Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 468 Tropical Fertile Soil ([-])

It was the end of the hot season (rainy season), so the rain had stopped early the next morning, and the air outside was clean.

McKinley's Ming wife had already prepared breakfast. The staple food was polenta, the side dish was fried peanuts, and there was also a poached egg.McKinley went back and forth to finish his breakfast, then turned his head to look at the door, where his two-year-old eldest son was sitting and playing with mud.This is his eldest son, and also his only son.Two months ago, his youngest son died of illness, which made him very sad, and at the same time he loved his eldest son even more.

"The price of peanuts has risen again, and eggs have also risen." His wife began to complain, "It's really bad for those greedy peddlers to increase the price every time. Not only these have increased, but mangoes and bananas have also increased." , and it has risen very sharply. Does your government care about it?"

McKinley no longer works in the guest house. He was introduced by Pei Suoning, and he got a staff member in the agricultural technology station.As for why he didn't work in the health center, after all, he was also involved in the research and development of antimalarial drugs.However, his family knows his own family affairs. McKinley was born as a farmer, worked as a sailor, worked as a pirate, and went to a coal mine to dig coal for a living. He begged Pei Suoning for an errand at the agricultural technology station. He is currently in charge of introducing tropical cash crops in Xinhua Town and Xixiang—of course he is still helping.

"I'm from the agricultural technology station, so I can't manage economic work." McKinley replied impatiently, and then asked his wife to bring over his white shirt. He has an important meeting to attend today, so he is going to put on a formal suit .His wife quickly brought him what he called a formal suit, a white cotton shirt and black linen trousers.McKinley left the house soon after putting it on, and headed for the town hall in the city.

When he rushed to the meeting room of the town government, people from all government departments were basically present.Of course, the so-called arrival simply refers to people from the civil affairs system. Officials from such systems as the judiciary, the police, the army, and large state-owned enterprises such as the East African Transportation Company and Xinhua Shipyard were not present, so this is just a simple civil affairs It's just a work meeting.

The former mayor's assistant Kyle, who presided over the meeting, was the acting mayor.Kyle was born in the navy, but he is more diligent and likes to study, so he is quite valued by Shi Qinjie.This time Shi Qinjie returned to the local area for activities, and before he left, he clearly stated that Kyle would act as the mayor and preside over the civil affairs work, which made a group of people who were originally on the same starting line as him envious.

"The main purpose of the meeting today is to discuss the recent price rise." Not long after McKinley sat down, he was greeting his neighbor when Kyle's voice came from above.So they stopped talking and started a meeting.

"According to statistics, the prices of various commodities have risen to varying degrees. Among them, the prices of daily necessities such as sorghum, wheat, cotton cloth, beef, palm oil and other commodities that ordinary residents are most concerned about are relatively stable and have a small increase. This is mainly because Due to the coordination and regulation of the Xinhua Branch of the National Reserve Material Depository, we have to admit this." Kyle said loudly.After years of experience, he is already in his thirties and can be regarded as a relatively experienced bureaucrat, so he is very familiar with hosting such meetings.

McKinley in the audience was a little surprised when he heard what Kyle said.As far as he knew, this Kyle was a staunch economic liberal, mainly because his old boss Shi Qingjie himself believed in liberal economics.Therefore, he has always been very disgusted with government intervention in the economy, and advocated regulation through market mechanisms.McKinley was a little surprised that he must have played a role in regulating the stockpile and controlling prices at the moment.

Due to the harsh natural environment and high death rate in New China, the local residents have a high consumption desire, and even those Ming people who are used to frugality are not as frequent as those Irish people due to the dual effects of environment and customs. , French or Tatars, but it is also considerable.After all, in this place, no one knows whether they will suddenly get sick and die in the next moment, so the demand for various consumer goods has always been relatively strong.

The reason why these necessities of life have not increased in price is that it cannot be done across the board.Among them, commodities such as sorghum and cotton cloth are transported here by the South African River Central Port, and are sold at a uniform price by the state-owned stores belonging to the material warehouse. Therefore, the prices are low and have not changed throughout the year. This is mainly due to the local state-owned large farms enslaving blacks. The fruits of slavery.

In addition, part of the wheat is provided by South Africa, and part of it is imported through the Port of Suez in the Ottoman Empire. The state-run store wholesales the wheat to some hawkers, and the hawkers then sell it to various villages, forest farms, and factory family areas to earn some money. price difference.Of course, once the price rises to a certain limit, the state-run store will also take the initiative to sell some wheat to stabilize the price.

