Liu Jiaquan looked at the middle-aged scribe who walked forward quickly, but he had no good expression.

He is not someone ignorant of the world. The first time he saw this middle-aged man coming, many thoughts flashed through his mind.

It's either a salesperson or a liar. There is absolutely no third possibility.

Because he came from Li's Shipyard, and he went to Li's Shipyard to negotiate a new ship order, and this man was obviously squatting outside the door, and it was clear what his purpose was.

Sure enough, the first words of the middle-aged scribe who came forward were: "Brother, please stay. I am the external relations manager of Luohua Shipyard. I heard that your company wants to order a new type of sea-going ship. Do you want to consider our factory's new-type sea-going ship?"

Boat?"

It was obviously not the first time that this person had done something like this. He didn't even wait for Liu Jiaquan before he directly stated his purpose.

Simple, straightforward, and not pretentious!

Liu Jiaquan stopped and took a look at this person. He didn't look good and was dressed in ordinary clothes. At a glance, he could tell that he was not a big shot, just a businessman...

And I have never heard of Luohua Shipyard.

It seems that he regards himself as some kind of small ship owner, and then he is trying to sell those small broken boats.

Think about it, this is normal. Li's shipyard is full of orders, and not every ship owner is like me, asking for a thousand-ton large-scale ship. For most shipping companies or trading companies in Laishui, they can

A ship carrying three to four hundred tons of cargo is considered a big ship.

If it is a shipping company that runs offshore or river routes, their ships will be smaller, carrying dozens of tons of cargo, and one or two hundred tons are the main ships.

If these shipowners cannot order ships from Lee's Shipyard, they will naturally choose other shipyards, so it is normal for people from other shipyards to wait and see here.

However, his Liu family is completely different!

Although his Liuhe Trading Company is not too big in scale, it is still a company that has obtained an ocean trade license. With so many shipping companies or trading companies in the empire, there are only a few companies that can obtain an ocean trade license.

There are only dozens of them.

This ocean trade license is not that easy to obtain. In order to regulate ocean trade and ensure the safety of ships going to sea, the Chu Empire has relatively high review conditions for ocean trade licenses.

The first choice is to have a merchant ship that can carry at least several hundred tons of cargo. The risk of going to sea is too high if the ship is too small.

Secondly, this ship cannot be an ordinary merchant ship, it must be an armed merchant ship!

This is a rigid condition for large-scale armed merchant ships, so that they can avoid the dangers of wind and waves and the dangers of piracy encountered when traveling across the ocean.

Secondly, crew members are also a big cost!

Because the sailors who go to sea are said to be sailors, but in fact most of them are armed personnel... They must be able to control artillery, and they must also be able to control muskets in combat, and the Dachu Empire has always had very strict control over armed personnel.

There is no such thing as an armed force of dozens or hundreds of people allowed to appear on land.

The Da Chu Empire's continuous suppression of various bandits, landlord armed forces and other illegal armed forces over the past many years can be seen from the Da Chu Empire's high-pressure control of civilian armed forces.

But maritime trade is different. Going to sea without guns and cannons means you will die. At the same time, in order to open up the sea ban and develop larger overseas markets, the Chu Empire cannot control ocean trade purely with official capital. It must let more private capital

Get involved.

Therefore, under this special situation, the Da Chu Empire formulated special laws related to ocean trade, requiring that all armed personnel of ocean trading companies and their equipped naval guns, muskets and other weapons must be registered and must pass military review.

, and undergo regular inspections by the military.

At the same time, you have to pay a hefty deposit.

If you mess around, your deposit will be confiscated or even the company will be seized.

In order to avoid having armed personnel under their command, these trading companies naturally cannot find people at random. They can only hire and maintain them for a long time. At the same time, they must receive regular naval training and ideological training.

More importantly, the armed crews of these ocean-going trading companies must also be included in the naval reserve for management. Once the navy recruits them, they must obey the recruitment unconditionally. Of course, the empire will provide certain compensation during the recruitment period and will not let them work in vain.

Live.

But even so, it will invisibly increase the personnel costs of the trading company.

After all, if you are directly recruited by the Navy when you are running a good ship, even if the Navy will compensate you, it will not make up for the huge losses of not being able to conduct sea trade.

Large-scale armed merchant ships maintain a group of armed personnel and must be drafted by the navy at any time. In addition, they must pay a large amount of deposits.

Just for such a complete set, the demand for funds is very huge.

A sea without sufficient strength cannot afford ocean-going trade.

That's it, not counting the various risks encountered after going to sea. Going to sea these days is very dangerous, with all kinds of natural and man-made disasters. After a ship goes to sea, God knows whether it can come back.

In the past year, at least a dozen of the ocean-going trade ships registered in the Chu Empire have left without returning. A few of them were clearly informed of natural disasters and man-made dangers, but more than half of them had no information at all.

The news came back, but his life and death are unknown, and his whereabouts are unknown.

