open sea

Chapter 893 Surplus
Zhao Shizhen thought for a long time, but still couldn't figure out who lost in the end.

Since the merchants of the Ming Dynasty have made money, the imperial court has made money, and the military government has made money, then someone has to lose money, right?But it seems that the Spanish merchants did not lose money, regardless of whether silk or porcelain, they are all expensive luxury goods, and they did not lose money. Spain also collected taxes from the merchants. In the end, no one lost money?

He vaguely felt that Chen Mu's calculation method was wrong and could not be calculated like this, but he couldn't tell what was wrong.

For a moment, only Chen Mu and Zhao Shizhen stared at each other, but it was Xu Wei who broke the embarrassment by asking, "Where's the money?"

Zhao Shizhen slapped his thigh: "That's right! The money flowed back from the military mansion to the imperial court. The money earned by the merchants is not the money earned by the military mansion. Even if they changed hands later, Western merchants earned four taels of silver, and merchants earned three taels of silver." In the early days, I still lost 12 and a half."

He finally figured out the mistakes in Chen Mu's words with his clever mind. The money flowed from the Eastern military mansion and finally entered the pockets of the merchants of the Ming Dynasty. It had nothing to do with the military mansion. I exchanged 12 taels of silver for [-] catties of wool, which is cheaper than shipping wool from China, but it is more expensive than shipping spun fabrics.

The price of wool in China is ten catties and one tael. Even if it is transported here, it is a task assigned by the government. It is the same as when transporting military supplies. One ship of a certain type of military supplies is allowed to transport two or three ships of goods. The materials are based on the market price plus the shipping fee, which will not exceed ten catties or two taels.

But if it is directly woven into cloth domestically, the price can be further reduced.

Even Chen Mu didn't understand how strong his own country is in the handicraft industry—China's handicraft textile industry, even before the start of the British Industrial Revolution and the outbreak of the First Opium War, England's industry could not use it at the same cost. Spin it out.

This is not to say that the Industrial Revolution was useless, quite the contrary, the Industrial Revolution was a real leap, it was just that the rest of the world was too backward before the Industrial Revolution.

Assuming that people are equal in intellectual talent, then the one with the most people must be the most powerful. Therefore, China, which occupied the world's largest population for most of the history, provided most of the assistance for the progress of world civilization.

If not, then it must be that the development of this world does not follow objective laws. It has gone wrong. Where did it go wrong?It is not just the industrial revolution, even if people are equal in intellectual talent, acquired learning opportunities are more important.

Europeans across the world can learn from all over the world to learn from each other. It only takes 2000 years for your invention achievements in the past 20 years to be learned by the other party, but you have no chance to collect their intellectual achievements in time.

Just like the firecracker that became a birdcrawler more than 200 years later, was brought to the door by the Portuguese, and immediately imitated and quickly filled the gap. This matter was good luck for the Ming Dynasty.

First of all, when you see the bird gun, you can imitate it immediately. There are two mutual reasons. One is the embodiment of the strong metallurgy and handicraft industry of the Ming Dynasty, and the other is that the technical means of the bird gun have not deviated from the cognition of the Ming Dynasty people.

Secondly, it was not defeated by people with more advanced weapons. There are also two reasons for each other. One is that the Ming Dynasty is not that weak, and the other is that Portugal is not that strong.

Change any of the four reasons at will, the firecracker just becomes a musket, and it will not become a bird in your hand.

This is passive acceptance.

Chen Mu has always opposed passive acceptance.

"A loss of 12 taels? Where did the 20 taels of silver come from? It was refined in Taxco? It may be, but it is more likely that it was refined in Potosi. No matter where it was refined, it was not dug by Da Ming." Made it."

Chen Mu clapped his hands together: "Isn't this considered a profit?"

have to!Zhao Shizhen stopped talking, went around and finally returned to the topic of colonial plunder, so what else could he say, this colony is not the New World, but Spain.

The old lunatic asked "Where does the money come from" from the beginning to the end, and now he has completely lost the desire to continue chatting, and he is too lazy to listen to Chen Mu's long speech. Yoyo went out.

He snorted and left seven words that he had heard from Chen Mu.

"Semi-colonial, semi-feudal!"

In fact, Xu Wei already understood everything, so naturally he didn't need to listen any further.

In the entire trade process described by Chen Mu, the wool came from the nomadic nobles of Mesta in Spain, and the silver to buy the wool came from the Potosí silver mine occupied by Spain. Chen Mu also omitted many trade processes in the middle, but it was always the Eastern Army. The government has obtained absolute trade profits.

"Hey, why did the old man leave? Call me Zou Yuanbiao!"

Mr. Chen is on the rise here, who knows that Xu Wei waved his hands and went out, hurriedly called a soldier to point to the shoes on the ground and said: "Give it to Mr. Xu, it doesn't hurt your feet, let Zou Zhixian come here one trip."

Zhao Shizhen was full of helplessness, the commander must have two audiences or what is going on?He had resigned himself to his fate, arched his hands and said, "If you have anything to say, Commander, just talk, students, listen."

"No, you can't solve this problem. You have to let Zou Yuanbiao come, and Chang Sheng has to build a few more factories to make trademarks for me."

"Trademark." Zhao Shizhen pondered over these two words, leaned forward and brushed his little beard, wondering: "What is that?"

"To put it bluntly, it is the name of the Wule worker." Chen Mu turned his head and turned to the outside, and said, "For example, the four-inch copper seal of the white rabbit pounding medicine at the door of the old Liu's needle shop from Shandong is the trademark. It has been used since the Song Dynasty, but I still doubt whether the shop is from the Liu family of the Song Dynasty."

The Liujia Needle Shop is quite famous in Changsheng Market. Hearing what Chen Mu said, Zhao Shizhen remembered, and said, "Is that shop No. 72 or No. 73? It says at the door that it buys high-quality steel rods to make kung fu fine needles. No." Misusing it for use in the house, reselling it to sell it...whatever, it sells very well in Changsheng, Baitao's White Horse Department always buys needles from him and sells them to various tribes for women to weave."

"However, I heard that he doesn't make needles in this shop. They are all shipped from Shandong, and one shipment can be sold for a year."

"Yes, that's the one. In the future, all the items sold by the Dongyang Military Mansion to Europa will be branded in Changsheng. For example, the woolen coats and sweaters and trousers made in Majiagang can be sold to the Netherlands later. , although there are competitors, but they will disappear soon!"

In this kind of woolen industry, the European market has been occupied by woolen from England, and even most of the wool exported from Spain has been bought by English merchants. Chen Mu can not get much wool from Spain.

Because English merchants bought wool at a high price in Spain, the inflation in Spain was very serious. In addition to raw materials, the handicraft industry and agriculture in the country collapsed successively. In recent decades, the price of grain has more than tripled, and it is still rising. The national economic environment Very bad.

The higher the price of wool, the higher the selling price after it is made into wool, and the profits will naturally be made by England.

Fei Laoer had no way to make his country's handicraft industry a threat to England, so he could only use military means to destroy England.

Before Zhao Shizhen had time to ask where his competitors came from and why they were about to disappear, he heard the sound of soap boots stepping on the floor on the second floor of the yamen. Zou Yuanbiao registered loudly at the door, and then he took a breath and saluted when he came in: " The commander is looking for me? I'm just about to come over, and a strange fortune-telling merchant has been caught in the county!"

(End of this chapter)