Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1484 Linked World

While the expedition team led by Wang Zhijie and Meng Xiaohu was thinking about the Hue area in the depths of the Tiete River, Xuan Hao, the owner of the logging shop who came from Shenmu Township to buy goods from the port of Hue, was also talking to the wholesalers. Grind your lips.

"Why is sugar so expensive now?" Xuan Hao was so anxious that the veins on his forehead were throbbing. The proprietor gave him some money this time and asked him to come to Hue Port to buy goods.No, it's been half a month, and after many efforts, the goods are finally sold out.The only problem is probably that it costs too much to purchase tobacco and sugar.Of course, the price of necessities such as wine has also increased, but it is announced that the price increase will be offset by the purchase of cheap country wine (if it doesn’t work, you can add water, forgive the non-national laborers in the logging camp I don’t dare to talk nonsense), except for sugar and tobacco, because there are only a few sources, there is really no way to think about it, but these are also two commodities with a large sales volume in the lumberyard store, and they have to buy them in large quantities, so he Get angry.

"The price of road goods of cane sugar shipped from Lobster Port on Isle of Bey has risen several times in a row..." the manager of a large cane sugar wholesaler said impatiently.He has seen a lot of people like Xuan Hao, so he may not be able to make much business, but asking questions, dislikes this and that, is very annoying, and is basically one of the people they are least willing to deal with.What's more, now that a large amount of refined sucrose from the Isle of Bei sugar factory is being transported back to the old continent by ships from the East African Transport Company, Genoa, and Tuscany for sale, the amount of sugar supplied to the east coast has been greatly reduced, and the price will naturally rise Woke up.

In fact, if it wasn't for the fact that the Southern Railway Company was still able to get a batch of sucrose from Peru and put it on the market, the price would probably have risen even more.In contrast, the actions of the Caribbean Shipping Company, which mainly operates in the Caribbean Sea, are a bit unbearable. Taking advantage of the chaotic situation in the Caribbean, this company, which relies on the Navy, sent St. Christopher, Guyana, France When the sales of sugar in Santo Domingo and other places were interrupted, and the sales in Jamaica, Barbados and other places were also greatly affected, a large amount of sugar collected from the Spanish mainland and New Spain was sold to the Dutch to earn money. Huge profits.This kind of behavior naturally provoked a group of people headed by the army to scold them, shouting "****" and so on. The background is naturally very hard, and not everyone can easily shake it, even the army is powerless.

"If you want sugar prices to drop, hehe, let's wait until the plantations in Hue area produce sugar on a large scale, everything else is empty. Oh, yes, and you can also convince the Portuguese in the north to sell you sugar , but how is this possible? It's not that they can't sell it, and it's even more profitable to sell it to the Old Continent." The wholesale manager flicked the sleeves of his long coat, and said with emphasis: "Are you still buying it? Don't you buy it? Rang Rang, there are plenty of people who want to buy it! To tell you the truth, after selling the inventory in the warehouse, I will temporarily go out of business, because the owner has decided that all the remaining sugar will be shipped back to the south for sale, Zhenhai, West Lake, The counties in Ping'an have a great demand for sugar, and they can afford it, so it's not as hard as talking to you!"

Xuan Hao was so run on by the other party, he felt a little angry in his heart, but for more than a year, he has been running the shop of the lumber camp, and also helped manage the lumber camp when the owner was away, so his temper gradually grew, and he was especially affected at this time. Not wanting to be run on by this sharp-mouthed monkey-cheeked wholesaler, he raised his voice and said, "Okay, shopkeeper Lin, you said that the price of sugar has increased because of the Anglo-Dutch war and the war between our east coast and France, and I admit it with my nose." , because this is the truth, it is barely plausible! But what about the rise in tobacco prices? Don’t think I don’t know. Although Xinhua Island doesn’t grow much tobacco, some are exported to China every year. The same is true for New Courland. Although more than half of their tobacco is shipped to the Mediterranean Sea and the Baltic Sea for sale, half of it is shipped to our country; not to mention, the tobacco plantations left over from the Portuguese era in the Beining area are now also The production is slowly starting to resume. The output is so large, you told me that the price is going to rise, I am! You, a guy who is interested in money, do you really think that you can cover the sky in such a big market?"

