The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 262 Pearl of the Indian Ocean

At four o'clock in the afternoon on October 1731, 10, the large passenger ship "Yanfeng" on which Pan Guangfeng was riding slowly sailed into Suichang Port (today's Colombo, Sri Lanka), and then was pulled steadily by two tugboats. Docked at the berth on the east side of the pier.

Surrounded by the captain and many attendants, Pan Guangfeng was the first to step onto the gangway and onto the pier.

As soon as I got off the boat, I felt a hot and humid smell, which was very uncomfortable. The dock was wet, and there was still water in some low-lying areas. It was obvious that it had just experienced a heavy rain, so that the whole air was still filled with a damp smell.

"Has the Immigration Department started large-scale immigration to Ceylon?"

Pan Guangfeng noticed that two special immigration ships were docked on the west side of the pier. Under the guidance of the crew and terminal officials, a long queue stretched from the ship's side to the port quarantine field. After a long journey, everyone looked extremely tired. They held their own small baggage in their arms and meekly followed the immigration officials' arrangements and moved forward bit by bit.

"Ambassador Pan, as early as eight years ago, after the Dutch sold this island to us, Qi, they began to immigrate here one after another, but the number was not very large, only two to three thousand people a year. "A port manager replied respectfully: "However, since three years ago, immigration has suddenly increased, and the number has almost doubled. More than 5,000 people immigrate to Ceylon every year. Well, now at the dock. These immigrants should be tea farmers specially imported from Qin by the Ministry of Immigration and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Industry. This is the fifth batch introduced in the past two years. It is estimated that there should be more than 2,000 people who have passed the ten-day quarantine. After that, they will all move to the Central Plateau area and engage in tea cultivation together with the tea farmers who have arrived before.”

"Oh, the trial planting of tea in Ceylon Island was successful?" Pan Guangfeng was surprised when he heard this.

"Tea cultivation on Ceylon Island was successfully trialed three years ago." The port manager said with a smile: "Moreover, tea cultivation technical experts from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry also based on the different altitudes of the Central Plateau, It is divided into highland tea, mid-section tea and lowland tea. The main types of cultivation are black tea. After picking and cooking, its quality and appearance are no worse than the tea produced in the Wuyi Mountains of the Qin Dynasty in the mainland. What is even more rare is that Ceylon. The island has a warm climate, and tea can be picked all year round. Each tea-producing area has different characteristics due to differences in altitude, temperature, and humidity, which can satisfy consumers with different preferences. It is said that more than 30,000 people will be immigrated in the next five years to ensure the farmers needed for tea production.”

"Very good!" Pan Guangfeng nodded and said: "If the tea on Ceylon Island reaches a large scale in the future and the output is rapidly expanded, then in the future our Qi State will be able to gradually reduce its dependence on tea from Qin on the mainland, thus The source of this huge industry is in our own hands.”

"What Ambassador Pan said is true." The port administrator echoed: "Last year, I heard officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Industry say that our country of Qi imports more than 20,000 tons of tea from the mainland of Qin every year. The total amount is nearly 2.7 million yuan. Well, converted into silver, it is more than 8 million taels. Hey, I don’t know how many Qin people will be supported by such a large industry. If the tea trade is transferred to Ceylon Island. , I’m afraid it will make the tea plantation owners on the island make a lot of money!”

Every year in April, the Wuyi Mountains of the Qin State usher in the tea-picking season. The fresh and tender tea leaves are collected, fried, and packaged to make Wuyi tea, which is purchased by tea merchants and then transported north to Shanghai or south to Guangzhou. , repackaging, processing and storage, waiting for Qi merchants to come to buy.

In September and October, tea from all over the world will be gathered in Shanghai or Guangzhou. As overseas trade operating agencies chartered by the Daqin government, the monopoly merchants in the two places took over almost all tea exports. They will raise the price based on this year's tea production and market conditions, and sell tea with an average cost of only three to four taels of silver per load (100 kilograms) to Qiguo overseas trading companies or individual traders at a price of nine to twelve taels of silver. Earn excess profits of up to 230%-300%.

By January of the following year, Qin State tea would be shipped out of the mainland one after another, entering the global trade chain through the trade transit channel established by Qi State.

The continuous tea trade brought the Qin State countless gold and silver, and it was one of the few commodities that the Qin State traded in large quantities.

