The opponent of Jinghua Trading Company is out of the sea.

It has been nearly eight years since the construction of Tianjin private port in the last years of Longqing, and in these eight years, Gao pragmatic has once again let the world see the magic of the golden hand even more than once.

First of all, the rise of Tianjin Port is jaw-dropping. Originally, according to the thoughts of others, the so-called parallel of Cao and Hai is nothing more than transferring part of the tasks that Cao Yun cannot complete to the sea, and Cao Yun is originally a loss-making business, so the sea should also be unprofitable.

Is Caoyun trading at a loss? Definitely, this point is very clear to Gao Shi, he read several monographs on the Ming Dynasty Cao Yun in his spare time in his previous life, and they all think that Cao Yun must be a loss-making business, and there is detailed data to support it.

In fact, the fortune of the Ming Dynasty is not a profitable undertaking in itself, and the Ming court has never regarded the cost issue as a major matter.

For example, in the case of grain, despite the high cost of transportation, the imperial court still sold grain in Beijing from time to time at a lower price than the initial price, is this a cost consideration? Apparently not, this is from the perspective of the stability of the Gyeonggi region.

The consumption of labour, especially to maintain the course of the Cao River, is often not taken into account by the transport authorities. As a matter of fact, while the whole country is doing its best to transport grain to the north, private businessmen are transporting grain to the south in the Huaihe and Huguang areas.

Gao Shipra's deepest impression of the problem of Cao Yun was that he once said in a certain monograph: "In 1632, the Ming Court of the Shangshu of the Ministry of Household Affairs reported that a large number of taxes paid in kind had not yet been collected, including the honey paid by Suzhou on the list, and its value was less than 28 taels of silver. This petition was submitted when the national tax arrears exceeded 170,000 taels of silver.

In addition, the circulation channels of coins can also reflect the lack of systematic management. In 1592, Wanping County, to which Beijing belonged, issued 27 military stations and institutions to the central government, some of which were located on the Great Wall for delivery. However, all the articles were worth less than 2 taels of silver, some of them were worth less than 5 taels, and some were even worth only one or two taels. We are not surprised by this, and the Ming bureaucracy also set up many costly and wasteful procedures for the management of the Cao River. ”

The Cao River, also known as the Grand Canal, is itself a man-made river, and its operational efficiency is not only closely related to the sediment content of the Yellow River, the water level of Gaoyou Lake, and the freezing season in North China, but also to a considerable extent depends on the views of the people of the time and their reactions to various problems.

What is the main reason why the Cao River occupies a prominent position and has always been the only trunk line to transport to the capital? What is the quantity and variety of items transported on the Cao River? How to manage the Cao River? How can I not lose money?

Gao Shishi knew very well that what really determined this series of issues was not the natural environment, but the ideology that dominated the imperial court.

But Gao Pragmatic can't solve this problem for the time being, not to mention that he is just a person now, even if he becomes an assistant now. To solve this problem, he not only needs to become an assistant, but also needs the full support of the emperor, and he also needs to have a large number of protégés and former officials, political allies, and even has a high reputation among the scholars, otherwise he will not be able to deal with the opposition of the government and the opposition.

Therefore, he could only avoid the important and lightly transfer part of the water transportation function to the sea, which was still done by relying on Gao Gong, the assistant third uncle who supported the opening of the sea.

However, after the transfer of this part of the transport function, will Tianjin Port be able to reach it? Of course not.

If it only relies on this part of the transit business of shipping grain, the pragmatic Tianjin private port can at most guarantee that it will not starve to death, and it is definitely not enough to reach it. Therefore, Gao Pragmatic has prepared a supporting method early on, that is, to attract investment.

Of course, it is not to attract investment to build factories in Tianjin, but to attract more southern businessmen to sell goods to Beijing and the entire north by sea by building and improving the facilities of Tianjin Port! At the same time, the goods from the north were transported back to the south through Tianjin Port for sale. Only by forming this booming upsurge of north-south trade, as the owner of the port of Tianjin, can he make enough profits in it.

At the same time, Gao pragmatic was not limited to the port itself, after the port of Tianjin began to make a profit, he began to target more excellent ports, and also began to build his own shipyard.

He still followed the old routine, that is, to buy wasteland in advance, and built a new port in the Bohai Rim region. So far, new ports have been built, including Yingkou Port at the mouth of the Liaohe River in eastern Liaodong, which was renamed by Gao Shishi for the convenience of calling, Tangshan Port near the mouth of the Luanhe River, Laizhou Port in northern Shandong, and Jiaozhou Port in the southeast of Shandong, later Qingdao.

Among them, the four ports of Tianjin, Tangshan, Yingkou and Laizhou are the four pillar ports of his "Bohai Rim Business Circle" plan.

Tianjin Port because of the back of the Beijing Division, the core position is certain, so the scale is also the largest Tangshan Port is the main significance of transporting the products of the three major factories of Kaiping, both civil and military, but because the goods are relatively single, the market is still limited, so the scale of this port is currently the smallest Laizhou Port is mainly responsible for the transfer of goods to Shandong, because the current Shandong economy and population core is mainly in the later Jinan area 6, and Laizhou is relatively close to Jiaozhou Port, In fact, it is mainly an "anchorage" for Gao Pragmatic to expand to the south, and its commercial value itself is still relatively limited, but it also has another important task, which is to become the first shipbuilding base of Gao Pragmatic.

The geographical advantages of Qingdao Port are naturally unparalleled, in addition to being a natural deep-water port, sheltered from wind and waves, and all kinds of natural conditions, it also has an advantage that the location itself is not far from North China to the north, and Jiangnan is not far from the south.

Gao pragmatic set the first shipbuilding base here, that is, he hoped to build an all-round shipbuilding base here that can produce flat-bottomed sand ships suitable for the Bohai Sea, and can also produce pointed bottom sea ships suitable for the East China Sea and even the South Sea.

After the completion of these major ports, the Bohai Rim business circle has actually laid a good foundation.

Nowadays, the leather goods, Dongzhu, wild ginseng, and other things from Liaodong can be easily transported to Yingkou through the Liaohe River, and then from Yingkou, transported to Tianjin, and then transferred to the south.

Silk, porcelain, cotton cloth and even grain from the south can also be directly transported to the ports in the north to meet the needs of Beizhili, Shandong, Liaodong and other places.

The iron products and cement of the three major factories in Kaiping can also meet the needs of various parts of the north and even the south of the Yangtze River through Tangshan Port

In such a revitalized port circle, the berthing fee alone can make Gao Pragmatic earn, not to mention the many warehouses and stores in the port, all of which are a good business.

Especially when Gao Pragmatic unified these businesses under the name of "Jinghua Sea Trade", Jinghua Trading Company naturally could not stand out!