Chapter 1501 Reform of Datang Western Trading Company
In the 24th year of the Xuanping Dynasty in the Tang Dynasty, the focus of the government and the public was not actually the war in Africa. It is not that the war in Africa is not important, but it is too far away. Many people in the empire don't even know that Africa is there.
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Although they all knew the importance of the African campaign through the propaganda of the Tang Dynasty newspaper, but how can I put it, they knew the importance of the African campaign. The distance was too far and the news was transmitted slowly. Even if you want to pay attention to it, you can't pay attention to it.
Get up.
On the contrary, the empire paid more attention to Fuso affairs.
Because Fuso is close enough, any news can be spread back to China within a few days.
More importantly, the empire is organizing a large number of immigrants to go to Fusang, no, it should be Beihai Province.
The Immigration and Reclamation Department was very generous and organized more than 50,000 immigrants for the first time.
Although these 50,000 people were officially organized by the Immigration and Reclamation Division, this time the Immigration and Reclamation Division did not intend to waste time and effort on organizing it all themselves, and even included the boat tickets.
They just issued immigration policies, and among these immigration policies, the most common was naturally allocating land for free.
Some immigrants who intend to settle in Beihai Province register with the Immigration and Reclamation Department, then take unified action, and then go to coastal ports by boat.
In order to transport these immigrants, many domestic shipping companies and ocean trading companies also responded to the call, opened special routes for immigrants, and sold tickets to Fuso at relatively low prices.
Relatively speaking, the conditions for imperial immigrants to migrate to Beihai Province are far less generous than those to immigrate to Nanyang, but even so, immigration to Beihai Province is still the first choice for those who intend to immigrate.
Because all parts of Beihai Province are basically mature and developed, they will not be exposed to any diseases.
As for Nanyang, in that poor place, if you are not careful, you will get sick, and you will have to shed your skin even if you don't die.
After the first batch of 50,000 people set off for Fusang, more people were heading to Beihai Province.
Although the proportion of arable land in Beihai Province is a bit small, it is such a large area that it can accommodate a population of several million without any problems.
Today, the indigenous population in Beihai is only two million, and the Immigration and Reclamation Department plans to move at least half of the indigenous population to Nanyang. In this way, there will only be about one million indigenous people left. The empire can completely immigrate from within the country.
Two to three million people came to live in Beihai Province.
In addition to the Fuso affairs, the empire also pays more attention to Nanyang and India. This has nothing to do with immigration. Immigration from Nanyang has always continued, and there is nothing to say.
More importantly, since Datang occupied the Island of Ceylon last year and divided the Indian Ocean into two, now, Datang's army, navy and company fleet have joined forces to pull out the Portuguese colonies in Burma and the eastern coast of India.
Today, the Tang Dynasty can be proud to say that there are no Portuguese colonies in the waters east of Ceylon Island.
Some were just colonies of the Tang Dynasty.
This is equivalent to completely opening up the trade route of India during the Tang Dynasty.
What's more important is that during the Spring Festival, rumors spread in the court that the Datang Western Trading Company was about to undergo reforms, and it was very likely that the trade monopoly rights in its Western Trade License would be cancelled.
After this news came out, it caused a huge reaction. Although it was just a rumor, the stock price of Datang Western Trading Company has continued to fall, and correspondingly, the stocks of other overseas trading companies have risen rapidly.
Because everyone knows that this kind of thing cannot be groundless. Since such rumors have spread to the high-level officials in the court, they must have taken action.
Not to mention, the higher-ups of Datang, or Li Xuan, were indeed planning to do this.
As early as last year, Li Xuan had already decided to reform Datang Western Trading Company. The most important reform was to cancel the trading monopoly.
Open up the Indian market to allow other domestic trading companies to participate.
This will not only eliminate the problem of Datang Western Trading Company's insufficient number of ships and small trade volume, but also further stimulate the export of various domestic industrial products.
You know, there are more than a hundred overseas trading companies with overseas trade licenses in the Tang Dynasty. Although these trading companies are strong or weak, their combined strength is very impressive.
For them to participate in Indian trade is a waste of resources.
However, Li Xuan took into account the great influence of Datang Western Trading Company, and in order to avoid turmoil, he took gradual measures instead of directly canceling various privileges of Datang Western Trading Company.
The first step is to take the company fleet back into national ownership. The company fleet was a special product of the development of India more than ten years ago. It was intended to compete with the Portuguese for India and other colonies when the government did not personally go to war with the Portuguese.
But now the army and navy are directly on the sidelines. In the past two years or so, the company's fleet has basically lost the power to operate independently. Its ground combat forces have all been under the command of the Army's Indian Expeditionary Force or the African Expeditionary Force. Its armed fleets
It is under the command of the Indian Ocean Fleet Division.
