On September 2, 1730, the three-masted galleon "Fuyun" waved goodbye to many Wanqiu officials and people on the shore, hoisted its sails and auxiliary sails in turn, and slowly sailed away from the pier and headed for the exit of the bay.

After leaving Qingchuan, the "Fuyun" will successively stop at Louisbourg on Royal Island and Sindu (now St. John's, Newfoundland Island) on Changxing Island, load pickled and processed dried cod in the above two places, and transport it to Europe for sale, and then sail to Tianmen (now Ceuta, a city in North Africa, Spain), once again filled with local industrial manufactured goods transported through the Mediterranean, all the way south, stop at the Qishan Islands (Canary Islands), sail to the Gulf of Guinea, piggyback on a batch of special "goods", along the North Equatorial Warm Current, across the Atlantic. Arrival in Brazil. After selling the goods and special "goods" of Qi on the ship to the Portuguese, they exchanged them for local sugar, mahogany, ship materials, and handicrafts, and finally went all the way down the warm current of Brazil to Qingguo to complete a trade process around the Atlantic.

"What do you think of Chen Wangfu's proposal to establish a joint venture with my American Trading Company?" Sui Tongshan, the senior manager of the Northern Affairs of the American Trading Company, leaned on the side of the ship, looked at the gradually distant mainland, inhaled the salty and wet sea breeze, and asked a young man sideways.

"Dad, I think this suggestion is feasible, and it will definitely be approved if it is reported to a few big treasurers of the trading company." Sui Jinlin said with burning eyes: "Previously, our American trading company had always wanted to intervene in North American trade, but due to the deliberate obstruction and restriction of the English, coupled with the lack of a suitable place to stay, it never took place. Today, King Chen is in the domain of Chenzhou, which is located between the territory of New France and New England, and is a trading fulcrum that can be used by our American trading company to leverage and expand North American trade. ”

"Well, let's talk about it in detail, how to leverage this North American trade?" Sui Tongshan nodded and asked elegantly.

"Dad, we in the American trading company can use Qingchuan and Changxing Island as trading bases to transport the abundant timber and cod resources there to Europe and the French Caribbean colonies, such as French Saint-Domingue (i.e., Haiti), Tobago, Guadeloupe, and from there bring back cane sugar, coffee, or mead (i.e., rum); We can also bring in native textiles, canned goods, and various manufactured goods from the Mediterranean, and then ship them to New France or New England colonies to exchange food, tobacco, building materials, livestock, and other daily necessities, and finally to Chenzhou. ”

"The French Caribbean colonies took advantage of their burgeoning slave populations to supply sugar and other tropical commodities not only to Europe, but also to the entire east coast of the Americas, including Chenzhou, and to New France. If we can connect these colonies through a commercial network, then we in the American trading companies will be able to build a small trading circle around the North Atlantic and squeeze the market share of the English. Slave planters in Chenzhou, Royal, Changxing, and the Caribbean should all have a strong demand for wheat, timber, livestock, and even vegetables produced in New France and New England. ”

In addition, in order to survive and develop, Chenzhou will inevitably spare no effort to carry out immigration activities to increase its own strength. I believe that Chenzhou will inevitably pay a lot of freight for immigrants. In this way, whether we are transferring immigrants from the Qianzhou region or from the Isthmus of Panama to the Qin State on the mainland, we can earn a considerable amount of money along the way. In addition, Chenzhou is tens of thousands of miles away from all the sources of immigration, and the import of Oriental women is bound to be very small, so female slaves from the Mediterranean, Europe, and Persia will be a very popular commodity in the Chenzhou market, and the profits will be extremely large. ”

"Well, there is progress, and your plan is very thorough." Sui Tongshan was extremely satisfied with his son's response, and patted him on the shoulder with satisfaction, "If I let you out, I should be able to take charge of it alone." ”

"Dad, what do you mean......" Sui Jinlin looked surprised.

"Do you want to work in a trading company, or do you want to go out and do it yourself?" Sui Tongshan nodded and asked softly.

