Fuso is a good place these days. A lot of messy daimyo occupy small villages and towns, and then fight against each other. There is no political power that actually unifies the entire Fuso. The shogunate is a puppet, and the emperor is even more of a puppet.
's puppet.
Nowadays, the whole situation in Fusang is that a few powerful daimyo will lead a group of small daimyo, and then they will have a large-scale armed fight every two days. As for the scale, it is similar to the Tang Dynasty's conquest of other bandits during the Huang Zhushan era. Even from
The pirates who escaped from the coastal areas of the Tang Dynasty were able to establish a firm foothold in Fusang.
And this kind of Fuso is a good place for foreign businessmen!
The daimyo who were on the campaign had a huge demand for all weapons, and the stainless steel waist knives, spears, plate armor and even matchlock guns produced by the Tang Dynasty were all very popular.
Especially the plate armor produced by the Tang Dynasty was a weapon of war. Those warriors spent all their money to buy a set of plate armor as much as possible.
Of course, the plate armor they purchased was a special version exported to Fuso by the Tang Dynasty. It was not a full-body armor, and the thickness was also greatly reduced. This does not mean that the three major weapons companies of the Tang Dynasty were shady businessmen, but that the Fuso people took the initiative.
required.
It's because their physical fitness is generally too poor. If it were heavy full-body armor, they wouldn't be able to walk in it, and it would be a rough fight!
Not every army can be like the King of the Tang Dynasty, who can eat as much white rice and steamed buns as they want, and have meat every three days, so that every soldier can be kept strong and strong.
Of course, even if the thickness of the half-body armor is reduced, its protective power is still quite amazing, at least much better than traditional iron armor. It has no problem with resisting bows and arrows, and it can also resist muskets from a long distance.
In addition to ordnance, sales of various other daily necessities are also very good in Fuso!
After buying these things, merchants like Slender would not only bring back gold and silver directly, but also other Fuso specialties.
After all, in addition to gold and silver, there must be other specialties in Fuso, such as some messy handicrafts and so on.
Then businessmen like Slender would take advantage of the beginning of the northeast monsoon to return south in winter, pass by Shanghai and Guangzhou, sell goods, and then buy goods, and finally return to Malacca to buy a large amount of porcelain, silk, etc.
Tang, Fusang, and Korean goods were sold in Malacca to merchants running the Indian Ocean route and even the European route.
In this way, one trip and one trip is a complete route.
In sea trade in the East Asian waters, many people use this route. The difference is just a few more ports and a few fewer ports.
Of course, if you want to make a complete round trip, time will be tight, and the requirements for navigation skills, ships, and even the sale and purchase of goods will be stricter.
If you are not careful, you will miss the time, and if you miss the monsoon, you will not be punished!
Slender has been traversing the sea for decades, and has recruited a group of professional people under his command. Naturally, there is no problem with navigation skills!
The Galen ship in hand is not bad either. Its sailing speed along the monsoon wind is not as fast as the 680 merchant ship built by the Tang Dynasty, but it is not too slow and it can carry more cargo.
As for the purchase and sale of goods, he tried to contact them directly at the beginning, but found that it was too time-consuming, so he simply cooperated directly with local second-hand dealers and sold the goods at a price lower than the market price.
Then purchase the goods at a price slightly higher than the market price.
Although this will dilute the profits, he can visit more ports. In this case, the hard work will be harder, but the profits will be greater.
Today is the day when he enters the port of Guangzhou Business District. In order to earn more profits, he spent a lot of effort to purchase a large amount of saltpeter and spices in Malacca. These two things are now in Datang
Here in the Dynasty, they all have hard currency, especially saltpeter. Like sulfur, the price is very strong, so there is absolutely no need to worry about selling it.
Of course, the large amount of gold and silver used to press the bottom of the ship was also indispensable. In addition, there was also a thick stack of silver notes issued by the Royal Bank of the Tang Dynasty that he kept close to his body.
This ship's cargo, plus the banknotes on his person, were worth a hundred thousand taels of silver!
But when the ship docked and arrived at the port, it found a firm with which it had a cooperative relationship two years ago and was about to sell the goods, but it ran into a little trouble.
When negotiating the price for selling the goods, he found that the price was calculated directly in gold coins instead of the previous silver coins!
When he expressed his doubts, the Datang businessman gave him a stack of newspapers. Although he did not recognize most of the words in the newspaper, as a Portuguese businessman who traveled to the Tang Dynasty every year, he did not dare to call himself a China expert.