Although, after Qi's trading companies and merchants obtained Qin's tea, they often doubled the purchase price and resold it to India, Persia, Arabia, Ottoman, and European countries, earning more. High trading profits.

But how could the people of Qi, who have mastered the world's main trade channels and key routes, tolerate Qin tea merchants making money so easily!
After we, the Qi State, bought the tea leaves from the Qin State, we had to cross thousands of miles of sea waves, go through all kinds of storms, and go through all kinds of hardships before we could resell the tea leaves to the "Kai Zi" in the West.

In order to maintain safe trade routes, our Qi State has developed and constructed many ports, established many military strongholds, raised many naval warships, killed many pirates, and played with Western barbarians in the past decades. Mind Eyes, how many countries have we fought wars with!
But you Qin tea merchants only need to spend a small amount of money and just talk, buy tea from tea mountains all over the country, and then sit back and wait for us Qi people to rush to purchase, and then make two or three times profit.

What the heck, it’s not easy for Qin people to make money!

Look at the tea monopoly merchants in Shanghai and Guangzhou. Which one is not rich in wealth, and which one is not buying property in our country? If you make a move casually, you will get dozens or millions of taels of silver, which is inhumane!

Greed is greed, but business is still done. Who said that only Qin can produce this tea?

During the Taizu period, Qi State tried to transplant mainland tea trees in Weihai, Guangling and other places in the northeastern region of Hanzhou. However, after decades of cultivation, although thousands of tons of tea were produced every year, the quality and taste were poor. It has never been able to compete with Qin tea, and can only be reduced to low-grade tea for ordinary consumers to drink and sold to bumpkins in Southeast Asia, Myanmar, India and other regions.

Of course, Qi State not only tried planting tea trees in Hanzhou, but also tried transplanting them in Nanyang Islands, Annan, Luzon, India, and even overseas territories such as Qianzhou (now South Africa) and Yinzhou (now America). There are tea trees in the mainland, but the tea they produce is always slightly inferior in taste and cannot replace the tea exported by Qin.

There is no way, this is a gift from God!
China mainland has thousands of years of tea cultivation history. It is not that Qi State wants to completely overturn the dominance of the tea kingdom through simple transplanting and cultivation.

However, the emperor paid off, and after so many years, the people of Qi finally found a geomantic treasure land suitable for cultivating tea trees.

Eight years ago, the State of Qi and the Dutch East India Company signed a package solution to the issue of the ownership of colonial territories such as the Nanyang Islands, Ceylon Island and Cape Town. By granting trade preferences, low-interest commercial loans, converting shares into shares, and paying large Through various methods such as land purchase fees, almost all of the Dutch East India Company's colonial territories in the Indian Ocean region were taken over.

After acquiring the Island of Ceylon, Qi State immediately mobilized nearly 10,000 land troops and Qi-Indian servants, and simply and swiftly destroyed the Kingdom of Kandy entrenched in the central plateau area of ​​the island, thus completing the unification of the entire Island of Ceylon.

Subsequently, more than a dozen expedition teams, under the protection of the army, launched a detailed survey of the entire island of Ceylon to see what minerals and resources were worth developing.

As usual, agricultural experts have also opened several botanical gardens on the island to try planting various crops in order to make better use of the island's superior planting conditions. After a lot of tinkering, the coffee transplantation was not ideal, and the cocoa was also proved to be unsuitable for local cultivation. However, various fruits grew well and lived up to the local humid, hot and humid climate.

However, there are also exotic crops that are very suitable for the local soil and environment. Rubber is an economic crop that is very suitable for the environment of Ceylon. The local government immediately began to enclose land, recruit businessmen, and vigorously develop the rubber plantation economy.

However, what delights technical experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Industry the most is that the hundreds of tea trees transplanted in the central plateau area of ​​the island are not only growing vigorously, but the picked tea leaves have excellent quality and taste after being stir-fried, no less than Tea produced in Qin, mainland China.

As a result, Ceylon Island immediately became a hot spot, attracting the attention of countless people. Naturally, some businessmen with sensitive senses of smell came to the island and prepared to invest in land and develop tea plantations.

You should know that as tea spreads around the world, the total consumption is increasing year by year, and the market demand is extremely strong. It is a large industry with a scale of more than tens of millions of yuan.

England alone imports 540 million pounds of tea from Qi every year, equivalent to more than 90 tons (originally, it only imported pounds of tea during the same period in history), and the trade volume exceeds more than pounds.

