It is actually inappropriate to use the navy to compare with the Datang Western Company.

Because the navy's annual military expenditure of several million taels of silver is purely an expense, not an investment or anything like that.

The Tang Western Company, although it has an army and a colony, is still a commercial company in the final analysis, at most its business model is more special, since it is a commercial company, then it must pay attention to profits.

The company fleet of the Datang Western Company, in the final analysis, is still a commercial armed force, not a military force that purely serves politics, but the Portuguese are making trouble in the Indian Ocean, which seriously infringes on the commercial interests of the Datang Western Company.

In this case, when the people of the navy came to the door and said that they wanted to sell a batch of old warships of the navy, including even two cruisers, the people of Datang Western Company were immediately interested.

In fact, many of the active warships of the Datang Western Company were also purchased from the navy, but the number purchased was not large, and they were all purchased piecemeal by piece, but they had never done this kind of big deal of warships.

In fact, the Navy sells warships, in addition to supporting the fleet of the Datang Western Company to confront the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, it also has the idea of taking the opportunity to retire a number of old warships of the Navy and return funds to purchase new warships!

Although it is said that as long as the wooden battleships in this year are well maintained, the service period can be as long as decades, but the tactical positioning of a batch of warships in service in the early days of the Datang Navy is somewhat different from that of the Datang Navy today.

The most obvious of these were the cruisers and frigates that were in service in the early days, and their displacement was significantly smaller than the standard for warships established seven years after Xuanping.

Since the seventh year of Xuanping, all kinds of warships built by the empire have basically had clear standards, and cruisers must reach at least 800 tons, so as to ensure firepower and seaworthiness in the ocean.

And the tonnage of the frigate also needs to reach more than four hundred and fifty tons!

But before the seven years of Xuanping, the standard was only five hundred and fifty tons for cruisers, and three hundred and fifty tons for frigates.

Although it is said that the early warships can still be used, it is obviously a little uncomfortable to use.

In addition, in the early years, the shipbuilding technology was not mature enough, the quality of the warships built was uneven, and it was more troublesome to repair and maintain.

As for the Tang Western Company, there is no problem with standards, they are commercial companies, and they don't play any large-scale fleet decisive battles or the like, and their warships are more used for escort.

What's more, they are not willing to buy large-tonnage warships.

In the final analysis, Datang Western Company is still a commercial company, and it is impossible to pursue the combat effectiveness of warships without considering the cost, on the contrary, the cost is still the thing they care about the most.

Now that there are active warships for sale in the Navy, and the prices are low, they are naturally quite tempted.

After a simple negotiation, the two sides basically finalized this batch of deals!

The Navy will sell two 550-ton cruisers and six 350-ton frigates to Datang Western Company in batches, these warships will be retained when they are sold, and the Navy needs to train relevant command officers and sailors for Datang Western Company.

Therefore, the Navy will directly retire a group of officers and sailors who are willing to work in the fleet of the Datang Western Company.

Although it is said that the fleet of the Datang Western Company is only a commercial fleet, although it is in nature, it is also similar to the army of the Eight Classics, which is also officially recognized and has an official name.

Many officers who are difficult to get ahead in the army and navy, which are full of talents, are unwilling to give up their military careers, and are often willing to choose to continue serving in the fleet of the Datang Western Company.

This package of transactions between the navy and the Datang Western Company, including the sale of the warship itself, the sale of ammunition, personnel training, and so on, was worth 600,000 taels of silver.

This price is very satisfactory for Datang Western Company, and it is also profitable for the navy, in short, both parties are quite satisfied.

These old warships, even if they were cruisers, were only purchased at a price of more than 100,000 taels of silver, and after so many years of high-intensity use, they could almost be sold at the cost price, which was not a lot of money.

The navy has almost recovered the original cost of building ships, and then can use this money to buy new warships.

And for the Datang Western Company, this price is naturally a bit expensive, and they are also not stupid, knowing that the Navy sells these warships to them at a price that does not lose money, or even makes a small profit.

But do they care?

I don't care!

Because they got almost a whole fleet that could be used immediately!

It only cost 600,000 taels of silver to buy an entire fleet, but if a few merchant ships were plundered and sunk by the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean, it would also cost hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

The merchant ships that went to sea in recent years, especially those large merchant ships of more than hundreds of tons, almost every one of them was a moving treasure, and the hull itself was worthless, cheap tens of thousands of taels, and expensive only 100,000 taels, but the goods loaded on it were very valuable.

For example, in the past two years, Spanish merchant ships that have detoured from the Americas to the Pacific Ocean to Luzon and Datang for trade have been carrying goods on board each time they come?