God knows what they encountered. Maybe it was a natural disaster, maybe they encountered pirates, or maybe they went to other indigenous countries and were killed.

And these are all costs.

Liu Jiaquan, who has been a pirate for more than 20 years, and owns two big fortune ships and more than 200 sailors, is able to do this business.

Therefore, even though the Liu family only owns two two- to three-hundred-ton fortune ships, he is really rich, at least richer than most of the so-called rich people in Guangzhou.

In this way, he simply doesn't like Fuzhou, Guangzhou, or Shachuan. He just wants those new large-scale ships with thousands of tons.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading!

If he could have such a new large-scale armed merchant ship, he would dare to run some relatively remote routes to Southeast Asia, or even routes to India.

The ships of the Chu Empire were also able to trade with ports in India and even further afield.

Because according to the relevant trade treaties signed between the Dachu Empire and the four countries of Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and England, several ports were opened to each other for trade.

It cannot be said that your ships can come to the ports of the Great Chu Empire for trade, but the ships of the Great Chu Empire cannot go to your ports for trade.

What matters is trade reciprocity.

But even though there is such a treaty, many sea areas or ports are still inaccessible.

Because the situation of pirates and merchants being pirates is extremely serious, just because you are asked to go does not mean that you will arrive safely.

At present, only the three major trading companies directly under the Ministry of Industry of the Dachu Empire have the strength to send a small number of ships to trial trade with India, but the overall scale is not large.

It is said that it is to trade, but it is better to say that it is to explore the road.

It is worth noting that during this process, the English were the most welcoming to the Chu Empire to trade with India, and they even directly opened Bombay, their core colony in India.

This is also related to the special business model of the English in India.

The English East India Company partly relied on monopolizing British trade in India for its operations in India, and partly relied on taxation.

And now the English have discovered that the tax revenue from colonial operations is more than that from direct trade.

In addition, because the English did not have any colonies in Southeast Asia, and they had direct competition with the Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese in Southeast Asia, it was very difficult for English ships to go to the Chu Empire for trade.<

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It is extremely difficult to find a port to rest and replenish supplies on the way, not to mention that you will often encounter so-called pirate attacks.

Under such circumstances, they also hope that the merchant ships of the Chu Empire will transport a large amount of Chinese specialties to India and trade with them directly.

After all, the ships of the Chu Empire would not be obstructed by the Dutch or Spanish when sailing in the South Ocean. Even after the ships of the Chu Empire entered the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca, the forces of these countries did not dare to openly intercept them.
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The safety is much greater than if the British went to the Chu Empire themselves.

Maritime trade these days is very complex, and due to different policies of different countries, there are great differences.

The Great Chu Empire adopts a completely open model. No matter what kind of ship comes, as long as it comes to the Great Chu Empire to purchase goods and pay taxes honestly, the Great Chu Empire will welcome them.

What the Chu Empire actually wanted was not the profits from maritime trade itself, but the market and raw materials.

But this is not the case in other countries.

The Netherlands, Portugal and even Spain, their maritime trade model is for the profit of maritime trade itself. Therefore, they are very persistent in monopolizing routes, and their ports basically do not allow the entry of competitors, especially ships of European competitors.

The ships of the Dachu Empire are an exception!

What... In Southeast Asia and even India's maritime trade, the Chu Empire is an indispensable part. Take the Dutch as an example, what is their trade model like? cascoot

He imported cotton cloth, ironware and other industrial products from the Great Chu Empire, and then sold them to the indigenous areas in Southeast Asia and India under his control. He then purchased spices from all over Southeast Asia, and purchased cotton and other raw materials from India and sold them to merchants in the Great Chu Empire.

At the same time, traditional goods such as silk and porcelain will be imported from the Chu Empire and shipped back to Europe for sale.

The Portuguese's trading model is similar to that of the Dutch. They basically purchase goods from colonies in Southeast Asia and India, then sell them to the Chu Empire, and then sell the goods from the Chu Empire to these indigenous people, and then make profits.<

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In the end, it was inevitable to transport some high-value goods from the Chu Empire, such as silk and porcelain, back to Europe for sale.

As for the Spaniards, their trade in Southeast Asia has been simpler and more straightforward in recent years. They directly transported large quantities of gold, silver, saltpeter and other high-value materials from the Americas, sold the goods across the Pacific to the Da Chu Empire, and then purchased them from the Da Chu Empire.

Import silk, porcelain and other goods and transport them back to Europe for sale, creating a global route.

Here, the British are more tragic!

In fact, because they have no foothold in Southeast Asia and are excluded by the other three countries, it is difficult to directly trade with the Chu Empire.

So we can only go to Southeast Asia and trade with the merchants of the Chu Empire through the hands of the Dutch. In this way, the Dutch make a profit from it.

This is also the biggest contradiction between the British and the Dutch in trade in India and Southeast Asia.

If the British were not still in a civil war, they would probably have launched a war to capture Malacca.
To be continued...