"I didn't expect it to be so difficult to do business. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info" Chang Bin smashed his mouth, his face unswerving. At this time, Bai Nan had returned to the Fubang, and the people of the Pan family invited him to live in the Pan family's house, but Bai Nan still declined.

Only after returning to the merchant ship did Bai Nan feel a little more relieved, and the two important deputies in the fleet also discussed with Bai Nan.

Bai Nan said with a smile: "Do you think that the trade at this time is the same as our era, with bonded zones and free trade zones opened, and goods from all over the world can flow freely?" ”

Lin Youde also sighed: "In the 18th century, although world trade continued to progress and improve, it was still closed, not to mention the Qing Dynasty, even if it was an enlightened modern capitalist country in Western Europe, it was the same. For example, the Governor of Mexico, who is familiar with our Datang, decreed that the colony could only trade with the suzerain, and could not trade with other countries. That's why we organized businessmen to smuggle in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Britain was also the same, with strict control over the Thirteen Colonies of North America. A hundred years ago, the Dutch did not know how many tricks they used and how many wars they waged in order to dominate world trade. ”

Chang Bin Zhengse said: "In this way, our trade with the Qing Dynasty will be more difficult, just this bribery and the profits transferred to the Pan family are already an astronomical amount." Although we have the advantage of advanced science and technology and developed manufacturing industry, and the profits from trade with other countries are huge, we still feel aggrieved no matter how we think about it. ”

Lin Youde said: "I think the situation we are facing now is somewhat similar to Britain in the early stage of the Opium War. The rapid development of industry and the urgent need for export of goods, while the large Chinese population and huge market have various constraints that hinder the export of British goods. ”

Chang Bin said: "Didn't the middle school history textbook say that China's self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy does not need British goods? I can't sell anything like knives and forks. Britain had to buy a lot of tea and silk from China, and the deficit was serious, so they came up with the trick of opium. ”

Although Lin Youde was a businessman, he was very studious, and he read a lot of books, especially after coming into contact with the modern public, and read a lot of things, he said: "There is no problem that the import of opium is the pursuit of interests by the British, but it is not necessarily true to say that British goods have nothing to do in the face of China's self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy." After the development of the British textile industry after the Industrial Revolution, the output of goods was considerable. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the sales of British cotton and other textiles in China were explosive, and then there were other high-end consumer goods, which the Chinese people could not afford, but the huge number of wealthy people, especially bureaucrats and merchants, were driven by consumption power. Therefore, I think that trying to balance the trade deficit with opium is somewhat wishful thinking and illogical. The import of opium itself was due to the needs of China and the greedy pursuit of profit by unscrupulous British merchants. At the level of the British government, they want to open more trading ports, lower tariffs, and gain more trade privileges in China, so as to expand British trade interests in China, not just for the sake of selling opium. Therefore, the British have always called the Opium War a 'trade war', which is also the reason. ”

Bai Nan looked at Lin Youde approvingly and said, "Manager Lin's opinion is great, that's pretty much it." For the time being, the industrial manufacturing power of our Datang Dynasty is not very big for the Qing Dynasty, but China's industry will continue to develop, and we will produce a large number of surplus products that need to be exported. However, the existing customs and trade mechanism of the Qing Dynasty was not good for us, there were a lot of unnecessary costs, and we were constantly facing the political risk of the Qing court's conservatism. In fact, for so many years, Western European countries have done business with the Qing Dynasty, and they have also done the same, backsliding, and often introducing some strange policies, which have made them miserable. There are also various restrictions, such as foreign women are not allowed to come, such as not being able to hire Chinese workers, and so on. It's just that the profits in this trade are too great, so even if the Qing court doesn't want them to play anymore, they still salivate and do business. Of course, they don't have much power to change the status quo. ”

Lin Youde said to Bai Nan again: "Lieutenant Colonel Bai, in fact, it is good to say that in terms of trade, even if we pay a lot of unjust money this time, as long as the goods of the four ships are sold, and then we buy the tea, local products and other commodities we need, after returning to China, it will be at least ten times and dozens of times the profit, and our ability to absorb gold can only be stronger than that of European countries with weak industrial strength now." I think the most restrictive thing for us is immigration. The Hakka people in Fujian and Guangdong are all high-quality immigrants from Fujian, Guangdong, but we can't openly recruit them now, because the Qing government is very strict in this regard, and once we are found to be recruiting immigrants privately, they will think that we are human trafficking, and we will be seriously affected by a series of activities in the Qing Dynasty. ”

Bai Nan also sighed, when formulating the plan for migratory birds, everyone considered a lot of favorable factors, such as the sharp contradiction between people and land in the Qing Dynasty, especially in the "prosperous" stage, there were many land annexations, and many people lost their land and needed to beg for a living. The Hakka people, who are adventurous, can farm and do business, and have given birth to many cattle people, are potential immigrants. But in fact, when you come to the Qing Dynasty, the degree of stubbornness and corruption here is beyond people's imagination. It is impossible for foreigners to hire Qing people to do things, let alone organize people to immigrate abroad.

