Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1956 Commercial Group ([-])

On July 1686, 7, there were a lot of businessmen at Xiangshui Port Wharf.

Hawkes Clifford, pipe in hand, stood on a tall building overlooking the busy street below.There are businessmen from all over the world, wandering around on the street, chatting with one or several Qing people from time to time, seeming to inquire about prices, and seeming to be bargaining, in short, it is a scene of prosperous business.

Clifford was now the owner of three ships.Although he is still a second-level agent under the British East India Company, he has quite a lot of autonomy. He bought a lot of tea, because he believed that the market for tea in England was quite large, and it began to come out of pharmacies and gradually became a beverage.

As for the commodity tea, in the current Xiangshui Port, the export volume has already ranked second, surpassing silk, silk, brocade and other silk fabrics, and second only to raw silk, a bulk trade product. This shows that its export volume A strong upward trend.The Xiangshui tea market is quite professional at present, and there are many varieties, including brick tea, Xiaojing brick tea, medicine brick tea, red brick tea, Beijing brick tea, tea cake, scented tea, black tea, hat tea, hair tea powder, and two or five boxes of tea , Old tea, Xijia green tea, Yuqian green tea, scented tea, tea chips, etc. There are so many categories that it makes people feel dazzled.

It is worth mentioning that in the early years, the Portuguese and the Dutch were almost the only two Western buyers of Chinese tea.At that time, they basically bought tea in Fujian, southern China, and it was called "Wuyi Green Tea". Demand, other Europeans do not have the custom of drinking tea much, so the sales of tea are not large.

Now decades have passed, tea has gradually become popular in the western world, and the consumer market has been greatly cultivated. Therefore, the proportion of tea in the export commodities of various powers in mainland China has begun to rise rapidly, and it has gradually become an exciting Amazing job.

And the demand for tea has increased—especially the demand of ordinary people. In order to chase profits, it is naturally impossible for merchants to buy more expensive barreled tea (such as Wuyi green tea), but choose more For cheap brick tea.Anyway, no matter how bad the tea is bought back, it can be sold at a good price, and that's enough.As a result, brick tea and the equally cheap sliced ​​tea became popular, filling the warehouses of the docks, and then waiting for buyers to buy them and transport them to all corners of the world.

In order to increase the export of brick tea and reduce production costs, the people of the Qing Dynasty also adopted the form of government-supervised business offices, and set up brick tea factories in major tea producing areas or distribution centers.These brick tea factories either adopt the traditional method, or purchase semi-mechanized production equipment (not approved yet) through people from the east coast, and produce brick tea of ​​various colors day and night, and then pack them into boxes and ship them to Xiangshui Port, a major foreign trade port.

The main production areas of tea in the Qing Dynasty were concentrated in Anhui, Jiangnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan and other provinces, and then they were transported to Xiangshui Port by various means, either by water or land, and were first sampled and registered by the local tea office established by the Qing government. , and then sent to the docks for storage in various warehouses, waiting for buyers.

According to the description of the document submitted by the tea office: "...every year when tea is released on the market, the market is booming, and businessmen of all kinds come in droves. All the lines are densely packed, and there are endless ships from various countries on the river..."

"...Xiangshui tea has always been bought by two gangs of merchants from Shanxi and Huaiyang. The Nikkei Tea Office invited guests to a meeting the other day, and there were seven Shanxi gangs and eleven Huai gangs who rectified everything and started picking and selling today."

That is to say, after the tea from each production area is concentrated in Xiangshui Port, it is mainly sold to two regions, one is overseas, and the other is the grassland (tea from the Shaanxi-Gansu region is also sold to the nearby grassland) and Russia.It is easy to understand that those sold overseas are nothing more than English, Dutch, Portuguese, and French merchants, while those sold to the grasslands and Russia have to go through a long land transportation, and then sold to grassland merchants in Kouzhuang, which is not a small amount every year. The numbers are gone.

The tea on Hawkes Clifford's ship was purchased from a well-established tea shop "Deshengrui". The quality is guaranteed to a certain extent, and he is also very satisfied. He will definitely make a lot of money when he goes back.Of course, what satisfies him even more is that the "things" he took a great risk to bring from Europe this time sold for a good price.

These "things" he "purchased" in France were more than 80 French Huguenot officers and soldiers.He tricked these people into boarding the ship with the excuse of sending them to Quebec, and then broke his promise and sailed all the way to Xiangshui Port in Qing Dynasty.There is no doubt that these military talents are exactly what the Qing court urgently needs, and they will be the most profitable.Clifford could deeply feel the country's desire for a strong army, so he sent a large number of desperate French Protestant officers and soldiers to Xiangshui Port on the spur of the moment. If you do business here, it will be even more beneficial.

