Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1612 Kajibei and the Steam Engine

The climate of the southern Russian prairie has had several heavy snowfalls.

Because of the long delay in Istanbul, which caused the northern part of the Black Sea to freeze, the boats of Li Qing and a group of Venetian galleys stopped helplessly after arriving in Burgas.After a brief discussion, they sold out the special products of Zakynthos Island, such as olive oil, seedless raisins, and wine, as quickly as possible, and then bought some water, horses, and hired dozens of people through their relationships. The Bulgarians acted as escorts and headed for the port of Kajibey.

Traveling through the Rumilly region of the Ottoman Empire (including the European part of Turkey, all of Bulgaria, part of Romania, and part of Greece, which is the essence of the territory directly under the Ottoman Empire), the feeling of the slave country Moldavia is not very good to be honest.Although they hired dozens of smart and capable Bulgarian riders, although they used many scenes along the way, it still cannot be called a pleasant trip-difficult roads, lack of supplies, poor security situation ( Especially Moldavia, which has been very turbulent recently), all of them are threatening the safety of everyone.

Especially for an elderly person like Li Qing, he really regretted that when he was in Burgas, he kept dissuading him and insisted on taking the land route.At that time, he wholeheartedly wanted to rush to Bekchisalay, the capital of the Crimean Khanate, in the winter, and finalize some business details with the new Sailim Gelai Khan, but now it seems that he underestimated The hardships and hardships along the way, overestimated the tolerance of the pampered self to the harsh environment, so now he feels that he is simply looking for guilt, and he might as well spend the winter in Burgas.

But the matter has come to this point, it is useless to regret it any more, Li Qing had to cheer up, and together with the others, braved the wind and snow and continued to move towards the first destination, Kajibei.Fortunately, he was a noble man, and everyone took care of him as much as possible along the way. Therefore, when he arrived in Kajibei at the end of January (1), although his complexion was not good, his body was still healthy and his luck was good. Not bad.

The port of Kajibei is a small port city, which is already located on the edge of the Crimean Khanate, and further south is the territory of the Grand Duke of Moldavia.Although the Great Khan of Crimea and the Grand Duke of Moldavia are both subjects of the Ottoman Sultan, they are still two different countries in the final analysis, and conflicts in the border areas are inevitable, so the security situation here is not very good. Outside heavily guarded cities.

The population of Kajibei City is not large, about 1, mainly Tatars, and there are also a large number of Turks, Moldavians, Wallachians, Ukrainians, Venetian.But if you count the serfs in many manors in the suburbs, then the ethnic composition is complicated, because even their masters (Tatar feudal lords) don't know exactly where the slaves in their manors come from.

"It's fair to say that the Great Khans of Crimea have been quite tolerant of Christians since the month of Bekhan who converted to Christianity. They allow us—and of course the despicable ones I hate. Genoese - established churches and held religious activities in their respective jurisdictions, just as their previous great khans treated the Christian residents in the territory with tolerance (the few former slaves who were freed generally set their own feet in the war military exploits).” Alberto Morosini, who has been formally appointed by the Consul’s Palace as the supreme leader of the Kajibei Commercial Station, stands on the top floor of the building named St. Mark’s Basilica, looking at the city in the distance. The lights of the stars said: "Although the Sharia law replaced the Genghis Khan Code, it is a country established by the grassland people after all, and the emphasis on religion has always been lower than that of their suzerain Ottoman Empire."

The Venetian settlement is located on a piece of land near the sea on the outskirts of the city. There are about a thousand people, and the scale is quite large. About 200 of them are soldiers, responsible for the safety of the entire "Venice City".The main targets of their defense are the horse bandits wandering on the grasslands, and the political conservative forces who have a certain hostility to them-this is not a joke, that year, Zanibe, the son of Behan, and the heat of Kafa City The Na*ans clashed and led a large army to besiege the city twice, but they were stubbornly repulsed by the Geno*ans defending Kaffa. At the same time, the coastline was also blocked by the Italian fleet. The Mongols were forced to compromise and continued to agree with Geno*ya People re-established colonies and trading posts in the expelled Don River estuary area.

