New Shun 1730

If the British East India Company had the ambition to dominate Southeast Asia, Liu Yu would say, "The Netherlands is not good, but the UK is good. The Netherlands will secretly sell opium, but the UK will not. And Spain and Portugal are Catholic, so they can acquiesce to the UK's dominance of Southeast Asia."

But now that Britain has no strength, it naturally hopes that the Netherlands will clear up the situation in Southeast Asia and create a messy thirteen unit with all kinds of cards.

It would also allow the UK to do things with peace of mind.

As expected, Fazaklai was overjoyed and said repeatedly: "Your Excellency, you are still thoughtful. Indeed, this matter involves China's foreign trade, and also involves the important policy of stabilizing the issuance of precious metals and guarding against deflation as mentioned by Your Majesty. Indeed, it is best for each company to do so. The state of competition. However, it is not a good thing that the Nanyang Dutch family is dominant now.”

Liu Yu nodded, seeming to have some trust in Fazakle, and actually pointed to a chair for him to sit down, and asked if he wanted tea or coffee.

Not long after, the entourage served tea, but Fazaklei had never enjoyed such treatment before. Not to mention that this is a marquis, it was just in front of the Governor of Guangdong that he mixed a cup of tea with him before, when he helped the Governor of Guangdong to get the glass sent to the palace.

Now that he had mixed a cup of tea with him, at least it seemed that Liu Yu's anger towards George Anson had dissipated.

After taking two sips of the fine tea, Liu Yu sat down and said, "These words are only between you and me, and are not to be spread outside the country. The real reason why China allowed the British fleet to dock at the port was because of Spain." Useless."

"I'm a very realistic person."

"In the past, there were gold and silver mines in Spain, so that the emperor mistakenly thought that there were mountains of gold and silver in Luzon, and he wanted to seize them. The reason is precisely because the country lacks gold and silver mines, and it is based on silver. Currency is something that cannot be ignored.”

"But now that Spain has declined, there is not much gold and silver. It still raises silkworms and reels silk in Mexico. It can't buy much tea, and it can't buy much porcelain. In addition, it has a history of massacring the Chinese in Luzon, and it is very interested in missionary work. You are a madman, so the imperial court doesn’t know that if you stop by, you are just trying to sidestep the situation?”

"If a hundred years ago, half of the gold and silver imports of the Celestial Empire originated from Luzon, Spain, you would not be allowed to disturb it no matter what."

"If it's useless, then abandon it. Originally, China and Britain should be cooperating in this matter. There is no need to say anything. Who would have thought that George Anson was arrogant and caused many troubles. The fault is mine. If it were anyone else, you might as well think about it. What will be the consequences?”

Fazaklei said yes again and again, and felt at ease.

Everything Liu Yu talked about was about interests, which actually made Fazaklai feel more at ease, convinced that Dashun would not have any thoughts about Southeast Asia, and would also acquiesce to their funding of the anti-Dutch uprising, at least not be accused of it.

Because Liu Yu represents the faction in the Dashun court that emphasizes interests and practical benefits. And those who do not care about interests or practical benefits have no interest in Southeast Asia themselves.

Since even those who talk about interests have this idea, there is no need to worry.

The key point is that everything Liu Yu said makes sense, and Fazaklei really can't doubt it.

Indeed, if Spain and Dashun maintain the same gold and silver import volume as during the Ming Dynasty, Dashun will never allow Luzon to be in chaos; let alone a country that could not sell woolen goods to the Netherlands in the Ming Dynasty and be squeezed out by the Dutch handicraft industry. The Japanese market, Britain, occupies Luzon.

The reason why Dashun does not want to mess with Southeast Asia is also because it needs a large amount of precious metals brought by the trade volume of European countries to prevent domestic deflation.

Combining these two points together, Dashun's actions suddenly became clear, and it really gave Fazaklai a feeling of enlightenment and enlightenment.

Liu Yu pretended to pick up the tea cup again and sighed: "Actually, my impression of Britain is quite good. In fact, I am a very realistic person. I am so realistic that I think Spain is declining and lacks gold and silver, so I don't want to buy a book." I wish someone else could occupy Luzon."

"The same goes for Britain. Britain has vast colonies and thirteen states in North America. These are huge markets."

"But what? Britain's imports of tea and cotton are actually not as good as Denmark's. I asked for a long time, but I still didn't find out how big the population is or how big the colonies are in Denmark."

"There are only interests between countries. If Britain could expand the import of tea, silk, cotton and porcelain to a scale of tens of millions, the Sino-British friendship would be unbreakable. It's a pity..."

As he said that, he couldn't help but shake his head.

These words were almost a replica of the fine print in the junior high school history textbook of the People's Education Press about the origins of the two crows that impressed Liu Yu deeply.

[In the more than ten years from the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing to 1855, Britain's trade in industrial products with China has always hovered around 2 million pounds. British businessmen were surprised to find that China, with a population of 360 million, consumed only 0.75 pence of British cotton textiles per capita in 1853; while Honduras, with a population of only 14,600, consumed 934.5 pence of British cotton textiles per capita, which was exactly 1,246 times that of China]

I didn't understand the essence of this sentence when I was in school, but now that I'm in this position, I understand it all too well.

Even with the generation gap between steam engines and handicrafts, Britain's trade other than opium is still limited.

Now I even want the UK to repeal the [Law on the Wearing of Pure Cotton Clothes], abolish the high import tariffs on tea, and abolish the Navigation Regulations.

The huge UK, with its vast colonies, did not buy as much tea and porcelain as the Danish East India Company, which had little impression of China in later generations.

These words immediately resonated with Fazaklai, and he sighed as if he had met a close friend.

