In the 18th century, how did a Chinese get closer to the Swedes most quickly? The answer is simple, just scold the Russians.

China and Sweden are separated by only one Russia.

Taking advantage of the previous war against Russia and the pacification of the Western Regions, he blew a burst of pressure and talked about the matter of Renat.

"When you went to war with Russia, your king was defeated in Poltava and retreated into Turkey, and many of them were taken prisoner by the Russians. When our dynasty was quelling the rebellion in the northwest, several Swedes surrendered, hoping to return home. One of them, Lenat, had been away from Sweden for almost thirty years, from being captured by the Russians in 1709 and by the Dzungar Mongols in 1718. ”

"He would love to go back to his hometown. If possible, I hope he will return to China by your ship. There is no need to consider the question of the boat fare, it is not a question. In addition to him, there were about seventeen or eighteen captives, all of whom were Swedes. ”

The branch director thought that Liu Yu was going to extort bribes when he came, but when he heard it, he first happily scolded the Russians with him, and then said that the Swedes returned to China.

This incident is an introduction, Liu Yu wants to talk about this is not this matter, and the branch director also wants to say another thing.

After happily agreeing to the return of Renate and other prisoners, the branch director also took the opportunity to make a request to Liu Yu.

"Your Excellency, our company has been hungry for your country's porcelain. But the porcelain trade routes were monopolized by the Dutch, English and French. We can only get some inferior porcelain. These porcelains did not sell well in Europe......"

The branch director did not tell the whole truth, not because these "low-quality" porcelain did not sell well in Europe, but because Swedish companies could not sell goods in Sweden, and had to sell them to Spanish or Dutch British smugglers.

One of the founders of the Swedish East India Company was a former employee of the British East India Company, who retired from the company and went it alone, and this person was called Colin Cumbier, an Englishman.

The Swedes are poor.

There wasn't that much silver sent to China in China, so the Swedish East India Company didn't sell goods in Sweden, but sold them to second-hand dealers in Gothenburg.

In fact, it's a bunch of smugglers.

The East India Company in Sweden was different from other places: not only did they keep the identities of their shareholders secret, they tore up waybills after each shipment to make sure no one knew how much was being shipped, and they kept the identities of the customers who bought goods in Gothenburg absolutely secret.

Why should the identity of the customer be kept secret? Because the people who buy the goods are smugglers.

The Dutch and British East India Companies were all monopolies bought with real money, and the British companies had the highest annual domestic tax of 12 million taels of silver.

Naturally, Swedish companies will not be allowed to get their hands on the goods.

Tea and stuff are easy to say, but porcelain has a trick.

The Swedes only arrived in Guangdong a few years ago, and naturally they are far from Britain and the Netherlands on the way.

The aesthetics of European porcelain are different from those of China, which gives rise to the so-called "custom fired porcelain".

Patterns, patterns, sizes, and shapes are all shipped by ship and handed over to the porcelain workshop for firing.

The Swedes could not open the way in Guangdong, and the navigator and conductor of the maiden voyage was none other than the former British, now Swedish Sir Colin Cumbier, who was also a leading figure in the British East India Company.

As soon as he arrived in Guangdong, naturally Yinghe guarded him like a thief.

Guangdong and Fujian made money, a little card Swedish neck, the Swedes are new here, naturally they can't find a way to make porcelain burning.

The Western merchants who traded in China were all clear.

When the Dutch wanted to trade with the Ming Dynasty, the Portuguese used the influence of the missionaries, that is, all kinds of obstacles, so that the Dutch had nowhere to make money. At that time, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom were still relatively immature, and they gave Yan Siqi, Li Dan and other tens of thousands of "facilitation fees" of two silvers, and they didn't want to think that even if Li Dan, Yan Siqi and others were not pirates, they really had a very hard relationship, and the end of the Ming Dynasty had their own national conditions here, and they wanted to do such a big thing with two pieces of silver? In the hands of the adults in the capital, how much is left along the way?

Nowadays, the Dutch are also smart, and know the specifications and ways to pay bribes.

Those who get on the bus first naturally want to close the door and squeeze the people who don't get in the car.

Besides, who the customers of the Swedish East India Company were, others did not know, but the Anglo-Dutch East India Company still knew in their hearts, and because there was no evidence, they could only hate itchy.

Just like tea, the East India Company's tea goes through formal channels, collects taxes, and is expensive and expensive. People smugglers don't go through formal channels, the tea is the same tea, no one is stupid, why spend a lot of money to buy genuine tariffs?

The Swedish curator felt that it was a door that fell from the sky.

Liu Yu's name is known to the Swedes.

"The Chinese general who went to war with Russia", the Treaty of Adrianople, which made Karl XII very embarrassed, was signed by the old Tolstoy in Turkey, and Liu Yu is still somewhat famous in Sweden now.

Unexpectedly, this earl actually took the initiative to come to the Swedish Merchant House, and also talked about the topic of Swedish prisoners of war, so he naturally agreed to come down and took the opportunity to mention it to Liu Yu, thinking that this is a nobleman of Dashun, and he must have the ability to handle this matter well.

The meaning of the meaning, of course, will not be less.

