Chapter 1040 The Big Bang of Industry and Commerce
After the fleet organized by the Datang Western Company departed from the Guangzhou port, it did not go directly south to the South China Sea. Instead, it first went to the Hong Kong Navy Pier, where it merged with multiple escort ships of the navy before setting sail directly to Luzon.
go!
This huge fleet includes ships from the Tang Dynasty Western Company, immigration ships from the Immigration and Reclamation Division of the Ministry of Agriculture, and a navy escort fleet. In addition, even the Datang Nanyang Company sent two merchant ships to follow the large fleet.
Heading south to stay together and avoid being attacked by pirates.
After all, piracy activities in the Nanyang waters are quite rampant nowadays. Many of the pirates who used to operate in the coastal waters of the Tang Dynasty entered Nanyang. In addition, they heard that it was easy to make money here, so there were not a few pirates who came from other places to make a fortune.
Even for the ships of an overseas trading company with an official background like the Nanyang Company, if only one or two ships go to sea, it is not safe if they encounter pirates. After all, pirates don't care what kind of ship you are. In their eyes, these
The lone merchant ships are all fat, and if you catch them you will bite them hard.
In recent years, many merchant ships that went out to sea for trade have never returned. Although many of them sank in storms, many merchant ships were actually robbed by pirates.
Several combined fleets have more than twenty ships, some of which are large and some small. The largest is nearly a thousand tons, and the small one is only a hundred tons. But since it is a ship that dares to go to the sea, the worst
They are also Guangzhou Ship, Fu Ship and the like.
With such a huge fleet, apart from a few professional warships, the other ships were all armed merchant ships. With such strength, let alone ordinary pirates, even the Portuguese would not dare to act rashly.
Although the Portuguese have strong naval strength, they need to control more sea areas. They need warships to maintain local areas in Europe, on the west and east coasts of Africa, along the Indian coast, in various parts of Indonesia, and on the eastern coast of South America.
The security of sea areas and the escort of merchant ships require the Portuguese to control so many places. Although the overall strength of the fleet is relatively strong, when it is evenly divided into a certain sea area, its strength is not very strong.
Otherwise, they would not sit back and watch the Tang Western Company build colonies in Luzon and Banten. It was not that they did not want to stop it, but they were unable to stop it, and at the same time they had many concerns.
This part of Nanyang is really too close to the mainland of the Tang Dynasty. It is so close that the Portuguese feel helpless. The Tang Navy sets out from the Hong Kong Naval Base and can reach Malacca in a short time. It will not take much time at that time.
, just a dozen warships can blockade Malacca, block the Strait of Malacca, and completely cut off the Southeast Asian spice trade that the Portuguese have operated for many years.
Although the strength of the Tang Dynasty's navy is not very strong, with not even a single battleship in service so far, there are more than twenty cruisers and frigates of several hundred tons.
Such a force, even the Portuguese, needs to be treated with caution. It is not just a matter of starting a war.
If they want to win the Tang Dynasty's navy steadily, they have to deploy warships from the Indian Ocean and even African waters. Not only does this round trip take a long time, but more importantly, so many warships have been deployed in these waters, how can they maintain the security of the local waters?
Control?
Based on this general environment, the Portuguese could only turn a blind eye to the Tang Dynasty's establishment of colonies in Nanyang, apart from provoking pirates to attack. As long as the Tang Empire continued to fight with the Portuguese
Trade, if they don’t stop the Portuguese’s spice trade, then they will tolerate it.
Anyway, the Portuguese control the trade routes from Europe to East Asia. As long as the Tang Empire cannot transport goods directly to Europe, in the end, they will be needed.
But they didn't know yet that the Tang Empire had quietly opened up European routes and was also trying to introduce Spanish people to Southeast Asia.
The huge fleet traveled all the way south. Under the influence of the monsoon, their ships raised their spirits and sailed towards Luzon at maximum speed!
In fact, in the winter season, they are the only ships going to sea. Most of the ships going south will set sail during this period. Ships going south from North Korea and Japan will go to Tianjin, Jiaozhou and other places along the northern coast of the Tang Dynasty.
ships, and even ships heading south in Shanghai Port.
Almost most of the ships heading to the south will set sail during this season. They travel all the way south. After arriving at their destination, they trade, and then wait until April or May next year to start heading northward with the southwest monsoon.
This forms a complete route for north-south maritime trade!
Therefore, many ships in Guangzhou Port and Lianzhou Port began to set sail for various ports in Southeast Asia. Most of them went to Malacca, but also to other ports in other Southeast Asian indigenous countries. They were also the first batch of ships to go south this year.
In the following months, ships will continue to go south. They will either set off later or from further north. The entire southward wave can continue until the end of the monsoon.
However, Datang Western Company naturally does not care about other people's ships. They only care about their own fleet!
After the first batch of southbound ships set off, the second batch of southbound ships organized by the Datang Western Company also officially headed south. This time, in addition to the ships owned and rented by the Datang Western Company, there were also other private merchant ships following the company.
Tang Xiyang Company's fleet went south, and the merchant ships that followed it naturally wanted to go to Luzon and Banten for trade.
Throughout the winter, Datang Western Company is expected to send a total of twenty-one merchant ships south, more than half of which are the latest 680 merchant ships, and the rest are also larger tonnage Galen ships, or simply Fu
Ships, Guangzhou ships and other traditional Chinese ship types.
Other private trading companies will send a total of more than 20 merchant ships to Luzon or Banten for trade. Their ships are generally smaller.
But the ships that can go to sea these days are not small, and the most important thing is that the value of the goods loaded on these ships is huge. The goods on each ship are worth tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.
Among them, a 680 merchant ship belonging to the Tang Dynasty Western Company, not counting other goods, the silk alone was worth one hundred thousand taels of silver!
