Every family is full of pictures and scrolls are difficult to describe;

The city is filled with flowers and flowers;

...

The country is as safe as a golden bowl, and the land is prosperous and dependent on Fengcheng.

The above is a passage from "Fu Fengcheng Spring Scenery" written by the famous Vietnamese poet Nguyen Jin'an. Nguyen Jin'an was active in the Li Dynasty. At that time, Vietnam's national power had begun to decline, rebellion and rebellion, but the local economy was still acceptable, and the burden on the people was not very heavy, so there was still some prosperity.

More than a hundred years have passed, and Vietnam has fallen into a state of melee between the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Zheng Lord in the north and the Ruan Lord in the south have fought seven wars in the forty or fifty years, causing business decline and people's livelihood to be difficult. Vietnam's economy has declined at a speed visible to the naked eye and has been hovering in the trough.

More than ten years ago, the north and the south finally could not fight, and finally signed a peaceful armistice agreement, demarcating the border, and entered a state of recuperation. This state is a good thing for foreign merchants, because the days of doing business in the war zone are so scary. Those Vietnamese soldiers who were so angry that they could point their guns at the merchants coming to trade at any time, without any sense of security. Now that the north and south are fighting, Zheng and Ruan Zhu have issued policies to develop farmland and serenity and encourage business, and implemented them nationwide. Foreign merchants, like sharks that smell blood, chased from all over the place.

"More than a hundred years ago, the monarch of Vietnam was a literati who respected traditional Confucianism, and persuaded farming and despised business. The export of Vietnamese porcelain, which was once prosperous in the 14th century, began to decline sharply by the end of the 15th century. The main reason was that they were not very enthusiastic about participating in the prosperous international trade. Foreign merchants were often rejected or were strictly inspected by strict physical insults. The goods on the ship were also coveted by many greedy officials and were often confiscated under various excuses." In Hoi An Port, a middle-aged man with a loud voice was speaking on the deck of the stern deck of a merchant ship in Hoi An Port.

"A British businessman once protested against the Vietnamese king because of unfair treatment. The Vietnamese king directly responded, 'Before you come, I was the king of Tokyo; after you go, I am still the king of Tokyo; if you go, I am the king of Japan; if you want nothing in foreign goods, my country wants nothing.'" The middle-aged man continued: "The Vietnamese king who said this is very confident because he has a large population (the northern Vietnam is particularly large in population) and is self-sufficient in agriculture. Therefore, although this country has a long coastline, its foreign trade is not very developed, which is quite touching."

"But after the division of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, people dare not do this?" another younger voice asked.

"It's just a little better." The middle-aged man continued to complain: "And it is mostly concentrated in the relatively weak south. Ruan Huang, the founding leader of the Southern Dynasty, set up a foreign trade center in Hoi'an. At that time, European merchants called it "Haipu". In that era, Europeans, Chinese, and Japanese flocked to trade goods here and then sold them to other places. Hoi'an's trade was once very prosperous and famous, which brought rich fiscal revenue to the Nguyen regime. But even so, Ruan Huang, who was deeply influenced by Confucianism, was still embarrassed about it. He once wrote to his Japanese friend, saying that his country was "a country of poetry, books, etiquette, and not a place where goods were gathered in the market". This means that although I cannot live without the income brought by the Hoi'an trade and strongly support overseas trade, I despise this behavior that deviates from the fundamentals of the saints in my heart, which is just a stopgap measure."

"The contempt and suppression of merchants in the Confucian cultural circle has reached its peak. Such a stable and closed society cannot effectively improve productivity. Even if the germination of capitalism sprouts, it will be suppressed by the deep and profound social system. The profits obtained from industry cannot be invested in expanding and reproduction. They can only go to the countryside to build luxury houses, buy worlds, or simply bury them into silver winter melons. Such a country is afraid of being outrageously slow to move towards capitalism, unless it is broken by external forces."

