"So, the French are closing the market to us completely?" In the Admiralty of Dongfang Port, Colonel Lu Ming, who had only been elected chief of the general staff of the national armed forces and minister of the navy at the new National People's Congress at the beginning of the year (early January 1650), asked thoughtfully.

In the past, he would never pay too much attention to these things, as the so-called is not in his position, he does not seek politics. But now that he is the supreme commander of the military department and one of the members of the Central Executive Committee, it is logical to pay attention to these national affairs. Moreover, he now consciously speaks more in these important matters in order to increase his sense of existence and consolidate his position. After all, it is not a simple matter to forcibly seize the post of chief of the general staff of the military department, which has been held by the army for 19 years as the secretary of the navy. To put it mildly, it's safer for Lu Ming to live on a warship at night, otherwise it's completely unpredictable - of course, the above is just a joke.

"Not to mention the complete closure, the profit will be lost." Xu Xin, who was also newly elected as one of the members of the Central Executive Committee, smiled and said: "I have been in charge of the Bordeaux trading station for many years, and I know the situation there best. We have three major agents in the south of France, the local Pasquier merchant family in Bordeaux, and the local Loris family, which has a great influence in the church, and the Baron de Toulouse, who helped us to market the goods of the east coast to the central and southern provinces of Aquitaine, Lower Gallen, Provence, and Languedoc, and brought us more than 800,000 yuan a year before the tariff was raised. However, now the three of them have unanimously demanded that the import of the most sold white cotton cloth be stopped, but the high-end market of dyed cloth and calico is growing slowly, and the tax rate on textiles such as burqas, capes, towels, socks, gloves, and curtains has also been raised separately. The sales of China's textiles in the French market will definitely show a big rout. The annual loss of profits is more than 500,000 yuan. ”

"Also. In recent years, we have made great efforts to promote the sales of refined flour, dyed leather goods, medicines, hardware tools and other goods in the French market, which have also been affected by a certain extent, although the increase in tariff rates is not as exaggerated as that of textiles, but it is inevitable that profits will be compressed. The only thing that is not affected now is probably the steel bar that the French urgently need, and the Frenchman has not raised tariffs. Xu Xin continued to introduce to Lu Ming the increasingly severe foreign trade situation on the east coast, and only listened to him say: "If you count the expected future gains, it is certain that my country will lose more than one million yuan in profits in the French market every year." Lao Lu, this is a heavy crisis! Think about how big we are now, how many projects we have to invest in, and how many people we have to support. Last year's fiscal revenue was just over 3 million, but this time it has decreased by nearly 30 percent, and this year's fiscal revenue is likely to run a huge deficit. ”

"Hehe, Qiang Quansheng has just become the Minister of Finance and a member of the Central Executive Committee, and he is facing such a mess, maybe he will have to use the reserve gold stored in the Army No. 1 Prison, right?" Lu Ming smiled bitterly, and his words were a little anxious for him.

"Use the reserve gold and another bird!" Xu Xin was not afraid of foul language in private, but listened to him continue: "Nowadays, not only is there a lack of money, but industrial overproduction is also a problem. The goods are produced and no one buys them. With so many upstream and downstream manufacturers, the entire industrial chain will lose money. Workers' incomes will inevitably fall into a rapid decline, and the domestic situation will be full of twists and turns. At that time, it will spend a lot of money to maintain stability, which is simply a vicious circle, and sooner or later it will not be able to continue. The crisis in the shipping industry a few years ago has taught us that the Great Depression caused by overcapacity is the most terrible. ”

"At this time, it is also unreliable to engage in infrastructure construction, which will strictly raise the domestic inflation level and cause social unrest. In our multi-ethnic country, the cost of social unrest can be too high for us to bear. Xu Xin continued to analyze, "In the past two years, we relied on guiding social capital to invest in infrastructure and overseas plantation projects, which barely pulled inflation back. At this time, there will be a second round of infrastructure investment -- I've heard that some fools are advocating 4 million infrastructure investment, right? Now that the average wage of workers has risen from 5 yuan in previous years to 6-7 yuan, if inflation rises again, do you want to raise the income level of workers across the country? If it doesn't rise, their living standards will decline, there will be social turmoil, and if it rises, the manufacturing industry will be so difficult, and the labor cost will soar again, should they continue to operate? Do you want to compete with the Europeans? The Genoa directors of the Rocha textile factory have complained to us twice that the cost of wages, materials, and operating costs of workers is rising, which erodes the profitability of the factory. Fortunately, the sales channels are effective, and the overall profit margin of Luoqia Textile Factory is also high, otherwise its situation will be very difficult in the second half of the year. ”