Same thing with wheat, same thing with beef.Since the local population of hump cattle is not large enough, and the demand of the people is increasing day by day, the poor supply of beef slaughtered by the meat processing factory every day is in short supply.For this reason, Shi Qinjie discussed with the Portuguese on the other side of Mozambique and decided to import some livestock from them, but the slaughter must be slaughtered in a designated place on the east bank (Xinhua Port Meat Factory).Since the introduction of Mozambique beef, the contradiction between supply and demand has been alleviated.

However, people on the east coast are also trying to find self-sufficiency. After all, Madagascar is known as the country of hump cattle. There are more than 1000 million hump cattle in the country, which shows that the environment here is still very suitable for raising this kind of cattle.However, the current population is still small, and the amount slaughtered every day is far from enough to meet the consumption needs of more than 500 local residents and nearly [-] South African laborers.

As for someone's proposal to grab it from the natives, it was quickly rejected by Shi Qinjie.The natives themselves continued to fight, and even the Eight Banners tribes on the islands with relatively better economic conditions who had defected to the people on the east coast, the people's livelihood was very poor.Therefore, there is no future for relying on looting, so you can only build it yourself, but this requires a process, so temporarily import part of it from Mozambique to meet the demand.At the same time, this has also strengthened the economic ties with the Portuguese East African colonies, which has a positive effect on promoting the relationship between the two parties.

In addition, the Zambezi housewives, Portuguese estate owners in Mozambique, also exported a large amount of palm oil to the east coast, which is another bulk consumer product and a daily necessity.The national stockpile stockpile also hoarded on a large scale, operating in the same way as wheat and beef.

To sum up, the prices of commodities such as sorghum, wheat, cotton cloth, beef, salt, palm oil, and coal, which are listed as daily necessities, are basically well controlled, which ensures that the basic living standards of ordinary people will not Dropped too much.

"The prices of luxury consumer goods such as tea, pepper, high-end leather shoes, high-end furniture, wine, porcelain, etc. have risen rapidly, and the prices of some of them have even more than doubled. Take the red wine exported from Zhenhai Port as an example, according to According to customs statistics, the average arrival price in Hong Kong is about 6 yuan per bottle, but the final market sales price often hovers between 10-12 yuan, almost doubled. What is the reason?" Kyle turned over the materials at hand and looked up. asked.

Without waiting for others to answer, he quickly buried his head to ask himself and answered: "According to the data from the Customs, the Industrial and Commercial Office, the Taxation Office, the Finance Office, and the Xinhua Branch of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, the currency (that is, silver coins) on the Xinhua Port market in the past year has , Dongan Yuan) has grown rapidly, which is due to the rapid economic growth of our New China region. Since the previous year, the export volume of coal, hardwood, sisal, and coconut has almost doubled a year, generating a lot of profits In addition, with the increasingly close business ties with the nearby Portuguese East Africa, the Ottoman Empire and Persia, some foreign merchants flooded into the town, and they also brought a large amount of gold and silver currency, which also increased consumption demand. Under the joint effect of the two, the supply of many local commodities is in short supply, and the prices of commodities have risen rapidly, which has caused some disorder in the economic order. In other words, the root of the problem is that too much currency has poured into the market in a short period of time, while the quantity of our commodities has not can increase rapidly, which has led to a rapid rise in prices."

Although most of the goods exported by New China are traded between the state-run material warehouse and the local area, with the substantial increase in production and profits, workers' bonuses and benefits have also increased.When you have money, you will naturally want to consume, especially in a place with a special environment like New China, where people's desire to consume is generally high, but the supply of goods has not kept up in time, so it is not surprising that prices have risen .That is, while workers' incomes increased, the actual purchasing power of the coins in their pockets decreased.The region's economy has developed greatly, but they have not shared enough of the benefits of economic development. This is the root of the problem.

In fact, ordinary people don't care too much about the price increase of these luxury goods.At most, they expressed their admiration, wow, red wine is 12 yuan per bottle!But you basically don’t need to expect them with a monthly income of 4-6 yuan to often consume red wine, which is unrealistic.Therefore, trying to adjust the price of luxury goods is actually a thankless task, because its audience is not wide, and most of the complaints are senior technicians in some factories, middle and high-level government officials, military officers, and wealthy farmers who grow cash crops.As for ordinary people, who cares about the price of your red wine or tea?Anyway, I don't buy it again!

The price of daily necessities is controlled, and luxury goods are out of reach of most people. In fact, the common people complain the most about ordinary consumer goods, such as: mango, banana, milk, eggs, sugar, cream, cheese, shredded tobacco, seafood, ordinary furniture, ordinary Leather goods etc.Most of them need to be imported, and any possibility of rising international prices, inflation and hoarding will cause changes in the final domestic retail price.How to control the prices of these commodities is where the government's ability to govern is tested.

(End of this chapter)