Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1944, King Ning's obsession
In the palace of King Ning in Anning City of Ning State, King Ning is discussing the development of Ning State with his ministers.

"Your Highness, the price of cotton has dropped by nearly 2%, and the price of sugar has also dropped by 1%. In addition, the number of slaves we have handled in Ningguo this year has been cut in half, which is less than half of what it was last year."

"It is estimated that our Ning country's treasury tax revenue will drop by at least [-]% this year."

Liu Yangzheng, the left prime minister of Ning State, reluctantly reported a bad news to King Ning.

Now the competition is getting more and more fierce, especially the competition of cotton, cane sugar, tea, and spices, and the prices are getting lower and lower.

"I know that the prices of cotton and cane sugar have fallen. Why did the number of slaves cut in half?"

When King Ning heard this, he frowned and asked.

"Your Highness, the main reason is that Eastern Europe, an important source of slaves in the past, has now been included in Daming's territory and has become Daming's Black Soil Province, so it has lost an important source of slaves. In addition, since the Ottoman Empire was dealt with by Ming, its strength has sharpened. Minus, already powerless to plunder slaves from Europe."

"And our country of Ning has always been the main source of slaves to buy slaves from the army of the Ottoman Empire. This has a huge impact on us, and it directly leads to fewer and fewer slaves in our hands."

"Now the largest sources of slaves are Africa and Western Europe. The main slave trader is the Japanese country. They wantonly plunder slaves in Western Europe and become the most important slave suppliers."

"But we can't get involved in this business. It is mainly monopolized by Tianjin Ocean Trading Co., Four Seas Trading Co., Ltd. and other big Ming business houses."

Liu Yangzheng quickly explained.

"This is not going to work. In the past two years, our Ning country's tax revenue has been decreasing, and now even the basic slave trade has dropped seriously. If this continues, we will all be drinking the northwest wind."

King Ning frowned after hearing this.

"These colonies and vassal states are now engaged in a plantation economy. Cotton, sugar cane, spices, and tea are being grown everywhere. Many places are also engaged in large-scale animal husbandry, which has caused the prices of cotton, wool, sugar, and tea to rise. lower and lower."

"But that's not the most important thing. The most important thing is Daming. Daming has a vast territory, a large population, and rich products. Its production capacity is getting higher and higher."

"As far as grain is concerned, there is so much food in Daming that it can't finish it, and the price is extremely low. The newly added Black Soil Province alone can produce enough grain for the entire Ming Dynasty for several years."

"A large amount of grain was dumped to Europe and the Ottoman Empire. The price was cheaper than their local production, and the quality was good. There was no competitor at all."

"They use a lot of mechanized farming. One person can cultivate thousands of acres of land, while in other parts of the world, a farmer can only cultivate tens of acres of land at most. This is already the extreme."

"Basic agricultural products, such as grain, cotton, wool, tea, spices, etc., are expected to drop in price in the future. There is no way to sell them at a price. There is a surplus of grain in various places."

"Your Highness, I think we must learn from Ming Dynasty and the South African colonies, and develop industries and processing industries. Otherwise, in the long run, our life will only become more and more difficult."

Liu Yangzheng put forward the idea of ​​developing industry. The basic agriculture is getting worse and worse. It's just that the output is not as good as that of Ming Dynasty. Other colonies and vassal states are also constantly competing.

"However, to develop industry, a huge amount of capital is required, and there are certain requirements for infrastructure."

Li Shishi stood up and said: "Taking a steel factory as an example, investing in the construction of a steel factory requires at least tens of millions of taels of silver, and it also needs a large iron mine as a support to meet the needs of the steel factory."

"Although our national treasury is still full, if we continue to invest in this way, it will soon be stretched. Moreover, these large-scale technological industries require a lot of talents, especially new talents. They only understand How to better smelt steel, manufacture machinery, etc.”

"We in Ningguo don't have such talents at all. Even in our large number of textile factories in Ningguo now, once there is a problem with the machine, we need to find maintenance personnel from Daming to repair it."

"Also, His Highness has always wanted to build a railway from Anning City to Delhi. This railway is very long, and it is estimated that at least 10 billion taels of silver will be invested in it, and the required steel, trains, technicians, workers, etc. need to come from If Daming comes here, we may spend even more."

At this point, Li Shishi also stopped, the railway has always been a pain in King Ning's heart.