The only ones that can still act independently are their armed merchant ships, and just armed merchant ships are nothing, because other overseas trading companies also have a large number of armed merchant ships.
As a result, the company fleet, as an independent armed force, has actually ceased to exist.
Now, what Li Xuan has to do is to finalize this matter.
To this end, he issued an edict to directly recruit all armed forces of the company's fleet, all ground combat forces were changed to active forces of the Army, and battleships and marines were changed to active forces of the Navy.
Make corporate fleets history.
This was the first step taken by Li Xuan, and it did not cause much backlash. Anyway, the company's fleet had a strong military background from the day it was established, and its officers and soldiers were all uniform.
It doesn't matter if retired soldiers are reorganized into active duty troops.
And in this way, the Western Trading Company will not have to bear huge military expenditures.
You must know that the largest expenditure of Xiyang Trading Company is military expenditure. This huge expenditure accounts for most of Xiyang Trading Company's profits.
Collecting the company's fleet is only the first step.
The second step is to cancel the company's trade monopoly.
This is also the reason why the market value of Western Trading Company plummeted. In order to avoid heavy losses for investors, the Royal Assets Division also spent a lot of money and launched a stock repurchase plan. Of course, this stock repurchase plan.
At the same time, Li Xuan still retained a large number of the company's assets, including numerous ordinary merchant ships and armed merchant ships, ownership of colonial cities, government assistance and management rights in the colonies, tax dividend rights, etc.
Li Xuan's reform of the Tang Dynasty Western Trading Company mainly focused on three points. The first was to integrate the company's fleet. This was of course to gather military power, but also to reduce the expenses of the Tang Dynasty Western Trading Company.
The second point is to cancel the trade monopoly, but still retain many of the previous privileges and many industries, especially the property rights of the colonies, which still belong to the company. You must know that the Datang Western Trading Company is the largest company in the Datang Empire.
Landowners, they own a large amount of land overseas. All colonies west of Malacca, as long as they are controlled by the Tang Dynasty, are basically the territories of their companies, such as Gohe State and nearby large territories, the entire island of Ceylon, and Madagascar.
Island, Western Indies, etc.
They are all the private property of their company, the kind with property rights.
In addition, in the area east of Malacca, a small half of Banten Prefecture is also their territory, and a small half of Luzon Prefecture is also their territory, including the two big cities of Luzon City and Banten City.
It is the property of Datang Western Trading Company.
The purpose of retaining these industries for Datang Western Trading Company is to prevent the company's stock price from plummeting, because if it is directly nationalized, it is basically equivalent to directly robbing the people of at least hundreds of millions of yuan in assets, which is going to cause trouble.
Therefore, various industries are retained, and even the right to tax and dividends and the right to manage government affairs are retained.
The third point is to launch a stock buyback plan, because the series of reforms aimed at Datang Western Trading Company are actually a naked deprivation of the company's interests and then distribute them to other trading companies.
After losing its trading monopoly, the company's stock price plunge is inevitable. In order to quell public dissatisfaction, at least they cannot lose too much. Retaining various industries and some privileges is one aspect, and the stock buyback plan is also very important.
The repurchase of stocks is led by the Royal Assets Division, but it is not the Royal Assets Division that actually pays, because no matter how rich the Imperial Assets Division is, it is impossible to directly spend tens of millions for stock repurchases. More importantly,
Yes, if you took out these tens of millions, you would just throw them into the water, because at that time, the market value of Datang Western Trading Company was definitely not that high.
In fact, it is the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises that provides the money. Of course, the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises cannot directly use so much cash to repurchase the funds. That is not tens of millions, but tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan.
Therefore, the repurchase plan does not directly issue cash, but issues a corresponding amount of government bonds based on the existing market value.
To put it bluntly, it means exchanging treasury bonds for stocks!
How are these national debts repaid?
Naturally, it is impossible to repay it with fiscal revenue. Although the Tang Empire's fiscal revenue is large, it cannot be used in this way. The repayment of these national debts will come from overseas trade license revenue for the Indian, West Asian, and African markets, as well as from the above-mentioned directions.
Part of the tax is responsible for repayment.
The trade license fee is a large part of the income.
Even if trade is liberalized, according to the industrial and commercial traditions of the Tang Dynasty, basically everything needs a license. To conduct overseas trade, you need a Nanyang trade license, an Oriental trade license, an American trade license, a weapons import and export license, etc.
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But if those trading companies want to run the Indian route, they have to apply for a Western Trade License. This Western Trade License costs money, and it costs a lot of money, and it has to be paid every year.
To put it bluntly, the fees paid by more than a hundred trading companies to purchase Western trade licenses were used to compensate for the losses of investors in Datang Western Trading Company.