The first thousand five hundred and ninety-five chapters, why use so much gold in exchange
When Wang Lulin hired people to explore for gold deposits in his fiefdom, several officials in the New Taipei Prefecture Zhizhou Yamen were quite relieved after receiving the news.
In fact, they also hope that Wang Lulin can find a gold mine or something. This will not only be beneficial to Wang Lulin himself, but also to their entire New Taipei Prefecture.
How did Xinjinshan next door develop? It was not because of the gold and silver mines!
However, they are not optimistic about Wang Lulin's exploration in the short term, because Wang Lulin's exploration in the short term is concentrated in the area actually controlled by Datang.
And if there were gold mines in these areas under actual control, how could this place be left to Wang Lulin? The government would have mined it long ago.
Although the Holy Emperor was tolerant to the nobles and would confer a large amount of land, he generally would not confer land that had been reclaimed. Basically, he would confer land that could not be actually controlled.
In fact, most of Wang Lulin's large fiefdoms are land that the local government has no actual control over. It is either in an uninhabited place or in the hands of local indigenous people.
Even the small valley plain that Wang Lulin planned to develop was not considered the actual control area of the Tang Dynasty. There were several indigenous tribes near that area.
In addition, it is some distance from New Taipei Port. The local government tried to develop it, but they were attacked by the indigenous people. Because of the distance and the small population of New Taipei State, there were not enough manpower to develop the land around New Taipei Port.
So I simply put it on hold.
In addition, Wang Lulin is a marquis after all, so he can't take out all the wasteland. He must give some benefits at least. Otherwise, Wang Lulin is not stupid, why would he invest a lot of money in development.
The entire empire was very particular about the rules of canonization, and its most fundamental purpose was to mobilize nobles to organize immigrants and develop overseas territories.
Give benefits, but these benefits are generally limited.
If you want to get more benefits, the nobles need to pay a certain price!
At what cost?
Naturally, it is necessary to turn those lands that are not under actual control into actual control!
Wang Lulin did the same thing.
If he wanted to develop the valleys and plains, he first had to wipe out the nearby natives. Otherwise, he would attack them every two days and there would be no way to develop them.
To this end, Wang Lulin spent a lot of money and cooperated with several bodyguard companies operating in the local area, hiring more than 500 armed guards, and working with dozens of his own guards to prepare to clean up the surrounding indigenous people.
These bodyguard companies are all bodyguard companies established with the permission of the military. Most of the armed guards in them are veterans, and they have been active in various parts of North America for a long time.
He has quite a lot of experience in fighting the natives, and it takes less than half a month to drive out all the nearby natives. In this way, Wang Lulin can arrange manpower for development.
First, some fortress defense facilities were built to prevent the natives from returning, and then they began to hire manpower to carry out large-scale land reclamation.
The development of the valley plain is relatively smooth, but the gold mine Wang Lulin wanted has never been found.
In the final analysis, the technical staff under him are not professional enough.
Finally, having no other choice, he took the initiative to contact the American Mining Company and asked their manpower to survey. They agreed to jointly bear the survey costs and cooperate in development.
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Although it will give away some profits, it is still better than not finding a gold mine.
The people from the American Mining Company were indeed professional. After calling in a team of hundreds of people and going around for a while, they actually found a gold mine.
It's just that the scale of this gold mine is not large, and the estimated reserves are very small, far less than Wang Lulin's expectations.
But something is better than nothing!
But another half month later, they found another silver mine. The reserves of this silver mine were not small. It could barely be regarded as a medium-sized silver mine. This made Wang Lulin wildly surprised.
Although the silver mine was before the gold mine, it was still a treasure trove!
Immediately, we started cooperating with the American Mining Company for development!
Seeing that there are gold mines, silver mines, and silver mines, and there are several square kilometers of fertile farmland, Wang Lulin sighed, this America is really a treasure land!
This also made him determined to increase investment in the Americas, not only to develop in his own fiefdom, but also to invest in other places.
While Wang Lulin was struggling in America, several merchant ships flying the Dragon Flag of the Tang Dynasty also entered the Port of Cadiz from Europe.
Nowadays, the merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty that can smoothly travel across the Atlantic Ocean and enter Spanish or Portuguese ports are all merchant ships carrying ordnance and supplies.
This was not because the Tang Dynasty wanted to intervene in the Atlantic trade, but because of the Spanish and Portuguese requests.
They require door-to-door delivery to avoid any surprises!
Anyway, the ships are limited to arms trade, which cannot affect the profits of their Atlantic trade. There are many pirates in the Atlantic, and even Spanish and Portuguese ships are often robbed, especially the group of pirates in England. Now they all use warships to plunder, which makes the Spaniards and Portuguese hate them.
Many ships were deployed to surround and annihilate the English pirate ships, but they failed to kill them.
