The Chinese are not stupid.

Yan Shizhang, Miao Quansun, Gu Jiaxiang, and Niu Yugeng are not stupid, and they can be admitted to Jinshi, which is enough to show that they are very smart and knowledgeable people.

It's a pity that China and this era are completely staggered.

It's as if living on two planets.

For the Chinese of this era, Britain, France, the United States, Russia and other foreigners are simply Martians.

Hu Chuyuan had to take them with him and go to Europe to investigate together, that is, he wanted to take this opportunity to make them change, have new experiences and learning, and make them more capable of being his staff.

Hu Chuyuan was not too troublesome, so he explained from the beginning in detail with these people, including Hua Yufang, Wu Dezhang, Ye Fu and others.

He made an analogy, the current world is like dozens of big stores, doing business with each other, you buy my things, I buy his, he buys yours, this is the world economy.

Whoever is rich and who is poor depends on who is better at doing business, whose goods are better, whose craftsmanship is good, and who buys more.

Tea is the two pillars of China's economy, supporting tea farmers in Jiangnan, Lianghu and Liangguang, as well as those tea farmers and landlords, so that they have a certain purchasing power.

If this pillar is interrupted, these tea farmers and landlords will lose their source of livelihood, and even if they switch to farming, their profits will be greatly reduced, and the five provinces in the south of the Yangtze River will gradually lose their purchasing power.

To put it simply, the market has shrunk, shops are no longer thriving, and all kinds of goods are starting to be unsalable.

In the past, those who could afford silk could only buy coarse cloth, and those who could afford coarse cloth in the past could only buy linen, and the influence will gradually expand, and China's economy will fall by at least 30%.

Similarly, the taxes of the imperial court will also decay.

The problem is that the taxes of the imperial court are dead, especially the current Qing Dynasty, there is no surplus at all, and it is used as much as it collects, which is not enough.

In order to maintain the existing total amount of taxes, the imperial court can only continue to raise taxes, and since then it has fallen into the deep pit of "dead to raise taxes, and death if not to raise taxes", unable to extricate itself, the more taxes are raised, the poorer the country is, the less taxes can be paid, and the court can only increase taxes again.

In the end, the country will be ruined, the people will be displaced, and the poverty will fall.

Inadvertently, Hu Chuyuan explained to everyone present the key factors that each dynasty had to eventually doom.

After hearing him say this, Yan Shizhang suddenly laughed and said, "Dongjia, you are really a genius in the world, but unfortunately, you are so worried about the world, but the court may not appreciate it." ”

Everyone was silent for a while.

Hu Chuyuan secretly blamed a little, and said in his heart: Old Yan, you really refuse to let go of any opportunity to instigate others to oppose the Qing Dynasty and the imperial court.

Of course, he knew that Yan Shizhang was not simply out of personal hatred, but Yan Shizhang knew very well in his heart that the imperial court was the imperial court of the Manchurians, and as long as these people controlled the imperial court, China would not be saved.

Miao Quansun said: "Listening carefully to the words of the adults, it is really better than reading ten years of sage books, my lord, my subordinates have been taught." ”

Niu Yugeng, who had been silent, also said: "Yes, it is better to read ten years of sage books and be taught!" ”

Hearing this, Hu Chuyuan was also quite satisfied, at least he hadn't been wordy for so long.

However, although everyone understands the importance of this matter and what to do, no one can know.

In the evening, no one had a viable strategy.

After dinner, everyone gradually dispersed, and Zheng Xitai returned with the Indian guides.

Back at the hotel, he couldn't wait to report to Hu Chuyuan, at the Assam Tea Company, he told the British that he wanted to buy Indian tea and ship it back to China to mix with Min Hong, and then sell it to the United States and Nanyang.

Chinese merchants are all annihilated merchants, as long as foreigners engaged in tea trading know.

Such a deceptive marketing strategy can only be imagined by the Chinese, and they often do it, putting good tea leaves on top and some garbage tea powder underneath, shoddy, or mixing, or even putting red sand to lift the scale.

Therefore, the people of Assam Tea Company did not suspect it at all, and immediately agreed to let Zheng Xitai visit the company and the tea field, and gave a very detailed quotation and other relevant information.

