Chastity Layman

  Chapter 957 Southern Country Vanity

  When the huge treasure ship was escorted by six majestic fighting ships of the South China Sea Navy and guided by four speedboats into Guangzhou Port, Liu Rengui, standing on the deck, still felt extremely shocked.

Starting from Chang'an and going south, first go all the way southeast, from Danjiang Wharf in Shangluo, then to Hanshui Wharf in Xiangyang, then to the Yangtze River Wharf in Jiangxia, and then replenish at Jiujiang Wharf when passing through Jiangzhou, all the way down the Yangtze River, to Yangzhou pier.

  At that time, Liu Rengui was shocked by Yangzhou's prosperity. As an important node of the Grand Canal, Yangzhou is now famous for its silk and salt industries, and its canal water transportation and shipbuilding industries are also quite developed. Countless merchants gathered, and more than 100,000 industrial workers gathered.

  Here, even if you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in your pocket, you cannot be called a rich man.

During the Sui Dynasty, Yangzhou was the vassal land that Yang Guang had guarded for many years before he succeeded to the throne. It replaced Jiankang City on the south bank as the center of the south of the Yangtze River. But now it is even more prosperous than before.

After resting in Yangzhou, I went to Jiankang to have a look. This stone city, the capital of the Southern Dynasties, was demolished after the Sui army conquered the Chen Dynasty. The center of Jiangnan.

On the contrary, Chang, Su, Hangzhou, Hu, Yue, and Ming prefectures along the canal became more prosperous. Therefore, the imperial court divided the Hangzhou, Hu, Yue, Ming, Qu, Tai and Wen prefectures from Jiangdong Road, and built Zhejiang Road separately. .

  The traditional Jiangnan area originally stretched from the sea in the east to the Three Gorges in the west, and from the south of the Yangtze River to Wuling, all belonged to Jiangnan.

  In recent years, however, it was first divided into Jiangdong and Jiangxi provinces, and then Jiangxi province was divided into Hunan province, and Shannan province was divided into Hubei province.

   Immediately after this, Jiangdong Road was also divided into two, and then Zhejiang Road was separated.

  If the Huainan Road in Jiangbei and the Huaixi Road that was separated from it are counted, the Jiangnan Road in the Tang Dynasty in the early days of Wu Dechu has now become six. If Fujian Road is included, it is actually seven.

  One becomes seven ways.

  At the beginning of Wude, the entire Jiangnan Road plus Huainan Road was not as good as one of the four core areas of Guanzhong, Henan, Hebei, and Hedong, and it might not even be comparable to Shannan, Longyou, and Jiannan.

  In recent years, the southeast has developed rapidly. With the interest of industry and commerce, especially the development of maritime trade, Jiangnan has no wars and the dividends brought by the tax system reform, and its development power far exceeds that of the north.

  Although overall it is not as much as the Central Plains, but in terms of growth rate, it is too much more than the Central Plains.

Just like Hangzhou, because the Universiade arrived in Hangzhou from the south of the Yangtze River, and there is also the big harbor of Qiantang Bay, it has become an important commercial port in recent years. Its momentum is so strong that it is even catching up with Yangzhou. Today, Guangzhou ranks first in the southeast city and Yangzhou ranks second. Second, Jiaozhou third, Hangzhou fourth.

  Although Hangzhou ranks fourth, his rising momentum is too fast, and he even tends to catch up with Jiaozhou and catch up with Yangzhou.

  Hangzhou's silk weaving has become its core industry, and Hangzhou's silk weaving has become the number one in the world.

  Salt from Yangzhou, silk from Hangzhou, ships from Fuzhou, iron from Guangzhou, sugar and cotton from Taipingzhou, spices and slaves from Jiaozhou, all merchants competed for good things.

Jiaozhou Port is now far behind in this regard, and has not produced any unique good products. It just relies on its southernmost location to occupy an important share of spices and slaves from Tang Hu merchants. In addition, it is close to Wu'an Port. , so it was quite lively.

But slaves and spices are not unique to Jiaozhou, so after all, they still lack some core competitiveness. If it weren’t for the Qin family’s Wu’an Taiping Port nearby, complementing each other, supported by good things like cotton and sugar, Jiaozhou and Hangzhou would definitely The gap will become wider and wider, and eventually be left behind.

  Before entering Guangzhou Port, Liu Rengui saw many ports in southeast cities that he might have thought were remote, and he was very shocked.

  But I still think that those places are in the south of the Yangtze River after all, and once they pass Lingnan, they will definitely fall behind.

For example, Fujian Road, Fuzhou, Quanzhou, and Zhangzhou are similar to his impressions. They are small cities with a small population. Although Mawei Port in Fuzhou has many shipyards and related industries, they are still small after all. As for Fuqing next to it, it is only an industry of the Qin family, and the overall scale is even smaller.

  As for the two prefectures of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou, relying on sea trade and the development of Convection in recent years, the island slave trade and the trade in camphor, sulfur, grain, deerskin, etc. can be regarded as small troubles.

  When I arrived at Chaozhou Port on Canton Road, I found that it was not much better than Quanzhang. As for the Penghu Port on the way, it was even more pitiful.

  I thought that Guangzhou was stronger than Fuzhou. After entering the port, what I saw was a larger fishing village wharf, with stretches of bamboo houses and barbarians everywhere.

