open sea

Chapter 917 Suppression
Soon, Chen Mu saw the goods that Drake brought out when he set off from the island of England.

There are not many goods, but the workmanship is not bad, but correspondingly, the price is also high.

Take woolen cloth as an example. There are two kinds of woolen cloth produced in England. One is the semi-finished plain wide cloth, which has not been dyed and processed. The price is 35 florins per piece and five florins for shipping.

Floris are gold coins, each weighing one coin, while the imperial horse is ten feet long and five feet wide, which is very large.

In the Ming Dynasty, a horse was three feet two feet long and one foot eight inches wide, and its area was [-] times smaller than that of the British system.

This means that the price of a half-finished product of woolen cloth in the Ming Dynasty was worth three taels of gold and 28 taels of silver.

And the value of woolen wool after dyeing and processing will inflate by another [-]%.

"Marshal, there is another problem that they settle with gold. Guochao has one gold and eight silvers, but they have one gold and twenty silvers."

Cheng Dawei, who was urgently summoned from Jincheng, fiddled with the abacus. Although he looked a little humble in the military mansion, he was indeed the person with the deepest understanding of arithmetic in the entire New World. He said to Chen Mu: "If you settle with gold, then A piece of undyed woolen wool is nearly six times more expensive than processed Lu silk."

Chen Mu rolled his eyes and asked, "What about other things, price ratio?"

The high price was expected by Chen Mu. Europe is in the process of a price revolution. Zhao Shizhen consulted the Spanish price data stored in the Waterproof Pavilion over the years and concluded that the price in Spain has been rising. Europe is a whole. Take Spain as a whole. Taking up half of Europe's volume, no country can stay out of the wave.

The abacus was crackling in the side hall of the government office. Chen Mu, Minister of the East, Zhao Shizhen, the head of the military government, Zou Yuanbiao, the magistrate, and others were all staring at Cheng Dawei, making the forehead of the master of mathematics sweat unconsciously, and the more he counted, the more nervous he became. .

The data were listed one by one, and Cheng Dawei's complexion became more and more ugly. When the sound of the abacus stopped, he wrote the last item on the paper with a hard pen, put it aside and raised his head, his complexion was very bad: "Marshal , all prices are higher than ours, except glass, including salt, cotton, wool, flour, copper, iron, coal, all higher, much higher."

"And in terms of quality, the woolen fabrics they produce the most are not better than those produced in Majiagang, at most they are just in the middle; iron products and copper products are mostly rough, if you want to compare, not to mention Fujian and Guangzhou, the two capitals Any guard craftsman in the thirteen provinces can make something of this level."

In the manufacturing industry, especially the textile industry, ancient China was never afraid of anyone.

"Only glass is cheaper than our glass, if there is no ingenious way of doing business." Cheng Dawei said a word of praise, but it didn't sound like he was praising Chen Mu's business talent. He said: "Then except Except for exchanging large quantities of goods and gold for silver, it is not worthwhile to buy anything from them.”

Gold for silver?
Chen Mu felt that this was inappropriate: "It's better to exchange goods. Our gold is not too much to support the sale of bulk goods. What's more, it's only twice the profit, so it's not worth the trip."

Zhao Shizhen suddenly said: "Commander, the students have been wondering for a long time, why the commander doesn't want the Spanish royal family to make money, but doesn't care about the English royal family?"

"Don't care? What do you mean, let their queen make money?"

Chen Mu shook his head with a smile, but the smile on his face soon disappeared, and he said very carefully: "Of course I care, I don't want anyone to make money from me on every inch of land outside Daming. to the tiniest bit."

"But there are always losses and gains in business, the difference is who makes the profit...Spain is very big, Fei Laoer is warlike, and he will see me as a thorn in the side whether he wants to or not. His country can't keep talented people. So the money makes his people earn better, and they will buy us like the most loyal second-hand dealers."

"England is small, but the queen is wise and has formulated laws that are conducive to development for the people. Therefore, it is better for the queen to earn money than their creative citizens. After all, they are different from us. Will their royal family find ways Use the treasury to build roads and dig canals for the people?"

"What's more, it doesn't matter to let them make some money."

Chen Mu smiled: "As I said, England is very small, and a war will break out within a year or two. They are very dependent on European goods, and once a war starts, the economy will inevitably weaken, and various materials will be in short supply. For a better victory, I think we should still buy more from them."

"Mr. Cheng, look at the prices of iron, cotton, flax, wool, and copper. If the losses are not too great, I will ask merchants to buy some from there."

Mr. Cheng just glanced at the account and came up with it at his fingertips. He accurately quoted the price that was about two or three times more expensive, and finally concluded: "Since it is losing money, why do we have to do such a transaction? Besides, we have all these materials. Yes, even if it is not shipped from the Ming Dynasty, it is produced in Asia."

"It's not going to lose money, it's just a little less. Higher-cost raw materials will increase the cost of processed products, but the price of processed products is also high. We also make money, although these products use our own raw materials. The cost will be lower, but that doesn't matter."

"The important thing is that our purpose is not to compete with England for the European market, but to suppress England's manufacturing industry. If we compete for the European market, the process will naturally be that Daming sells one more woolen cloth and England sells one less woolen cloth."

"However, the process of cracking down on the manufacturing industry is that we use their raw materials to produce one more woolen wool, and they will produce one less woolen wool when they are short of wool. At the same time, because they produce more, they will also seize their European market. They enclose land in China. It’s a win-win-win for us to make money and make people angry.”

Killing two birds with one stone may be the earliest win-win statement.

"Okay, now that we have figured out the price, the next step in the development of the Dongyang Military Mansion will be determined. Chang Ji will remember it."

With that said, Chen Mu got up and paced, pulled aside the first two chairs in the side hall, put down the chart, picked up a bamboo whip and drew a line on the map of Asia, saying: "Changsheng, Jincheng and those who discovered the delta In the three places of Jie County, we will continue to vigorously reclaim land in agriculture in the future, gather the aborigines, and strive to grow a variety of agricultural products. The first task is still to ensure self-sufficiency in food."

"In addition, the people are encouraged to grow cash crops, such as cotton, hemp, and vegetable oil, as well as the breeding of sheep on the boundary peninsula. The Dongyang Military Government can give farmers one to three Tongbao subsidies per catty of cotton, wool, flax, and vegetable oil."

"In industry, the production of pottery pots, linen, wool, cotton cloth, copper and iron processed products is encouraged, and military subsidies of up to 5.00% are also given according to the price of the goods."

"Finally, in terms of military affairs, we are still too far away from England. In order to gain an advantage, the next step is to send envoys to Paris to establish contact with France. The permission to establish a trading station, or to create military friction and fight a small battle."

With a bamboo whip, Chen Mu pointed at the side of the strait in the northwestern part of France adjacent to England, and said: "In the next year, we must obtain Ming's leased land in this area. It doesn't need to be too big, but it is best to have a ready-made port and shipbuilding factory, and is conducive to the stationing of [-] troops and a matching number of warships in case of emergency.”

"The first thousand and fifty-nine years after the birth of Jesus?"

Chen Mu restrained his smile, put the bamboo whip on the table, and said to everyone: "The world will remember this year."

(End of this chapter)