It’s not that the company doesn’t want to buy more, it’s that the company has to pay taxes.

Does the company want all the tea profits to be taken by smugglers? But there’s no way around it?

Regular tea that has paid taxes and smuggled tea that avoids taxes are the same tea. The smuggled tea is cheaper, so of course you can drink the smuggled tea.

For a moment, Fazaklei even understood deeply why Liu Yu wanted to broker cooperation with Sweden.

If you think about it, you can understand that if the UK relaxed its high tariffs on tea, cut tariffs on tea, silk, and porcelain, and gave up its protection of its textile industry, not only would the East India Company make a lot of money, but Dashun would also not have to worry about it. Traveling so far to sell tea.

If Britain had such unique conditions, and if it could make trade goods unparalleled in competitiveness, it would be like Dashun at this time, shouting about free trade and lowering tariffs, not bothering to engage in sailing, and just sitting at home counting money. That’s it.

Sure enough, Liu Yu added: "Actually, the cooperation with Sweden was forced by you. If you liberalize tariffs and lower them to the customs tax rate of China, I will sit at home growing tea, rolling silk, kneading Just porcelain, why bother traveling so far?”

"So, your British government has to bear a large part of the responsibility for China's initiative to trade with Europe."

Fazaklai had no choice but to nod and said: "Mr. Marquis, we also have our own difficulties. We are not as wealthy as the Celestial Empire and can only protect our country's fragile handicraft industry."

"The East India Company is just a company. Although it is influential in the country, there are still local handicraft workshop owners and manor owners to compete with it."

"If the East India Company had the final say, it would naturally want to abolish the British handicraft industry and import all goods, which would be extremely profitable. But it was not the case after all."

Of course Liu Yu could understand the comprador mentality, but there was something he didn't understand that he needed to ask clearly to prepare for future smuggling.

"There is something I don't know about your company. Please clarify."

"Sir, please speak."

"Your company's monopoly is from the east of the Cape of Good Hope, right?"

"Yes."

"So, if we cooperate with Sweden and ship tea to Europe for sale. British businessmen buy our tea and pay taxes when it goes to North America. Is this considered smuggling?"

When Fazakeli heard this, he hurriedly said: "Forget it, forget it! Sir. The reason why North American smugglers are smugglers is not because they did not pay customs duties. It is because they violated the Navigation Regulations."

"There are two types of smugglers in the UK. One is what you think of as smugglers who avoid customs duties and do not pay them. This is customary thinking, or recognized smugglers."

"There is another kind of smuggler with British characteristics. It is regulated by man-made laws. The Navigation Regulations stipulate that any industrial products processed by other countries imported into the colonies must be re-exported through London, otherwise they will be regarded as smuggling."

"We in the UK follow the law."

"Although tea leaves are leaves, they are not like cotton, which only needs to be collected. Instead, they need to be manually fried and fermented. In 1689, the Parliament determined that tea is not a raw material crop, but belongs to the category of industrial products of other countries."

"So, according to the law, tea must be auctioned at the 'London Tea Auction', the Tea Exchange in London, before it can be shipped to the colonies. At the same time, as an industrial product of other countries rather than an agricultural product, it needs to pay high tariffs."

"Therefore, even if they paid duties at the colonial customs, they were still counted as smugglers. This smuggler is an artificially defined smuggler who goes against customary cognition."

"It's not because they didn't pay taxes, but because they violated the Navigation Regulations. Please don't think about this. There is no legal loophole in this matter."

"However, I have good news to tell the Marquis. I also hope that the Marquis will think clearly and not make unnecessary investments."

Worried that Liu Yu was really going to cooperate with Sweden to engage in smuggling business, Fazaklai hurriedly made it clear that Britain has its own national conditions here, and the smugglers you said you understand are not the same thing as the smugglers we recognize.

Hearing the good news about Fazaklei, Liu Yu was also curious and asked: "What's the good news?"

"That's right. Due to the war between Britain and Spain and uncontrollable factors in the European political situation, especially the Austrian throne succession issue, Parliament is short of money. Therefore, Parliament has agreed to extend the company's monopoly until forty years later, that is, 1780. Not for free, of course."

He stretched out his hand and made a gesture of flicking silver coins and said: "The company will lend the government 1 million pounds at an annual interest rate of 2.5%. The government only needs to repay the interest and does not need to repay the principal. The company has decided to provide the government with The loan of 1.3 million pounds still carries an interest rate of 2.5%, but the price is to pass a bill in Parliament to transfer tea from the list of "industrial products of other countries" to "agricultural products."

"You know, we in the UK follow the law."

“As long as tea is changed from ‘industrial products of other countries’ to ‘agricultural products’, it will no longer be subject to the high tariff policy on industrial products under the Industrial and Commercial Protection Regulations.”

After finishing speaking, he said with a smile: "This is of course good for your motherland and the prosperous China. If the tariff on tea is reduced, the sales volume of tea will increase sharply, and for your country, the demand for tea will increase The sharp increase has caused the supply to exceed the demand, thus increasing the price of tea, which is good for tea farmers in your country.”

"Similarly, large-scale exports have also brought increased tariffs to your country's treasury, which is also good for your government."

"And you might have invested in the Swedish East India Company's tea business. But I am sure that once the parliament passes the company's request, Sweden's tea sales will drop sharply... Because you can also guess that Sweden, with a population of one million, cannot consume so much tea unless it uses tea to bake bread. Obviously, most of the tea has gone to smugglers."

"And I tell you this news, you can avoid this inevitable loss of investment."

"It's good for your country's farmers, merchants, government tariffs, and yourself. That's why I said I have good news to tell you."