I want to be emperor

Chapter 630 27 Armed Trading Companies
The shipping companies and trading companies in the Great Chu Empire caused a certain shock because of the Changlin of Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company.

Many believe that this new type of vessel has the potential to directly change the shipping landscape.

In inland river and lake transportation, this kind of ship can make great use of the headwind capability, and in ocean transportation, because of its extremely fast speed, it can export some time-limited goods faster.

Like tea!
In fact, the tea of ​​the Great Chu Empire was not exported much before, and even if it was sold to the grasslands in the northwest, the most important function of tea for these nomads was not as a drink to satisfy their appetites, but as a Great supplemental source of vitamins.

This is also the reason why in the ancient times, in the trade of the northern nomads in the Huaxia region, tea, salt, and iron were all subject to stricter control measures.

Because for nomads, tea is a necessity for survival, even more important than iron.

However, as the Great Chu Empire continued to conquer the grasslands, Monan Mongolia was completely merged into the Great Chu Empire, and even Mobei Mongolia became a vassal of the Great Chu Empire and accepted the canonization of the Great Chu Empire. Therefore, the tea trade in these places mentioned above, It has become an internal local trade, not an export.

As for Moxi Mongolia, this place is now the territory of Zhungeer, and the two sides are now at war. Therefore, the Great Chu Empire has also imposed strict material blockade measures on the Western Regions. Strategic materials such as tea, salt, iron, and gunpowder are all prohibited. Exports to the Western Regions are allowed.

So now the export of tea from the Great Chu Empire to nomads has also stopped.

As for the overseas countries in the south, the export volume is not large, and only some of them export to countries in the traditional Chinese cultural circle such as Fusang, Annan in the Nanyang Peninsula, Siam, and Myanmar. tea consumption habits, but the overall scale is actually not large, at least for the current export trade of the Great Chu Empire, the tea trade is actually very small.

As for other places, India, Persia and some Central Asian regions also have some tea consumption habits, but the scale is smaller and not worth mentioning.

In addition to cultural influence, there is another more important thing that affects the export of tea, that is, tea has a shelf life.

Especially if it is transported by sea, tea leaves can easily become moldy and rot after floating in the sea for a long time.

In fact, the Dutch have already started to transport tea to Europe for sale, but because the transportation time is too long, the tea has become moldy and spoiled when it arrives in Europe. Most importantly, this thing is the most oriental medicine from China in contemporary Europe. of.

In other words, in contemporary Europe, tea is not a beverage, but a medicine... This is nonsense.

In contemporary Europe, the habit of drinking tea has not been developed, but in the original time and space, it took the Dutch people dozens of years to initially cultivate this habit.

But it is the British who really regard drinking tea as a daily consumer product. The British gradually fell in love with tea from top to bottom in the late seventeenth century. After the eighteenth century, the whole country drank tea... and even developed afternoon tea. unique culture.

The prevalence of tea in Britain led to the birth of tea trade in the true sense, and the trade deficit caused by a large amount of imported tea led to the British East India Company exporting opium to China to balance the trade deficit, which eventually led to the opium trade. The outbreak of war!
Therefore, for the contemporary Great Chu Empire, the total amount of tea exports is actually very small. On the one hand, the shipping speed is too slow, and on the other hand, it is a problem of consumption habits.

However, although the current total export volume is relatively low, there are still some domestic trading companies engaged in tea export trade, and many of them are quite large, such as Quanfu Trading Company.

This is a maritime trading company registered in Quanzhou Prefecture, Fujian Province. Like many trading companies, its predecessors were half sea merchants and half pirates. Later, it was officially registered and turned into a formal maritime trading company.

There are two main routes for them, one is their old business, that is the Fusang route. Although Quanfu Trading Company has only been registered for more than ten years, in fact, they have already operated Fusang in the maritime period of the Ming Dynasty. 30 years.

Moreover, it focuses on the tea trade, and has established a large and stable tea trade system in the local area, transporting a lot of tea to sell every year.

In recent years, with the launch of the strategy of the Great Chu Empire in Southeast Asia, many indigenous countries such as Annan, Siam, Myanmar, and Aceh have been forced to fully open their markets.

Quanfu Trading Company, like other trading companies, followed behind the military to fully invade the local market.

As the domestically focused and largest tea trader, Quanfu Trading Company naturally organized and transported a large number of teas for sale in the first place, and has established a firm foothold in the above-mentioned countries.

