Chapter 306 Solving the Problem (XI)
It was almost unimaginable for an ocean-going ship to transport two tons of cargo, unless the price of two tons of cargo was comparable to the same weight of gold and silver. Captain Henry drove the ship southward with a slight north wind and rushed back to India as quickly as possible.
Arriving in Bombay half a month earlier than expected, Captain Henry obtained the certificate issued by the East India Company and returned to his hometown Plymouth before Christmas 1731. A captain, even a retired captain, is already a well-known figure here.
However, when the captain spent a large sum of money to buy land and property, it caused shock in the whole of Portsmouth and all kinds of rumors spread.
According to the more common saying, Captain Henry made his fortune by selling black slaves in the triangle trade.
A more legendary version is that the captain became a pirate, obtained a letter of marque, and robbed a Spanish navy ship transporting gold. Some people say that the captain went to Greece and found a silver mine.
These are relatively reliable rumors. There are many more outrageous rumors than these. Some people also said that Captain Henry went to Russia and became the lover of Empress Catherine, and received a lot of rewards by pleasing the empress.
Or perhaps Captain Henry found a small part of the great King Solomon's treasure in India, and thus acquired his present wealth.
This is probably the level of a place like Portsmouth. At least it is much better than the countryside. If it is in the countryside, you can't call out the name of the Russian empress anyway. Of course, even in Plymouth, many people don't know that Empress Catherine died in 1727, just five years ago.
Captain Henry did not explain, the East India Company required him not to reveal business secrets. The captain knew very well who the investors behind the East India Company were, and speaking nonsense would not only cut off his tongue, but also cost him his head.
While rumors about Plymouth were flying everywhere, doctors from royal families of European countries had already condescended to visit the Royal Hospital in the UK, or sent people to visit. The director of the Royal Hospital, who was so tired that he was dizzy, had to straighten his back every day and face anyone who came with a tired but dignified look. It was as if he had made the medicine, not bought it.
Although the price of morphine has fallen, it is still high. Just when the East India Company was ready to make a fortune, the visitors suddenly disappeared. The head of the East India Company was shocked and scolded his subordinates for being useless. He quickly sent people to find out where the people had gone.
Soon, these people got accurate information, and the Spanish royal family invited these doctors to Spain to bask in the sun.
Compared to damp and cold England, Spain is undoubtedly warm. If the royals and nobles of various countries have time and spare money, they will spend the winter in Spain.
However, there must be something wrong with these people leaving so quickly. Sure enough, no one mentioned the signed letters of intent, because the Spanish sold the miracle drug morphine to doctors from all over the world at half the price of the British.
When the top executives of the East India Company received the news, they were furious and even began to seriously consider declaring war on Spain.
At this time, Oda Hideyoshi, the commander of the Spanish fleet in Luzon, also led his fleet to Songjiang Prefecture again. Knowing that Huo Chong did not come to the south, Oda Hideyoshi, also known as the Spaniard Flamenco, took a ship of the Chinese merchant fleet to Jimo Port. After landing, he immediately requested to meet Huo Chong.
Huo Chong did not go to meet the Spaniard with a Japanese name. There were more troubles than he had imagined. The flooding problem after digging the Yellow River was beyond imagination. Shandong mobilized more than 100,000 people to build the southern river embankment of the Yellow River. Huo Chong even put the southern expedition on hold for this matter.
Compared with the lives and properties of hundreds of thousands of people, a mere Spanish businessman is not important at all.
The trouble was not only in the north, the impact of the Yellow River's dry-up was also widespread. The Chinese court was well organized, and after the Yellow River returned to the north, it organized a lot of manpower to fill up the old course of the Yellow River. However, after more than half a year of water cut-off, there were only many intermittent puddles left in the southern channel of the Yellow River.
The lack of water at the southern estuary in northern Jiangsu directly caused seawater backflow. The impact plain formed by the Yellow River over hundreds of years was greatly affected. The Jiangsu Governor Kong Bugeng sent a document describing, "It has only been a year since Your Majesty forced the Yellow River to return to the north. The land on both sides of the Yellow River estuary has been invaded by seawater. The two-mile plain has become turbulent again, and the salt fields along the coast have been destroyed. The changes in the world have taken thousands of years, but now they have only taken a moment..."
