Chapter 213 The Age of the Plant Trade

"That's what you call fine pepper?" Maimaiti looked at the pepper in his hand and said dissatisfiedly.

"Yes, my lord, this is not bad, since the Chinese Empire closed the trade route from Gaochang to our country, it is almost impossible for us to get spices from the tropics, except for salt and calico, we can hardly get any imported goods, these broken pepper particles are still small and have a lot to do with the old goods obtained from Ghaznavid, and it will cost at least 4 times the high price to get new goods this year." The face of the spice merchant who was losing money and making money did not reflect the dilemma of the import trade of the eastern and western Qarakhanid states at this time.

"The price has risen 12 times compared to three years ago, the price of pepper is already more expensive than the same weight of silver, can cloves and nutmeg go up 10 times more? This bag of cinnamon used to be up to 300 silver coins, but now it costs 5,000, have you sold your soul to the devil? ”

"That's not how it works! My lord, these spices were transported from the Ghaznavid over the mountains and mountains, and although the price of arrival in Hong Kong was only 200, these peppers were squeezed out of the Ghaznavid import quota and resold to us at a high price, and there was a Seljuk between Ghaznavid and our country, and the customs clearance fee was as high as 1,000, plus 1,000 silver coins to bribe the Seljuk customs officials. The purchase price of our wholesale is as high as 3,000, and we have to pass through the Western Qarakhanid Kingdom from the south, and the shipping fee alone is as high as 200 silver coins, plus I wholesale and retail from Ali, and I will lose money if this bag of cinnamon is sold for less than 4,500. ”

The spice merchants, who were not moved at all by the look of the governor's bargaining, were very confident, and they were on the territory of the Turks who spoke in strength. Without a backstage, you can't do such a lucrative business.

"The price of spices has risen more than tenfold just because of the embargo of the Chinese Empire? Could it be that the consequences of robbing a caravan are so serious? It's been a long time since I've been to the market, and the family's expenses have increased a lot, so I came to see if the housekeeper was corrupt, and it turned out to be like this. ”

"The lord of the East has only robbed a caravan from the direction of Mongolia. It is said that the Mongols were all big-faced Mongols, and they didn't kill many people and put most of them back, why did the Chinese Empire still engage in a trade blockade so aggressively? ”

"Although I am the governor, I don't know the specific situation, don't you have any information about the Spice Guild?"

"It seems that our Eastern Qarakhanid State has violated a trade agreement signed with the Chinese Empire a long time ago, and this blockade is a punishment clause in the agreement."

"That's right! It seems that I am going to make contact with the governors of several cities in the East."

In the example of the empire itself in distant Egypt. In contrast, in order to obtain Egypt's vast quantities of its products, the empire embarked on the most shocking dumping and buying campaign in history. After the signing of bilateral free trade agreements in 1950, feudal lords in many parts of Egypt received huge orders and deposits, and in the Fayon region, for example, merchants in both places trembled when they received orders from the empire. Egyptian long-staple cotton orders, which are equivalent to 20 years of local taxes, have been carved up by many landlords who have stimulated a lot. An order of up to 2 million yuan for crocodile skin caused the local crocodile to disappear. Including the puppet-like caliph al-Amir's fiefdom stewards, they all received orders worth 50,000 yuan for dates and dried fruits. The most expensive imports from the empire in Egypt were cheap and abundant fish and salt. Fine ceramics and steel products quickly eliminated native pottery.

Rice varieties and sucrose, various high-sugar local fruits and dried fruits, cotton, leather, tobacco, pulp, phosphate rock, manganese ore, iron ore, special animal products (hippopotamus skin, crocodile skin, etc.) are exported, and salt, hardware products, kerosene, glass products, printing and dyeing cloth, ceramics, wood, cement and other goods are imported.

The trade volume between the empire and Egypt has grown rapidly every year, and Egypt is in a position where exports are greater than imports, and a steady stream of imperial coins has flowed into Egypt, successfully replacing the inferior Egyptian coins.

Coffee, a drink loved by Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula, was excavated. This hobby, which is regarded by devout believers as an all-night ritual artifact, has become the most important export product for the entire Red Sea coastal region.

Since luxury goods have been withdrawn from the list of commodities in international trade as the scale of trade has expanded, agricultural products have entered the main list of commodities and cross-border trade. As the most powerful industrial country, all the goods imported by the Chinese Empire were agricultural and sideline products and raw materials, and all the exports were industrial products and banknotes and coins. The caravans and merchant ships at sea in various places were basically fully loaded and lightly loaded, for the simple reason that slowly a shipload of spices with the highest unit price could only be exchanged for half a ship's cheap calico, in order to maintain the level of superpower, the empire's trade could only be carried out in this way, and four-fifths of the huge industrial capacity was digested by the huge domestic market.

Before the Song Dynasty, the most mainstream of international trade was the trade in small and valuable luxury goods, and economic exchanges between countries were based on fragile logistics networks. For example, the trade in high-class crafts such as swords, folding fans, etc., between Japan and China, was often interrupted by wars and storms for years or even decades. Trade between China and India and Southeast Asia was also dominated by a small trade in luxury goods, such as ivory, rhino horn, incense, precious stones, gold and silver and silk, porcelain, and metal products (including copper coins).

On the whole, this small-scale trade could only satisfy the curious and comparative needs of the scholar class for imported goods, and had no effect on the national economy.

