Chunfeng Building, located in Mingyufang in the west of the capital, is the most frequented meeting place for businessmen in the capital, and it is also a place for chambers of commerce to exchange information and negotiate various agreements.

There is obviously a big party in today's Chunfeng Building, and the entire Chunfeng Building has been rented by the top ten chambers of commerce in the capital. The so-called Chunfeng Building is actually a three-story wooden building, and compared with other buildings in Mingyufang, this Chunfeng Building is also a building that stands out from the crowd.

Standing on the Chunfeng Tower during the day, you can enjoy the scenery inside and outside the capital, and at night, you can also see the lights of the West Garden of the Imperial Palace from afar.

Shen Lie, who was standing at the window on the third floor, was admiring the lights outside while absentmindedly listening to the speeches of the representatives of various chambers of commerce. As a young son of the Chongming Shen family, he and several brothers had just come out to assist his cousin Shen Tingyang in his work. This time, he accompanied his cousin Shen Tingyang to Beijing, but as soon as he arrived in Beijing, his cousin received an invitation from the Beijing Chamber of Commerce.

As a representative of Chongming maritime merchants and the chairman of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, Shen Tingyang is not only the representative of the emperor in Jiangnan, but also the representative of Shanghai merchants in front of the emperor. However, Shen Tingyang himself didn't want to be too ostentatious in the capital, so he arranged for Shen Lie to participate in the invitations of various chambers of commerce in the capital, he only needed to understand the purpose of the gathering of representatives of these chambers of commerce, and he didn't want to have too much to do with these businessmen.

Although Shen Lie came on behalf of his uncle, he only brought a pair of ears and did not intend to express any opinions. Originally, he didn't think that these businessmen could discuss any important content, but with the speeches of the representatives of various chambers of commerce, his attention slowly focused on the content discussed at the meeting.

Because the content of the discussion tonight of these chamber of commerce representatives is not just to coordinate some petty profits, as Shen Lie imagined, but to discuss the share of various goods in the domestic market and the cooperation in the development of foreign markets.

Since the first year of Chongzhen, the inner court began to lead the investment of social capital in the construction of the industrial system. Although the industrial zones of Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou, Jinan-Qingdao first-line, Luoyang, Xi'an, and south-central Shanxi began to take shape with the help of the commercial capital raised by the three banks and the assets of the northern gentry, the merchants of these areas soon discovered something.

The northern provinces were too barren, and with the emperor's unsparing industrial investment, the production capacity of light and heavy industries in the north had exceeded the upper limit of what the northern provinces could consume. At this point, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is actually quite good, and the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, which was invested and established by Chongming and Shanghai businessmen from the south, easily entered the Jiangnan area.

The consumption power of a county in the Jiangnan region is often the consumption capacity of one or several prefectures in the north, so even if the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is fully operational, it may not be able to meet the consumption demand in the Jiangnan region. However, geographical restrictions make it difficult for goods from the north to enter the south.

For example, the guilds and tooth shops in Jiangnan do not want cheap industrial products from the north to impact the markets they control, thereby harming their fixed income. For example, those new textile machines were disgusted by the textile workers and peasant women in the Jiangnan area, believing that the promotion of such machines would take away their food and clothing, and even Suzhou and Songjiang have seen several attacks on the textile workshops to burn the machines.

The large quantities of machine-made cotton cloth and cheap cotton yarn produced by textile workshops in the north are cracking down on the uneven quality of household cloth in rural areas of Jiangnan, making homemade cloth in many parts of Jiangnan increasingly difficult to sell. As a result of the inability to compete with the northern machinery in terms of technology and price, the markets of the South began to close themselves, and local officials and merchants began to use their administrative power to erect trade barriers.

Under such circumstances, it is easier to export goods overseas than to sell them to the Gangnam region. Unable to open the Jiangnan market in a short period of time, these chambers of commerce had to send representatives to negotiate in order to find new sales markets before their production capacity exceeded the current market capacity.

Shen Lie listened intently as the delegates spoke in order. “… Judging from the current form, although the North Korean side has a large order of 4.5 million yuan in the short term, this order cannot make up for the market that disappeared after the Japanese war. Because of the war reparations, the Japanese market has fallen from the annual import quota of 10 million goods to half the level, and it is unlikely that this import value will change in the next five or six years..."

“… The market in southern Mongolia has basically begun to be saturated, and the population and consumption power of northern Mongolia are far inferior to that of southern Mongolia. As for the Western Regions, there are wars going on every day in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, and it is said that on the other side of the Western Regions, there are several extremely rich countries, but if we can't control the Western Regions, it will be difficult for us to transport a large amount of goods to Central Asia, and we can't afford the high cost of tolling..."

"Yes, the Chamber agrees with that, as it stands, it is better to open a way out from the sea. Cheap sea transport and easier access to military protection are, to some extent, more conducive to our respective synergies. The amount of cotton cloth sold in the Southeast Asian vassal countries alone is enough to make up for the cotton sales we have lost in Japan..."