Huo Chong was also a little surprised when he saw the document that almost begged Huo Chong to think of a solution. If Kong Bugeng was not lying or exaggerating, the Yellow River flood plain formed in northern Jiangsu over hundreds of years was disappearing at a speed far exceeding its formation.
I thought it was a world-changing event, but I didn't expect it to be a pincer attack from the north and south. Huo Chong was a little dazed for a moment. Compared with such an impact, the commander of the Spanish fleet was nothing.
Fortunately, Feng Yukuan was in Jimo Port at that time preparing to go to Japan. He met Oda Hideyoshi and started chatting with him. Hearing Oda Hideyoshi asking if he could buy more morphine, Feng Yukuan was impressed by the drug. Sailors are bound to get injured. Minor injuries are fine, but once they are seriously injured, it is difficult to save their lives. Anesthetics can be very useful at this time.
But Feng Yukuan did not answer, but just asked: "Brother Oda, why are you so interested in this?"
"It's nothing, I just can't let it go for some reason." Oda Hideyoshi sighed.
"Intuition?" Feng Yukuan also sighed.
"What is intuition?" Oda Hideyoshi was puzzled. After finally figuring it out, Oda Hideyoshi quickly corrected him, saying, "It is the revelation triggered by the Holy Spirit."
Feng Yukuan knew the persistence of the Spanish Catholics, who always attributed everything to their God. Unable to bear such fanatics, Feng Yukuan said with a smile: "It seems that the gust of wind during the sea battle was also the will of your God."
When Oda Hideyoshi heard this, he immediately shut up and stopped talking about God. In the naval battle between Nelson of England and the Spanish Invincible Armada, the victory was determined by that gust of wind. According to Catholic doctrine, everything is God's will. Since everything is God's will, then the gust of wind that determined the fate of Spain was also God's will.
If their defeat was God's will, it would prove that the Spanish were not favored by God. If they had been defeated by a country that was also Catholic, Oda Hideyoshi might have felt better. But the British were apostates!
During the Reformation in the 16th century, the new nobility and bourgeoisie in England hoped to strengthen the royal power, weaken the church, and get rid of the control of the pope. In 1533, King Henry VIII prohibited the Church of England from paying tribute to the Holy See. The following year, he prompted Parliament to pass the Act of Supremacy, which stipulated that the King was the supreme head of the Church of England and established the Church of England as the state religion.
The Spaniards who believed in God fought against the British who betrayed God, but God favored the British. Is there still justice? Is there still doctrine?
Feng Yukuan realized that he had dealt a blow to the Spaniard Oda Hideyoshi beyond his imagination, and knew that his words were too harsh, so he could only ask, "How much do you want?"
“Buy as many as you can.”
"What will you pay with?"
"Eagle dollars." Oda Hideyoshi said as he took out a purse from his arms and took out a few Eagle dollars and put them on the table.
Feng Yukuan picked up one. Although he had seen the Spanish Eagle Dollar many times, he felt very good every time he picked it up. No matter the style or purity, the Spanish Eagle Dollar was quite good. He threw the silver coin high in his hand, and when it fell, he caught it horizontally in the air. Feng Yukuan asked, "Did you bring so much money?"
"Of course! We in Spain have never lacked silver coins." Oda Hideyoshi, commander of the Spanish fleet, replied proudly.
The next day, Feng Yukuan set out on the road to Linzi. On the way, Feng Yukuan was a little puzzled. Why was he, who was almost 60 years old, riding a horse in such a cold wind? It was not his turn as an old man to suffer this.
After thinking it over, Feng Yukuan had to admit that regardless of whether Spain lacked silver coins, at least the Spanish merchant Oda Hideyoshi, also known as Flamenco, carried too many Spanish silver dollars. So many that Feng Yukuan felt guilty if he didn't make a trip.
When they arrived in Linzi, they saw Huo Chong preparing for a long journey, and Feng Yukuan hurriedly asked what was going on. Huo Chong reluctantly told Feng Yukuan the news given by Kong Bugeng, the governor of Jiangsu. Feng Yukuan was also shocked, "Two miles of coastline were flooded in one year. Kong Bugeng is making up lies!"
