When Chen Jiujing arrived at the Oriental Military Mansion from Qilinwei, the atmosphere in the yamen was very solemn.

Cheng Dawei led the arithmetic clerks urgently recruited by the military government to submit a complete report to Chen Mu before the case through calculations.

They used limited known conditions to simply present England, a small state that was unknown to people in the past, through difficult calculations.

If it weren't for this calculation, everyone would think that England was just a weak country without any threat, including Chen Mu.

But in fact, two pieces of data give a first-hand look at the situation in England.

Cheng Dawei said: "This year, the military government minted 2,322,200 taels of coinage for Spain in accordance with the treaty, and the Westerners transported 2,732,000 taels of silver ingots to Potosí. ”

"And the total amount of goods sold by Yingyi to the countries of Europa last year is about four million four hundred and thirty-nine thousand taels of silver."

Cheng Dawei arched his hand and said: "Even if England counts the Kingdom of Alan, it is only about the same as the Iberian Peninsula, but it can sell such goods, and gather more than four million taels of silver every year to the country, and this is only the goods they sell. ”

"The goods sold are not the goods produced, and even if they are not consumed domestically, they are trying to find new buyers, so it is assumed that they will only produce more goods, not less."

"Combined with what King Alan said, many nobles in Yingyi have been raising sheep in enclosures in recent years, and if they want to produce more wool, I am afraid that their country will produce more goods this year than last year."

Cheng Dawei said that he couldn't help nodding his head to try to strengthen the reaction of others to what he said: "If you convert the woolen wool sold in England into 390,000 woolen wool horses with Ming horses, this is a large number, and in terms of woollen wool, the emerging Beiyang and Oriental weaving in the imperial court are far from matching. ”

"And we don't know the amount of wool sold in England this year, the year before last, the year before last, and we can't know the extent of its growth, but the little Yingyi who has been staggering for a long time said that they sold much less wool last year, only four or five thousand bales, and it should still be growing."

These data gave Chen Mu a headache.

This data table means that in terms of woolen weaving, in a short period of time, it is not necessary to say that he cannot rely on the existing strength to strangle the woolen manufacturing in England, even if he brings the entire Ming Dynasty.

Because the Ming Dynasty or ancient China used the most wool weaving area was the northwest, even if he played the handbook to the imperial court, it was difficult for the imperial court to mobilize wool processing products for him from the northwest.

The sea trade road consumption is low but the risk is relatively high, the land transportation risk is low but the road consumption is frighteningly high, from the northwest to the east and then by sea, and then to England, one or two things can become thirty taels or even more.

The decision to buy wool from the customs market was his proposal before crossing the sea, and the productivity of Beiyang was in ruins, not to mention that there were many industrial categories, even if there were better machines, they could not produce 10,000 horses a year, and more importantly, there was not enough quantity, and these good wool products were sold domestically in a blink of an eye, and they could not wait for export.

"That is, we need to dump other goods in exchange for wool first, what is appropriate?"

"I never thought of doing such a huge business, but if the big man asks, the villain can only estimate."

Cheng Dawei replied categorically: "Cotton cloth, dumping cotton cloth to northern Europa, including England, to curb the English woolen market." ”

Chen Mu, who was leaning on the chair, tapped his head rhythmically with a hard pen and did not speak.

Cheng Dawei means to use cotton as a substitute for woolen fabric, and replace part of the woolen market with a more suitable price and better quality.

This is also indeed feasible in Chen Mu's consciousness: "It's just that there are two problems with this. ”

"In comparison, it is more likely that we have grabbed the market for linen, and the woolen has been minimally affected."

Cotton cloth and woolen wool, the target customer group is different, other seasons are good to say, in winter, people who can afford woolen wool will be willing to wear cotton products with relatively poor warmth.

Unless it is made into winter clothes, but Daming's winter clothes are far from reaching the level of mass export, which is too luxurious, and I don't know how many border soldiers in northern Xinjiang are still freezing because they don't have good winter clothes.

"In addition, there are so many cotton cloths in the two provinces of Fujian and Guangzhou, which is the most important equivalent of the two military governments of the South and Western Oceans in overseas trade, relying on this we have destroyed the native weaving industry of the two foreign countries, it is rare that they can transfer me three or five hundred thousand horses."

Chen Mu didn't say the latter words, 300,000 horses, 500,000 pieces of cotton cloth, it is not a small number to make money in trade, but if you want to use it to fight an economic war?

But it's a drop in the bucket.

This amount would have to be swelled at least ten or even twenty times, but that was already an expense that Chen Mu couldn't afford...... Even if it can make money.

The entire Dongyang Military Government does not have so much principal, and it is even more impossible for him to buy so much cotton cloth on credit, not to mention that he is an important minister of Beiyang, even if he is the first assistant of the cabinet of the Beiyang minister, tens of millions of cotton cloth, which is almost the sum of the three years of income of the imperial court's cotton cloth.

This is also because of the surge in customs and commercial taxes, and cotton cloth is the top priority of overseas trade, if it is released, it will take eight or nine years for the imperial court to collect so much cotton cloth.

If he forced himself to write a report to the imperial court, it might be approved or transferred, but it was more likely that the cabinet boss would ask him: "Why are you obsessed with bullying the small border country of England?" ”

How does he explain it?

More than 200 years later, this country wants the Chinese to pay one or two silvers?

Or is it blunt that England's determination will allow it to rule the world for a long time to come?

This is an unrelated thing in the eyes of the people of the Ming Dynasty, unless it has fallen into war, otherwise since ancient times, the people living on this land have not seen such a stinky problem.

To be honest, Chen Mu was very embarrassed, he hoped to launch an economic war to put England in a difficult situation both internally and externally, so as to disintegrate the enemy's fighting spirit to the greatest extent and inject fresh blood into the booming New World - but he miscalculated England's production capacity.

Who would have thought that England would already have a strong production capacity and irreplaceable fist products before successfully resisting the attack of the Spanish fleet?

Chen Mu didn't know this reality before he came into contact with the English.

"Handsome, the villain has the courage to speak."

Cheng Dawei saw Chen Mu's dilemma, he had some understanding of the financial resources of the Oriental Military Government, and it was difficult for the Oriental Military Government, which had a production capacity and total wealth to be similar to England's annual export volume, to pose a real threat to it in trade.

But in business, he has more common sense than Chen Mu.

After getting permission, Cheng Dawei said: "If you want a person not to speak, it is okay to cover your mouth with a lot of effort, but it seems better to choke your neck with less force, England's wool seems to come from Spain, as long as the marshal cuts off its wool supply from Spain, England's woolen production will be greatly reduced." ”

"At the same time, the provinces that produced cotton cloth in the national dynasty were not only Fujian and Guangzhou, and the marshal might teach Songjiang Kaifu?"

Cheng Dawei was a little excited, and his hands were tightly clenched under the table, in fact, the three overseas military governments, and the businessmen who would follow them to the sea all belonged to officials and businessmen, and their interests were tied to the military government, benefiting the country and themselves.

He shook his head as he spoke: "You don't need to invest one or two principals, you can return to China to lobby Hui businessmen, where is the business not done, as long as you can earn silver taels, what is the difficulty of pouring cotton cloth into Europa?" ”