, but he can still recognize simple words and numbers. Even if he doesn't recognize it, it's okay, but the stack of paper in his hand is known to anyone with a little knowledge. This is the Tang Dynasty Newspaper!
At this time, the translator he hired was also nearby and translated the above content.
The content of the translation is naturally the latest news confirmed in the Tang Dynasty newspaper. The Holy Emperor issued an imperial edict requiring transactions in the commercial zone to be denominated in gold. At the same time, the collection of customs duties also directly levied gold.
Of course Slender doesn't know what the gold standard is!
After I discovered that prices were calculated in gold, I didn't think anything of it. I just felt it was a little troublesome. Anyway, gold and silver are both based on exchange ratios, so just follow the ratios.
This is also the current attitude of most businessmen towards the Tang Dynasty's decree that overseas trade should be priced in gold and tariff collection should also be priced in gold.
It's just a different unit of measurement, the money is still the same, and they won't lose a copper coin because of it.
After all, the exchange ratio of gold, silver and copper coins in the Tang Dynasty has always fluctuated with the market. It doesn't matter whether the official price is calculated in silver coins or gold coins.
The purpose of Li Xuan's move was not to increase or depreciate the value of silver. He was just to pave the way for the implementation of the gold standard. He first implemented gold pricing in overseas trade, and then implemented gold pricing in domestic bulk trade. At the same time, the Royal Bank began to reserve
Gold, eventually issued gold coins and gold tickets on a large scale, and finally replaced silver tickets with gold tickets as large-scale circulation banknotes.
After Slender sold a batch of goods at the Guangzhou port, he planned to take the remaining batch of saltpeter and spices to Shanghai for sale, because according to his experience, the purchase price there was higher, and it was also
A batch of ordnance was purchased in Guangzhou, and these ordnance were to be shipped to Fusang. As for why they were purchased in Guangzhou instead of Shanghai, it was naturally because the price of ordnance in Guangzhou was cheaper. In Guangdong today, but at present, most of the ordnance is
The largest arms production base in the Tang Dynasty.
Later, he will leave Guangzhou and go to Quanzhou. If the price is suitable, he will sell a batch of goods and buy another batch of goods. If the price is average, then he will stay in Shanghai.
However, all these saltpeters must be emptied before leaving Shanghai, because this stuff was in great demand in the Tang Dynasty. If he took the saltpeter to Fusang, he would be in trouble.
Slender continues to carry out his trade in foreign lands, and some people from the Tang Dynasty are now struggling in foreign lands, even in more distant places!
The combined fleet of Datang Western Company and Gerdes is now anchored in an unknown small port on the southwestern coast of India. They have also become the first fleet in the Tang Dynasty to arrive on the western coast of India, or in other words, the first fleet to arrive on the western coast of India.
A Tang fleet, or even the only one, that entered the Indian Ocean!
They were anchored in a deserted small port. Their fleet arrived here a few days ago and anchored here. Ying Zihua followed the old rules and sent people directly ashore to establish a supply station and erected a stone monument.
On it are written the territory of the Tang Dynasty Empire and the territory of the Tang Dynasty Western Company.
This small port is very small and does not have much strategic value, but it can still be used as a supply port. Along the way, Ying Zihua has established more than a dozen similar supply ports, and they have all chosen to be in
It is a sparsely populated or even deserted small port in order to avoid being noticed by the Portuguese or others.
Today's Datang Western Company is still too weak. When it comes to exploring the Indian Ocean, it can only do so secretly. It has no plans to conflict with the Portuguese anytime soon.
Gerdes and Ying Zihua stood on the bow, behind them were a group of senior employees from Gerdes Trading Company and Datang Western Company!
Gerdes said: "The wind direction is now quite unfavorable to us. If we continue to go to West Africa, the voyage will be very difficult. I suggest we rest here for half a year and wait for the new monsoon."
It is already May, and the northeast monsoon has ended, which is quite detrimental to the subsequent voyage of their small fleet!
Because without the northeast monsoon, they would not be able to sail directly across the western Indian Ocean and then reach the east coast of Africa!
In this era of sailing, especially long-distance sailing, the monsoon is very important. This is why Gerdes and the others set out last autumn, because it was the season when the northeast monsoon started. Taking advantage of the northeast monsoon, they had a smooth journey.
We came to the southwestern region of India. Of course, we encountered a lot of troubles along the way, but not pirates or anything like that.
The Portuguese merchant ships encountered each other once, and as a result, they were captured on Zihua's personal order.
This was not because they wanted to avoid being discovered, but because they were short of food and drinking water at that time and wanted to grab some to tide them over until their next scheduled destination.