Gao Pragmatic came to them to talk about maritime trade, and this time the action will be very big.

As early as after Gao Qi defeated the alliance of the Fujian pirates, Gao Pragmatic had been thinking about one thing, to separate Jinghua's maritime power from the private ports, and then slightly integrate it to form the North and South Ocean Fleet, that is, the North Ocean Fleet and the South Ocean Fleet.

Although these two terms are a little tragic for Gao Pragmatism, they also have a sense of challenge.

Different from the North and South Ocean Fleet at the end of the Qing Dynasty, the North and South Ocean Fleet in the highly pragmatic planning is tilted towards the South Ocean Fleet.

This is a matter determined by different times and different interests and weights, after all, in his planning, the area in charge of the Beiyang Fleet is relatively small, which is the northern coast of the Ming Dynasty and the waters of Korea and Japan, and the southernmost is only to Nanzhili.

Of course, including Nanzhili, it also includes Suzhou Mansion and Songjiang Mansion, which means that the Shanghai Block of the Magic Capital in later generations is still in the responsible area of Beiyang. But it doesn't stop there, starting from Zhejiang all the way to the south, until the current Annan region, all of them are the areas of responsibility of the Nanyang Fleet, and more importantly, the Nanyang areas that will definitely set foot in the future are all under the responsibility of the Nanyang Fleet.

However, even so, the strength of the Beiyang Fleet will not be too weak, at least Gao Pragmatic will definitely adhere to a "two-strong standard": that is, the strength of the Beiyang Fleet must be guaranteed to exceed the current sum of the maritime forces of North Korea and Japan.

This standard is not high or not, and it is not low to say low.

The reason for this is that both North Korea and Japan have relatively limited official maritime forces. Needless to say, North Korea has been peaceful for 200 years, the army is not accustomed to war, and the army will be arrogant and lazy, and the sea power can be expressed in a simple way - soy sauce.

Don't look at Li Sunchen was blown to the end by the later Koreans, and even became the so-called "first general in Asia", but everyone understands the habits of the great powers of the universe, and before it was the turn of the Chinese to speak, he was ridiculed by the Japanese - without the help of the Ming army, Li Sunchen did not even have the opportunity to appear.

Moreover, even according to the South Korean side, Yi Sunsin led only "14 warships and 100 civilian ships converted into combat ships" in the Battle of Luliang, and the so-called "turtle boat" is invincible, and some people in later generations have already discussed its absurdity, simply put, the biggest problems of this ship are the following: the hull is low, not suitable for long-distance voyages, weak firepower, and high cost.

As for the defense for which it is famous...... With the metallurgical level of North Korea, it is difficult to say how big a layer of iron can be, but it is nothing more than relying on the heavy muskets of the Japanese army at that time and not the heavy artillery, and there is not enough firepower at sea.

Moreover, whether the hull of the ship was covered with iron sheets, or whether some iron nails and iron cones were added, the historians of China, Japan and North Korea have not been able to give a credible statement until later generations.

There was no hero at the time, so he made the erector famous.

Even "no heroes in time" has problems, the artillery of the Ming army's battleship at that time is likely to be enough to break through the defense of the turtle ship, but North Korea is lucky, and Daming's father is a friendly army.

In addition, Yi Sunsin started late, he only won the martial arts five years ago, and now although he is thirty-seven years old, he still doesn't know where to play.

After such a horizontal comparison, Gao Pragmatic felt that the current naval strength of the DPRK might not be able to resist the Jinghua transport fleet in Tianjin Port alone.

And the Japanese side, this year is not too worried, don't look at the pirates seem to be very powerful, in the Ming coastal area for almost two hundred years, in fact, in the Jiajing Dynasty, the most fierce pirates in the Ming Dynasty, the proportion of the real pirates in the Ming Dynasty is about one-tenth, the rest are basically the Ming Dynasty's own pirates, just under the guise of the Ming pirates.

After Zhang Jing, Hu Zongxian, and Tan Lun's anti-Japanese war, not only did a number of famous generals such as Yu Dayou, Qi Jiguang, and Liu Xian emerge, basically exterminating the vast majority of the Japanese groups that had become a climate, but also with the advancement of Gao Gong's policy of opening up the sea, there are fewer and fewer Japanese invaders now.

Some time ago, the defeat of the Fujian Sea Pirate Alliance accelerated the decline of the Japanese group.

Moreover, even in the most ferocious period of the Japanese pirates, the Japanese invaders' own ships did not have any advantages to talk about, and the really reliable pirate ships used as the main force were almost all provided by the Ming pirates......

On the contrary, Japan's official naval power is not very good, which only needs to look at the deeds of Wang Zhi, the "King of the Pure Sea", in Japan. Japan is very familiar with current affairs, and if they can't win, they will make friends, not to mention that Wang Zhi can also get them advanced arquebuses, so Wang Zhi even proclaimed himself King Hui in Japan.

However, the premise of this situation is very clear: Japan's maritime power has no way to deal with Wang Zhi.

So a horizontal comparison, the current naval power of Japanese officials is not worth mentioning.