But how to put it, although these places seem to have a lot of people, the overall tea consumption market is still not very good. In addition, after long-distance sea transportation, due to factors such as the fact that the goods transported by sea are prone to moisture, the long sea transportation time can easily lead to tea consumption. Deterioration, it is difficult to guarantee the quality of the tea after it arrives.

If the quality is not good, it will naturally affect the further development of the market.

At the same time, it will also seriously affect the competition between Quanfu Trading Company and Yunnan Guiguang and other tea trading companies mainly engaged in land transportation.

You must know that there was a tea trade in the Nanyang Peninsula, but most of them were land transportation, that is, various caravans.

What Quanfu Trading Company has to do is not only to cultivate the local market and tea drinking culture, but also to compete with these domestic land transportation trading companies.

Finally, after a few years of tossing, the effect is not great.

Ever since, Quanfu Trading Company set its sights on other places... such as the Indian Peninsula, such as the West Asia region.

As for the European region... don't expect it. At present, the Great Chu Empire does not have any ships that can go to Europe for trade. That is not the sphere of influence of the Great Chu Empire, and the road is far away, there are no charts, and there are no routes. , and there is no supply port along the way.

Therefore, it is too difficult for the trading companies of the Great Chu Empire to directly organize a fleet to go to Europe.

And that's not to mention the obstruction of other countries.

Whether it's the Dutch, the Portuguese, or the English, who are rookies in maritime trade, they don't want to see merchant ships from other countries go around the Cape of Good Hope and enter European trade.

They fight back and forth themselves, and when they encounter an opportunity at sea, they will directly fight and plunder each other. When the merchant ships of the Great Chu Empire go, they will inevitably be attacked.

Therefore, don't count on the market in the European region.

However, the markets in India, West Asia and even North Africa made Quanfu Trading Company very jealous, especially every time they heard that Nanyang Trading Company made a lot of money in India relying on goods such as cloth and weapons, they became even more jealous.

They also tried to engage in the arms trade, and also tried to engage in the cloth trade, but unfortunately they were not very successful.

But how should I put it, lines are separated like mountains... This kind of bulk commodity trade is often not what you want to do. You need to have sufficient, cheap and high-quality goods, and you need to have stable sales channels in the target market. .

Quanfu Trading Co., Ltd. has been deeply involved in the tea field in the past ten or 20 years. They have a large number of long-term cooperative tea houses in China, self-built and cooperative tea processing factories, and stable long-term cooperation in Fusang. Distributors at all levels are currently building tea sales channels in various parts of Nanyang.

In terms of tea export trade, they dare to say that the country is the first, and no one dares to say that it is the second.

But in other fields...they don't have any obvious advantages, and they can do it, but the profit is definitely not good, and one may even lose money.

And if one fails, it can easily lead to hostility or even war from competitors!
There are quite a few maritime trading companies in the Great Chu Empire. Well, these maritime trading companies are all companies with armed merchant ship licenses, and they are not in the same nature as ordinary shipping or trading companies.

They have armed merchant ships, naval guns, gunners, and marines. Basically, every family has gone overseas. At least hundreds of armed personnel have been drawn out, and thousands of people have been drawn out to fight. It is also possible.

For example, Nanyang Trading Company, they started a business with a local indigenous kingdom on the east coast of India at the beginning of this year.

When they went to India for trade, they wanted to set up a port as a supply port, so they found an excuse to launch a fight...the excuse was found, and when more than 100 people were sent ashore to fight, the native kingdom on the opposite side did not talk about martial arts Germany, actually sent thousands of people directly, and there were more than 1000 cavalry inside.

What's even worse is that they didn't run over to take the initiative to attack foolishly, but besieged outside.

These natives obviously knew that they couldn't beat the ground forces of the Great Chu Empire, which relied on formation and artillery, so they were only besieged outside.

In the end, the Nanyang Trading Company's landing personnel were besieged and had no choice but to retreat to the coast gradually, and finally ran away in despair.

This is the third time that the Nanyang Trading Company has failed in trying to set up a port in India as a trading base.

Don't look at Nanyang Trading Company's failure, and feel that they are not good. You must know that Nanyang Trading Company has traveled all the way to India to fight... and they still want to directly grab their ready-made big ports. There are thousands of regular native troops, and there are thousands of cavalry in them.

If this is a different strategy, for example, don't make the target too big, and grab other people's big ports as soon as they go up, then it won't be so embarrassing.

But the Nanyang Trading Company only wanted to make money, and they didn't want to build a colonial city in a remote and barren place. They just wanted to grab a ready-made one.

So... don't treat the 27 armed trading companies in the Great Chu Empire as ordinary trading companies. They are no different from the Dutch East India Company except that they have no colonial administrative power.