The middle-aged man still kept saying: "Isn't Vietnam's overseas trade developed during the period of division between the north and the south? Zheng and Ruan fought around, saw the benefits of muskets and cannons, and saw the benefits of new tactics. He understood that he could not be a frog in the well. Moreover, the huge financial burden caused by the war also forced both sides to begin to seek the development of overseas trade, otherwise he would probably not be able to persevere for a long time and defeat the other side. This is true in Vietnam, but isn't it the case in mainland China?"

Speaking of this, the middle-aged people did not continue to say it because there was no need. Everyone just left China, so what did they not understand? I thought that when the Qing people pacified the north and swept the south, they were also quite ignorant. But in the next few decades, the people on the east coast were provoked by the people on the east coast, which made them bloody, these people who started in the northern mountains and black waters also understood. They began to no longer exclude foreign trade and foreigners, but on the contrary, they were still very enthusiastic about this. Taking the Qing Dynasty as an example, because the Yangtze River Basin was within the deterrence range of the eastern coast naval, they also created a new trade center at the mouth of the Guanhe River, which shows their urgency to exchange foreign exchanges.

If the Qing Dynasty was not completely open because it was closely integrated with the gentry, then the mud-legged regime, which was rooted in Huguang and Jiangxi, would be much stronger in this regard. The senior leaders of the Li Shun regime had never learned the subtle words of saints, and were not very keen on empty principles. They were the ones who only looked at the "efficacy" and did not listen to "advertising". They would promote whatever was beneficial, and they would abolish what was hindered the development of productivity, and tried every means to improve the production capacity of the whole society, and strive to invest every part of the wealth created into the military field, so as to compete with the Qing Dynasty, which was much larger than them.

Therefore, the Qing Dynasty and Shunguo were forced to do so. If mainland China was quickly unified, it would have been a closed-door country, leaving only a few foreign windows to trade, which was like the same as the next door. Now the mainland is occupied by various parties, and they are attacking and competing with each other. Whoever closes the country is equivalent to suicide. Therefore, the ideological activity, productivity development and commercial prosperity of the entire society have all made great progress in Belgium during the same period, so that it has reached a point where people on the east coast are a little worried.

"The Vietnamese trade is actually possible, but I don't know why your Taiwan Bank didn't pay attention to it at the beginning." After a short while of silence, another younger voice sounded again, and he only heard him ask: "There are many Chinese, Japanese, English, Dutch, and Portuguese in Hoi An, but there are very few people, and we still don't even have formal guild halls. We still live in the local Guangdong Merchant Hall. What's the reason?"

"That's because Vietnamese cannot provide what we need, and we cannot provide too much what Vietnamese need. It's that simple. Of course, I can't deny that we have overlooked many countries on the Indochina Peninsula, including Vietnam. Now it's time to make up for all this." The speaker was Shao Shuguang, former general manager of Taiwan Bank.

Shao Shuguang, who served as the helm of this large syndicate company in his early days, just stepped down as general manager this year and planned to return to China to develop. After working in such a sensitive position for so many years, it is indeed time to retire, otherwise it would be a bit annoying. You should know that the three brothers of the Shaw family now hold about 20% of the company's shares, which is a huge force within the board of directors. If Shao Shuguang holds the position of the boss for a long time, he will inevitably be disliked by other shareholders, so it is better to abdicate and give in.

The ship he was riding on today belongs to the Ministry of Immigration. It is a classic "sprint champion"-class immigration transport ship carrying more than a thousand war refugees from Chaozhou Prefecture, Guangdong. The destination of these people is Brazil in the northern part of the east coast, and it is expected to take more than a year to finally arrive.

Due to the ship's design, the "sprint champion" class does not have a large capacity cargo hold. The only space is not much to store goods except for necessary food, fresh water, medicine, fruits and livestock. However, this ship set sail from Macau still carries quite a few copper pieces purchased from Japan and sold them to Vietnamese, and exchanged them for a large number of "Tokyo raw silk" (in fact, the origin may not be Tokyo, but other rural areas in Vietnam) and Vietnamese porcelain.