The Venetian stronghold in Kajibei is similar to that of the original Genoese city of Caffa. They are both located near the estuary with convenient sea transportation. The fortresses are also relatively strong and have a certain number of guards.However, Alberto Kajibey also knows that it is not 300 years ago now. Let alone how much diplomatic disputes will be caused by the entry of his country's fleet into the Black Sea, just talk about Crimea, which has carried out so-called "modernization reforms" for many years. The fighting power of the Asian Khanate army is much stronger than that of the Golden Horde back then.At least, they have a lot of cannons bought from the people on the east coast, so it shouldn't be a big problem to use them to bombard the Venetian strongholds, and this is actually because the Great Khan didn't care that the Venetians and the Genoese would stand. The main reason why it was built like a fortress.

Of course, the fact that the commercial station is built solidly does not mean that the Italians are going to make trouble.On the contrary, they are probably the group that most hope to live in peace with the Tatars. Gein's Crimean Khanate has the food they need to survive, but they may not necessarily need the goods they transported. If the grain trade is cut off, the significance of setting up these commercial stations will be lost by half, and there is no need to continue to stick to it.Just like the Crete War, if the Venetians could have imagined that the Ottoman Empire had "persevered" in attacking for 24 years, then they might have cede territory and seek peace from the very beginning, and they would not have spent huge manpower and material resources to fight such a war. A senseless war.

"We must guide the Crimean Khanate to adhere to this style of tolerance. I heard that their suzerain Ottoman Empire has seen a surge in religious power in recent years, and the social status and influence of the Ulema are increasing day by day. - for us and for the Christian residents of the country - it is a very unfortunate thing, the discrimination when entering the country, the slight repression of commerce, all this is really too bad, I am in I had a deep understanding when I was in Istanbul." Li Qing held a cup of coffee in her hand and said while stirring it gently.

"It would be nice if you were a Catholic, Mr. Special Envoy, it's really a pleasure talking to you." Alberto Morosini turned to stare at Li Qing, and sighed softly: "But it doesn't matter, we are all rational businessmen .I believe in the Lord, you believe in God, but we didn't try to attack each other because of the difference in religion, that's enough. Well, let's talk about something else, recently there have been many Armenian or Jewish businessmen who took refuge in the Ottoman nobles When we arrived at the Black Sea, we began to vigorously sell cloth here, most of which are woolen fabrics of various colors, and a small part are silk and cotton cloth. Your country has a fixed trading station in Haji Port (Sevastopol), and you should have heard of it long ago Is this the case?"

The activity of these Armenian or Jewish merchants mentioned by Morosini began three or four years ago. These are obviously the white gloves of the Istanbul upstarts who came to power after the palace coup. Cloth, Manchester cotton, etc., gradually opened up sales in places where the goods on the eastern coast of the Black Sea could not cover.

To be honest, people from the east coast did not pay much attention to them at first, because they felt that the quality of these British products was not as good as those on the east coast, but the price was not cheap, so there should be no market for them.However, they—mainly referring to Gao Wengang, the local top leader in foreign affairs, commerce, and intelligence—underestimated the insatiable desire for wealth of the upstarts in Istanbul after all. The speed of distribution in the Rumili area, and then gradually spread to the Crimean Khanate, a traditional market for textiles on the east coast.

As soon as Gao Wen learned of the situation, he immediately organized a manpower to conduct an investigation. The results of the investigation were mixed.The good news is that although the quality of these British textiles has improved compared to the past, they are still not as good as the same products from the East Coast. The worry is that the price advantage of the East Coast textiles has shrunk significantly. This seems to be due to the British It is a concentrated expression of the progress accumulated by people in textile technology for many years.

