New Shun 1730

"We should be selling more tea in Britain, and the rest of the goods."

It was originally a discussion on how to price tea in the future, but by this time it had completely gone astray. However, the purpose of this deviation is the same as the initial discussion on tea pricing, which is to obtain more profits.

The topic gradually moved in this direction, and Liu Yu was secretly happy. While there's a big difference between trade and money grabbing, there are places where, like robbery, robbery is more efficient in wealthier areas.

Forcing the other party to switch to low-tariff trade under a de facto monopoly is a kind of "legal, reasonable and righteous" robbery. After all, this matter, from another perspective, can be called "for the freedom of the people of England to drink tea, so that the people of England can drink cheaper tea."

Now that the topic has been brought up here, there is much more to say, and time flies by.

The first day of the shareholders' meeting ended with a good vision for European trade.

When the meeting ended in the evening, the businessmen all praised Xu Heng, the young man who had questioned Liu Yu before.

Xu Heng asked about Liu Yuxi's smiling face. Everyone was not blind and saw it. I thought that his family was the first to engage in trade with Japan, and they contributed a lot during the war against Japan. Now there is such a figure among the younger generation. It is a coincidence that the eldest son of the old man Xu Tao died. If he hadn't died in Ogura back then, perhaps there wouldn't have been such a young son to take over.

After all, Xu Heng was young and did not have so many palaces. The age of twenty-seven or eighty-year-old is the age when you like to be praised by others the most.

His father chose him to be the head of the family, and he wanted to perform well. It's just that in this joint-stock cooperation situation, if I want to perform well, I really have no better way. I can only rely on Liu Yu. If Liu Yu values ​​me a little, it will be better than many.

After receiving all the compliments with great satisfaction, Zhi returned home as if his feet had no roots. His family was not from Songjiang Prefecture, but later moved to Songjiang Prefecture and bought a big house.

After returning home, I first went to see my old father. Although the power was formally handed over to him, the old man was secretly able to take back everything with just one sentence.

When entering the room, Xu Tao, who was still able to help with logistics on the ship during the Great Shun expedition to Japan, could hear the sound of a dying cough.

The vocal cords have aged a bit, and you can hear Sasha's sound like a bellows when breathing.

"Father, the Duke praised me today..."

Immediately, he told his father what happened today. After hearing this, Xu Tao nodded.

"Heng'er, you said it well today. When I met the Duke at the beginning of the year, I knew that he was a person who didn't like empty talk. It's really a happy event for my family that you can grasp the key points today, and I feel relieved now. "

"Did you hear anything else about what the Duke meant today?"

Xu Tao looked at his youngest son with a smile and asked him if he had any other thoughts about what Liu Yu said today.

Xu Heng thought for a while and replied cautiously: "Father, I heard that the Duke of Guo means that he still wants to expand foreign trade? The Duke of Guo has always been opposed to everyone being engaged in business and doing business, saying that there is no skill in doing so and it is just hard work. The ordinary weavers ask us to sit on the ground and collect money, which is not what we are capable of..."

Xu Tao laughed twice and waved his son to sit down.

Liu Yu's words today can have different meanings to different people.

What makes Xu Tao different from others is that he was engaged in smuggling trade in his early years, and for this reason he even hooked up with his eldest son.

Shiraishi Arai issued new trade orders to reduce the outflow of gold and silver from Japan, which immediately reduced shipments that year by more than half. This led Xu Tao to let his eldest son take a desperate risk and cross the Shimonoseki Strait for smuggling, but he died at sea.

Dashun later participated in the entire war against Japan. As a representative of the trading company, he was responsible for coordinating logistics.

He is old and has experienced too much in his life. From the trade with Japan that year when they got the right to price copper ore, the oppressed Japanese businessmen had to sell copper at a loss in order to make up for it from raw silk; to being forced by an administrative order from Arai Shiraishi, his son, a smuggler, was shot to death; to to the The Japanese War opened up Japan's borders, and smuggling became a legal trade.

I have experienced a lot, including smuggling becoming legal, and being cornered by an administrative order.

Looking back at the past now, it feels like a world away.

Youyou thought about it for a long time before saying to her youngest son: "You may not really understand what the Duke said today. I have experienced a lot, but I can understand these words."

"You also know that your eldest brother died in Japan. To put it bluntly, what is it called what your eldest brother did at that time? It was actually smuggling."

"The question is, what does the Duke think of this kind of smuggling?"

"You also know that when I followed the Duke to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, I also did rituals for your eldest brother. The Duke also poured a glass of wine, and his definition of your eldest brother was "to make the Japanese people better and cheaper" A monument was erected to the free merchant who sacrificed his life for his silk and cotton fabrics.”

"The Duke generally does not evaluate others easily. Whenever he does, he may still be disdainful in his heart, but he is trying to convey a meaning. In the Duke's own words, this is called 'attitude'."