These Vietnamese specialty products can be sold at a good price in India, the Middle East, East Africa and other places, and then you can purchase some goods locally and bring them back to the East Coast for local sales. The profits obtained can subsidize some immigration costs. Although it may feel like a drop in the bucket, it is better than nothing, right?

"Now the Southern Development Team is planning and implementing the trade strategy of the southward movement, which is to make up for this link. The commercial capital in Ningshao area also has the urge to expand these maritime trade, so all this has naturally unfolded." Shao Shuguang explained: "Now, due to the serious lack of its own strength, we need to bring the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the people from the Zheng family in Fujian to trade. This way of joining together for warmth is also the most effective way to deal with the Dutch East India Company."

In fact, the trade routes planned by the four companies are still quite insufficient. For example, the last section of the Dinghai-Xiamen-Macao-Hoi An-Manila trade route they planned was quite efficient. According to the initial idea, Hoi An would go to Malacca City to trade later to buy some Indian specialties and then go to the Philippine Islands along the coastline.

But Melaka is now controlled by the Dutch East India Company. After touching their commercial cheese, no one can guarantee that the Dutch will not close the market to them. In addition, the risk of pirates in the nearby waters has been rampant, so they have given up this section temporarily and will talk about it later.

As one of the most important participants in the trade southward, Taiwan Bank plans to set up a large cargo distribution center in Hoi An Port in the future, and then open a branch market to Siam, East Indies (like the British, secretly buying spices), Myanmar and even India. If these small short-distance routes are really good, the commercial profits should not be underestimated, which can be seen from the fact that the Portuguese are still running the Macau-Bay of Bengal route to this day.

These so-called short-distance trade branches undoubtedly pose a serious competitive threat to the merchants of the Dutch East India Company. When the Dutchmen find that their business has been robbed and their wallets have been severely reduced, they don’t know if they will do anything extreme. Perhaps, when some of them can’t suppress their anger, similar to the massacre of English merchants in Banten, the incident of the East Coast massacre will also happen to the people of the East Coast, which is also an important factor that must be considered.

Of course, there are many benefits to expanding the trade line. In addition to profits, the biggest one is undoubtedly influence. Look at the blockbuster Japanese and Chinese Commercial Halls in Hoi'an, you can see how great the advantages of these two groups are in the local trade status (the influence of the Japanese has also declined rapidly with the shogunate's closing to the country in the past twenty years). People on the east coast now hope that Fujian, which has always been a mountain and a small land, can extend outward through these trade lines, immigrating through business, and ultimately change the local population composition.

These immigrants do not need to spend a penny on the East Coast themselves, and once they become climate in the future, it is almost inevitable. Many of the initial immigrants in Nanyang were commercial immigrants, and later they gradually brought their relatives and friends in their hometowns, gradually forming a huge community scale. Instead, it is an excellent medium for the East Coast people to expand their influence in the Indochina Peninsula, the Malay Peninsula and other places. With the strength of the East Coast Navy, these overseas Chinese know which thigh to hold as long as they are not stupid.

This is a long-term strategy of more than a hundred years, and there will be no effect in the short term. This obviously requires a huge business, and the navigation capital is supported by it. It depends on how much capital can be used for overseas exports after the local merchants in Ningbo have digested the newly obtained Shaoxing Prefecture territory. But no matter what, the brave East Coast Navy will definitely do all its strength to protect this capital output and prevent outsiders from taking advantage of it.

On October 30, 1685, after the docking at Hoi An Port and replenishing supplies, the "sprint champion"-class immigration transport ship carrying Shao Shuguang also set sail, left the coast of Vietnam, and headed towards Diwu Island in northwestern India at full speed.
Chapter completed!