"Dad......" Sui Jinlin hesitated for a moment, then looked up at his father and said solemnly: "Dad, I want to go out and work alone." ”

"Well, that's fine." Sui Tongshan looked at the second son with a resolute look on his face, and couldn't help but show a trace of pity, "If you don't plan to return to the mainland of Hanzhou and want to set up your own business, I can prepare a large amount of money for you to develop your own business." …… Are you going to settle in Chenzhou, or Qingguo? ”

"The child wants to use Chenzhou as a base to develop the North Atlantic trade I just described."

"Hmm......" Sui Tongshan heard this, thought for a while, and then suggested: "In addition to managing the trade affairs between Chenzhou and New France, you can also run the trade routes in New England. After all, it is a large market with a population of one million, and its purchasing power far exceeds that of New France and Chenzhou. ”

"New England? …… Are the Navigation Regulations of the English binding on our merchant ships? ”

"Maybe there were." Sui Tongshan smiled, "Now, even the market in England is going to be open to my Qi country, can their New England colonies still ban my Qi country's merchant ships?" ”

——

September 19, Boston, Massachusetts.

Although it was not yet late autumn, in the evening, a cool breeze blew off the leaves on the branches and sprinkled them on the bluestone streets, making the largest city in New England seem a bit bleak and poignant.

In a tavern east of Boston, several merchants were sitting around, drinking wine and talking about the neighboring Qi people.

Yes, the Novoskers, which the Qi people are based, is not far from Boston, and the Maine region in the northeast is even closer to Novoskers, and they are only separated by a not very wide Gulf of Fundy, facing each other by the sea, and the two families are close neighbors.

"But this close neighbor was wary and wary of our New England, and was in a fiery fight with the French in the north. It's really annoying to see them like this! Polvey Roger, owner of Boston's Hanks Shipyard, drank the wine from his glass and slammed it on the table, his face gloomy.

"Oh, Mr. Roger, are you angry that the Qi people ordered five fishing boats from the French?" Willam Lincoln, the owner of the rum distillery, asked with a smile, "In the same way, the people of Qi do not hesitate to buy their own rum from the distant Mediterranean, and they do not come to Boston to buy it recently, and I am not as angry as you." ”

"Willyam, your small winery, the market in New England alone is already in short supply, so naturally there is no need for the Qi people who are looking at Neoskshe to buy it." Timber merchant Calles Mosel shook his head and said, "But in the context of the Qi people's obvious alienation from our New England region, it would be a bit ungentlemanly for you to say such cool things in front of all of us. It is rumored that the Qi people will refine the Newfoundland fishing grounds into countless areas next year, and then auction their fishing concessions one by one for a high-priced auction. Oh God, the people of Qi are as greedy as the people in London! ”

"Oh, please forgive me for my presumptuousness." Willam Lincoln shrugged his shoulders and said apologetically, "Gentlemen, the reason why the people of Qi are so alienated from us is because of the war that broke out a few years ago, so that the other party still has a grudge?" ”

"Got a hitch?" Purvey Roger sneered and said: "In the war that just ended, it is clear that our Kingdom of England suffered more losses, and it also affected our New England region, if there is a problem, it should be us!" ”

"Yes, after more than three years of war, although the main battlefields were in Europe, in the North Atlantic, we also suffered heavy losses in New England. Now that I think about it, that time was a nightmare and a complete disaster for us in Massachusetts. ”

When everyone heard this, they were all embarrassed, and they toasted together very tacitly.

The early Massachusetts economic model was very simple, with new immigrants buying all kinds of livestock and first-year rations, as well as all kinds of wood and furniture to build houses, and the residents or merchants who came first could provide these things to those who came later.

The cost of these things was paid for by the newcomers using their savings in England, which amounted to a transfer of wealth from England to Massachusetts.

Yes, the immigration activities in New England have developed to the present stage, except for a small number of indentured slaves, most of them are spontaneous immigrants, and the population is also dominated by the middle class with a little wealth in the country, far away from the mainland of England, ready to come to the New World to find their own path to wealth.

