Back to the end of Ming Dynasty to be a warlord

Chapter 513
New book for collection: "The Rise of Great Powers 1900"

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The trade between the Dutch and India often uses spices from the Spice Islands in exchange for Indian textiles. In this trade, they do not need gold and silver exchanges, and are more popular with the Dutch, but the trade with China , It is often necessary to bring in a large amount of silver, which makes them heartbroken.

If they can export Indian cotton to Daming, it is naturally desirable, because they can use spices to exchange with Indians, but their spices cannot be sold in Daming at the high price of India, because Indians do not have the ocean power of Zheng, so they cannot directly Spices imported from Nanyang must be transported by them, and the price is set by them. If the Dutch sell spices at a super high price in Daming, Zheng will directly smuggle them to Southeast Asia when he sees a profit. The Dutch do not want to attract this Hungry wolves, so in the spice trade with China, their profit margin has never exceeded [-]%.

Nassau must evaluate whether it can balance its balance of payments with the Middle East Indian Company, which sells cotton to China, and whether it needs to pay more silver at the same time, instead of using spices in exchange for Indian cotton cloth, and using silver to buy Chinese cotton cloth.

This requires a good evaluation by the East India Company, and it cannot be done by Nassau alone, so he has not made a decision, but has to wait for the reply from the Governor of the East India Company.

Yang Chao is not in a hurry. Anyway, this kind of trade is usually calculated on an annual basis, so there is no rush.

Anyway, in addition to exports, domestic demand is the more important market.

There are other important reasons why Jiangnan's textile industry can explode this year.

One of them is that Yang Chao has continued to expand his army in recent years, and for the purpose of supporting large workshops, basically all orders from the army are handed over to large workshops for production. This has encouraged a large number of workshops to expand their production capacity. There are thousands of textile machines in Songjiang Prefecture. There are no fewer than ten large workshops.

Another reason is that the overall economy is stable, that is, the basic market is good, and Jiangnan is already a big market.After all, Yang Chao has produced a large amount of currency. The economic impact caused by the shortage of silver is much smaller than in the past, and the market is much more active than in the past.A stable and active market is the best market and the most favorable external conditions for production.

The third reason is that the recovery of Hunan has added this traditional big market to Jiangnan.

Huguang has always been one of the largest markets for Jiangnan products. Huizhou people have almost monopolized the trade in Hankou. Hankou Wharf is even called Xin’an Wharf. Xin’an is the ancient name and another name of Huizhou, and Huizhou merchants are also called Xin’an merchants.

Huguang’s salt, silk, and cotton products are basically provided by Jiangnan, and they provide rice and wood to Jiangnan. During the Qing army’s occupation, Huguang was cut off from the Jiangnan market. However, since Sun Kewang and others recovered Hunan last year, Hunan’s The big market has recovered, and the demand that has been suppressed for several years is very strong.

Hunan has a population of millions. Although it has experienced wars, the demand remains unchanged. Once it communicates with Jiangnan, the demand immediately explodes. In many ways, Hunan's production destruction has created a market from another side, such as People in Hunan need to rebuild their homes. They need wood, bricks and tiles. At the same time, they have a large number of unemployed laborers. At this time, Huizhou merchants who deal in wood can easily drive this demand.

They recruited a large number of laborers to go into the mountains to cut down the wood in the vast lakes and mountains. A small part was supplied to Hunan, and most of them were shipped to the south of the Yangtze River. At the same time, they sold a large amount of salt and textiles to Hunan.

Driven by domestic demand and foreign trade, the economy is in good shape. In the first nine months, Yang Chao received 3000 million taels of tax silver, and in the remaining three months, it is estimated that he can receive at least 500 million taels, a total of 500 taels. 1000 million taels, a full [-] million more than last year, which shows that the economy has fully recovered this year, and the potential for growth is huge.

Yang Chao plans to sell 4000 million taels of bonds to meet the sufficient money demand in this market. Then this year's fiscal revenue will reach 500 million taels. In addition to military expenditures of 5000 million taels, various administrative expenses of more than 1000 million taels , and there may be a surplus of 1000 million taels in the end.

In the past, Yang Chao definitely didn't want to see a surplus, and would definitely temporarily decide to let various places build roads, etc., but this year he must stay, because the Northern Expedition will be launched next year, and he needs a lot of savings to deal with it.

If the Northern Expedition is to be launched, just like the Qing army stormed it this year, the military expenditure will increase significantly, at least 5000 million taels will be spent. Based on the current situation, this income should be able to be achieved next year, but be prepared. The first consideration in military affairs is always safe question.

Moreover, once an agreement on the Northern Expedition is reached with the Western Army, Yang Chao may need to support the army with some rations. Anyway, Yang Chao does not want to see them fight through plunder during the Northern Expedition. If the Northern Expedition succeeds, the North will nobody.

If Sun Kewang and Li Dingguo joined the Northern Expedition, their strength would probably not be less than 30. According to the standards of Yang Chao's army, a soldier would have five dans of military rations plus a slack of meat per year, and the current price would not be less than 20 taels of silver. Not counting the freight, if the navy's transportation capacity is tight, it may cost an extra five taels to hire civilian ships for transportation.

Considering leniently for a soldier, 25 taels of military rations are consumed, and 30 people are more than 700 million taels, which accounts for more than half of the balance of more than 1000 million.

Therefore, the bonds that should be sold will continue to be sold without affecting the market, and the military rations that should be saved will continue to be saved. This year's goal is a surplus of 500 taels, plus 2000 million dans of grain storage.