Even in a sense, they also have monopoly power, but this monopoly power is a tacit understanding formed after internal negotiations, and it is not officially recognized by laws.

After more than ten years, these trading companies have gone bankrupt or been acquired due to market changes, shipwrecks or other factors, but there are still as many as 27!

These 27 armed trading companies are also competitors to each other, and in order to avoid internal friction, they will conduct negotiations under the coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce.

The respective spheres of influence have been regulated!
There are no clear text documents, just a tacit assignment of everyone.

For Quanfu Trading Company, tea is their sphere of influence, and all the tea business in the huge Fusang is basically owned by their company.

In the Nanyang region, the tea trade monopoly of the Kingdom of Siam and the Kingdom of Aceh has also been obtained, while the tea trade in the Annan and Myanmar regions has been divided up by other companies.

Except for tea, their company has no monopoly rights recognized by peers in other fields, so although they also trade some cloth or weapons on weekdays, the share is not large.

If they really expand their arms or cloth business, they will attract violent denials from other trading companies in minutes.

For example, the cloth business in the Kingdom of Siam is basically done by the Nanyang Trading Company, and as compensation, the Nanyang Trading Company basically does not get involved in the arms trade or other iron products trade in the Kingdom of Siam.

The trade of other goods is divided up by other trading companies.

If Quanfu Trading Co., Ltd. wants to engage in a special cloth trade in the Siam Kingdom, and even lower prices in order to compete for the market, Nanyang Trading Co., Ltd. will probably go crazy...

Not to mention some legal countermeasures, maybe one day the two sides will have a chance meeting in the deserted sea... It's just that the armed merchant ship of the Nanyang Trading Company will fly the skull flag when they meet...

Conversely, if other trading companies dare to get involved in the tea trade on a large scale and engage in vicious competition, Quanfu Trading Company will also organize a fleet to let competitors know why piracy is so rampant in the Nanyang waters!
At the beginning of the Great Chu Empire, there were more than 60 trading companies with armed trading licenses, but now there are only 27 left. Where are the other armed trading companies?
This is a question worth pondering!

In short, those who dare to do maritime trade in the Great Chu Empire these days are not good people. They are all pirates, and most of them have not let go of the pirate business now...

Not to mention private ones, even the three major official trading companies, many of the captains or crew members are pirates. They used to be members of the Eighteen Zhi Alliance, the largest pirate gang in East Asia.

In more realistic terms, in fact, the 27 armed trading companies in the Great Chu Empire are themselves an important part of the pirates in the Western Pacific Ocean.

As for the rest, it is naturally the Dutch East India Company and the Portuguese East India Company... They are also very skilled in various maritime plundering operations.

Of course, the Portuguese have now been driven out of the Nanyang Sea by the Great Chu Empire and the Dutch, and now only the Great Chu Empire and the Dutch are left.

Without these trading companies, the piracy activities in the Western Pacific can be directly reduced by more than 90.00%.

Therefore, you can't overestimate the integrity of the Armed Trading Company these days!
If you dare to grab other people's business, they really dare to bring armed merchant ships to a trade war with you!

It is precisely because of this situation that the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Great Chu Empire, in order to avoid internal conflicts and also to regulate maritime trade, took the lead in pulling everyone to sit together and have a chat and talk heart-to-heart.

The market is so big and there are so many businesses, there is no need for you to rob each other and beat each other to death. You can sit down and talk slowly to divide the sphere of influence.

When the 27 companies have almost finished their talks, they will come up with an unspoken rule of each other's sphere of influence.

For example, the trade of certain goods in a certain region belongs to a certain trading company, and other trading companies can conduct some incidentally to enrich the types of trade and meet the needs of customers, but they must not go too far.

If you dare to go too far, you will be attacked by 'pirates' on your back just as soon as you make money...

Quanfu Trading Company is one of the 27 companies, and in the unspoken rules of the 27 trading companies, their Quanfu Trading Company is engaged in tea, and other trading companies will not get too involved in the tea trade. Just playing around.

Even if they are envious of the cloth and arms trade, the people in Quanfu Trading Company still have no guts to engage in the market developed by those Nanyang Trading Companies in India.

That place was also pre-empted by the Nanyang Trading Company. The Nanyang Trading Company had already stated to their colleagues that they didn't care about other places or other businesses.

But in the several markets in the Indian peninsula that they have developed, the arms and cloth business is theirs. Don't do it, or don't blame my naval guns for not recognizing people!