So, for quite some time, Massachusetts' economic boom was actually eating immigrants' meals, and it benefited from constant waves of immigrants.

However, the outbreak of the Qi-British War dealt a heavy blow to the economy of New England including Massachusetts, and the Qi warships roaming in England and the North Atlantic prevented the flow of personnel and materials between the two places.

Without a sustained inflow of capital, Massachusetts would not have been able to buy European goods, nor would it have been able to purchase sugar from the Caribbean, let alone have the financial resources to invest and build in the region. In this way, two of the troika of economic growth, investment, consumption, and exports, have stalled, plunging the region's economy into crisis.

For exports, the most advantageous commodity was shipbuilding timber, and for a long time before the war, almost sixty or seventy percent of the timber needed by the shipyards in England came from New England (with the remainder coming from Sweden and Norway). In addition, the Dutch, who have always had a developed shipbuilding industry, also purchased a large number of masts here (very tall and primitive trees were required).

Therefore, Massachusetts also lived quite nourishingly by selling wood, and although the climate here was not very good, there was enough land for people to live a relatively prosperous life.

It seems as if Massachusetts' only future is to become a subsistence agricultural district.

However, such an option is clearly not among the alternative answers of the Massachusetts residents, who were middle-class by the standards of later generations, and who crossed the ocean not in search of a return to basics, but in search of opportunities for a fortune.

Earlier, the Newfoundland fishing grounds in eastern and northern Massachusetts should have been their greatest opportunity. Unfortunately, however, while this offshore gold mine is a stone's throw away, it is far away for the Massachusetts.

Because, they don't have the right to fish!

At that time, the fishing rights of the Newfoundland fishery were issued by the English government, and the fishing rights of each area were granted to the monopoly fishing companies through a charter, and then the fishing companies issued licenses to the fishing vessels that came to fish, charged a fee, and the navy and the fishing company's ships would inspect the fishing grounds, maintain order, and expel the unlicensed fishing boats.

Seeing that the opportunity to make a fortune was within reach but could not be obtained, the people of Massachusetts were really a little horny, and they hated London's actions so much.

However, there was an opportunity for the Massachusetts to find that England was drawn into the Civil War, and the Newfoundland fishing grounds were left unattended for a while.

The Puritans could not easily pass up the opportunity that God had given them. As the saying goes, "When you see money on the road, you roar, and when you should make a move, you will make a move."

During the Civil War, the Massachusetts people used the region's abundant timber resources to build a large number of fishing boats, which operated without a license to sail happily to the fishing grounds that had been forbidden to them.

From this offshore gold mine, they dug up a second pot of gold (the first pot of gold for timber exports), and the Massachusettians were able to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.

When you catch a fish, you naturally have to look for a buyer.

But unfortunately, England itself is a big fishing country, there is no shortage of fish at all, and it is still a competitor to Massachusetts.

As a result, the Massachusetts people sold cod to Catholic countries and regions such as France, Spain, and Italy without any psychological burden, and made it an important trading partner for them.

In order not to allow the ships to run away on the return journey, of course, they had to load some local products, such as French wines, Italian silk fabrics and glass, Spanish metal utensils, etc., so that products from these countries and regions crowded out the market that originally belonged to the local handicraft industry in England.

It seems that Massachusetts was not inherently an English cuisine, and England is not a Massachusetts cuisine, and that New England and Old England were competitive rather than complementary from the beginning.

Alas, the bitter drama of a proper "rebellious son" who rebelled against his "harsh father".

In the early days of the Qi-British War, in order to deal with the naval threat of the Qi State, England repatriated all warships and armed merchant ships from North America. The fishermen of Massachusetts were overjoyed to see that the Newfoundland fishery was no longer in charge, and even secretly hoped that the mother country would fight with Qi for a longer time, so that they could grab more profits from this cod-rich fishery nearby.

Who knows, the war between Qi and Britain burned from the English Channel and the North Atlantic to the Caribbean and also to New England.