In the information given by the British, Hu Chuyuan quickly noticed a detail - Indian tea also enjoys duty-free clauses in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Hu Chuyuan believes that this preferential treatment should be extended to the colonies and Commonwealth countries throughout the British Empire...... This is the biggest advantage of Indian tea.

In fact, since 1839, when the British decided to try to grow tea in India, the British political axe has never collected a penny tax on Indian tea, agricultural taxes, etc., and has also provided a large amount of cheap land to British merchants, who organized merchants to build railways to every major tea-producing area, and directly to the port.

Indian tea has enjoyed the world's most special privileges from birth, importing and exporting from the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong...... No customs duties were paid, and banks lent generously to British companies dealing in Indian tea.

Think about it, in the face of such competition, is there a way out for Chinese tea?

The Assam Tea Company's information, which was intended to prove the competitiveness of Indian tea to Zheng Xitai, kept Hu Chuyuan awake at night.

It was still early in the morning, and for the first time, he got up with some pain and went next door to find Wu Shuzhen.

At this moment, he thought, she was probably the only one who could understand his heart.

Wu Shuzhen was drowsy, but she could really understand Hu Chuyuan, she simply washed her face with cold water, lit a kerosene lamp, made a pot of tea for Hu Chuyuan, and sat at the table to accompany him.

After a while, she asked Hu Chuyuan with concern, "Don't you have a way?" ”

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly and sighed: "At least there is no good way in front of you!" ”

Wu Shuzhen analyzed for him one by one: "I think there are four main problems, taxes, transportation costs, production costs and process quality, the first two problems are dead, not to mention that the Manchus are unwilling to agree to build a railway, even if they agree, it is difficult to build a railway in that place in Fujian." The latter two problems can't be solved by others, but you can give it a try. However, solving the latter two problems also requires a lot of money, unless you are only thinking about making a few small regional varieties. ”

Hu Chuyuan said: "As you said, if I really want to solve the tea problem in the whole of China, how much money does it need to invest? ”

Wu Shuzhen sighed slightly, dragged her cheeks and sighed leisurely, and said, "What a poor person!! Sometimes, I really don't think you can do so hard, and from a business point of view, I don't really support your investment in China's tea industry. According to your surname, if you decide to do it, the scale must be very large, but you will lose as much as you invest, so why bother? ”

Hu Chuyuan didn't speak, because he knew that he still had the last bit of hope - Zuo Zongtang.

Wu Shuzhen saw that he was silent, and said with the surname Suo: "I will talk to you behind closed doors, since you have contacted the affairs of Nanyang, you might as well take root in Nanyang!" ”

Hu Chuyuan laughed softly and said to her: "There is no strong China, even if we establish a Chinese state in Nanyang, it will be just a rootless duckweed, and it will eventually be destroyed in the tide of the British colony." ”

After a pause, he added: "Actually, let's think about it from another angle, do you think the Shan people have caused some turmoil in Assam?" ”

Wu Shuzhen chuckled and said, "Look, I can't beat others head-on, and I want to use my brain again." Actually, it should be okay, the question is how you toss. The main question is where their arms come from, the cost of going from the China-Myanmar border is too high, but it seems to be the only way! ”

Hu Chuyuan pondered in his heart, this place in Yunnan ...... He has to go on a trip, picking Huanglongyu by the way, focusing on building a military factory in Yunnan, which is not very difficult.

At this time, the governor of Yunnan was Liu Changyou of the Hunan army, and the Hunan army also stationed two battalions there, about four or five thousand people.

If he could, he wanted to organize a special ethnic armed force among the Dai, Shan, and Tai ethnic groups, so as to cause a little civil strife in Assam and affect the construction of tea in Assam.

But he also knew that this matter could not be taken for granted, and the possibility of success was very small, and it was unlikely to prevent the British from annexing the whole of Burma, let alone counterattack.

Britain in this era is like the United States 130 years later, and it is even much stronger, and there are basically no unequal opponents.

At this time, China was like India 130 years later, thinking that it was very strong, and bought a lot of weapons, and when it was not fighting, it was someone else's father, and when it was a war, it became someone else's grandson.