In order to optimize the cross-border trade structure more reasonably, the Crossing of Japan turned Goryeo into a hub for fishing and whaling; Indochina and the Malay Peninsula became a world of rice, rubber and oil palm. Turn the Sunda Islands into an archipelago of sugar cane, fruits, and spices. India supplied cotton, wheat, hemp fibre, and iron ore, Ghaznavid supplied leather, wool, and velvet products, and the vast Seljuks, Egypt, and European nations provided sundries, gold, silver, and labor. Timber, copper, and other minerals came from the Empire's many overseas territories and satrapies.

In such a pattern. The main trade was grain, followed by spices and sugar, and again the animal and plant fibres (cotton, flax, jute, raw silk, wool wool, leather) for textiles. Tobacco, tea, coffee, cocoa, quinine, ginseng, safflower, cordyceps, pulp, etc. are all profiteering industrial chains that are monopolized by imperial merchants in terms of production or sales channels, and they continue to provide funds and necessary raw materials for the development of the empire.

This era is the short and glorious era of plant trade, through the help of the good seeds and industrial seed industry technology, monopolized almost 80% of the world's commercial grain and 100% of the upstream industry (seed industry) of cash crops, but also with the help of developed deep processing technology, logistics network, trademark registration, advertising, wholesale and other weapons to monopolize its downstream.

This practice of monopolizing the upstream and downstream of imported goods is also conducive to the channel for penetrating the tentacles into the domestic countries of the trading partners to grasp their lifeblood.

Before the empire completed its full industrialization, the Crossing did not intend to start large-scale export dumping of industrial goods. Therefore, this model of importing large quantities of agricultural and sideline products and exporting a small amount of industrial products can maintain long-term stability and low prices in the domestic market, which is conducive to the formation of a more harmonious world system.

The most profitable of the three trade stages in human history is undoubtedly the first stage of the luxury trade, which can be rewarded a thousand times at a time. But this trade is extremely risky and small in scale to be a decisive force in history. The third stage of modern industrial trade was huge in scale and became the decisive driving force of globalization. It is the core force shaping the global division of labor system. But there is a lack of legends of profiteering to stimulate and inspire the power of people's dreams. Too gentle and calming for people looking for expansion and passion.

Only the transitional period in the middle has the advantages of both the former and the latter, both the lure of huge profits that propelled countless heroes and heroes to the stage of trade, war, colonizers and pirates, and the huge scale to influence and change the fate of the people and countries involved.

――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――――

A merchant ship loaded with rice and cashmere from the Kingdom of Solanki in western India is heading for the port of Yanbu, and the captain is in the captain's room calculating the profits of the first half of the voyage.

"A shipload of iron nails and axes from Canton worth 3,000 dragon dollars was shipped to the Singapore Port Free Zone for 5,000 dragon dollars for distributors on the various islands of Sri Buddha's death, and 2,000 yuan for quinine and copper coins produced in Singapore (Singapore, which was one of the three overseas military bases and governorships, was authorized to mint copper coins and auxiliary coins and trade with Southeast Asian countries), and 2,000 yuan for tortoiseshell and dyes produced in the port of Penang, In Calcutta, supplies cost $100. Sell quinine and copper coins for 20,000 yuan of abaca and flax, sail to Colombo and sell hemp for 30,000. Buying a box of gems and half a boat of cinnamon cost 27,000.Sail to Mumbai to sell cinnamon to get 50,000 worth of lazuli and pepper......

After a day, after taking stock of the ship, the captain and the accountant finally estimated the profit of the voyage.

"Lao Zhang, this box of staghorn coral is your private goods!"

"Yes! Captain, if you see any one that catches your eye, play with it! ”

"I don't want it, it's not good to explain to my wife when I go home, my private goods are all accounted for, how can I repay the account if I have an extra coral out of thin air!"

"We've made another windfall this time! How about this gem as a birthday gift for my sister-in-law, I think she promises to like it, whether it is a ring or a pendant. She won't pursue it, if she asks, you will say that it will be closed if I gave it, no matter how you say it, it will be 100,000 yuan, what is the value of receiving a high-grade birthday gift. ”

"Then admit it, this time I went to the big cannibal's territory to buy frankincense and handmade cashmere tapestries to carry less supplies, and fill a few more barrels of myrrh, I heard that you didn't buy dragon blood lipids last time and went back and were almost scolded to death by the old man who was a doctor. I can't treat my brother badly, you can buy more dragon blood lipids when you dock in Socotra and go back to pay for it. The captain looked at the jewel and looked like a good brother.

"Aren't we going to dock in Socotra?" After looking at the captain's familiar expression, the accountant immediately said, "Look at me, I'm confused, I'm not going to dock at the port of Aden, I remember it wrong." ”

"The profit of this voyage far exceeds the estimate of the shareholders, the cost of 8,000 (in addition to the purchase of money, crew salaries and supply costs, berth fees paid for docking, etc.), and now the profit is from 90,000, and you can buy another ship after returning to China." The captain, who was waiting for the opportunity to buy his own ship and run cross-border transportation, looked at this lucrative business, and felt more and more that the time for him to become a nobleman was approaching. (To be continued......)

PS: I'm sorry, I forgot to post Note 1 in the testimonial from the previous chapter, and now I will reissue it.

Note 1: Baiyinhai comes from the early Song Dynasty official Tao Gu's "Qing Yilu" volume 1 near Bianjing, there is an old garden named Ji Sheng "one hoe pyrene (shelter) thirty mouths." Sick, call the descendants to prescribe: This soil of ten acres of land is the bronze sea." Ji Sheng used the analogy of 'Bronze Sea' to feed 30 people in his 10-acre vegetable garden, indicating that the income of the vegetable garden is considerable. The empire uses silver coins, so it was changed to the silver sea.