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 governor's bargaining expression, were very confident, and in the territory of the Turks who spoke of strength, they could not do such a lucrative business without a backstage.

"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 in the east just robbed a caravan from the Mongolian direction, it is said that they are all Mongols with a big pie face, and they didn't kill many people, and they put most of them back, why is the Chinese Empire still so aggressive to engage in trade blockade?"

"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 Egypt, for example, the empire itself is far away, the situation is diametrically opposed, in order to obtain a large number of Egyptian specialties, the empire began the most shocking dumping and buying behavior in history, after the signing of bilateral free trade agreements in 1950, the feudal lords in many parts of Egypt received huge orders and deposits, in the Fayon region, for example, the merchants of these two places were trembling when they received the orders of the empire. Egyptian long-staple cotton orders, which are equivalent to 20 years of local taxes, were divided up by many landlords who stimulated a lot, and a crocodile skin order of up to 2 million yuan made the local crocodiles disappear. Including the puppet-like caliph al-Amir's fiefdom stewards, they all received orders worth 50,000 yuan for dates and dried fruits. Egypt's most expensive imports from the empire were cheap and abundant fish and salt, and fine ceramics and steel quickly eliminated indigenous 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 popular drink of Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula, was excavated, and this hobby, regarded by devout believers as an all-night ritual artifact, became the most important export product for the entire Red Sea coast.

Since luxury goods withdrew from the list of commodities in international trade with the expansion of the scale of trade, agricultural products have entered the main list of bulk 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 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 the book 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 Nation turned Goryeo into a hub for fishing and whaling; Indochina and the Malay Peninsula became a world of rice, rubber and oil palm, and Sunda Islands into an archipelago of sugar cane, fruit 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 this pattern, the main trade is grain, followed by spices and sugar, and again animal and plant fibers (cotton, flax, jute, raw silk, wool fleece, 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 full industrialization, the Crossing did not intend to start large-scale export dumping of industrial products, so this model of importing large quantities of agricultural and sideline products and exporting a small number of industrial products could maintain long-term stability and low prices of domestic prices, which was 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, and cannot be a decisive force to influence history. The third stage of modern industrial trade is huge, which has become the driving force of globalization and the core force that shapes the global division of labor system, but it lacks the power of the legend of windfall profits to stimulate and inspire 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.

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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 dollars, sold quinine and copper coins for 20,000 yuan of abacon and flax, sailed to Colombo to sell hemp for 30,000, bought a box of precious stones and half a shipload of cinnamon for 27,000, sailed to Bombay to sell cinnamon for 50,000 worth of lapis 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 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 purchase ** 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, watched this lucrative business and felt more and more that the time for him to become a nobleman was approaching. (To be continued.) )