In other words, steam engines have been in Europe for some years now. Britain, the Netherlands, and France are the three countries that can independently build a steam engine. Although Portugal and Spain are close to the water, they really cannot be supported by mud, especially Portugal. The Almeida family was the first to invest in research and development, but up to now they can only produce a four-dimensional image with extremely low reliability, so that not many factory owners in the country refuse to use this kind of thing, and do not recognize that it is a qualified product. The steam engine is also drunk.

Nowadays, England and Sweden are the only countries that have really begun to apply the epoch-making power machine of the steam engine on a "large scale" (this large scale is actually relative). Drainage in copper mines and iron mines - the use of the British is particularly extensive and in-depth.

Gao Wengang had vaguely heard that coal mine owners in Newcastle had purchased some steam engines for pumping water, and later extended them to coal mines and lead mines in Wales because of the good results, making the use of steam engines in the whole of Britain exceed forty. It has almost formed a trend, attracting more capital and technical personnel to invest in it, researching how to produce more efficient steam engines-in fact, British investors should not be so enthusiastic about investing in something with an uncertain future. However, the lighthouse on the east bank is so bright that everyone knows that steam engines are beneficial, so it is not surprising that they have devoted themselves to research.And with Britain's industrial level ahead of other European countries at that time, it is not surprising that it has improved steam engines that are more advanced than other countries.

At present, according to rumors, some factories using steam engines have begun to appear in textile industrial areas such as West Riding and Manchester, which is not a small breakthrough.These factories originally used river water as the main source of power for textile machinery. However, during the dry season, the water level of many rivers dropped and the flow rate slowed down, which could not move the textile machinery. Therefore, some factory owners eager to increase production turned their attention to Hit the steam engine, and finally succeeded.

And when the steam engine was successful in the mining and textile industries at the same time, and the "advanced experience" of the people on the east coast was placed in front, England no longer had any doubts about whether to vigorously promote steam power.After using steam power to improve the utilization rate of equipment in winter and spring dry seasons, not only the output of English woolen cloth, cotton cloth, and linen has greatly increased, but the cost has also dropped a lot. In addition, the accumulated progress in textile technology over the years , now the British produce a piece of cloth, the cost is only half of the previous one, the efficiency is greatly increased, and the profit is also greatly increased!

Although Gao Wengang is not particularly worried that the British will defeat the east coast textiles in the Black Sea by using steam power, but as far as the British introduce the steam engine into the textile industry, it is indeed something worthy of vigilance.Because it means that the steam engine, which has always given people the impression of being stupid and thick, has now gotten rid of the label dedicated to pumping water (mine, dock drainage), and can be used in more industries instead.I believe that in time, with the continuous improvement of market demand, it will not be too far to use steam power in England on a large scale.

"British textiles penetrated into the Black Sea region, not the first time, nor will it be the last time. The strength of the Levant Company (a British company mainly engaged in trade with the Ottomans) is very strong, and the shareholders are also some prominent figures in London. , when our products had not yet entered the Black Sea, I remember that the cloth market here was always a paradise for textiles in the Southern Netherlands and England, until our products took up most of the market." Li Qing took a sip of coffee and said comfortably: " Now that the English are back again, their cost seems to be lower, their quality seems to have improved, and the relationship between the upper class is even better. We are a little surprised, but so what? The advantages of our products are unquestionable, and as time goes by Sooner or later, English goods will be driven out by us as they were at the beginning."

Different from what she said, at this time Li Qing's heart was a little gloomy.He is not distressed that part of the market has been taken away by British textiles, it is not worth it.What he was really worried about was the gradual popularization and application of steam power in Britain-although it was slow, but the trend was extremely firm-the latter seemed to be more worthy of vigilance by people on the east coast.

But no matter how vigilant they are, they can't hide the fact that the steam engine is very popular in the Old World, and it probably won't be too late.Li Qing predicted pessimistically that maybe before his death, he would be "fortunate" to see the steam engine being used as a stable source of power spread all over England, which is really bad!

(End of this chapter)