Chapter 1011 East Asian Routes

Guangzhou Business Zone, which is the first area dedicated to foreign trade in the Tang Dynasty, is also the most active and largest foreign trade area in the Tang Dynasty.

Trade Zone, this is a special administrative division in the Tang Dynasty, taking Guangzhou Trade Zone as an example, the place is not big, but in the southwest of Guangzhou City, on the north bank of the Pearl River, a piece of five kilometers long, three kilometers wide, with a total area of only 15 square kilometers, the whole area is surrounded by a wall, guarded by the direct garrison of the military.

However, this area is only about 15 square kilometers, and its administrative level is the state level, the head of the business zone, the level is Zhengwupin, and at the same time, like other state capitals, it has all kinds of subordinate institutions, and there is no difference between it and other state-level yamen in all aspects, the only difference is that there are several more special jurisdictional institutions, mainly for foreign merchants and some management departments of trade.

The various statutes and systems of the business zone are formulated by the cabinet itself, and the yamen of the trade zone does not have the power to change them on its own.

The main function of the business zone is to use Chinese and foreign businessmen to trade, for foreign businessmen to live and live, to buy real estate in the form of long-term rental, or in other words, this is a relatively large trade market, with some residences, warehouses, docks and other supporting facilities.

At present, there are seven such trade zones in the Tang Dynasty, no more, no less, and each treaty port has one.

In addition, it is worth noting that the original intention of the Tang Dynasty to establish the trade zone was to facilitate trade, and on the other hand, it was also to centralize the management of foreign merchants.

Pay attention to the word 'management'!

Foreign merchants are not allowed to come to the trade zone without any privileges, and even subject to many restrictions, for example, they are not allowed to leave the scope of the trade zone and enter other areas of the Tang Dynasty.

For example, it is necessary to abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty, all laws, for example, the laws of the Tang Dynasty stipulate that the sale of human beings is prohibited, and any form of slavery is abolished.

And many foreigners have slaves, not to mention slavery, and even slavery, if these foreigners want to buy slaves or even slaves in the trade zone, it is absolutely not allowed.

Of course, those slaves brought by foreigners, the Tang Dynasty said that they still did not admit it, and you yourself are willing to fight and suffer in private, but if someone reports to the official, then there is no negotiation for directly arresting people and fines.

It will not be because he says that he is a foreigner, and their country can own slaves, and then he can legally own slaves when he comes to Datang, because in this case, strictly speaking, there will be a serious problem of extrajudicial jurisdiction.

Therefore, the Tang Dynasty is too lazy to deal with it, as long as you come to the Tang Dynasty to trade, then you must abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty, including slandering and slandering the Holy Son of Heaven and the royal family, which are all not allowed.

If you are not willing to abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty: Get out!

Of course, in order to welcome foreign merchants and slaves, they can not take the ship with them, as long as they don't get off the ship, the law enforcement officers of the Tang Dynasty are too lazy to take care of it.

As for the Chinese people who want to enter and exit the business zone, it was more troublesome before, and only the staff of the vetted merchants can enter and exit.

But now it's much simpler, basically as long as you show the access card issued by the yamen of the business zone, then you can enter and exit the business zone at will, and there is no requirement to handle this access card, only the people of the Tang Dynasty can apply for it, temporary access card, the deadline is one month, the cost of work is twenty wen, a penny is not much, a penny is a lot, the price is fixed, without any intermediary agent, go to the application window to show the road guide issued by the patrol police bureau where the household registration is located, and confirm that it is correct for you, you can get the pass on the spot.

Long-term access card, this has to be handled by the agency instead of the expression, individuals can not handle it, usually are the office employees in the business zone, there is no need for individuals, long-term access is needed, just do it once a month.

The price is clearly stipulated, and Tong Su is not bullied.

Theoretically speaking, Jiangyang thieves can also apply for a pass, but whether they will be found out that they have committed a crime when they go to apply for a pass, and then they will be caught, is another matter.

Today's business zone does not restrict the entry and exit of Chinese people, but restricts the entry and exit of foreigners, and there will be no thing that the people of the Tang Dynasty are not allowed to enter.

Datang's current seven business zones, Tianjin Business Zone and Jiaozhou Business Zone have just begun to be listed, even the fence has not yet been built, for the time being is just an empty shelf, the real operation is Lianzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai landless, foreign businessmen to trade in China, can only go to one of the above five ports.

Other ports are not allowed to enter.