In order to ensure the safety of the ordnance, they simply asked people from the Tang Dynasty to deliver it to their door.
In this regard, Datang is naturally happy to earn another amount of freight. At the same time, it can continue to understand the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the conditions of the ports along the African coast, and prepare for the subsequent large-scale march into the Atlantic Ocean.
At the same time, it is also hoped that through the arms trade, the opening will be gradually opened, and then ordinary merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty can also enter the Atlantic Ocean.
After three merchant ships loaded with Tang Dynasty ordnance entered the Port of Cadiz, the cargo of two of the ships was half empty in an instant. These were all ordnance scheduled to be sold to the Spanish.
The remaining ship continued to Portugal after resting and replenishing supplies.
These three ships were not escorted by Datang warships. This is partly because of the current relationship. Spain, Portugal, and England all have things to ask of the Tang Empire and are unlikely to risk offending the Tang Empire by plundering them. Plundering the ships of the Tang Empire.,
On the other hand, it is also because these three ships are all large steam merchant ships in the Tang Empire. Each one is nearly two thousand tons, and it is also equipped with a high-power steam engine.
Its maneuverability surpasses that of sailboats.
It is really not that easy for those pirate ships to catch up with these steam merchant ships and plunder them.
Even if I catch up, I can't beat him!
These are all armed merchant ships directly affiliated to the Tang Dynasty Western Trading Company, equipped with dozens of artillery pieces!
In the eyes of the Tang Navy, these armed merchant ships may be just armed merchant ships, and their combat effectiveness is far from being comparable to the new generation of steam steel warships. However, to the sailing wooden warships of European countries, they are still behemoths, enough to crush them.
giant.
So even if you are sailing alone, you don’t have to worry about risks.
Another very important thing is that the Spanish and Portuguese will actually provide warships for escort or surveillance along the way. Ordinary pirates really don't have the guts to rush up and grab them.
In addition to these three merchant ships heading to Europe, there are five more merchant ships on the way. This also represents that the arms trade of countries such as the Tang Empire and Spain has entered a new height.
In view of the huge threat of the Tatars, European countries now have a huge demand for ordnance. Spain, Portugal, England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Kingdom of Naples, the Ottoman Empire and other countries are all looking to purchase various types of weapons from the Tang Dynasty.
ordnance.
Datang also accepts all comers and will buy them as long as they are given money!
Anyway, what is sold are plate armor, matchlock guns, artillery, etc. that are exclusively for export. Datang has sold them all over the world for almost twenty years, so naturally it will not treat Europe specially.
Datang's overseas trade has always been fair and free.
As long as you give money, you dare to sell it. As for what you want to do with it, Datang doesn't care.
Even some pirates came to the door in a roundabout way, asking for ships, guns, etc., and the weapons merchants of the Tang Dynasty were generally very welcoming.
Ordnance trading ships from the Tang Dynasty arrived in Europe one after another, bringing a large amount of ordnance to European countries, which abruptly raised the military power of European countries to a higher level.
Although these ordnance are export-oriented, some of them do not have any advantages in performance, such as matchlocks. The matchlocks produced by the Tang Empire are not any better than the matchlocks handmade by the Spanish and Portuguese.
, but the key is large output.
As for plate armor, export-type plate armor is generally thin, and its protective capabilities are actually average, but it needs to be lighter in weight, and more importantly, has a large output. As long as you have money, you can get as much as you want.
Wherever plate armor is produced in Europe, it is all handmade by craftsmen, and the output is very low.
This global trade also resulted in a large amount of gold and silver, especially gold, flowing into the empire.
The Central Bank of the Tang Empire is now happy and panicked at the same time!
The gold and silver reserves in the Yinqing Central Bank were increasing. By the 29th year of Xuanping, the gold reserves in the Imperial Central Bank had reached more than 1,200 tons.
These two thousand tons of gold, when converted, roughly amount to more than 200 million Tang yuan. At first glance, it seems not much, and it is not as much as Datang's annual fiscal revenue. However, this calculation cannot be calculated like this.
Because this is the central gold reserve, and it does not include the gold reserves of major banks. For example, the Royal Bank has more than 300 tons of gold reserves.
In addition, there is more gold among the people.
After all, holding gold in case of unexpected events is the idea of many people, especially wealthy people. Many families have a large collection of gold and silver.
In addition, the large amount of gold and silver jewelry has not been included.
Calculated in this way, the amount of gold possessed by the entire Tang Empire is a very terrifying figure.
So much gold poured into the empire, which inevitably caused a certain amount of inflation and also aroused the vigilance of some people.
The empire exported so many commodities, and finally got back a pile of gold.
But besides being nice to keep in the vault, this gold cannot be eaten or worn.
Then the question arises, why do we spend so much effort on overseas trade?