Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 790 Trade and Colonization ([-])

"The essence of modern colonial rule is actually the rule of industrial capital, and it is ruled for the self-interest of capital. The reason why industrial capital cares about the colony is to regard it as a commodity market, as a place of supply of raw materials and food, as a The investment market of excess capital. In order to make the existence of this colony valuable to oneself, the best way is to open its economic system to the world of commodity economy. Due to the invasion of commodity economy, the self-sufficient economic system collapsed, The economic forces that have been restrained in the past have been liberated, and the local people have also begun to transform into commodity producers with a profit mentality. In this way, local enterprises aiming at market production will rise rapidly, and at the same time, they will rely on foreign capital for modern resource development, so The colony's economy has also developed rapidly in a short period of time." In the port of Araucan, Qiang Quansheng, director of the National Bureau of Precious Metals, was explaining economic knowledge to the student cadres from the Corps Fort.

His visit to the Port of Araucan this time was solely for the upcoming trade plan with the Spaniards that the Southern Railway Company would launch.To be honest, this plan has attracted the attention of many people in the East Coast, and the members of the executive committee have also made many inquiries about it. Therefore, Qiang Quansheng, the director of the State Administration of Precious Metals, went south to Xingnan Port on behalf of the central government, and then Taking a horse-drawn carriage through the newly opened Xingnan Highway, I arrived at the port of Araucan with bumps all the way.

After having an in-depth conversation with Mo Ming and others, Qiang Quansheng has basically understood the essence of this trade, and at the same time estimated the profit in it, so he is now optimistic about this plan.In fact, it’s okay to disagree. The Southern Railway Company had negotiated all the details with the Spaniards in late October, and then Mo Ming also personally arrived in Valparaiso by boat and formally signed a secret deal with the Spaniards. contract.In other words, regardless of whether the central government agrees or not, the Southern Railway Company must do business with the Spaniards in Peru, because they are crazy about money.And this also made Qiang Quansheng slander secretly, it really is the style of the army's gang of horse dung, who do things simply and rudely, and don't care.

But no matter what, in this matter, the interests of the Southern Railway Company and the domestic industry and commerce are the same.Therefore, Qiang Quansheng was also invited by the Southern Railway Company to give lectures to the management cadres of the company's economic department (only middle and senior cadres who have been inspected and trusted) when he was about to return to his hometown after his inspection.The content of the class was closely related to the recent hot spots, and it was about the semi-open smuggling trade between the Southern Railway Company and the Spaniards.

"But industrial capital is not here to do good deeds for the colonies..." Qiang Quansheng continued waving his arms, and said, "What industrial capital cares about is nothing more than restraining the development of colonial capitalism. For example, the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru According to the trade agreement signed by the two parties and the gap in productivity between the two sides, the vast Peruvian region can basically be regarded as our economic colony. What we have to do now is to continuously expand the bilateral trade volume and try to restrain Spain from the Peruvian region. The development of capitalism prevents the capital in the hands of the locals from being transformed into industrial capital—of course, the Kingdom of Spain does not allow the existence of industrial capital in Peru, which is very beneficial to us—blocks the way for the Spaniards to develop capitalism, and makes them It can only produce the specific materials needed by our country, so that it can form an economic system completely subordinate to our country."

"So, is it better to let the Spaniards in Peru produce only some agricultural and mineral products?" A cadre raised his hand to ask.

"Yes." Qiang Quansheng said without hesitation, "The most ideal situation is that Peru only exports products such as cane sugar, leather, tallow, guano, wool, tropical high-quality wood, cinchona bark, lead, tin and sulfur to us." and other commodities, these must account for more than 90% of its economic content, and then be completely incorporated into our economic system. In this system, our domestic manufacturers are at the top; the Southern Railway Company and the Spanish officials of the Viceroyalty of Peru are The middlemen are in the middle reaches; the most downstream and most exploited are naturally the farmers, mine owners and ordinary farmers in Peru. They are at the bottom of the industrial chain and must be willing to risk price changes and let the middlemen exploit them. The poorer you are, the more you need to produce more things. In this way, the export of agricultural and mineral products increases, and the import trade also expands. The middlemen and upstream manufacturers related to this can suck excess profits, and the local people work hard. All day long, but the income is limited, and may even become more and more impoverished. This process is repeated, and after a long time, it will be difficult for the Viceroyalty of Peru to turn around."