At the same time that Yang Chao was accumulating grain.

High-level negotiators have been sent to Yunnan.

Sun Kewang sent Wu Fengsheng on behalf of Li Dingguo, Gong Yi on behalf of Li Dingguo, the little emperor sent Wen Anzhi, the first assistant minister, Yang Chao asked Xu Siman to participate, and the four parties held talks in Kunming.

There are three main topics of discussion:
The first is to hope that Li Dingguo will release the direct descendants and generals loyal to Sun Kewang.

The second is to hope that the court will allow Sun Kewang to return to Guizhou.

The third is the joint Northern Expedition of the Great Western Army and the Yang Family Army.

It is difficult to reach an agreement on the first item. The issue of people and horses is too sensitive. No one wants to release them after they are captured. After Li Dingguo took over Sun Kewang's remaining troops, he treated these people differently, which made many people feel chilled and contacted secretly. Sun Kewang.

This was the case in the original history. The Daxi Army, which was still attacking the Qing army, was greatly reduced in combat effectiveness because of this discord. As a result, Wu Sangui completely suppressed it and beat Li Dingguo to Burma.

Naturally, Yang Chao didn't want to see this situation, so he strongly advocated not to damage the forces of the Northern Expedition, let their respective troops return to their hearts, let Li Dingguo return to Li Dingguo, and let Sun Kewang return to Sun Kewang.

Li Dingguo's attitude was very fierce, thinking that Yang Chao was suppressing him, he put on an unfriendly attitude, and even began to deploy troops on the border of Yunnan and Guangxi.

Xu Sinan confronted Li Dingguo and told Li Dingguo that the Yang family’s army had a million troops, and Hunan and Guangxi had no less than 20 troops. They could attack Yunnan at any time. Be loyal to the court, don't kill each other.

After even the little emperor came forward to appease Li Dingguo, Li Dingguo reluctantly accepted the release of Sun Kewang's old ministry to Sun Kewang, but he would never compromise on the Guizhou issue.

Thinking that letting Sun Kewang go back to Guizhou is equivalent to putting a jackal on the side of the couch, the small court fully supports Li Dingguo's point of view, and they don't want to see Sun Kewang attack Yunnan after returning to Guizhou.

Wen Anzhi said that since the Northern Expedition is a concerted effort, why bother to fight for the land, is there any king in the world?

After some negotiations, Xu Sixan also persuaded Sun Kewang to focus on taking back the old ministry, and then make plans later. Anyway, there is a large area to occupy after the Northern Expedition.

As for the Northern Expedition of the third item, everyone has no problem. This is a big banner. From the Spring and Autumn Period when Sun Wang fought against the barbarians, to Cao Cao who took the emperor to command the princes, everyone knows what is going on, and they are happy to play this game .

It's just that Wen Anzhi proposed that the Northern Expedition can also unite other forces, such as the rest of Li Zicheng's troops in Kuidong.

After Li Zicheng died in Jiugongshan, Hubei, his remaining troops did not disperse, but they could not be twisted together.

Li Zicheng is very different from Zhang Xianzhong. Although they are both leaders of the rebel army, Zhang Xianzhong is more wild than Li Zicheng. Li Zicheng can surrender all kinds of rebels, but he cannot surrender this Zhang Xianzhong. Zhang Xianzhong can't beat Li Zicheng , and he was unwilling to submit like other uprising leaders, and would rather give up the territory and go to Sichuan to operate.

At the same time, the temperaments of the two are quite different. Although they are both savage and will not be relentless when it is time to massacre the city, Zhang Xianzhong is obviously more bloodthirsty. His rule in Sichuan is basically based on killing. Compared with the Qing army, Sichuan Therefore, they were almost slaughtered. Zhang Xianzhong was the first wave, the warlords were in the second wave, and the Qing army was the third wave. After the three waves of massacres, there was almost no one in Sichuan.

As for the attitude of his subordinates, Li Zicheng is also relatively equal, and his subordinates are more like brothers and superiors to him.

However, Zhang Xianzhong didn't trust his subordinates very much, and he was always suspicious.

So after the death of these two people, a completely different situation appeared. Most of Li Zicheng's old troops thought of Li Zicheng, and they respected Li Zicheng's wife as the queen, and they have been supporting him in the army.

But Zhang Xianzhong's four adopted sons, Sun Kewang and others jointly directly wiped out the queen's power and divided up the rest of Sun Kewang's tribe.

It is precisely because Li Zicheng relied on the personal charm of the leader to lead the army, while Zhang Xianzhong ruled by cruelty, so after one died, his subordinates would still care about feelings, while the other only had cruel interests.

It's just that history is often cruel. Zhang Xianzhong's remaining troops were twisted into one rope under the unity of Sun Kewang and others, while Li Zicheng's subordinates were divided into pieces and no one would accept the other. They split into two forces from the beginning. One followed Hubei governor Du Yinxi In the Jingxiang area, another group went south to Hunan, and was attached to He Tengjiao, governor of Huguang, and was reorganized as the Zhongzhen Camp.

After the little emperor united with Sun Kewang, the Zhongzhen Camp was unwilling to be overwhelmed by the Daxi Army. They could not forget the grievances between Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong, so they went north to Kuidong and joined other Dashun soldiers and horses. established a base area and formed a force known as the Kuidong Thirteen Clans.

Wen Anzhi suggested to contact the Kui Dong Thirteen Family.

(End of this chapter)