"Hehe, I want to teach shopkeeper Xuan that there is a reason for the increase in tobacco prices..." Shopkeeper Lin laughed instead of anger at Xuan Hao's loud questioning. He cleared his throat and said coquettishly: In the past few days, the ships of the state-owned South China Sea Transport Company and the private Renjun Trading Company, which have always been engaged in New Courland trade, sank in strong winds off the Congo River, causing heavy losses; The Indian merchant ship disappeared, probably intercepted and killed by British pirates; New Courland itself also had a ship carrying tobacco and sugar that was out of schedule, and it has not yet arrived at Dongfang Port, so it is likely that something unexpected happened. The combination of many misfortunes Together, the domestic tobacco supply has been greatly reduced, and in the past some merchant ships sailing from St. Christopher, Virginia, and Jamaica to the country were intermittent due to wars, which further tightened the domestic tobacco supply. Xuan Treasurer, Tell me, if the price has not been raised, under what circumstances can the price be raised?"

"Love shopping, don't buy it!" shopkeeper Lin patted the table for the last time, and shouted loudly: "What age is it? If you still limit your eyes to a corner of the country and don't open your eyes to see the world, how can you do this business!"

"You man, how can you do business with such a yelling?" Knowing that shopkeeper Lin was talking about something, Xuan Hao muttered a few words in his mouth, and he was ashamed to buy cigarettes, alcohol, tea, sugar, etc. from him again. He turned around and walked out quickly.

There are still some sugar wholesale shops on the wharf, and most of the sugar they buy is locally produced sugar.More precisely, it is the cane sugar produced on the basis of the sugar cane plantation estates left by the Portuguese. At most, the people on the east coast have newly set up some steam sugar extraction equipment to improve the efficiency of refining sugar.

Although these domestic sucrose are restricted by the dual factors of labor force and labor price, the output is much smaller than that of foreign countries, and the cost is higher than that of overseas imports, but the advantage is that they are sold nearby, which saves some transportation costs.In addition, the current domestic sugar market is not saturated, so the sales of sugarcane produced by these plantations invested by domestic capital are still acceptable, at least lower than the cost of those plantations invested by Dutch and Italian capital, because they Renting familiar land directly from the government saves a lot of upfront construction costs.

What Xuan Hao wanted to do was to buy some of the cane sugar from the shops that sold it, and then, together with other goods, rent some tonnage of ships and transport them to the shops in Shenmu Township for sale.This matter is very important, because if these goods are not prepared, how can the store make a profit?If the store can't make a profit, then why does Xuan Hao need him?Why not pack your bags and sign up to farm in the frontiers!

"The British and the Dutch have been fighting for a long time. I don't know how much money has been spent, and the casualties are heavy. Why don't they stop fighting and negotiate a peace? They are fighting and killing all day long. It will affect the livelihood of many people." Xuan Hao said while walking, "It's better to be on the east coast, there are not so many fighting and killing. No, it seems that the navy and army have mobilized their troops to attack a while ago. There were a few people in the logging camp who were going to sign up for some kind of camp head like the Fengguo Army, and Lao Mai couldn't stop them. He was even severely punished by the army representative who came down from the top because he didn't allow workers from a certain wood factory to join the army. After a severe reprimand, the proprietor was also fined one hundred yuan, which is really a disaster. Speaking of which, this east bank country is also a country of militarism, alas, I really can't find a piece of pure land."

Xuan Hao cursed and walked towards the wharf business district. In his impression, there were five or six shops selling cane sugar. He had to hurry to buy a batch. The price was not important anymore. Judging by the current situation, it might not be cheap.The other is tobacco. Although the price of this thing has dropped to a very low level in the past few years, but according to what shopkeeper Lin said just now, there will be repeated in the short term.Okay, let's hurry up and deal with it. At worst, go back and explain to the proprietor. Recently, the prices of his wood and planks have both risen. He seems to be in a good mood all the time.