"In our country, the wide application of steam engines, the large-scale construction of railways, roads, canals and wharfs, and the prosperity of basic industries such as steel, chemical industry and coal have all greatly improved productivity levels. Production efficiency has improved, and people's living standards have also improved. The improvement of production level, in turn, promotes the improvement of production efficiency. As for the Spaniards, I can boldly assert that their economic development does not depend on the improvement of production efficiency. In fact, it relies more on the increase of labor intensity and Extending working hours. This often only means simply increasing products, but the level of productivity has not been effectively improved, so the improvement of the living standards of the Spaniards is also unimaginable. Because they have finally accumulated commercial capital and agricultural assets to industry The way of capital has been blocked by us, which has effectively prevented the overall improvement of the productivity level of Peruvian society, and this is also one of our most important goals.” Qiang Quansheng finally concluded.

His words clearly and thoroughly explained the nature of capitalism—whether it is state capitalism or free capitalism—society, as well as its oppression and exploitation of backward countries.The many senior cadres of the Southern Railway Company who were present felt a deafening feeling, and many things that they had been vaguely aware of but hadn't figured out suddenly became clear at this moment.It turns out that robbing and plundering other people's wealth can still be done in this way.

Although in the short term, direct robbery may be more efficient in terms of quantity, but in the long run, economic colonization with a steady flow of water is obviously more cost-effective.Of course, for a poor and white country on the east coast that urgently needs a lot of start-up funds for development, direct robbery seems to be more cost-effective.At least, more than half of the large amount of livestock needed to promote the three-crop rotation system in domestic agriculture on the east coast has been solved, and the agricultural output has been greatly improved. This is undoubtedly a huge fortune.

At the end of November, five fishing boats including the "Nantieyu 11" under the Southern Railway Corporation arrived at the trading place agreed upon by both parties on the banks of the Maolin River carrying a large amount of commodities.This is an area that the Spaniards have only developed in recent years. The forest is dense, the land is fertile, and the trout in the river are almost overflowing. It is a wild and fertile virgin land.After the Spaniards destroyed some of the villages here during the war, they were unable to restore them, and then simply abandoned them and returned them to the wild.

However, after reaching a secret smuggling agreement with the people from the east coast, the two parties invariably selected the trading location here, making it gather a large number of people again in a short period of time—mainly commercial compradors and their servants.Here they cut wood to build houses, build warehouses, and raise pack animals. Some smart Italians even opened hotels and restaurants here, specializing in the business of these people.

Immediately after the arrival of the four east coast ships, many Indian servants stepped forward to unload: aspirin, which is popular in humid and hot Peru, and 108 medicinal wine to prevent malaria (in fact, more people regard it as a kind of good alcohol Beverages), steel bars, various textiles, dyed leather goods, building materials, refined flour, soybean oil and other goods.These are the supplies that are in short supply in the Viceroyalty of Peru, so they were bought up by these Spanish compradors in just half a day.At this time, everyone doesn't mention the war that just ended between the two countries - that's making yourself unhappy, and everyone's attention is more focused on these goods that can bring lovely silver coins.

As we all know, the materials transported by the Spanish treasure fleet to the New World each year are only a fraction of the consumption here. Therefore, it is good news for local consumers that cheap and high-quality east coast industrial products enter the Peruvian and even New Spanish markets.After all, at this time, they have not yet realized the disadvantages of cheap foreign industrial products to their industrial development. They only know that they no longer need to spend high prices to buy daily necessities that are always in short supply.

Although the people on the east coast are doing economic colonization of the Spanish in Peru, the amazing thing is that the Peruvians think they have made a profit. Needless to say, the comprador merchants must have made a lot of money, and the manufacturers on the east coast have certainly made a profit, so Who suffers in this process?The Genoese with trade concessions may have lost some, but not much, because their supply is really limited; after this calculation, the European smugglers should have lost the most, and more specifically, the Dutch, The British and the French are the main losers, and there are also smuggling ships from Sweden, Denmark, Portugal and other countries, but the number is very small.

It shouldn't be a big problem for people from the east coast who are engaged in large-scale mechanized industrial production to drive these European smugglers from afar out of the South American market.Leaving aside the production costs of both parties, the people from the east coast have an overwhelming advantage when it comes to the logistics and transportation issues—smuggling ships usually dock in the Caribbean Sea, and they need to be transshipped by land, which costs a lot of money. It is shipped directly to Hong Kong.

On November 11, several shipments of goods from the Southern Railway Company were snapped up. According to rough calculations, these goods brought a net profit of more than 1 yuan to the Southern Railway Company.As for the profits obtained by domestic production enterprises, it is probably not far from this number.Undoubtedly, with the gradual prosperity of the South American smuggling market, this will have a very positive impact on stimulating the development of the manufacturing industry on the East Coast and getting rid of the dependence on the traditional European market.

(End of this chapter)