The Swedes had a former employee of the British East India Company leading the way, and the meaning of this is clear.

It's just that there was really no way before, how many years have the Anglo-Dutch Portuguese been in Guangdong and Fujian? How does a newcomer to Sweden compare with others?

Now that there is a way, it's just about money.

When Liu Yu heard what the curator of the merchant hall said, he held back a smile and muttered twice to Tian Ping, who said with a smile: "He didn't say it before." As I said earlier, as long as the money is in place, I will do this. Brother Shouchang is still more famous than me, tsk. ”

After laughing twice, Liu Yu turned his head and said a few more words to the curator of the Swedish Merchant Hall.

"This thing...... It's easy to do, but it's not easy to do. Please forgive me for the wording. In this case, you can tell your chief curator, and I will do this for you. But there is one condition. ”

"When you go back, I'll send a boat to follow. The goods are our own. Of course, your employees and sailors here can also scrape together five thousand taels of silver and borrow our ships to carry them on your own goods. Our ship will follow you on a trip to Gothenburg. The goods are sold with your help, and your company can take a part of the profits. ”

"As long as you can agree to my condition, I will do it for you."

"What do you think of our ship, by the way, to send Lenate and others back to the country, and use this as a reason to go with you?"

With this incident, Liu Yu also happened to mention what he wanted to say.

Wanting to open a gap in Europe and explore the way, he thought of many options.

Anglo-Dutch relations are certainly not good, and French relations are a little better, but even worse.

The French are not business-minded.

The relationship with Dashun is good, not only because of a large number of missionaries with the title of academician of the French Academy of Sciences, but also because France was centralized in the era of Louis XIV, and it is the European country that most resembles "Dashun" in Europe, and it is also a standard land power country.

The two sides have a common language on some things.

In terms of the management of overseas colonies, the French group of people is just like the thinking of the group of people in the Dashun officialdom, and they really want to "change the land and return to the stream" of the colonies.

For example, Du Prix, the French colonial leader who met with Liu Yu on Liugong Island before, was the first colonizer to recruit local soldiers in India, and his policies were learned by the British; He was also the first colonist to consider making a profit by collecting taxes in India rather than trading.

France was the only one in Europe that could open the East India Company to insolvency, and it was a shame for trade.

Let the French be old drivers and lead the way, that's really a rusty brain. The French themselves still don't understand it.

It is neither marketable nor long-lasting.

Come to think of it, Sweden is the most suitable.

First of all, the Swedes have a smuggling market, and they have a good relationship with the group of thieves in North America and the group of silverfish in Britain and Dutch.

After all, customer information is kept absolutely confidential.

Smugglers are the way out for Dashun to sell goods in Europe.

Formal channels are not feasible, Britain and Dutch France all have trade protectionism, and warships cannot force others to switch on and off, so naturally they have to rely on smugglers.

Moreover, the upcoming war of the Austrian succession, without even thinking about it, will inevitably lead to an economic depression in Dashun.

As soon as Europe was sold, silver was cut off all of a sudden, and the Jiangnan economy, which was supported by so many export goods every year, must be problematic.

Wars reduce consumption on one side, and more importantly for Europe to go to war, not just on land.

Britain will certainly send ships to this side to rob the Spanish treasure ships and attack the French merchant ships; The same is true for France, which will sneak up on Dutch and British merchant ships.

With great risk, the East India Company would certainly have reduced its ships during the war. Once a cargo ship is captured, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver will be lost.

Liu Yu didn't know much about the Swedish East India Company, but he knew a very famous ship, the Gothenburg.

When returning to Sweden from Guangdong, it sank, and then in 2005, it was rebuilt again, and the king and queen of Sweden went to Guangdong to meet them in Guangdong.

The ship was expensive, had a large displacement, and the timing of its sinking was interesting, which happened to be during the War of the Austrian Succession.

Liu Yu guessed that the Swedes spent a lot of money on a thousand-ton merchant ship like the Gothenburg, and then ran to Guangdong...... Obviously, because of the start of the Austrian Succession War, the war from Europe to Luzon and from Luzon to the Americas by sea must have affected the merchant ships of the belligerents.

Sweden, after Sweden was crippled by Russia, has no ability or strength to participate in the war in Europe again, and is definitely neutral. Naturally, he took advantage of the opportunity of the war in Europe to frantically work overtime to transport goods from China to Europe.

It's an easy logic to understand.

Europe was at war, Dashun's foreign trade volume plummeted, and Chinese merchants who hoarded goods would inevitably reduce their prices and sell them off.

The war in Europe, the merchant ships of the belligerent countries were affected, but this was not a general war, it was just a war of the nobles fighting for power, the nobles and the rich should still eat, drink, and the demand for silk and porcelain would not be gone because of the war, and the supply exceeded the demand, and the price would definitely rise.

Dashun is a big sale here, and the price is reduced; On the European side, demand is in short supply, and prices are rising.

Such a good opportunity, if you don't take advantage of it, you will naturally be blind.

The Swedes probably seized on this loophole and frantically built ships to transport goods. Liu Yu naturally has to seize this loophole.

The Swedes are a good breakthrough.