Both sides of the gravel road by the pier are covered with tall palm trees and golden wild flowers, which makes Hue Port look particularly charming - there are still forests in the suburbs of the city, and some are said to be still there. Living with beasts is extremely surprising—the sky is covered with dark clouds at this time, and it looks like a heavy rain is about to hit (this is very common in tropical areas), Xuan Hao unconsciously quickened his pace and walked towards the target location.

Five minutes later, the sky quickly thundered and lightning, and then big raindrops fell, covering the whole city in a curtain of rain.Xuan Hao hid under the porch in front of the customs building, complaining loudly while sheltering from the rain, it was already winter and spring, and there was still a thunderstorm, the weather in the southern New World was simply unreasonable, and it was Liaodong where he lived for many years when he was young. I feel comfortable, even though I was once captured as a slave by the Tartars.

However, amidst the lightning and thunder, the sharp-eyed Xuan Hao discovered that an east coast warship was escorting two ordinary merchant ships (it didn't look like the most common 650-ton flute-shaped transport ship on the east coast), slowly leaving the port. Then sailed in, lowered the anchor, and anchored. It seemed that we were going to stay in Hue Port for a while.Several ships docked at the port did not delay, and soon put down two small boats, one went ashore to carry supplies, and the other carried a young officer to the pier. It seemed that there was something to be notified to the pier, which made Xuan Hao A little curious.

"It's an armed transport ship of the Second Fleet, escorting two captured French merchant ships." Under the porch, a man in a customs uniform came over, and while lighting a cigarette with a match, he said: "There has been a rumor at Jiaohe Port before. The letter came, and the two French merchant ships were loaded with opium, medicinal materials, raw silk, wax, gemstones, perfume, tea and other commodities purchased in the Far East. Well, the cargo in the ballast was sucrose. I don’t know where it was purchased, maybe Southeast Asia , maybe the Ming Dynasty, who knows. Because they don't plan to stay long, they are eager to pull a batch of war supplies to the newly occupied areas of South Africa, so the goods on board will be sold on the docks soon. I think you are also a Merchants, if you are interested, you can go and have a look later, maybe there is something you need. The money from the sale of the loot will be used to resettle the residents of the newly acquired South African colony and update the local defense system. I hope you will also If you can buy a little, consider it a contribution to national defense.”

"Uh, the newly occupied area in South Africa..." Xuan Hao was a little confused for a moment, but he quickly understood, no matter where he newly occupied, first pick and buy a batch of sucrose from the ballast on the two ships come down.Although it was used as ballast, it must have been contaminated by sea water, but it is cheap, cheap, just what Xuan Hao needs, and those non-national laborers in the logging camp are also worthy of the best sucrose?Make do with these as ballast!

"Naturally, it was the South African colony taken from the French. The name seems to be New Brittany. There are not many people and the place is not big, but I heard that the land is not bad. Now our country is at war with the French. A lot of land has already been robbed, you merchants, don’t you usually focus on doing business and don’t care much about international affairs? This is impossible!” The customs official smoked a crocodile cigarette and said: With the development of transportation technology and scale, the world has become more and more an interconnected whole. Our country has always advocated free trade, and businessmen must have an international vision. To put it bluntly, a person like you is like the old hen that brooded over a nest, and can only stay on the three-acre land on the east bank. Forget it, you can go to the pier and wait when the rain stops, the trophy sale will be held It should start before three o'clock in the afternoon. Of course, the two captured French merchant ships are not included in the sale. The East African Shipping Company really intends to increase the size of its own transport fleet, but it looks like you don't plan to buy it..."

Xuan Hao was a little embarrassed when he heard the words, but he was not upset. Instead, after thanking the other party for providing this crucial information, he had already made up his mind to keep an eye on this batch of sucrose.Well, it’s okay to buy more and put them away, so as not to buy them in the future. At worst, the quality will be poor after a long time. Why should they be so good for food for laborers?

Thinking of this, he sincerely thanked the officers and soldiers on the east coast of a place in South Africa thousands of miles away, and thanked them for the benefits of the war they launched—well, it seems that militarism is not always a bad thing!

(End of this chapter)