In the ninth year of the Apocalypse, the trade between the Ming Dynasty and the Portuguese in Malacca reached a new height, and the trade volume between the two sides rose to more than 20 million taels of silver.

The Portuguese traded with the Ming mainly to pay silver directly. However, the Portuguese also had a lot of goods that the Ming needed at this time.

For example, all kinds of horses in Europe, the horses in Europe are relatively tall, and the Ming Dynasty is importing them in large quantities, and then using them to breed new breeds for continuous breed improvement of military horses and service horses.

At the same time, the Portuguese also sold white slaves to the Ming Dynasty, and most of these white slaves were European indentured slaves, usually either those who could not afford to pay back or criminals.

The white slaves were transported to the East, and then put into the mines.

However, there are really no other goods that Europeans can sell well in the Ming Dynasty at this time, and the heavy industry in which the Europeans have an advantage has no advantage at this time, but the heavy industry products of the Ming Dynasty continue to be dumped into Europe. What pendulum clocks and glass, Daming can also produce them now, and the quality is better than that of Europeans.

Even the British, who had begun the Industrial Revolution in history, faced China under the rule of the Manchus, could not come up with many commodities in terms of trade to reverse the trade deficit, and had to find opium exports to solve the problem. Not to mention that the productivity of Europeans was much lower than that of the Ming Dynasty in these years, and the China under the rule of the Ming Dynasty was not the China of the Manchu Dynasty.

Precious metals flow into the Ming Dynasty, basically only in and out. As for opium, Daming is no longer imported at all, and Hibiscus belongs to the ranks of medicines in Daming, and there are not many people who smoke opium these years. Now the Ming Dynasty has begun to grow opium poppy on its own, but only in small quantities and strictly controlled by state-owned capital. It is forbidden for the people to buy and sell hibiscus freely. Transactions must be reported.

At the same time, the Ming Dynasty did not export opium to other countries. Daming can make money by exporting goods, why should he make that kind of black money?

Among the goods exported by the Portuguese to the Ming Dynasty, some were luxury goods from all over the world, and in terms of foreign colonial style, the Portuguese were like a traveler, Banya was like a robber, and the British were like a black-hearted merchant. These luxury goods provided by the Portuguese accounted for a relatively small proportion of the total trade.

Precious metals are this thing. Although it cannot be eaten, it is the hard currency of the world. If Europeans did not have these precious metals, they would suffer from severe deflation and severe restrictions on industrial development.

After all, in this year's European countries, there is no unified banknote. Trade between countries depends entirely on these hard currencies. If any European country wants to buy its industrial products from other countries, other countries must be able to buy them with real money! If there is no real money, the result is naturally a serious contraction of the market.

The export of Daming's goods to Europe is to constantly suppress European industry, and precious metals are limited. There is always a day when money is spent.

If all the precious metals plundered by the Europeans in the process of foreign colonization came to the Ming Dynasty, then they would have plundered backward countries and nations no matter how crazy they were. In the end, it was a no-brainer.

After Daming obtains a large number of precious metals, he can use these precious metals to buy what he wants in any country in the world.

But from the current point of view, these Europeans don't seem to have anything that the Ming need.

Judging from the current trend, the trade quota between the Portuguese and the Ming Dynasty will not be maintained for many years, and the Ming Dynasty has now opened up the trade routes in the Americas, and the precious metals obtained from the main foreign precious metal plundering channels of the Europeans will directly flow into the hands of the Ming Dynasty.

If you want to expand trade with Europe, you must have Ming ships go to Europe in person, and then they can obtain European raw materials and further dump goods.

In the ninth year of the Apocalypse, the merchant fleet of the Ming Dynasty had expanded its trade to the Middle East and the west coast of Africa.

India, Persia, the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and the black people of the west coast of Africa all chose to establish trade relations with the Ming Dynasty.

Daming's goods were very popular in these countries, and at this time, Daming's commodity dumping had not yet expanded to these regions.

Low-cost cotton cloth has not yet poured directly into these countries, and the rulers of these countries are more welcoming to the various luxury goods of the Ming Dynasty, while the ordinary commodities that threaten the stability of their rule have not yet arrived on a large scale, so the attitude towards the Ming is still welcome.

Under these circumstances, the profits of the state-owned trading fleet continued to rise, and through these trading actions, a large number of luxury goods and raw materials were obtained.

Rhino horn, ivory, precious stones, gold, silver, spices, cotton, leather, ore, grain, slaves and other commodities continued to flow into the Ming Dynasty.

A lot of goods of average value will be shipped back, because these traders buy these goods mainly with precious metals and luxury goods, and the ships must not come back empty! At least there had to be some ballast, so some very ordinary raw materials and goods were shipped back.

State-owned commercial banks began to be stationed in these countries, buying goods from these countries throughout the year and selling local goods, so that the trade volume continued to expand.

Privately-owned merchant ships, despite their popularity, have no way to intervene in the trade of these countries. Most of them can no longer be called merchant ships, they can only be called cargo ships.

From North Korea to all parts of the South Seas, and even to Australia and New Zealand, the power to price commodities is in the hands of state-owned capital consortia, although trade from the mainland to these places can still earn some price differences, but there is no longer a phenomenon of windfall profits, if it is to transport some bulk commodities, it can only earn some freight. And those profiteering commodities have been largely controlled by state-owned capital commercial banks, or they have been charged high import taxes on goods, and the profiteering has disappeared directly.

On the other hand, the threshold for running boats has also been lowered. In the past, only those maritime merchants had the technology to go to sea and ships, but now that navigation technology has become widely available, as long as you have money, you can buy ships to go to sea, so there are many small and medium-sized merchants who transport goods by sea.

And the era of those big capital maritime merchants has ended, and it is completely over, and the era of ocean trade controlled by state-owned capital has monopolized the overall situation, and it is completely a situation where the dealer takes all.

First of all, the imperial court divided the area of activity of private merchant ships, and the sea area and destination beyond this area were not allowed to sail. If civilian merchant ships were to go to those places, they would first be discovered by the navy's cruisers, and secondly, they would be vulnerable to pirates, who would not be protected by warships. The third is that specialty goods in trade destinations that are prohibited from private capital cannot pass through customs.

In addition, the trade routes are not familiar, the trade objectives are not familiar and so on, and at the same time, the trade places are state-owned capital merchant ships and commercial banks entering and exiting, and they will be intercepted by their own warships, under various constraints, privately-funded merchant ships are simply unable to engage in ocean-going trade outside the specified area. (To be continued.) )