of Chang'an in Ptolemy. As a result, they lost more than 300 million in foreign exchange, and the country's income was suddenly reduced by a large margin.

The balance of payments of the Ptolemaic Empire was already in an extremely tight state, with frequent deficits. Now, this year it has suffered a direct deficit of tens of millions of dollars. The accumulated foreign debt of Ptolemy is already hundreds of millions. Not to mention repairing Chang'an in the Ptolemaic Empire, how to repay this debt has become a troublesome matter.

"Your Majesty, our Ptolemy State should reform the law and change the collection of taxes in kind to copper coins. At the same time, a property tax should be levied on the citizens of the Suez Canal. If it weren't for the introduction of the country, they would have been able to get such a stable and lucrative job, but the court got nothing. This is too unfair."

Ptolemy VI hesitated and asked, "Do these citizens have money?"

In his impression, the citizens of Ptolemy were all miserable and did not even have a piece of cloth to cover their shame.

"Of course there was. The Han people dismissed the laborers, but gave them n plus two as compensation."

"What do you mean?" Ptolemy VI asked puzzled.

"If they work for the Han people for one year, they will be paid one month's salary when they are dismissed. If these civilians work for the Han people for 10 years, they will get 10 months' salary."

Ptolemy VI was surprised and asked, "So, the so-called two extra months, does that mean they will be given two more months' salary?"

"That's right! The laborers who have been working on the Suez Canal construction site for ten years can receive 6000 coins in severance pay from the Han people."

Ptolemy VI was surprised and said, "10 civilians, that's 6 million coins, right?"

"It's 10 million coins in total. There are more than craftsmen working on the Suez Canal. If the country can collect half of that money, the debt will be repaid."

Ptolemy VI was jealous. He thought that these common people actually possessed a wealth of 700 million coins, while he, as the god-king of the country, was still troubled by not being able to build a kingdom like Chang'an. He felt that the citizens of Ptolemy were too unsympathetic to their god-king, and did not offer up so much money.

Ptolemy VI said viciously: "The property tax must be levied severely, and they must pay more than half of the money."

(End of this chapter)