It was naturally a big event for the Holy Lord to return to the DPRK. Jinling City had already begun to prepare for the reception. However, after the Holy Lord left Shanghai to return to the DPRK, Gerdes, who had just returned to Shanghai, was quite disappointed.
He stayed in Huzhou, Zhejiang for a while, in order to establish a local branch, mainly to purchase local silkworm cocoons and cooperate with local silkworm farmers to provide long-term and stable production raw materials for the raw silk factory he planned to open in the Shanghai Industrial Zone.
On the way back to Shanghai, he still wondered if there would be a chance to take a look at the Eternal Saint King from a distance.
However, his action was still a little late. When he returned to Shanghai, the Eternal Saint King had already left for several days.
Although he is a little disappointed, it is not that he can't eat. After all, the Eternal Saint King is not gold and silver. If he can't see it, he will lose sight of it. In recent times, Gerdes's business has been getting bigger and bigger.
He has become more and more courageous. In the past, he rarely dared to go to other inland cities, but now, with guards, he dares to take people directly to Huzhou.
Nowadays, Gerdes's business scale is getting bigger and bigger. There is a trading company engaged in resale trade, and a shipping company specializing in Nanyang maritime trade. Now he has a raw silk company and plans to build a raw silk factory.
However, although he has a trading company and is preparing to engage in raw silk, his main business is still sea trade. The profits from sea trade these days are really too great. Even Gerdes's net worth is not small now, but every year he still remains
I will personally lead the fleet to Nanyang on a regular basis.
And this year, he is even planning to take his merchant fleet to go further, not just to Nanyang, not even just India, he is planning to go to Europe!
Although sea trade is very profitable nowadays, as the Tang Dynasty supported sea trade, a large number of merchants devoted themselves to overseas trade. Damn, even pirates have turned to business now. How can there be money in sea trade for those who fight and kill?
!
Nowadays, there are too many people engaged in maritime trade, and the scale is getting bigger and bigger. Especially the Tang Dynasty Western Company, which is owned by the royal family, has frantically opened fixed routes to Nanyang, and organized several or even dozens of ships at a time.
merchant fleet, and their ships are all large sailing ships of five to six hundred tons, and they are also armed merchant ships.
And sometimes they were even able to be escorted by the Tang Navy!
It can be seen from Datang Western Company that there are too many people running the Nanyang route. With so many people running, profits will inevitably be diluted.
Nowadays, many maritime merchants have set their sights on North Korea and Fusang, but Gerdes is not familiar with these places and can't even figure out the routes.
Seeing the profits from Nanyang trade gradually decreasing, Gerdes will definitely give full play to his advantages and return to European routes!
He has been a pirate for decades and has traveled all over the world. He is also very familiar with the route from East Asia to Europe, and he is confident that he can lead a fleet on the European route to earn huge profits.
Nowadays, the route from East Asia to Europe is very profitable. When silk, porcelain and other oriental specialties arrive in Europe, the price increases dozens of times.
The huge profits also lead to the fact that although many merchant ships go to sea every year and never look back. No one knows where they sank in the sea, or they were simply robbed by pirates, they still cannot stop people from setting foot on the sea.
The point of no return for trade.
However, although the route from East Asia to Europe is very profitable, most of the profits are actually made by European businessmen, or to be more precise, by the businessmen who run the long route from Malacca to Europe.
, and although the profits from the Nanyang route are quite large, compared with those from the European route, they are really insignificant and incomparable.
Nowadays, this part of the profits is mainly made by the Portuguese. Even the Spanish, the empire where the sun never sets, find it difficult to intervene in the trade in the Indian Ocean!
There is a concept that needs to be perfected here. Sea trade in a sea area cannot be carried out by everyone. For example, in the Indian Ocean, it is basically the world of the Portuguese, because only the Portuguese have established relatively complete trade on the coast of the Indian Ocean.
Port supply station.
At the same time, Portuguese warships will blockade this sea area and strangle any non-Portuguese merchant ships that dare to pass through this sea area. Today, the Portuguese have almost completely monopolized the trade in the Indian Ocean. Well, even the now very powerful
The Spaniards have to give up in the Indian Ocean!
Relying on Malacca and the many supply stations in the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese launched large-scale trade. Especially after the Tang Dynasty opened its trade port, the Portuguese's Asian trade almost reached a new climax!
Its huge profits are enough to stimulate anyone!
In the past two years, the Spaniards have been trying hard to gain a foothold in the Nanyang region. Isn't it just to better develop trade with China? For this reason, they have already fought several battles with the Portuguese in the Nanyang waters.
’s naval battle.
Last winter, the Spaniards organized a colonial fleet of six armed merchant ships and tried to land on Mindao Island and establish a stronghold. As a result, they not only encountered resistance from the local indigenous people, but were also attacked by the Portuguese.
, it is said that this colonial fleet was almost completely wiped out, with only one ship left that fled all the way north and sought refuge in Guangzhou Port, and only then managed to escape with a life!