The total value of the goods carried by the ships dispatched by Datang Western Company to the sea was more than one million taels of silver. What is interesting is that most of these goods were not purchased by Datang Western Company with their own cash, because they did not have so many activities.
funds.
Most of the goods were purchased with loans. They borrowed millions of taels of silver from various banks such as the Royal Bank and used the company's many ships and other fixed assets as collateral to purchase the goods.
But as long as there are no major accidents along the way, such as a storm hitting the entire fleet and sinking it, even if one or two ships are sunk during the voyage, as long as most of the ships return safely, their profits can be doubled.
Times!
Don't think that the doubled profit is very high. In fact, it is not high because the risk is too great. If a large-scale storm really happens, the entire fleet will be annihilated.
Otherwise, why would the profit on the European route be more than ten times or even dozens of times? Because on such a long route, all kinds of risks are too great, regardless of whether it is attacked by pirates, indigenous people or other countries.
The fleet plundered openly, or simply sank due to a storm, and then there was also the problem of sepsis. In short, the losses were too high.
Those dead sailors and sunk ships are all costs, so in the end, the overall profit is not as exaggerated as dozens of times, but it is still several times or even ten times.
Well, the premise is to monopolize routes.
Maritime trade in East Asian waters is naturally not as high as that of European routes, because there is basically no monopoly problem in this sea area. Everyone can run. If there are more people running, profits will naturally be diluted.
But even so, the profits from trade in the East and Southeast Asia are still considerable, stimulating many investors to buy ships and go to sea loaded with goods to seek opportunities to make a fortune.
After all, this is a business where profits can be doubled or even tripled in just one trip. Even if there is a risk of being attacked by pirates or being sunk by a storm, many people accept it.
Because there are too many risks in maritime trade, many maritime trading companies in the Tang Dynasty now adopt joint-stock systems, with many shareholders investing together to share the risks.
The joint-stock reform of Datang Nanyang Company and Dongyang Company is a typical example of this background.
Ships went south one after another. Li Xuan, who was in Jinling, also received relevant reports from the Ministry of Commerce, Customs and other departments. However, he was naturally not concerned about these trivial matters. He was concerned about the impact of sea trade on the Tang Empire.
The benefits it brings to industry and commerce.
The cabinet synthesized reports from multiple subordinate departments and presented to Li Xuan the industrial and commercial development situation in the three quarters of Xuanping's seventh year.
With the continued stimulation of maritime trade, the sales of export-oriented commodities have increased significantly this year, whether they are new industrial products such as soaps, matches, weapons, and cloth, or traditional export commodities such as tea, silk, and porcelain, or other products used for
Exports of goods have increased significantly.
At the same time, most areas in the country remain stable, especially the economic powerhouse of Zhili Fourth Road. After the political and military stability was maintained, all types of production returned to normal, and the economic level returned to normal levels, thus a huge demand for consumer goods exploded.
Coupled with market demand from other regions, this has led to a rapid increase in domestic demand for various agricultural products and industrial products.
When there is a huge demand for various products in both overseas trade and the domestic market, this makes this era the best time for people engaged in industry and commerce to make money.
Anyone with some capital or brains can set up a family-style workshop and produce something. As long as the quality is not too bad, there is basically no need to worry about the market. It is hard to say how much the profit will be, but it will definitely make money.
Seeing that opening factories to make money means allowing more capital to flow in, thus driving the large-scale development of industry and commerce.
The overall situation today is that a large amount of capital continues to pour in. Existing factories are actively expanding production without urgency, and a large number of factories and various enterprises are rapidly and intensively established.
In just the first three quarters of Xuanping 7, the Ministry of Commerce counted more than 10,000 new manufacturing companies of various types. As for those small-scale service companies, trading companies, or simply
There are countless small shops and the like.
The reason for the large number is that the Tang Dynasty had strict taxes and required registration for all business activities, regardless of size. Even if you set up a street stall, you had to register for a 'Personal Business Permit'.
The Ministry of Commerce is very relaxed about personal business registration. You only need to declare your personal identity, explain what business you want to engage in, and pay a production fee of ten copper coins, and that's it. You don't even need to go to the local commercial office.
To register, go to the village chief to get an application form, and just fill it out and apply.
Of course, there are some restrictions for the enterprise category, but overall the restrictions are not big.
So if you want to do business these days, official documents are not a problem, as long as you are not doing business like weapons.
This has resulted in the registration scale of various commercial organizations being quite large!
If you meet a random person on the street, you may not know that they have a trading company in their name!
However, these tertiary industries such as services and sales are difficult to measure the industrial development of our current era. Therefore, when the Ministry of Commerce measures industrial and commercial development, it often uses manufacturing to measure it.
There are more than 10,000 newly added factories of various types. Although most of them are small-scale factories, many of them are medium and large factories that employ more than 50 people.
Among them, various new industries have become investment hotspots. Textile is currently the most popular industry. More than 15% of the newly added enterprises are textile factories. They are either weaving factories or spinning mills.
, or printing and dyeing factories, etc., followed by various daily products. These subdivided industries are more complex, but generally speaking they are daily products, or consumer products.
The development of various consumer industries has also led to the development of other industries. The three major categories of mining, steel, and machinery have directly benefited from the development of various consumer industries and have developed rapidly.
Jiangnan Iron and Steel Company, which has just been officially put into operation, produces various types of steel products, and steel products such as raw and wrought iron are in short supply, and its orders are even scheduled for two years!
Nowadays, although the iron and steel industry of the entire Datang Dynasty is expanding rapidly, it is still in a situation where supply exceeds demand.
In addition to military needs, steel these days is mainly used to make various tools among civilians.
Especially farm tools and kitchen utensils. And how many people are there in China? At least 1.5 billion. How much steel is needed here?