After evaluating it in his own heart, he and Wu Shuzhen whispered: "You can give it a try, but you can't pin all your hopes on this, because it may not be a big surname." ”

Wu Shuzhen shrugged her shoulders slightly helplessly and said, "I think so too." ”

After a pause, she persuaded Hu Chuyuan again: "Sleep for a while, with your talent and intelligence, you can always find a way out, even if you can't solve all the problems, at least it won't be too bad." So, don't think too much, and don't be in a hurry and exhaust your body. ”

Thinking that he was going to visit the tea plantations and factories of the Assam Tea Company during the day, Hu Chuyuan nodded and went back to his room to rest.

He didn't sleep long, just took a nap for three hours before he took a three-hour nap with Wu Shuzhen, Zheng Xitai, Hua Yufang and others, and took the carriage of the Assam Tea Company to the tea plantation.

The areas that can produce tea usually have patches of hills, with high average temperatures, abundant sunshine, large temperature differences between morning and evening, high humidity in the morning, abundant rainfall, and red soil.

Most of these places are also relatively remote and difficult to navigate.

This is the case with Agartala, but even so, the British still spent a lot of money and manpower to build a railway to connect the port here, and the British-funded tea companies have also set up tea factories along the railway, doing their best to reduce transportation costs.

There are more than a dozen British-funded tea companies in this area, monopolizing all the surrounding tea fields, and the tea fields of the Assam Tea Company are one of the largest, with 45,000 acres of tea fields.

When visiting the tea fields, Hu Chuyuan found some details, India's tea fields are completely terraced, rather than the Chinese slope type, which can reduce the rain to carry away the soil, more convenient for hoeing, tea trees are generally taller, the interval is also loose, all tea branches have been carefully pruned, to ensure that each tea tree can get abundant sunlight.

The problem with the larger tea trees is not the factor of the tea tree species, but that they are more scientific in management, and try to reduce the branches of the tea tree from the beginning of the tea tree's growth, so that the tea tree grows taller and can obtain more light.

After a certain age, all branches will be cut off, so that all new branches will grow in the next year, ensuring the long-term quality of tea.

In order to irrigate the tea trees, Assam uses a large number of lead pipes and rubber pipes, and only spends a small amount of labor to irrigate all the tea trees on a whole mountain, their fertilization density is quite large, all fertilizers are specially prepared and fermented, and the management of the field is also a unified standard, and the depth of weeding is digitally managed.

Seeing that the tea trees all over the mountains are almost identical, and all tea trees can have special yields and qualities, this has greatly stimulated Hu Chuyuan, like a needle piercing his heart.

In an instant, he suddenly realized that there was still a lot to be done to further improve China's agriculture.

Mulberry trees, for example, can learn from these experiences.

Western farming and animal husbandry has learned that the entire scientific system is rigorous, and for China, this is probably the place where it is really urgent to learn.

Subsequently, Hu Chuyuan and others went to visit the tea factory of the Assam Tea Company, the entire production process is completely mechanized, and all the machinery is constantly updated, but whenever there are new inventions and improvements, the British will quickly absorb and promote.

Although the British have a large scale of tea production, the cost can be calculated all year round is very low.

In order to win orders from Chinese merchants, the Assam Tea Company had almost no reservations, and they sent representatives to tout how cheap their tea was, how beautiful the tea was, how malty-like the tea smelled, and how uniform the quality of the tea was.

In short, even without blending, these teas can be sold in China.

If Zheng Xitai is willing to act as an agent, they are happy to maintain a special preferential supply price for a long time, and the price quoted on the spot startles Hu Chuyuan and Zheng Xitai.

Because this price is 30% lower than the purchase price of Jiangnan Commercial Bank in the Fujian tea market.

If even so, the Assam Tea Company is still profitable, then Chinese tea really doesn't want to live, and it is fortunate that it can keep the domestic market, and it has to rely on not low tariffs - this is impossible, China's tariffs have always been in the hands of the British.

Lamentable.

Hu Chuyuan seems to have seen the complete decline of China, the tea kingdom.

(To be continued)