"When the Duke signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, he sent people to pay homage to Arai Shiraishi's tomb, saying that he was only praising him for his contribution in refuting Christianity and promoting the orthodox religion. In fact, does the Duke understand Confucianism? Even if he did, he was not close to Zhu Xi's studies. He just praised the various measures he took to prevent the outflow of gold and silver, as if he was regretting that he was born at the wrong time and could not be an opponent. Then he deceived and lured the Confucian scholars in Japan, using Confucianism as a link to make the Japanese Confucian scholars obey the rule of the Celestial Empire."

"Do you think that if silk, cotton, tea and other products in this dynasty were all competed with imported products, would the Duke still shout for free trade? I'm afraid he would do more than Arai Shiraishi."

The eldest son has been dead for many years, and Xu Tao has actually forgotten what he looks like. It's just that he has personally experienced the overseas trade expansion of Dashun in recent years, and thinking of his previous experiences, he can always understand many of Liu Yu's practices better than others.

Xu Heng had not experienced the bitterness of his father's trade with Japan. He had only heard that after the two peaches and three men's plan, each family had to compete to give gifts to the Nagasaki Bugyo in order to obtain a few fixed trade cards.

Heard of it, but never seen it, so he could not understand the experience of his father's generation.

Now Xu Tao talked about the past, which continued to this day. Xu Heng thought about Liu Yu's policies and the slogans he shouted all day, and nodded.

"Indeed, if it is true as my father said, the Duke must be more strict than that Arai Shiraishi. Although the Duke said that the total national wealth is the total consumer goods produced, and gold and silver are just general equivalents. But in fact, he values ​​gold and silver very much."

"Although he criticized mercantilism, in fact, he also pursued mercantilism. Only export, no import, tariff protection."

Xu Tao laughed and said, "Heng'er, remember one sentence. The emperor hates the emperor the most; the businessman hates other businessmen the most. The one who hates mercantilism the most must be the one who pursues mercantilism the most."

"The Duke is such a person. What do you think of the British cotton cloth ban in his heart?"

Xu Heng thought for a while, hummed and said, "Of course he supports it. The Duke thinks that it will help the development of the domestic textile industry. Doesn't the Duke always scold us, saying that we are useless businessmen spoiled by hardworking farmers and workers? He can't help but mention farmers and workers. He thinks that the British cotton cloth ban is a good idea, so he often curses it?"

Xu Tao felt that the child was teachable.

"That's right. Whenever the Duke curses fiercely, it is the place that really touches the Duke's pain. The Duke often says that it is my honor when the enemy curses me. Every time he mentions that the Dutch cursed him for being despicable and shameless, the Russians cursed him for being fierce and cunning, and the Japanese cursed him for being extremely shameless, he would be beaming with joy, holding his head high, and his face was flushed with smugness."

"On the contrary, the people and policies he cursed were mostly the ones that really made him uncomfortable."

"So more than ten years ago, when he was doing trade with Japan, he cursed Arai Shiraishi the most fiercely, so later the Celestial Empire attacked Japan. Now he curses the British East India Company all the time, and now he mentions the wealth of Britain. From my experience of seventy years, the Duke has murderous intentions in his heart."

Speaking of this, Xu Tao couldn't help laughing and said, "You have to know that before the Duke wanted to take action against Japan, he went to Edo to participate in Edo, kneeling and licking, and what happened after kneeling?"

"And the British East India Company, the Duke cursed the most fiercely, and the Crow This is something that the Duke of the Kingdom hates extremely. What was the result? He raised it high and dropped it lightly, still allowing the British East India Company to trade, but instead took a ruthless approach to the "innocent" Danish company. "

"If he had taken a heavy hand against the British East India Company, especially taking advantage of this legitimate investigation of opium, the British East India Company would have been fine."

"But he didn't take a heavy hand, but raised it high and let it go lightly. Others don't know, but I have followed him for more than 20 years, and I saw with my own eyes how he opened the door to the Japanese country."

"Such a good opportunity, if he doesn't suppress it, there is only one possibility. The big one is coming."

Xu Heng didn't think about it in this way. At most, he thought about expanding the scale of smuggling. After all, the Netherlands has a professional and mature smuggling distribution team, the J.J.VOUT\u0026SONS organization, which is said to be very wild. Smuggled tea can be sold from the Baltic Sea to South America. There are all kinds of well-known European gentry involved, and the relationship can go all the way to the royal families of various countries.

I thought that at most, I would just expand cooperation with these smuggling distributors.

After all, this is different from fighting Japan.

Fighting Japan is close, and Japan has no navy at all. A few million taels of military pay is enough.

Fighting the Netherlands requires the full force of the Dashun Navy.

How to fight Britain?

I really can't imagine it.

However, what my father said seems to make sense. Judging from previous experience, at least from the experience against Japan, it seems to be true.

Before, he cursed Arai Shiraishi all day long, and cursed so fiercely that he completely overturned the trade license system in one wave.

Now he curses the British East India Company every other day. The George Anson incident in Lingdingyang before exposed a kind of "unprovoked" hatred.

However, now he has not taken advantage of the opium issue to properly deal with the British. After being told by his father, Xu Heng felt that there was indeed something wrong.