Huo Chong also used some effort to avoid saying anything to blame Kong Bugeng. After all, Kong Bugeng was an outsider. If he lied about this matter, he would lose all his opportunities. Even from the perspective of human nature and profit, Huo Chong did not think Kong Bugeng would dare to tell such a big lie.
Since he could not criticize Kong Bugeng, nor did he want to endorse him, Huo Chong could only ask Feng Yukuan, "Brother Feng, weren't you going to Japan? Why did you come back?"
Feng Yukuan told Huo Chong about Oda Hideyoshi's purpose. Huo Chong didn't care after listening to it. There was nothing to object to normal business behavior. While they were chatting, Wei Bo, the acting minister of the Ministry of Revenue, came in and said, "My lord, can we allocate salt to the south?"
Hearing about salt, Feng Yukuan quickly said, "Leave some for me. Japan really needs salt."
Weber frowned slightly, "Brother Feng, Japan is an island country, how could it be short of salt?"
Feng Yukuan scratched his head and said, "I don't know why, he just lacks it."
After saying that, Feng Yukuan continued scratching his head.
Huo Chong looked at Feng Yukuan's dandruff flying like snowflakes, and suddenly remembered something, "Brother Feng, ask Oda Hideyoshi if he has brought back the palm seeds from Africa for us. Last time, he said he would get them for us."
"African palm seeds? The boy brought them."
"Well. That's good. But... can our fleet reach Borneo?"
"Borneo... isn't it said to be thousands of miles away in the South China Sea?" Feng Yukuan asked in surprise.
"Soap. To make soap, you need vegetable oil, such as rapeseed oil and sunflower oil. We don't even have enough of them, and it's too expensive to use them to make soap. There are Chinese immigrants in Borneo. Once they arrive in Borneo, they can open up land there and plant oil palm trees. The oil extracted from palm seeds is not very edible, but at least it can be used to make soap. With the soap, Brother Feng can wash his hair once a day without any problem."
When Feng Yukuan heard the word soap, his eyes lit up. When Huo Chong finished speaking, he immediately became interested, "Can't palm trees be grown in Shandong?"
"Brother Feng, do you know about lychees?"
“I seem to have heard of it, and there is also some poem or other…” Feng Yukuan tried hard to show that he knew it.
"A horse gallops through the dusty streets, and the concubine smiles. No one knows that the lychees are coming." Weber read out the poem with a straight face. After reading it, seeing that Huo Chong did not show any expression of approval, he immediately changed to another poem, "Eating 300 lychees a day, I am willing to stay in Lingnan forever."
"Yes. Lingnan is far enough south, but oil palm trees can only be grown in places further south than Lingnan, further south than Vietnam and Jiaozhi, and even further south than Siam. Those places are close to the equator. They can be grown in Borneo, and there are Chinese people there. I really want to open a palm plantation there."
Feng Yukuan was a little confused, and couldn't help looking at Weber next to Huo Chong with envy and jealousy. At least Weber knew what Huo Chong was saying just by listening, and he looked like he understood what Huo Chong said. But there was no scholar like Weber among the children of the Feng family.
However, Feng Yukuan did not want to get angry with the younger generations, so he asked Wei Ze to write a document and take it to the Ministry of Revenue's Commercial Department to coordinate the goods.
When Feng Yukuan left, Weber asked in confusion, "My Lord, why doesn't Japan produce salt?"
"The seaside areas in northern Japan are mostly mountainous, and the location is at the same latitude as the area outside the Kanto region, which is not suitable for drying salt."
"What about... southern Japan?"
"Southern Japan is affected by the rainy season and there are frequent typhoons. Wherever a typhoon passes, it rains heavily."
Weber was from Huangshi, Hubei, and he understood what he said. He couldn't help but smile bitterly and said, "That's tragic. But Kong Bugeng said that the Yellow River estuary in Jiangsu collapses two miles a year, and the salt fields along the coast are destroyed..."
"I know. I'm just about to go and take a look." Huo Chong sighed.
Weber quickly comforted him, "My lord, at least Shandong produces salt. I read in a book before that Shandong has the advantage of fish and salt, but I didn't expect that after using machine-irrigated salt fields, the salt production would be so huge. But the salt fields in Jiangsu have been damaged so badly, and some people are probably going to cause trouble again. Please bring more troops, my lord."
