Chapter 1011 Fusang with gold and silver everywhere
Chapter 1011 East Asia Route
Guangzhou Business District was the first area in the Tang Dynasty dedicated to foreign trade. It is also the most active and largest foreign trade zone in the Tang Dynasty.
The business district was a special administrative division in the Tang Dynasty. Take the Guangzhou business district as an example. It is not a large area. It is just southwest of Guangzhou City and on the north bank of the Pearl River. It is five kilometers long and three kilometers wide. The total area is
There is only an area of fifteen square kilometers. The entire area is surrounded by walls and is directly guarded by the military.
However, this area only covers an area of about 15 square kilometers. Its administrative level is at the state level. The district chief of the business zone is at the fifth level. At the same time, like other state capitals, it has complete various subordinate agencies, all aspects and other
There is no difference between the state-level yamen. The only difference is that there are several more special jurisdictions, mainly for foreign businessmen and some management departments of trade.
The various bylaws and regulations of the business zone are formulated by the cabinet itself, and the business zone yamen does not have the power to change them on its own.
The main function of the business district is to use it for Chinese and foreign businessmen to conduct transactions, for foreign businessmen to live and buy real estate on a long-term basis. In other words, it is a relatively large trade market with some residences and warehouses attached.
, dock and other supporting facilities.
Currently, there are seven such commercial zones in the Tang Dynasty, no more, no less, one in every trading port.
In addition, it is worth noting that the business zone is completely different from the concessions that later generations lost power and humiliated the country. The original intention of the Tang Dynasty to establish the business zone was to facilitate trade on the one hand, and on the other hand it was also to concentrate foreign merchants.
manage.
Note the word ‘management’!
Foreign merchants do not have any privileges when they come to the business zone, and they will even be subject to many restrictions. For example, they are not allowed to leave the scope of the business zone and enter other areas of the Tang Dynasty.
For example, you must abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty. All laws, such as the laws of the Tang Dynasty, prohibit the sale of people and abolish any form of slavery. Even if the landlords and gentry are rich, they can only hire servants, but they must not say that.
Spend money to buy this person, and then have some personal restrictions on the slaves.
Many foreigners, let alone slaves, even have a slavery system. If these foreigners want to buy slaves or even slaves in the business zone, it is absolutely not allowed.
Of course, the Tang Dynasty still does not recognize the slaves brought here by foreigners. You can privately beat each one if you like, but if someone reports to the official, they will be arrested and fined without negotiation.
It would not be just because they say this is a foreigner and their country can own slaves, and then come to the Tang Dynasty to legally own slaves, because in this case, strictly speaking, it will cause the extremely serious problem of extra-legal jurisdiction.
Therefore, the Tang Dynasty was too lazy to pay attention to it. As long as you come to Datang to trade, you must abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty, including slandering and slandering the Holy Emperor and the royal family, which are all not allowed.
If you are unwilling to abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty: get lost!
Of course, in order to welcome foreign merchants and slaves, they didn't have to take them off the ship. As long as they didn't get off the ship, the law enforcement officers of the Tang Dynasty were too lazy to take care of them.
As for Chinese people who want to enter and exit the business district, it was more troublesome before. Only staff of approved merchants can enter and exit.
But now it is much simpler. Basically, you only need to show the pass issued by the business district yamen, and then you can enter and leave the business zone at will. There are no requirements for applying for this pass. Only people of the Tang Dynasty can apply for it. Temporarily
The pass is valid for one month, and the cost is 20 cents. It’s not much, not much, and the price is fixed. You don’t need any intermediary. You can go to the application window yourself and show the directions issued by the patrol station where you are registered to confirm that it is the person you are.
After that, you can get the pass on the spot.
Long-term access passes must be issued by institutions. Individuals cannot apply for them. They are usually employees working in business districts. Individuals do not need them. If they need long-term access, they can apply for them once a month.
The prices are clearly stated and no one can be deceived.
Theoretically speaking, a gangster can also apply for a pass, but whether he will be found to have committed a crime and be caught when he goes to apply for the pass is another matter.
Today's business district does not restrict the entry and exit of Chinese people, but the entry and exit of foreigners. There will be no issues that people of the Tang Dynasty are not allowed to enter.
Datang's current seven business zones, Tianjin Business Zone and Jiaozhou Business Zone have just started to be listed. Even the walls have not been built yet. They are just empty shelves for the time being. The ones that are really in operation are Lianzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai.
Without land, foreign merchants who came to China to trade could only go to one of the five ports mentioned above.
Entry to other ports is not allowed.
Guangzhou Business District is the oldest, and because of its geographical advantages, it is now the best developed business district. Here, there are businessmen from all over the world. At least twenty ships are moored at the pier of the business district all year round.