The Qi navy, which did not pay attention to martial virtues, successively mobilized more than ten professional warships, from the British Caribbean islands, all the way north, swept the east coast of North America, and successively sank and captured more than 40 large and small merchant ships belonging to the New England region, more than half of which were Massachusetts merchants, causing them heavy losses.

Not to mention, the warships of the Qi Navy also broke into the Newfoundland fishing grounds, like lions on the prairie, wantonly slaughtering English fishing boats. Unfortunately, many of these fishing boats belonged to the Massachusetts, causing hundreds of fishing boats to sink to the icy bottom of the North Atlantic, and countless poor fishermen to become miserable captives.

Back then, whether it was the three Anglo-Dutch wars or the Anglo-French wars, the British North American colonies were very little affected, and they could even take advantage of the fact that the mother country was in the war to make a small fortune. Either sneak up on the unregulated Newfoundland fishing grounds to catch a fish, or happily travel to the Caribbean and neutral European countries to engage in smuggling trade during the deregulation of colonial territories, making a lot of money in each case.

But in the just-concluded Qi-British War, the inhabitants of the North American colonial territories experienced the great power of steam warships for the first time. There are not many warships sent by the Qi Navy, but as long as they pop up in front of them, they can't run away if they want to, and there is a high probability that they will be sunk or captured by the other party. Compared with the once powerful Dutch Navy, it is even more ferocious and terrifying.

Truth be told, before the war, the merchants of British North America, including Massachusetts, were not very disgusted with the Qi people.

On the contrary, they are quite fond of the various manufactured goods produced by the Qi people, who are not only of better quality, but also cheaper than those produced in the small workshops of England.

Even the woolen products that England is proud of are inferior to the Qi people in many ways.

In Tangier, in Ceuta – oh, the Qi people call it the Gate of Heaven, it's simply a paradise for New England smugglers, and countless Qi goods are constantly transported from the Red Sea and the Mediterranean, and everything is available for you to buy at will.

Not to mention the British North American colonies, even England itself could not resist the invasion of Qi goods, forcing the bigwigs in London to raise the import tax rate of Qi goods again and again, and even set up many trade restriction policies, just to exclude Qi goods.

Perhaps, it is precisely because of this that the war between the two countries was detonated.

Thank God the war finally ended two years ago.

New England's merchants and residents breathed a sigh of relief, and the Massachusetts people let go of their hearts that had always hung in the air.

Although Novoscotia and Newfoundland were ceded to Qi, giving New England a new neighbor after the French, everyone believed that the good days of the North American colonial territories were coming back.

The wine can continue to be drunk, the dance party can continue to be held, and more importantly, the business can continue to be done.

However, when New England merchants sailed to sea, they were surprised to find that the food suppliers of the Caribbean sugar cane plantations had changed to Qingguo, and the timber supply channels had also changed to Portuguese Brazil and Dutch Suriname, and more and more Qi and Dutch merchants were trying to squeeze the market that belonged to their New England merchants.

New England fishermen, who were secretly unhappy with the temporary unmanaged Newfoundland fishery, had not yet lived happily ever after they received a notice from the Qi people that they would need to pay a so-called fishing tax during the cod fishing to assert their sovereignty over the fishery.

Now, the Massachusetts wanted to do business with the neighboring Qi people, but they were also ignored by them, and turned to their old rivals, the French.

It is said that two months ago, the Qi people went to Quebec with a large amount of gold and silver to make a large purchase, including grain, livestock, agricultural tools, pottery and many other materials, as well as orders for several fishing boats, with a total value of more than 30,000 pounds.

Hey, what does that mean? Why did you Qi people go to Quebec to buy French things, but not to nearby Massachusetts to buy daily supplies?

We have the goods you need, and the transportation distance is so close, you can save a lot of money on freight.

Well, it's so depressing.

The people of Qi are doing this, obviously not giving us Massachusetts face!

In that case, no wonder we're going crazy.

(End of chapter)