In Europe, there are France, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, the HRE, Prussia, Sweden and many other countries. Although their average tea consumption level is lower than that of the Kingdom of England, the total consumption of tea by so many countries together is also a Quite impressive numbers.

In addition, there are several populous countries such as India, Persia, and Ottoman. Influenced by Qi's customs, their consumption is also increasing year by year.

The market is vast and the profits are excessive. There is no reason for the people of Qi to give up such a huge business opportunity, let alone become the "porters" of Qin's tea in mainland China forever.

If you set up a tea plantation on a large piece of land on the island of Ceylon, it would be equivalent to having a golden rice bowl and a steady stream of money.

More importantly, our Qi State will have its own source of tea in the future, and will no longer be choked by the Qin State tea monopoly merchants, who from time to time also cause troubles such as so-called weather disasters that increase the export price of tea without authorization.

However, for the senior officials of Qi State, whether Ceylon Island is suitable for growing tea or producing rubber, this small profit is not enough for Qi State to spend a lot of effort on its development and construction.

Qi State did not hesitate to buy half of the territory of Ceylon controlled by the Dutch East India Company for 400,000 yuan, mainly because of its excellent strategic location.

Ceylon Island is located in the Indian Ocean. It is a key point at the northern gate of the Indian Ocean. It is also a strategic fulcrum that holds the Indian mainland hostage. It is also a key node connecting the shipping channels between Arabia and East Asia and Southeast Asia.

The Indian subcontinent has a vast territory and a large population. Although the Qi State can use its strong military power to occupy all of it and turn it into colonial territory, it cannot truly digest and absorb it. It can only occupy some corners. In most areas We still need to use our strength to divide and conquer, and use India as a super "cow" to continuously nourish the mainland of Qi.

However, Ceylon Island is a small area with a small population and extremely high strategic value. Naturally, it must be completely annexed and become part of the many overseas territories directly under the jurisdiction of Qi State.

Evacuating the cage for birds and population replacement are also things that should be done. For this reason, the Qi people adopted a forced labor system on the island of Ceylon. A large number of Sinhalese and Moors were transported by the Qi people to Cochin, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Africa in one boat for "labor export", which opened up the way for Qi. and contribute their health and even lives to the construction of new colonial territories.

Instead, countless new immigrants from Hanzhou, Qin, Korea, Japan and Annan, under the arrangements of local colonial government officials, calmly occupied the houses and fields abandoned by the aborigines after they left.

In addition to establishing a colonial government on the island of Ceylon and sending officials for direct management, the Qi State also carried out customary massacres against the obedient people on the island. Just like the Nanyang Islands, they tried their best to eliminate the local civilization and history. Relics, trying to wipe out and completely erase the culture, tradition and language here.

Yes, for some strategically important places, the ultimate colonial goal of the Qi people is to strive to achieve localized management and bring them under the actual control of the government.

Therefore, although the Island of Ceylon is only separated by the narrow Palk Strait from the Governor-General of Fengning, which is adjacent to the Indian mainland, and is far inferior in terms of territory area and population size controlled, its political status is equal to that of Fengning. are equal and are directly under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Pan Guangfeng did not stay too long on this island, known as the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. After being invited to attend the reception dinner held by the Governor of Ceylon that night, at noon the next day, he continued to take the large passenger ship "Yanfeng" to visit Han Dynasty. Traveling to mainland China.

As India's trade becomes increasingly prosperous, in order to facilitate the exchange of materials and personnel between the two places, many business giants, including the Indian Trading Company, the Bangladesh Trading Company, and the Imperial Overseas Liner Shipping Company, have successively opened regular passenger and cargo liner services. , and the ships invested are all large-tonnage, fully steam-powered ships, so that customers can take (cargo) ships to and from the two places at any time and in any weather.

It is said that in order to improve customers' riding comfort, the Imperial Overseas Liner Shipping Company plans to purchase several all-steel ships with a displacement of more than 4,000 tons and put them into operation, and will also extend regular liner routes to Persia and Egypt to meet the needs of the North Commerce and personnel exchange needs in the Indian Ocean region.

After decades of operation, the Indian Ocean has become the "golden ocean" of Qi State. Through the vast Indian Ocean, wealth and countless minerals flow continuously to Qi State, enshrining the most powerful and wealthy empire in the world.

(End of this chapter)