During the peak period for the above-mentioned large seagoing ships, that is, before the northeast monsoon begins to blow in winter, and before the most suitable time to sail south to Malacca and even the Indian Ocean, you can even see hundreds of large ships crowded together, waiting for the monsoon to begin, and then set sail.
Travel to various places in Southeast Asia and even to India and West Africa!
Don't think that the usual twenty ships are less. You must know that these are ships that specialize in traveling to the outer seas. Even small ships that travel to the Southeast Asia are mostly two to three hundred tons. Generally speaking, the tonnage generally starts at 500 tons.
, seven to eight hundred tons are very common, and sometimes you can even see Spanish Galen ships of thousands of tons coming in and out.
And this is just a port in the commercial area, and most of the ships anchored here are sea-going ships that specialize in the outer sea.
Not far away is the Guangzhou Wharf, the berthing port for domestic routes. There are more ships there, generally smaller, such as small sampans of a few tons, and inland river ships of dozens of tons.
There are also large Guangzhou ships and sand ships of one to two hundred tons. In addition, there are also new merchant ships such as 350 merchant ships and 680 merchant ships built by various Guangzhou shipyards and Dingsheng shipyards.
Large and small, at first glance, the river surface is almost covered, and there are probably hundreds of them densely packed.
This was the busiest port in the Tang Dynasty, and even in the entire East Asia. Even the Shanghai port, which has great potential, is temporarily inferior to the Guangzhou port.
Here in the business area, the daily transaction volume is very huge, and from time to time, large ships are guided into the port of the business area!
Today, another Galen ship of at least more than 600 tons slowly sailed into the berthing port in the Guangzhou Business District. This was a Portuguese merchant ship that departed from Malacca and took advantage of the southwest monsoon to come north to Guangzhou. This ship's
The owner is Captain Slender.
Slender is a Portuguese businessman. Like many businessmen who only have one ship and are also captains, he was also a sailor and struggled for decades to save up the money to buy a second-hand merchant ship.
However, after he purchased this second-hand Galen ship, he did not take the distant and long route from Europe to East Asia like many of his colleagues. The East Asia route he took was generally from Malacca to Japan.
This is actually the main route in the East Asian waters.
This route is not long at present, but it is not short either. It is very convenient to supply along the way and the risk is small. Although the overall profit of one trip is not much, it is better than one round trip in one year. Moreover, because of the super power of the Tang Dynasty,
With the support of a large economy, they are not afraid of running out of business. Today's Tang Dynasty wants and buys everything. As long as they don't act stupidly, they will not lose money on this route.
This route basically takes advantage of the southwest monsoon in the summer and goes all the way north from Malacca, passing through several small ports in Annan, and then entering the Tang Dynasty. Depending on the situation, it can enter Lianzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai.
The port conducts trade.
Sell some specialties from Europe, Africa, West Asia, India, Southeast Asia and other regions, such as spices from Southeast Asia, etc. at the port of Datang to collect a large part of the funds.
Then buy the special products of the Tang Dynasty at the port of the Tang Dynasty, such as silk, tea, porcelain, glass, soap, cloth, woolen cloth, matches, etc. After purchasing these things, you can sell them no matter where you go to buy them.
Offer something at a good price.
In addition, you can also purchase weapons such as belt knives made of fine steel, plate armor made of fine steel and even matchlock guns. The three major weapons companies of the Tang Dynasty are happy to sell these weapons and armor, and these things are sold in Fusang or Nanyang, or even
It was shipped to India, and there were a lot of people rushing to get it.
Especially the plate armor, which was so well made that even the Portuguese themselves were jealous of it. Nowadays, many of the Portuguese garrison in Malacca are equipped with plate armor produced by Datang.
After leaving Shanghai, if they have enough time, they can continue to go north, to North Korea, to Ryukyu, and then to Fuso. After selling the goods, they can buy some of Fuso's specialties, such as sulfur. Fuso has many volcanoes and sulfur output.
It is also big. Due to the military and industrial needs of the Tang Dynasty, the demand for sulfur was almost unlimited, and the price was pretty good. Therefore, every merchant who went to Fuso to trade brought more or less some sulfur.
.
Then there’s gold and silver!
Yes, that’s right, merchants come to Fuso to trade mainly for their gold and silver. Today’s gold and silver output in Fuso is relatively large compared to other regions at the same time. It can be said that there is gold and silver everywhere.
It's not an exaggeration, and because copper coins are in short supply, their exchange ratio for gold, silver and copper coins is relatively low.
Many people come here with copper coins to exchange for gold and silver, and then leave directly with the gold and silver.