1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2956

Six hundred miles southwest of Cam Ranh Port is Vung Tau Port, another port under the rule of Hai Han.After the end of the Annan civil war in the early years, this place was assigned to Haihan by Annan as one of the conditions for Haihan to help the war.

Although the two countries set the nature of this place as a concession in name, Haihan can renew the lease indefinitely, which in essence means that Vung Tau Port is included in Haihan's own territory.

Limited by the environment, the size of the port here is far inferior to that of Cam Ranh Port, which has unique natural conditions. However, due to its special geographical location, Vung Tau Port has become one of the most important ports on the Indochina Peninsula.

Vung Tau Port is located at the junction of Annan and Champa, and nearby is the most densely populated Saigon area at the southern tip of the Indochina Peninsula.The port of Vung Tau on the east bank of the Dong Nai River belongs to Annan's territory, while the west bank of the Dong Nai River belongs to the Champa Kingdom supported by Haihan.

Hundreds of years ago, Champa was considered one of the big countries in the Indochina Peninsula. Half of Annan's current territory was once Champa.But now there is a huge gap in strength between the two countries, and Champa's territory has been shrinking again and again. If it hadn't been for Haihan's support, it might have been divided up by neighboring Annan and Cambodia.

The only product available in Champa is rice.The territory of Champa happens to be the estuary of many rivers in the Mekong River system. The fertile soil of the Mekong Delta provides an excellent environment for rice cultivation, and the late rice cultivation technology provided by Haihan allows rice to be harvested twice a year.This industry alone can ensure the food and clothing of the people in Champa.

However, the entire territory of Champa is a coastal alluvial plain, the coastline is full of tidal flats, and there is no decent shipping port at all. The large amount of rice produced can only be collected and sold overseas through the nearby Vung Tau Port.

Since Champa and Annan have been at war for a long time, it is of course difficult for such a trade channel to operate smoothly before Haihan controls the port of Vung Tau.But now Vung Tau Port has become an international trade port, and there will be no obstacles for the rice from Champa to enter Vung Tau Port.

After entering October, the late rice planted in various parts of Champa has gradually entered the harvest period.This year, there is plenty of rain and sunshine, and there are no pests or typhoons. It can be said that it is a rare good year. The farmers who grow rice generally have a bumper harvest.

However, what the bumper harvest brings to the farmers may not be the result they expected.

The Champa court has announced that for the sake of national security, it will expand the size of Champa's navy and army, and build multiple large forts on the border to resist the military pressure from Cambodia and Annan.

Whether it is expanding the army or building defense lines, they are all expensive projects, and Champa's main fiscal revenue comes from agriculture, so the taxes collected from farmers this year have almost doubled compared with previous years.Obviously, the imperial court also realized that this year's bumper grain harvest is a rare opportunity to increase taxes, and it wants to take advantage of this opportunity to scrape a lot of money from the people.

However, misfortunes never come singly. Due to the bumper harvest of grain, the supply in the market exceeds demand. Grain merchants who purchase grain in various parts of Champa also took the opportunity to drastically lower the purchase price. The price is almost half lower than in previous years.

After this ups and downs, instead of increasing the income of the grain farmers due to the bumper harvest, it was actually lower than in previous years.

Some people who have seen the world don't plan to sell grain in this traditional way. They know that there is a large grain merchant in Hai Han in Vung Tau Port, and the purchase price there is much higher than the bid by local grain merchants.

Therefore, in order to increase their income, a large number of farmers decided not to sell their own rice to the grain merchants who came to buy it, but to ship it to the port of Vung Tau hundreds of miles away by themselves.Anyway, the local grain merchants will ship to Vung Tau Port after the purchase, and the price difference between them is better earned by themselves than given to the grain merchants.

Of course, this journey of cross-border food sales is not easy for most farmers. Those who know how to farm may not be able to drive a boat, and those who know how to drive a boat may not be able to go to sea to find the location of Vung Tau Port. Otherwise, in previous years There will not be so many people selling grain to local grain merchants.

As a result, many villages organized their own grain transport fleets, led by experienced sailors.Some villages lack such people, and even have to spend money to hire a boat boss who has been to Vung Tau Port to lead the team.

In late October, large and small grain transport fleets began to flow down the Mekong River, Dong Nai River, Xun Ku River, Guzhi River and other rivers, transporting a large amount of grain to the port of Vung Tau.On the sea near the Mekong Delta, hordes of small boats can be seen everywhere, and even fishing boats have all temporarily acted as grain transport ships. The scene is truly spectacular.

On Wharf No. [-] of Vung Tau Port, there is a large signboard with a height of two feet, but there is only one unusually eye-catching big character on such a large signboard - rice.

Most people who have been to Vung Tau Port know that the No. 10 Pier is actually a private property.When Haihan developed Vung Tau Port, the big merchant Fu Ruifeng invested [-] taels of silver to participate in the port construction project. The third pier was the official reward for Fu Ruifeng.

With such a big effort, Fu Ruifeng is of course not just to build a wharf in this place far away from Haihan.During the more than 20 years since the Port of Vung Tau was put into use, Fu Ruifeng has also gradually increased its business scale here, and a large number of commodities produced in Daming and Hai Han have been imported into Champa and Saigon through this place.For a long time, the local people associated the name of Furuifeng with Haihan goods.

Of course, in addition to selling goods, Furuifeng will also purchase some local specialties and traffic them back to China.Although the commercial profits of cross-border sales of these agricultural products are limited, this is also one of the measures that Furuifeng maintains its influence in the local area. Even if it does not make money, it will still operate for a long time.

Champa rice is not an agricultural product that Freedom is interested in, because the main advantage of local rice is its low price, so that it can be exported to countries including Haihan.But low prices mean low profits. Of course, the profit of transporting a ship of rice is far less than that of other commodities. Fu Ruifeng often only assigns the task of transporting rice to the returning cargo ships to reduce transportation costs.

However, the situation this year is a bit special. Not long ago, Fu Ruifeng’s shopkeeper Jia received an order from the upper management to purchase 50 catties of rice in Vung Tau Port, and there were certain requirements on time limit and quality, because this batch of rice It will be used as military rations.

Shopkeeper Jia actually didn't quite understand why Fu Ruifeng had to come forward to buy so much military rations.You must know that the military logistics department has always been responsible for the purchase of military rations in the past years. At most, Fu Ruifeng can help out and provide temporary sea transportation capacity for the army.

But this order came from Li Nai, and Fu Ruifeng's business in the entire South China Sea area was controlled by him. Even if shopkeeper Jia didn't understand, he could only start to complete this task immediately.

He ordered people to erect a huge advertising signboard on the pier, so that both local rice merchants and farmers who come to Vung Tau Port to sell rice can notice the movement of pier No. [-] as soon as they enter the port.

(End of this chapter)