Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 1205 The crisis of the Ottoman Empire
Batavia, after the Dutch occupied it for 40 years, regarded it as their headquarters in the East. While carrying out the spice trade in the Spice Islands, they expanded around from Batavia as a base.

Buying raw silk from Dongying, buying silk, tea, and porcelain from Macau, and selling artillery to An Nanguo, this place has witnessed the glory of the Netherlands East India Company.

After the Kyushu Army occupied Batavia, they also recognized the important position of Batavia. Instead of destroying it, they expanded the scope of the city above the original port, and built bastions on the periphery to resist the invasion of Java Island. Attack of Batavia by native kingdoms and native tribes.

This is one of the frontlines of the No.12 Corps of the Empire to conquer Mata Lansudan, and it is also the location of the provincial government office of the Nanyang Province.

At present, Batavia has a population of more than 2. There are Chinese merchants, Japanese merchants, Nanyang merchants, European merchants, Indian merchants, and Arab merchants.

The spices produced here are exactly the commodities that various forces compete for.

The Kyushu Army that occupied the Spice Islands became the biggest beneficiary, monopolizing most of the spice trade in the world.

"Your spice tax is too high, we risked coming here to buy spices, and your spice tax makes us almost unprofitable!"

Several merchants in turbans and silk robes were arguing with Batavian customs officials.

"If you refuse to pay the spice tax, then you will not be able to transport this batch of spices." The customs officer of the Kyushu Army insisted.

A group of customs soldiers with muskets on their backs saw the dispute between the two sides, so they came over: "What happened?"

"These merchants, who claimed to be from Ottoman, organized three merchant ships to come here to buy spices and tea, and refused to pay the spice tax. You must control their ships. The spice tax is an important source of the empire's finances. If they still don't If you are willing to pay the spices, then you have to leave their spices." The customs official said.

Several Ottoman merchants were still dissatisfied with the high spice tax, but they could not speak the language, so they could only negotiate with customs officials through translators.

When they saw the soldiers of the Kyushu Army with muskets on their backs controlling their sailboats, they realized that if they wanted to take the spices from the Spice Islands, they had to pay a high spice tax.

This is no different from Ming Qiang, even more ruthless than Ming Qiang, who made the Nanyang Fleet control the important passages of the Spice Islands.

Several Ottoman merchants and their servants saw that if they did not pay the spice tax, all the spices they bought would be detained, and they had to be slaughtered by the customs set up by the Kyushu Army.

After they paid a large amount of silver, the customs soldiers released their ships.

"The merchants who do business in Batavia have not dared to pay the spice tax. Without the spices we provide, can they buy them elsewhere?" The customs officer saw the Ottoman merchant boarding the ship angrily. Also very impatient.

Although the spice tax is indeed high, which greatly increases the cost of spices, no businessman dares to raise objections to the overlord here.

If Batavia Customs is dissatisfied, then they should not think about trading in Batavia and the Spice Islands in the future.

It has become the main sales place of spices, and the secondary sales place of tea, silk, porcelain and raw silk. Thousands of merchants are active here.Businessmen from any country making trouble may cause the government to ban them from entering this east-west transit point.

"This group of hateful guys, relying on their monopoly on the Spice Islands, raised the spice tax to an unbearable level. Originally, the huge profits of spices should be owned by our Ottoman Empire. Later, the Portuguese found here and let us lose A lot of income! Now the Chinese control the Spice Islands, exclude people from all other countries to set up strongholds and plantations here, monopolize the customs, and make the spices we buy from Indian merchants more expensive!"

"We thought it was an excuse from the Indian merchants to increase the price of the spices they sold to us, so we came to the Spice Islands to purchase spices. We didn't expect the spice tax to be real."

"These Chinese people know how important spices are to the West. When the price of spices increases, not only does the cost of spices we use increase, but also the profits we resell to the West become more meager. The days of our Ottoman Empire are getting worse and worse. It's hard."

"There is also a large inflow of silver from Europe, making silver less and less valuable, and they bought our goods with a large amount of silver... The price of wheat has increased twenty-fold in the past few decades... After money is worthless , the governors and officials of the empire are dissatisfied with their salaries, and even try their best to search for civilians, and the people are destitute."

"Europeans are hateful, so are Orientals! Originally, Aceh in Sumatra was loyal to our empire and was our loyal servant country, but now it is being besieged by oriental troops, and we can't help them. If Aceh Still, we don’t even have to pay customs duties for our spices!”

Several Ottoman merchants discussed recent encounters with the Ottoman Empire on the sailboat returning to the Ottoman Empire.

100 years ago, during the reign of Suleiman the Great of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman Empire established by the Turks singled out the whole of Europe and defeated the European coalition forces several times.

But now, 100 years later, the military technology and power of the European continent have surpassed the Ottoman Empire.

The new sea route opened up by the Portuguese broke the Ottoman Empire’s monopoly on land trade between the East and the West, and the silver mines mined by the Spaniards from the Americas brought serious inflation to the Ottoman Empire—a price revolution.

"A large amount of gold and silver mining has brought shocks to countries all over the world, manifested in severe inflation. This inflation leads to a sharp rise in the prices of various commodities, and for fixed-income rent collectors, bureaucrats, artisan workers Rising commodity prices are fatal."

"As the country with the largest inflow of silver, China's land is also the most serious threat of inflation. In the face of inflation, on the one hand, we should control the total demand and money supply, such as investing in infrastructure, increasing taxes, and increasing the deposit of Kyushu Bank. Loan interest rates and deposit reserve ratios, large purchases of overseas assets and raw materials. On the other hand, we should increase the effective supply of commodities, reduce production costs, increase productivity, and provide more commodities to the society. We can still deal with it calmly, but the world Some feudal kingdoms may not be so lucky." As one of the earliest graduates of the Department of Economics, Da Yuer is also one of the government's economic advisors, and is sometimes invited to give some practical lectures at the Department of Economics of the Imperial University.

(End of this chapter)