At that time, several Portuguese warships chased them all the way to the coast of Guangzhou. The Tang Navy was so frightened that they thought the Portuguese were going to start an undeclared war. The Second Fleet dispatched an emergency dispatch and pulled out all the battleships to prevent them.
Unexpectedly, a very harsh protest was issued against the Portuguese:
Your armed fleet has broken into our waters of the Tang Dynasty. Please explain your intention immediately and lower the sails and close the gun doors, otherwise we will fire for an act of war!
And this protest also made the pursuing Portuguese vomit blood. Damn it, we know that the front is Guangzhou, but now they are still more than thirty nautical miles away from the coastline. Does this violate your territorial waters?
Is it possible that the Tang Dynasty really regarded the entire Nanyang as an inland sea? In that case, why didn't you just go to the sea outside Malacca and say that we have intruded into your territorial waters?
Also, your official territory is just a bunch of random drawings. Who knows where your territorial waters are?
The map barely includes Europe, let alone the surrounding countries. For example, in the south of Guangxi Province, there is Vietnam. But where the two places meet, people don’t call it a national border, but a provincial border.
, saying that Vietnam was a vassal state of the Tang Dynasty and an inalienable territory of the Tang Dynasty.
Forget it, in the north, you directly allocated the territory to the Arctic Ocean. To the north of Hebei Province, it is called Mongolia. Mongolia further north is called Buli, and further north all the way to the North Pole. You just randomly named it Beiyuan.
Even if you paddle in, you Datang did this. Have you asked the polar bears for their opinions?
The same applies to the west. If you include the Wac area, it doesn't matter. You have also turned the Aral Sea west of Bukhara and Kiva into a lake. Have you asked the opinions of several Central Asian countries?
And what’s even more ridiculous is that there are no clear national boundaries in the entire territorial map of Nima!
Yes, the officially announced territory of the Tang Dynasty is very vague. There are almost no clear national borders, only provincial and regional borders, and the edges of the borders are often left blank...
The official statement is: Is there anything in the world that belongs to the king?
To put it bluntly, people regard the whole world and even the entire universe as the territory of the Tang Dynasty. Now there is no actual control over the blank areas. Let the local indigenous people take care of them first. When the Tang Dynasty is free, we will take over.
!
And what's interesting is that this is not Li Xuan's map to open up new territories, but something made by those civil servants. Li Xuan initially asked them to just make a national map or something like that, but in the end they just took the globe made by the Royal Institute of Technology
Showed it to Li Xuan, and looked like he was asking for credit: Your Majesty, this is your empire!
No way, you can't really blame the civil servants for this, because this kind of thing is quite sensitive. If you don't do it well, it would be disrespectful. For example, if you list all the countries outside of China, say this
This place does not belong to the emperor, Nima, you are seeking death!
Is it possible that Wang Tu in the whole world knows this and understands it?
This world, no matter it is land or sea, no matter where it is, even if it is in another universe, it all belongs to the emperor. If you write other areas as the territory of other countries, what are you doing? Do you doubt the sanctity of the emperor?
Believe it or not, I will chop your head off on the spot!
So at first, the Ministry of Rites directly showed the globe to Li Xuan. Li Xuan was a little speechless when faced with this kind of thing, and then asked them to make a map realistically and not to fool people with the globe.
So the officials of the Ministry of Rites considered carefully and held dozens of meetings in a row. After a fierce debate, they finally found a compromise: that is, the Tang Dynasty had no national borders!
Some are just provincial boundaries and regional boundaries, and nearby areas are all left blank, ignoring many surrounding countries...
Therefore, theoretically speaking, not to mention the dozens of nautical miles outside Guangzhou, even the entire Nanyang and the entire Pacific Ocean are the inland seas of the Tang Dynasty!
Of course, this kind of thing is just a politically correct argument, saying it is possible, but doing it requires careful consideration. At least before controlling the entire Nanyang, the Tang Dynasty could not prevent other countries' ships from freely traveling to Nanyang.
Although they were dissatisfied with the Tang Navy's request for territorial waters, they still left obediently. Anyway, the Spaniards were reduced to only one ship by them, and after the armed forces of other countries entered the Datang port in order to seek asylum, according to the
The relevant regulations of the Tang Dynasty would detain ships and repatriate people.
The Spanish could survive, but they basically had no ability to colonize Southeast Asia anymore. For the Portuguese, the threat was gone, so there was no need to fall out with the Tang Dynasty over the Spanish ship.
Although the Tang Dynasty was arrogant and unreasonable in many aspects, this trade was really profitable. For the sake of money, they tolerated the Tang Dynasty describing Nanyang as an inland sea.
The huge profits from sea trade allowed them to endure the Tang Dynasty's arrogance and unreasonableness, and they also wanted to further block the routes from Asia to Europe.
In recent years, the Portuguese have spared no effort to prevent other European countries from intervening in East Asian trade, especially trade with China. The fleet has been directly used for sea trade, plundering all non-Portuguese nationals traveling to and from the Indian Ocean.
European merchant ships!
This move by the Portuguese also made Datang deeply dissatisfied!