Almost all gold and silver!

Yes, the Spaniards are so awesome, or rather helpless!

They came all the way from the Americas, and it was impossible to carry any goods of too low value, otherwise they would not be able to buy expensive spices, silk, porcelain and other goods to bring back to Europe after arriving in East Asia, while many other expensive goods were not needed by the Tang Dynasty.

Really speaking, the Tang Dynasty in this year is the first exporter of industrial products and all kinds of luxury jewelry!

Whether it is all kinds of industrial products, or silk, porcelain, tea and other things, these are actually not cheap, a shipload of silk, the value of goods can easily reach hundreds of thousands of taels of silver!

The Tang Dynasty was also the largest importer in this year, but most of the goods that the Tang Dynasty needed to import were various industrial raw materials and agricultural products, as well as some special products from other countries.

For example, sulfur from Fuso, high-quality shipbuilding timber from Southeast Asia, cotton from India and West Asia, and anthracite from Annam.

In addition, in the border trade with the northwest and north, a large number of cattle, horses, sheep and other livestock, as well as a large amount of wool, cotton and other goods.

These bulk imported goods, although they weigh a lot and have a large value, are actually things that are not very valuable in terms of unit price.

So, nowadays, whether it's the Spaniards or the Portuguese, in fact, in order to balance the trade, they often bring in a boatload of gold and silver.

In recent years, as the empire uses gold to denominate, gold has become the main trading currency, and the empire's attitude towards silver is very ambiguous.

There is no way, although the silver reserves within the empire are increasing, the depreciation of silver is inevitable.

In this regard, the main financial institutions within the empire, under the guidance of the Department of Finance of the Ministry of Taxation, have gradually begun to use gold for bulk trade, and the Royal Bank has also begun to issue gold bills and corresponding gold coin checks for overseas trade and domestic bulk trade.

However, there is still a considerable distance from the complete establishment of the gold standard!

The main trading behavior in China is still based on silver, well, silver tickets are also an extension of silver currency.

Gold trading is mainly concentrated in overseas trade and block trading.

Therefore, to a certain extent, the current imperial financial world implements a dual-standard system of gold and silver, and there is no fixed exchange rate between the two sides, but a floating exchange rate adopted by fundamental market fluctuations.

From the financial system within the empire, we can also witness how large the import of gold and silver from overseas trade has been in recent years.

However, European merchants such as Spaniards and Portuguese were also quite helpless, if they did not come directly with gold and silver, they simply could not afford to buy a large amount of silk, spices and other goods.

And it is precisely because of the huge value of the goods on these merchant ships that whether it is the Spaniards, the Portuguese, or the Tang Dynasty, they will actually escort the merchant ships.

There are even times when convoys are organized and warships are escorted to ensure safety along the way.

The main purpose of these warships purchased by Datang Western Company is also to escort ships!

It is better to spend hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to buy an entire fleet for escort than to sink a few merchant ships worth hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

After the two sides reached a preliminary agreement, this agreement was presented to the imperial court for discussion, after all, this is not an ordinary military trade, but involves the Datang Western Company and the navy, and they do not actually have the final decision, the final decision is in the hands of Li Xuan.

Li Xuan is naturally a person who will not be embarrassed, and both of them think that this transaction is to take what they need, so Li Xuan also approved it.

Not long after the transaction was approved, the navy officially handed over a total of eight warships to Datang Western Company!

It didn't take long for the eight warships on the exclusive dock of Datang Western Company in Guangzhou to begin to lower the blue background red dragon sword flag of the navy, and then raised the flag of Datang Western Company: black tiger flag on red background!

Black Tiger, this is the exclusive logo of Datang Western Company.

At first, they actually wanted to use the dragon logo, but because the dragon is the exclusive symbol of the royal family, except for the emperor, theoretically other institutions are not allowed to use the dragon logo.

In addition to the royal family, there is only the army that has been personally authorized by Li Xuan, and the flags of the army and navy are all blue flutes and red dragons holding sword flags, but this red dragon is a chubby red dragon.

As for the Guards, they use the royal family's iconic green dragon, which is a green dragon with a yellow background holding a sword flag!

The national flag is a green dragon flag on a yellow background that is common to the royal family.

So in the end, Datang Western Company used the Black Tiger as the company's logo and became the flag of the company's fleet!

When the fleet of the Datang Western Company flying the Black Tiger flag set sail and prepared to go to the South Seas first, and then enter the Indian Ocean, it also represented a new stage in the contradiction between the empire and Portugal!