If it is a troubled time, the government's control over the population will decline, and the success rate will naturally be higher, but this period is precisely the time when the Qing Dynasty has the strongest control over the people.

"There is no good way, now the main thing is for us to send out some commissioners, such as Lin Fang, who are 'familiar with the business', to secretly recruit immigrants in various places, but this action must be secretive and careful, not too large-scale, to attract the attention of the Qing government. It's going to take a long time, we're going to stay here for a month, and when the trade is over, we'll be able to take as many people as we want. I will ask the forest side to pay attention to organizing immigrants, and when our next fleet arrives, we will directly pull these immigrants and go to our mainland in California. Bai Nan said.

Lin Youde nodded and said, "It seems that this is the only way." ”

Chang Bin joked jokingly: "It's better to pretend to be a pirate directly, land and arrest people from a few villages, and take them away." ”

Not to mention whether this action is feasible or not, but the rebellious psychology of the people who have been taken away is enough troublesome, and this kind of thing still needs to be voluntary.

Bai Nan patted Chang Bin and said: "Crooked idea, you should mainly focus on the construction of Hong Kong's water village." ”

Chang Bin said: "Yang Zhen estimates that it won't take long to arrive in Hong Kong, and then this village will still be his, it seems that we will really have to use him as a eunuch pirate to support the scene, the official work is really troublesome, or be a pirate, do whatever you want." ”

Bai Nandao: "Do you want to stay and be a pirate too?" ”

Chang Bin hurriedly waved his hand and said: "Forget it, I finally became an officer of the Marine Corps, the Marine Corps is now the biggest officer in me, I haven't had enough of being an official, what kind of pirate should I be." ”

Bai Nan also didn't expect that it was originally just an idle move by Naval Commander Deng Xiyi, and it might play an important role in the future. The merchant fleet that takes the official route can only complete trade tasks at most, and the recruitment of immigrants is very inadequate. On the contrary, the ubiquitous pirates are able to accomplish a lot of things, such as recruiting outdrift boat people and even promoting immigration.

In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, there were as many as 30,000 or 40,000 pirates under the command of Guangdong pirates, and they all made friends with local relatives and friends, if Yang Zhen could develop to this extent, then at least 100,000 immigrants could be brought to the Tang Dynasty.

In addition to relying on Yang Zhen to do things, Bai Nan's thinking has also carried out deep divergence. It is difficult to obtain stable immigration under government control in a peaceful place, but what about in a war-torn area?

Bai Nam's idea was to hit Vietnam. In 1771, the largest peasant uprising in history, the Tay Son Uprising, broke out in Vietnam. The three brothers, Nguyen Van Nguyen, Nguyen Van Couple, and Nguyen Van Huy, who were born as farmers and engaged in small businesses, established a tunzhai in Xishan Eup, raised the banner of rebellion, and was known as the Xishan Army in history. Before the Tay Son Uprising, the Later Lê Dynasty in Vietnam had been in turmoil for many years, with separatist forces fighting in various places for many years, the economy withering, and the people struggling to make a living. It was against this background that the three Nguyen brothers rose up to declare war on the decadent bureaucratic landlord class in response to the demands of the vast number of poor Vietnamese peasants, as well as ethnic minorities and overseas Chinese.

Although Vietnam is not large in area and has a small population, it still has a population of 10 million at this time. At this time, the Vietnamese people were still culturally close to Chinese culture, especially since Vietnamese Chinese characters were still the official language of Vietnam. In terms of image, the Vietnamese people are not much different from the Han people, and they can quickly integrate.

Of course, the main demand for "Vietnamese brides" is in Pak Nam. Bai Nan has never been to Vietnam, but he has seen a lot of jokes spread on the Internet in later generations, such as Vietnamese men are not farming, playing cards and smoking, Vietnamese women are hardworking and can endure hardships, and they do the main work in the fields. Coupled with the beauties such as "Vietnamese Yaoyao" and "Boxing Girl" circulating on the Internet, many Chinese people think that Vietnamese women are beautiful and have a good figure. At that time, there were many people who spent tens of thousands of yuan to buy Vietnamese brides. Not only in China, but even in Western countries, there are foreigners who spend tens of thousands of dollars to buy high-end brides.

The gender ratio in California is still unbalanced, and even with the addition of many Native American women, it is still worrying. If Bai Nam can bring back some Vietnamese women in war-torn Vietnam, it will obviously be a very advantageous thing.