Guangzhou business district is the earliest, but also because of the geographical advantage, is now the best development of the business area, here, with businessmen from all over the world, the wharf of the business area, there will be at least 20 or more large ships moored all year round, the peak period, that is, before the winter northeast monsoon begins to blow, in the most suitable time period for the south of Malacca and even the Indian Ocean, you can even see hundreds of large ships crowded together, waiting for the monsoon to begin, Then set sail for the grand occasion of various parts of the South Seas and even to India and West Africa!

Don't think that there are less than twenty in normal times, you must know that these are all ships that specialize in going to the open sea, even if they are just small ships that run in the South Seas, most of them have two or three hundred tons, and generally speaking, the tonnage is generally five hundred tons, seven or eight hundred tons are very common, and sometimes even thousands of tons of Spanish Galen ships can be seen in and out.

And here, it is only a port in the trade zone, and most of the ships anchored here are specially designed to run the sea.

Not far away, is the port of call for domestic routes, Guangzhou Wharf, where there are more ships, generally speaking, they are smaller, such as a few tons of small sampans, dozens of tons of inland river vessels.

There are also 1 or 200-ton Guangzhou ships and sand ships, in addition to all kinds of new merchant ships such as 350 merchant ships and 680 merchant ships built by Guangzhou Shipyard and Dingsheng Shipyard.

Large and small, at a glance, almost all over the river, densely packed with hundreds of ships.

Here, it is the busiest port in the Tang Dynasty and even in the whole of East Asia, and even the port of Shanghai, which has great potential, is not as good as the port of Guangzhou for the time being.

Here in the business area, the daily trading volume is very huge, and from time to time there are large sea ships being guided into the port of the business area!

Today, another Galen ship of at least 600 tons slowly sailed into the port of call in the Guangzhou Trade Zone, a Portuguese merchant ship that departed from Malacca and took advantage of the southwest monsoon to come to Guangzhou northward, and the owner of this ship was Captain Sland.

Slander was a Portuguese merchant who, like many merchants who had only one ship and was also the captain of the ship, was a sailor by training, and struggled for decades to save up the money for a second-hand merchant ship.

However, after he bought this second-hand Galen ship, he did not run the long and distant route from Europe to East Asia like many of his peers, and the East Asian route he ran was generally from Malacca to Japan.

This is actually the main shipping route in the East Asian seas at present.

This route is not long at present, but it is not short, the supply along the way is very convenient, the risk is small, although the overall profit of running once is not much, but it is better to run a round trip in a year, and because of the support of the super economy of the Tang Dynasty, I am not afraid of no business to do, and now the Tang Dynasty wants everything, buy everything, as long as you don't make a fool, you won't lose money by running this route.

This route is basically taking advantage of the southwest monsoon to start from Malacca all the way north, passing through several small ports in Annam along the way, and then entering the Datang range, according to the situation, you can enter the five ports of Lianzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai for trade.

Some of the specialties of Europe, Africa, West Asia, India, Nanyang and other regions, such as spices from the South Seas. Sell a large part of the funds back at the port of Datang.

Then buy Datang's special products in the port of Datang, such as silk, tea, porcelain, glass, soap, cloth, woollen wool, matches, etc., after these things are acquired, no matter where they go to buy, they can be sold at a good price.

In addition, you can also buy waist knives made of stainless steel, plate armor made of stainless steel and even arquebuses, these ordnance weapons, the three major weapons companies of the Tang Dynasty are happy to sell these weapons and armor, and these things are in Fusang or Nanyang, or even shipped to India, and a large number of people rush to ask for them.

Especially the plate armor, which is so well made that even the Portuguese themselves are blushing when they see it, and now the Portuguese garrison in Malacca, many of them are equipped with the plate armor produced by the Tang Dynasty.

After leaving Shanghai, if there is enough time, they can continue to go north, go to North Korea, go to the Ryukyus, and then go to Fusang, after selling the goods, they can buy some special products of Fusang, such as sulfur, Fusang has many volcanoes, and the production of sulfur is also large, and the Tang Dynasty because of military and industrial needs, the demand for sulfur is almost unlimited, and the price is not bad, so every merchant who comes to Fusang to trade is more or less to bring some sulfur.

And then there's gold and silver!

Yes, that's right, the merchants came to Fusang to trade, mainly for their gold and silver, today's Fuso gold and silver production is relatively large compared to other regions of the same period, it is not an exaggeration to say that gold and silver are everywhere, and because of the shortage of copper coins, so their gold, silver and copper coins exchange ratio is relatively low.

Many people come here with copper coins to exchange for gold and silver, and then leave directly with gold and silver.