The Nanyang Trading Company has worked hard to develop the market in the Indian peninsula, and has fought a lot of small-scale battles for this. It has finally opened up several markets. Although it has not reached the level of a colony or a trade base, it is still It can be regarded as running to park ships, replenish supplies and conduct trade.

It’s okay for you latecomers to take advantage of the Nanyang Trading Company’s early development efforts and use these ports to rest and supplement business, but if anyone dares to sell weapons or cloth in these places, don’t blame them for disregarding the friendship of their compatriots.

Of course, if you can open up new weapons or cloth markets in other places, that is your ability, and they Nanyang Trading Company can't control it.

Based on these factors, Quanfu Trading Company would find it difficult to get involved in the arms or cloth trade in the above-mentioned areas even if they are jealous. As for opening up new markets in other places, the risk is too great...

Don't you see that such a giant as the Nanyang Trading Company, it is also a lot of trouble to go to the Indian Peninsula!
The long distance means that it is more difficult to project troops and replenish supplies. Without a little strength, it is impossible to do this kind of work of opening up new markets.

Therefore, the idea of ​​Quanfu Trading Company is also simple. If they do not go to new places to open up markets, the risks are too great and the uncertainties are too great.

They just went to a few places on the Indian peninsula that had been initially developed by the Nanyang Trading Company. They did not do the lucrative cloth and weapon business in these places. They still planned to focus on the tea trade.

It's just that the Indian peninsula is too far away from the mainland, and things like tea have a time limit, especially when transported by sea, they are more prone to damp and mold.

Therefore, if you want to do tea business in the Indian Peninsula, the shipping time must be shortened and the speed of the ship must be increased.

The Changlin ship model produced by Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company fits their needs very well!
And they are also the second company to place a large-scale order to purchase new ships after Jinling Shipping Company, and they are also the first armed trading company.

However, they did not directly place an order with Zhenjiang No. [-] Shipbuilding Company. To be honest... they still don’t think much of No. [-] Shipbuilding Company’s technical capabilities. They found No. [-] Shipbuilding Company just to order sails. As for the hull, they It is ready to be handed over to Luo Hua Shipyard for construction.

After all... What they want to order is a clipper ship with a full load displacement of thousands of tons, and it is also an armed merchant ship!

Although the typical flying shear ship type of Changlin is not suitable for deploying a large number of artillery as a battleship, it is barely possible to deploy a small amount of light and medium artillery for self-defense.

But this is also a great test of the design and construction capabilities of the shipyard. Obviously, the first shipyard without any experience in building armed merchant ships will definitely not work.

Therefore, Quanfu Trading Company found Luohua Shipyard to carry out. Luohua Shipyard is the fourth largest shipyard in China. It not only has rich experience in building armed merchant ships, but also has experience in building warships. There is still no problem with the shear ship-type armed merchant ship.

Anyway, there is no need to deploy many artillery pieces, as long as there are a few light artillery pieces for self-defense.

In fact, judging from the current maritime situation, clipper ships are only used in sea areas limited by special terrain, such as when entering and leaving ports and straits.

In normal sea areas, there is no need to worry about being attacked by pirates...

Because the clipper ship runs fast enough, ordinary pirate ships can't catch up at all...

You can't even catch up, so why attack!
After Quanfu Trading Company came to express their willingness to purchase sails separately, the First Shipbuilding Company agreed to provide twelve sets of advanced sails separately for Quanfu Trading Company after some bargaining.

And this order also attracted the attention of others. Many people followed the example of Quanfu Trading Company and ordered sails and hulls separately. They found other shipyards to order hulls, and ordered sails from the first shipyard.

However, as the number of sailing orders increased, the First Shipbuilding Company found that it could not even produce sailing alone, so it began to license the patents of sailing at high prices.

The large domestic shipbuilding companies saw that there was such a good thing, and immediately purchased the patent license one by one, and then produced these advanced sails by themselves.

Although you have to pay a high patent fee, but if you hold the new sail suit in your own hands, you will have more confidence and confidence when taking subsequent orders.

And the First Shipbuilding Company also made a lot of money by relying on a large number of sailing orders and subsequent patent authorizations, and as the patents are released for external authorization, there will definitely be more and more subsequent patents. Shipyards produce and sell these newer ships.

At that time, if there is not one more ship equipped with new sails, the First Shipbuilding Company will be able to obtain a considerable amount of patent fees.

It's just lying down and making money, and it's still making a lot of money!
This can make many colleagues in the shipbuilding industry extremely incomparable. They all say that the shipbuilding industry is now full of gold, and in fact there are indeed a lot of opportunities to make a fortune.

But why am I not among the rich people?

(End of this chapter)