"Tea is really a wonderful thing. It has become an export fist weapon of the Qing Dynasty and one of the most important ways to obtain cash. This is something that was unimaginable a few decades ago." Hawkes Clifford pumped Taking a puff of cigarette, he said with a smile: "Now the tea market dominated by people from the east bank in Ningbo in the south is also very prosperous, and they have seized a lot of market share. In order to get more cash, the people of the Qing Dynasty keep selling tea at low prices, haha , which is really wonderful."

It was almost ten years since Hawkes Clifford made his first voyage to the Far East.In these ten years, his life has been full of ups and downs, extremely exciting: first, he accumulated a huge amount of wealth through trade with the Qing Dynasty and restored the glory of the Clifford family, and then he lost money because of investing in overseas colonies. As a last resort, he had to go out again, restart the ocean trade with the Qing Dynasty, and finally succeeded again; now, Hawkes Clifford is the owner of four merchant ships (although they are mostly 200- 300-ton boat), also gained a certain reputation in the Qing Dynasty, and its status was not low.

This time he purchased more than 3 pounds of tea at Xiangshui Port in one go, and the officials of the Qing Dynasty were so happy.You know, this is worth more than 70 taels of customs treasury flat silver, which is not a small sum.If there were a few more big customers like Clifford, the Qing Dynasty would not only be able to obtain a turnover of 40 million taels of silver for tea, instead of less than [-] taels a year as it is now. It is still quite insufficient, and we can only hope for the further development of the future market.

And just when Hawkes Clifford was satisfied in the most luxurious hotel in Xiangshui Port, a group of Qing officials were also having a meeting in the Xiangshui Tea Office about two kilometers away.

"China's business, silk tea is the two major ends. In recent years, silk has been damaged by diseased silkworms, and tea has fake quality. Business people follow the rules and don't pay attention to things. But Ningbo tea is striving for perfection. If things go on like this, it will become worse Hold my throat and take away my benefits." An elderly official with a gray beard frowns, and said worriedly: "My lords are all good talents of the country, please speak freely, there is no way to benefit the way. Mr. Xiong, are you Experts who are proficient in Western affairs should stop hiding it and tell everyone about it.”

The "Master Xiong" named by the boss is about 30 years old. Because he can speak fluent Dutch and English, he was promoted like a rocket. Now he is a sixth-rank court official with a bright future.At this meeting, he was a little helpless, and he stood up after a while, cupped his hands and said: "My lord has learned from you, so I dare to speak up. What the court wants is nothing more than to increase the amount of tea sold. I think that's okay. Start on both fronts."

"First, start with the foreign merchants. The officials have made many investigations and found out that the foreign merchants who came to Xiangshui Trading are many treacherous and cunning people. For example, after they made an order, they deliberately delayed the delivery by less than a pound. When the price of long-term tea falls, it is justified by the unevenness of the goods, and the price is lowered, all kinds of disadvantages. Our merchants in the Qing Dynasty suffered aggrieved losses because of this, and there are always such things. Please ask the boss to report this matter and give the tea company exclusive rights. Rectify as a whole, strictly prohibit unequal trade, in order to maintain business."

"Secondly, we should also start from our own. The officials also know that there are many tea farms in the locality, and the quality is uneven. In addition, there are illegal profiteers who shoddy good ones. Over time, it is common for foreign businessmen to be dissatisfied. It’s over. Now all tea merchants should let their children learn the tea-making methods of the Eastern countries or the languages, business regulations, and laws of Western countries, so as to quickly promote the good tea-making methods. After learning, they will serve as their own supervisors and meet foreign merchants face to face. The success or failure of a transaction depends on one's own wealth."

"This two-pronged approach can effectively increase the national treasury's tea tax revenue, and at the same time attract more foreign businessmen to Xiangshui, weakening Ningbo's strength in disguise. Boss, this matter is actually simple and clear. The relationship between the Qing Dynasty and the East Bank During the period, there was a huge conflict of interest in tea and other commodities. Now is the time for our merchants and people in the Qing Dynasty to unite and conduct business with the shameless Dongguo people. Everyone, this matter must not be retreated. If there is vitality, retreating is a step into the abyss, and there is no ability to come back."

Not surprisingly, this person's words aroused the thinking of the officials present.To be honest, if they can "work" in the tea office, they are all hard-working people with good background and knowledge.Therefore, after "Master Xiong" carefully analyzed all these things, they all felt quite reasonable, not to mention that these things he said can not only be substituted for tea, but also various other export commodities are more or less facing some of these problems. question.

Is it really feasible to engage in a commercial war with the Dongguo people?Everyone was thinking silently.

I came back from the entertainment at 11 o'clock, hurriedly coded 3000 words of yesterday's content, and went to bed, too sleepy.

(End of this chapter)