The situation Xu Xin said is indeed the reality that the East Coast is facing today, and in this export-oriented economy, any bit of market turmoil will be strongly affected. There are only two ways to get out of this unfavorable situation: one is to expand the domestic market, change the mode of economic growth, and change external demand into domestic demand -- but in the case of a sparse domestic population and factories producing far more goods than they need, this road is destined to be impassable in the short term; The second is to open up new markets, through guò diversified regional markets to get rid of the strict dependence on a single market, such as the Greater Spanish market that emerged after the East Coasters took the Genoa line, and the Russian market that Mo San in Europe is trying to open up, and the Persian market that the naval expedition fleet has just visited. If these markets had been successfully developed, then perhaps France's brazen tariff hike would not have caused such a serious crisis.

As for the Indian market and the Daming market, which some people in China yearn for wishful thinking, according to the analysis of the Ministry of Trade, there is basically no market in Daming at this time, and the Indian market is also very limited. There is no need to say that the Ming Dynasty is in the midst of war - and the citizens of this country are not accustomed to buying other people's things even in peacetime, they prefer to do everything themselves, even if the cost is higher - the Indian market is far from being as large as one might think.

First of all, the wealth of this country is very concentrated, basically among a very small number of people such as princes and high castes, what good things do they have? Still need your? The other thing that is worse is that the country is now regarded as dead by the Portuguese, Dutch, British, and even Danish countries, and the people of the East Coast will become the target of public criticism if they go. Therefore, even if a small number of middle-income earners in this country were to buy goods from the East Coast, it would not be cost-effective to rush through it, because it would attract the envy of other countries.

In this way, the French market that is likely to be replaced in the short term is nothing more than the Persian, Russian and Spanish markets. Among them, the Greater Spanish market has grown steadily, the profit has increased steadily, and it is indeed a high-quality market, and the sales channels of Genoese are indeed very strong, but the volume is still much worse than that of France; The Russian market is unrealistic in the short term, and Mo Sandu feels that it will definitely not be profitable in the first three years, and it is difficult to say after three years; The Persian market is possible, but it also depends on the results of the "gunboat diplomacy" of the Second Fleet of the East Coast Navy.

Of course, the Peruvian smuggling trade that the Southern Railroad has just hatched is also a way. To tell the truth, the prospects for this market are still very good, because of the Spanish policy, most of the production and living materials needed by millions of people in the entire Viceroyalty of Peru need to be imported from distant Europe, which means that the region has almost no industrial production capacity, and is completely an agrarian society.

And even better, this is still an agrarian society with a high degree of commoditization, and the residents have become accustomed to buying goods that they do not produce, rather than preferring to produce their own goods like the Chinese, which is really a dumping ground for goods tailor-made for industrial countries! It is no wonder that after the 18th century, Britain dominated the South American market, using it as a dumping place for its own goods and raw materials, and after the independence of South America, it became a capital export center for Britain, and it sucked the blood of the British Empire for two or three hundred years -- well, it seems that it is still being sucked by a certain big country.

The Peruvian market was adjacent to the East Coast mainland, and the local colonial officials and the native white elite were happy to see the smuggling trade with the East Coast, and many of them actively acted as compradors for East Coast goods. The negative side may be the dissatisfaction of the government of the Kingdom of Spain, and the dissatisfaction of the European smugglers, the monopoly merchants, whose profits have fallen, and this is a great conflict. However, the people of the East Coast are the head snakes in South America, and they are not afraid of these people's tricks, and if there is really any conflict, it is not certain who will suffer at that time.

"This time I came to you, in fact, it is also the intention of the other members of the executive committee, and I will communicate with you privately on behalf of them." Xu Xin said with some sternness, "There may be a series of measures in the country in the future, including political and commercial, your navy spends so much military spending every year, it's time to stand up and protect the country." Our policies will sting a lot of people and cut off a lot of money, so it's not surprising that anything is happening at this time. Therefore, the Navy cannot be ambiguous at this time, and when it is time to stand up, it must stand up resolutely. Okay, I won't say much about the specifics, tomorrow is the work meeting, and you will be clear about the specific details by then. (To be continued......)