Soon, Huo Chong headed straight to Jiangsu under the protection of a large group of troops. Kong Bugeng was waiting for Huo Chong in Xuzhou. When he heard that Huo Chong was coming, he immediately rode to greet him. When he met Huo Chong on the way, Kong Bugeng frowned and said, "My lord, why don't we go to the mouth of the Yellow River first?"
When the people following Kong Bugeng heard this, they couldn't help showing surprise on their chubby faces. Huo Chong saw that those people had never met before, and their mental outlook was completely different from that of the Shandong team. After taking a look at them, Kong Bugeng quickly introduced them, "My lord, these are salt merchants from northern Jiangsu. I called them here to let them tell you about the salt fields in northern Jiangsu."
As soon as the words fell, the chubby-faced men quickly knelt down before Huo Chong. Kong Bugeng quickly shouted, "I've said before that kneeling is not allowed in the Chinese court. Have you forgotten that?"
Several people quickly got up and apologized. Seeing that Huo Chong had no intention of blaming them, they began to tell the story. It turned out that Jiangsu Yantian's salt production not only relied on the sea, but also on the reed marshes near the mouth of the Yellow River.
Compared with Shandong, Jiangsu has more rainfall. Any rainfall can destroy the salt fields. In order to produce salt as quickly as possible, the only way is to boil it. Reed marshes provide sufficient fuel. Because of this, Jiangsu salt production is not only cheap, but it is also easier to boil salt to make high-quality salt. Therefore, the chefs in Huaiyin, Jiangsu are the best in the world, not the salt merchants in Zhejiang. It's because of this skill.
However, the Yellow River has only been dry for more than half a year, but problems have already arisen here. Due to the lack of fresh water and the backflow of seawater, the reed marshes on the coast have been destroyed. In addition, the coast has been eroded, and the salt fields and reed marshes have been destroyed at the same time...
At this point, several salt merchants were already crying loudly with grief.
Kong Bugeng looked at Huo Chong with some embarrassment. Judging from his reaction, he probably wanted to rebuke these salt merchants' representatives, but he also agreed with what they said.
However, Huo Chong was the culprit who caused the current situation after all, and Kong Bugeng really did not dare to openly accuse Huo Chong of wrongdoing.
Huo Chong didn't think there was anything wrong. After they finished crying, he led everyone to the seaside where the disaster had occurred. After a day, Huo Chong made inquiries and figured out the problem of smuggling salt.
During the rest time at night, Huo Chong picked up his brush and began to write an evaluation of salt.
The Qing Dynasty had a vast territory, a large population and great demand, but there were very few institutions that could sell salt and could not meet the daily needs of the people. Salt was a necessity and the profits were considerable. In a market economy, where there is demand, there is a market. Whether it is officials, businessmen or civilians, they all live for "profit". As the saying goes, "The world is bustling, all for profit; the world is bustling, all for profit." The court tried to control salt to monopolize the big cake of salt, but the control was not strong enough, so private salt appeared. No matter how the Qing government increased its control, it could not eliminate it because the system itself was wrong.
This also reflects a problem. The profits brought by daily necessities are considerable, but if you want to monopolize necessities and force people to obey with high prices, this will not work. From an economic point of view, the price of a commodity can fluctuate around its value, but if it is far higher than the value, many competitors will appear, thereby lowering its price. The same is true for the Qing government. The Qing government wanted to control the price of salt through its coercive power, and private salt would lower the price to its true value.
In short, the fundamental reason for the rampant private salt production in the Qing Dynasty was not because the government's control was insufficient, but because its fundamental system was wrong. Under huge taxation, the government plundered a large amount of wealth, while the merchants who worked hard obtained the least profit, which led to the deformation of the salt industry. As the price of official salt continued to rise and the quality continued to decline, consumers had no reason not to choose the inexpensive and high-quality private salt.
…
The only way to solve this problem is to stop hoping to make money by controlling the prices of necessities for the people. Instead, provide salt that is cheaper and higher quality than private salt. As long as people's livelihood is not the priority, private salt will never be solved.