  But when he really entered Guangzhou Port, before disembarking, Liu Rengui was surprised one after another.

  First of all, there are too many boats here.

  There are not only many Tang boats in the port, but also countless fan boats who have traveled across the ocean and traveled thousands of miles.

"Guangyiyang, Erjiao, Sanhangsi, and Guangyi are not in vain. Look at these ships, they are huge and come from different countries. People in Guangzhou are used to calling them Nanhai ships, Western regions ships, or Nanman ships. , the Kunlun ship, or the lion ship or the Brahman ship."

   "Of course, these ships come from all over the world, each with its own characteristics, so it's easy to recognize. For example, the largest number of these ships are Persian ships and Arabian ships, followed by lion ships."

  Persian ships are mainly from the Mediterranean Sea, while Lion ships are from the Indian Ocean.

  Lion Ship means a ship from the Lion Country, and the Lion Country is later Sri Lanka, which is called the Gem Island by merchants such as Tianzhu and Persia, and is rich in rubies and several precious spices.

However, not all lion boats belong to the merchants of the Lion Kingdom. In fact, more of them are from the surrounding countries of the Lion Kingdom, mainly Tianzhu merchants. There are many states on the Tianzhu Continent. The Japanese Empire is actually just a larger emerging city-state federation, and it only occupies about half of the northern part of Tianzhu.

  Guangzhou people like to refer to these Tianzhu merchants brought by the Lion Kingdom as Lion Ships, while merchant ships from Funan, Chenla, and later Indonesia and other Indochina Peninsula and Nanyang Islands are called Kunlun Ships.

   Several types of ships have their own characteristics. Lion ships are generally large and can carry six to seven hundred people. Many ships are towing lifeboats, which look very powerful, and even equipped with carrier pigeons.

  The Persian ship is longer.

   As for the Kunlun ship, it is relatively smaller.

  In the port, the Tang boats are separated from the Fanchuan. On the other side, the Tang boats are divided into ocean-going ships, coastal ships, and even inland river ships.

Among them, the ships running on the inland rivers of Xijiang, Beidong and Dongjiang are also called Canton Ships. This kind of ships are mainly built by Lingnan Shipyards such as Guangzhou Shipyard. However, the wind and wave resistance is a bit poor, and it is dedicated to the middle and lower reaches of the Xijiang River, mainly transporting grain and ore.

  The ships that run offshore are Fuchuan. These ships are also famous for their large load capacity. They travel along the coast and can withstand wind and waves.

The ocean-going ship is called Treasure Ship, which was designed and produced by the Qin family. It has a number of advanced technologies, watertight cabins, spliced ​​keels, and multi-masted soft sails. Riding the wind and waves, its sharp bottom bilge is also more conducive to ocean and deep sea navigation.

  The shape of these treasure ships is smooth, and it seems that they are not as tall and powerful as the barbarian ships.

   Not only can the North Sea and East countries be able to cross the Nanyang Islands, let alone sail to the Lion Kingdom and Persia.

Datang's ocean-going merchant fleet is basically entrusting the Qin family shipyard to order treasure ships. The Qin family also cooperates with many shipyards. After receiving the order, they entrust them to produce some parts or assemble according to the standard. Many of the Fujian Mawei Shipyards, which mainly produce Fuchuan, are processing treasure ship parts for the Qinjia Shipyard.

  Using standardized original parts and assembly line production methods, the production cycle of the Qin family's treasure ships is very short. It takes no more than half a year for a treasure ship to be delivered from order to delivery.

And such a fast speed, thanks to the control of the entire industrial chain, from material selection and logging, to transporting saw boards, even drying and cooking in the shade, and then to anchors, sails, masts, keel splicing, etc., a ship, Hundreds of production links have been derived, and each link has several production suppliers, making it simpler, more professional and faster.

  Even as small as a ship nail or a ship cable, there are special manufacturing workshops.

With this kind of shipbuilding industry chain throughout the southeast coast, coupled with the large number of shipyards and industrial workers in Datang, the Qin family's treasure ships are manufactured quickly, and they have won a good reputation among maritime merchants for their excellent performance. Orders such as cloud.

Even many Hu merchants in Tang Dynasty are more willing to take Datang's ocean-going treasure ships when they go back and forth, and these Hu merchants are also willing to entrust Datang treasure ship merchants to transport some valuable goods, and they will also habitually Like Tang Shang, buy an insurance for your goods.

Compared with the dhows of the Persians, the treasure ships made by the Qin family in the Tang Dynasty are much stronger. Not to mention the top four-masted treasure ships, even the lighter three-masted and two-masted treasure ships are better than the one-masted treasure ships. They are too strong.

Compared with their dhows that use both paddles and sails, the Qinjiabao ship has lowered the height of the forecastle and poop, and adopted low-side, flat-sail technology, so that these ships are not afraid of wind and waves on the sea, and their speed is extremely fast. Even pirates are not afraid.

  Pirates are generally light boats, which are good for dealing with some bulky big merchants, but against the Qin family's treasure ship, unless they are lucky enough to raid in the fog, they can't eat a fart.

  Tang Shang’s ocean-going treasure ships are generally reserve ships of the navy, equipped with certain weapons, and even have a special command to join the army, plus a certain number of hired guards. If you want to grab the treasure ship, it is nothing but a dream.

  (end of this chapter)