"This chamber of commerce doesn't see it that way, your chamber of commerce mainly sells cotton fabrics, so naturally you can look for compensation from Southeast Asia. However, for this chamber of commerce, Southeast Asia and Japan are different after all, and the backward social productive forces in Southeast Asia simply cannot consume much steel industrial products.

Especially in Cambodia, Thailand and other regions, they have fertile land, but the skills and tools of farming are extremely backward, and there is still a primitive worship of rice in many areas, refusing to adopt the new farming methods and new agricultural tools we teach, and would rather take nail clippers to harvest the sown rice little by little...

In such a region, without decades of changing customs, it would not have become a market suitable for selling our products like Japan..."

Listening to the discussions of these chamber of commerce representatives, Shen Lie finally couldn't bear it anymore, he seemed to have forgotten the principle of silence to the end that he had originally intended to attend this meeting, and interrupted the speeches of all the delegates and said: "Why don't you consider the Spice Islands and Java Islands under the control of the Dutch.

The spices produced in the Spice Islands are essential for our production of all kinds of meat and canned seafood. It was because the Dutch controlled the Spice Islands that the price of spices in the market was so high that we had to replace them with chili peppers and other domestic spices.

If we can break the Dutch grip on the Spice Islands, it will be enough to compensate for the shrinking size of the Japanese market. In addition, it is said that the Spice Islands produce more than 1,500 tons of cloves and nutmeg each year, while the Dutch probably sell no more than 500 tons a year in Europe, but the prices in the European market are 12-15 times higher than in Asia.

In other words, if we can abolish the Dutch control over the spice islands, we will not only be able to meet our own spice needs, but we will also be able to benefit from the Asian-European spice trade.

As for the island of Java, which the Dutch have not yet fully controlled, it is not only the most populous island in Southeast Asia, but also one of the richest. It's at least one-third the size of Japan, and if we can reclaim the market on Java, then we can hold on for at least another two or three years..."

Shen Lie's speech immediately silenced everyone, and after a while, someone echoed and said: "The Dutch are indeed hateful, they obviously don't need so many spices, but they prevent others from trading with those islanders. Even if you are willing to sell us some spices, you will have to double the price if you turn your hand..."

But someone also said: "But the strength of the Dutch is the strongest in Southeast Asia, even our Ming navy is difficult to win easily in Southeast Asia, just with our chamber of commerce, how can we force the Dutch to relax the trade restrictions on the Spice Islands and Java Island?" ”

"Actually, I've heard that although those Westerners look similar, they don't have a friendly relationship with each other. The Dutch were at odds with the Spaniards, with the Portuguese, and with the British. If we can unite their forces, can we say that the imperial court will send troops against the Dutch..."

Under Shen Lie's guidance, this meeting suddenly became a little sour. At the end of the discussion, the representatives of the chambers of commerce shifted the content of the meeting to whether they could provoke a war between the Ming and the Dutch. When this meeting ended, Shen Lie was a little excited.

As a young man who grew up listening to the stories of his family elders about overseas voyages, he actually longed for the overseas adventure life that those elders talked about. But after all, the Shen family began to go ashore, and those elders of the Shen family hoped to wash away the past of maritime merchants and pirates, and become real eunuchs.

Especially when Shen Tingyang mastered the promising production workshop of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, the Shen family was even more reluctant to let the children of the family go overseas for adventure. As long as they can enter the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, the children of the Shen family will naturally be able to enter the official career step by step, what a comfortable life this is.

But for a young man like Shen Lie, this kind of life is too boring. When he encountered such an opportunity today, he couldn't wait for his ideas to be recognized by others.

After all, Su Yue's deeds have begun to gradually spread among merchants, as an ordinary merchant, because of his several adventures in Southeast Asia, has now really become a big man in overseas trade, it is said that this can not only enter and leave the palace of the king of Siam at will, but even manipulate the abolition of the kings of several small states.

There is no young merchant who does not admire and envy this legendary rising merchant ambassador. As Shen Tingyang's favored son, Shen Lie knows more about Su Yue's experience than others.

He felt that he was not much worse than Su Yue, as long as he could meet Su Yue's chance, he would definitely be able to become a powerful person in overseas feudal countries. Isn't this kind of life much more interesting than copying documents in the manufacturing bureau?

When Shen Lie returned from Chunfeng Tower, he told his cousin Shen Tingyang about the content of tonight's meeting, although he hid a lot of his own words, but when he relayed it, he greatly described the words of various chambers of commerce for the Dutch people.

Shen Tingyang said disapprovingly: "These people are thinking too simply, how can the Dutch be so easy to fight." Batavia, founded by the Dutch, is impregnable, and now it has made peace with the king of Java.

I want to go on an expedition, but it's useless if it's less, and I'm afraid that the king of Java will help the Dutch fight us. This kind of thing, we Shanghai Chamber of Commerce is not involved, let's see..."

Shen Lie was very disappointed with his uncle's decision, but he didn't dare to oppose it in person, so he could only think about how to change his uncle's attitude.