However, the reason why Gao Pragmatic thinks that "low is not low" is because this year is already the ninth year of Wanli, that is, 1581 AD, next year Wanli 10, Japan Tensho 10, there will be a change in Honnoji Temple.

In a few years after the Honnoji Rebellion, the monkey will basically unify Japan, and then Japan's maritime power will be rapidly increased by his ambitions.

Therefore, the key to the success of the Beiyang Fleet's two-power standard lies in whether it can overpower Japan in the next few years, and it has little to do with North Korea.

Gao pragmatic is certainly rich, but he does not intend to rely on the Jinghua Group alone to conquer the world, whether the Beiyang Fleet can overwhelm the ambitious Japan after reunification, and he does not plan to rely on the Jinghua Group itself to support - Jinghua is still a commercial group in the final analysis, it is to pursue interests, if a large number of pure warships, even if the Ming Dynasty does not pay attention to it, he himself feels that it is a serious waste, so the warships are only the core, and the strength of the periphery has to rely on armed merchant ships, which is also popular in this era.

However, Jinghua also has a "political task", that is, to drive a group of high-level Ming officials who originally only knew how to occupy land to turn their attention to the sea and overseas, instead of grabbing the land of the poor guards and poor people.

In this era, it is too extravagant to talk about patriotism, so we have to talk about interests, and only interests can make these people turn their attention away.

However, before talking about interests, it is still necessary to let these know what is going on in marine trade and what capital is needed to make money on the ocean.

This is the work of Gao Qi and those masters of the ship department today.

How lucrative is maritime trade?

Vasco da Gama has a record, he did it 70 times. You read it right, and I didn't write it wrong, it's 70 times the profit.

However, at present, Jinghua's profits are not so high, because Jinghua can't even go to India now, let alone Arabia or even Europe.

The farthest trading point Jinghua can reach is Malacca, trading with the Portuguese – it could have been traded in Macau, but it was more profitable to ship to Malacca. If you trade directly in Macau, the profit is only two to three times, but once you send it to Malacca, the profit margin can be increased to more than 7 times at the lowest and nearly 15 times at the highest.

Why? Because the Portuguese in Macao could trade with Cantonese merchants nearby, there were many fewer Cantonese merchants who could go to Malacca to do business. In addition, due to the size advantage of Jinghua, it can monopolize certain goods to a certain extent, such as the simplest one: Jun porcelain in Henan, this thing is now only genuine in the hands of Gao Pragmatic, and the high profits are simply terrifying: all are more than 30 times.

There is also the lake silk Su embroidery, because Wei Guogong, Linhuai Hou and a number of nobles have become the hardcore collaborators of Jinghua, these cutting-edge silk products near Nanzhili are now basically monopolized by Jinghua, and it is not easy for maritime merchants in Suzhou and Hangzhou to get the goods.

In this way, it is difficult for the corresponding Portuguese to get the goods at a low price, and these goods can be sent to Malacca all the way due to Jinghua's ocean-going capabilities, and the profits will naturally come up.

Only Cantonese embroidery is not easy to control, and the main problem is that Portugal's Macau stronghold is too close.

It's a pity that Gao Pragmatic still has too many things to do, and it is not yet time to turn against Spain and Portugal, otherwise he will definitely try to get rid of this stronghold and take back Macau.

Of course, this is also a matter of time, and there are other uses for Portugal at the moment.

I heard that the profits of maritime trade can be multiplied several times at every turn, and even some can be increased more than ten times, and the nobles are not calm, and can even be described as restless.

Gao Pragmatic quietly looked at it with a smile in the dark, and the appearance of this group of people was like missing the red envelopes sent by the big guy in the WeChat group, as if they had accidentally lost 200 million.

However, there were also relatively stable nobles who began to ask questions, such as the cost of the ship, the daily maintenance fee, how long it takes to change ships, the hiring costs and daily expenses of the ship's personnel, and the extent of the war damage that may be caused in case of pirates.

Although Gao Qi has not been in the sea trade for a long time, he has made some achievements with all his heart, and the hard work is extremely deep, and it is not difficult to explain these problems.

Although they did not know how to fight, they were very good at settling accounts, and they discussed in private, and soon came to several conclusions:

First of all, maritime trade cannot be fought alone, otherwise it is easy to be blacked and blacked, and it must form a joint force to be strong and safe.

Secondly, you have to have an experienced veteran driver to lead the team, otherwise you will lose a lot of profits, where is the heart to earn ten times the profit?

Thirdly, only by having more people can there be a "monopoly effect" than Jinghua said, although it seems that they can only follow Jinghua's Beiyang Fleet at present, that is, only North Korea and Japan can do it, and if they go to Nanyang, Nanjing Xungui is afraid that he will not agree. But it doesn't matter, let's test the waters of North Korea and Japan first, and then if Nanyang is more profitable, then go and talk to the rabbit cubs in Nanjing - Yanjing's Jingnan nobles are more popular than Nanjing's founding nobles!

So the final conclusion is obvious: you must take the giant ship of Jinghua in order to make money and make a lot of money!

To be more precise, it is to join the "Beiyang Maritime Trade Alliance" proposed by Gao Qi just now adhering to the pragmatic meaning!