The railways in Daming are being repaired in a hurry, one after another, as if they are free of money. It is said that even the railway to Sichuan is almost completed.

For my own side, I just want to build a railway from Anning City to Delhi to strengthen the control and traffic in various places in West Tianzhu. However, after calculating the cost, King Ning has been hesitant to start building this railway. .

King Ning is indeed very rich now. Years of slave trade and plundering from Ning Kingdom have made King Ning a huge net worth of hundreds of millions of taels of silver.

The Ning Palace was built extremely luxuriously, with emeralds, pearls, agates, corals, etc., because there were everything there, and the decorations were extremely magnificent.

From the poor state when he left the Ming Dynasty and needed to borrow money to live, to now he is rich in the world, sitting on a huge wealth of hundreds of millions of taels of silver, and has conquered this huge country of Ning. King Ning can be said to be very successful.

However, it is also true that King Ning also values ​​the money on hand, and is not willing to spend it easily. A large amount of money has been hoarded by King Ning in his treasury, and he even believes that The First Bank of Ming Dynasty did not deposit the silver in the bank.

Now you say that to build a railway, you have to spend more than 10 billion taels of Baiyun at a time. It may not be enough to empty yourself out, and you need to borrow money from others. Naturally, King Ning will not do it.

King Ning had had enough of the days without money, and he never thought about borrowing money again.

If you have money, you can build it, if you don’t have money, you can pull it down like this. Anyway, according to Ningguo’s notice, this railway is not a necessity. If it is really not possible, then build a road first.

It is relatively cheaper to build roads. Cement, sand, labor, etc. are all cheap things.

"One billion taels of silver~"

When King Ning heard this, he couldn't help but twitched in his heart.

"If only I had bought the shares of the Egyptian Canal back then, I would have had 3 million taels of silver just for this investment, and if I gritted my teeth, I would have the money to build this railway."

"At the beginning, if I had listened to people's persuasion, it would have been fine to take the money to Daming to buy various stocks. Now I can easily multiply it several times, and I have the money to repair the railway."

Thinking of this, King Ning regretted it.

King Ning has always been a very traditional King Ning, and he doesn’t trust banks much, let alone stocks. Of course, the stock of the Egyptian Canal was still because King Ning thought it was too little and didn’t like it, so he didn’t follow the large-scale investment. Only a small part was invested, and most of the money was put in the treasury and became a lump of iron.

Who knew that the shares of the Egyptian Canal had soared all the way and became more and more valuable. Over the years, they are now worth more than 300 taels a share. If the original 100 million shares were bought, they would be worth 3 million taels.

Now Ningguo's development has slowed down, mainly because of King Ning's reluctance to invest. If he has money, he only wants to bury it in the cellar.

Instead of using it to invest in building roads, railways, building factories, etc. Naturally, the money can’t be used to make money, and it will also lead to deflation in Ningguo, and the money in the market will gradually decrease, affecting the economy. develop.

"Industry still needs to be developed. First build some steel factories, cement factories, glass factories, etc., and try to achieve self-sufficiency in these things. If everything needs to be imported, the price will not be expensive, and the quantity will not be enough for us. needs."

King Ning thought about it, and after thinking about it, he still felt that what Liu Yangzheng said made sense.

Now the competition for basic raw materials is becoming more and more fierce. The people of Daming are extremely diligent, and they are constantly spreading and developing in various places. The output of grain, cotton, sugar, tea, spices, etc. is also constantly increasing. Everyone After desperately planting and selling these things, the price is naturally getting lower and lower.

Only those industrial industries are still very expensive.

Cars, motorcycles, bicycles, steel, boats, machinery, etc. are getting more expensive every year. Even if they are expensive, they are still very easy to sell. If you have money, you have to wait in line.

It’s just that Liu Yangzheng and Ning Wang’s idea of ​​developing industry is good, but they have overlooked one thing. Industry is based on new learning. Without a large number of new learning talents, how can you make cars, motorcycles, Large ships and machinery?
Even if it can be manufactured, there is no way to guarantee the quality, let alone compete with products from Daming and South Africa.

"Your Highness, Liu Da, the son of Liu Jin, the Chief Assistant of the Ming Cabinet, is asking to see you~"

At this time, a eunuch came to Ning Wang and reported to Ning Wangtong.

"Liu Jin's son?"

When King Ning heard this, he was also slightly surprised.

PS: Do you think it is feasible for overseas colonies to develop industries?

(End of this chapter)