On July 2, 1686, the wharf of Xiangshui Port was full of merchants.

Hawks Clifford stood on a tall building with a pipe in his hand, overlooking the busy and lively street below. There were merchants from all over the world, who were wandering around the streets, talking with one or several Qing people from time to time, as if they were asking for a price, and they seemed to be bargaining, and there was always a scene of prosperous business.

Clifford is now the owner of three ships. Although he was still a second-level agent under the British East India Company, his autonomy was already quite large, for example, this time, after purchasing a specified amount of Qing goods (mainly various colors of silk and raw silk), he bought a lot of tea on his own initiative, because he thought that tea was already quite a big market in England, and began to come out of the pharmacy and slowly became a drink.

Tea is a commodity that has been firmly on the throne of the second largest export volume in Xiangshui Port at present, surpassing silk, silk, brocade and other silk fabrics, and is second only to raw silk as a bulk trade product, which shows that its export volume has risen strongly. Xiangshui tea market is also quite professional at present, and there are many varieties, including brick tea, small Beijing brick tea, medicine brick tea, red brick tea, Beijing brick tea, tea cakes, flower tea, black tea, hat tea, hair tea tea, two or five boxes of tea, old tea, Xi Jia green tea, green tea before the rain, flower tea, tea pieces, etc., there are many categories, which makes people have a sense of dazzle.

It is worth mentioning that in the early years, the Portuguese and the Dutch were almost the only two Western buyers of Chinese tea. At that time, they were basically buying tea in Fujian, southern China, called "Wuyi Green Tea", in barrels, the purchase volume can only be said to be average, because at that time tea only in Amsterdam and other big cities had a certain consumer demand, other Europeans did not have much tea drinking customs, so tea sales were not large.

Now, decades have passed, tea has gradually become popular in the Western world, and the consumer market has been greatly cultivated, so the proportion of tea in Chinese mainland's various foreign export commodities has begun to rise rapidly, and it has gradually become an amazing business.

As the demand for tea increased – especially among the common people – merchants were no longer able to buy more expensive barreled tea leaves (such as Wuyi green tea) in pursuit of profits, opting instead for cheaper brick teas. Anyway, no matter how bad the tea is, it can be sold for a good price, which is enough. As a result, brick tea, and equally cheap flakes, began to become popular, flooding the warehouses of the docks, waiting for buyers to buy them and transport them to all corners of the world.

In order to increase the export of brick tea and reduce production costs, the Qing people also adopted the form of official supervision and business to set up brick tea factories in various major tea producing areas or distribution centers. Either in the traditional way or through semi-mechanized production equipment (not yet approved) purchased by the East Coasters, these brick tea factories produce a variety of brick teas day and night, which are then packed into boxes and shipped to Xiangshui Port, a major foreign trade port.

The main production areas of Qing tea are concentrated in Anhui, Jiangnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, Henan and other provinces, and then arrive at Xiangshui Port by various means, or water transportation, or land transportation, first by the Qing government in the local tea office sampling and registration, and then sent to the wharf of various warehouses for storage, waiting for buyers.

According to the description of the document submitted by the Tea Office, it is: "...... Every year when the tea is on the market, the market is thriving, all kinds of merchants come one after another, the tea shop inn business is booming, and the cars, mules and horses are parked everywhere, which is extremely lively than usual. Foreign businessmen are also salivating, and all walks of life gather, and there is an endless stream of ships from all over the river ......"

“…… Xiangshui tea has always been purchased by two groups of businessmen in Shanxi and Huaiyang. The day before the invitation meeting of the Tea Office, there were seven Jin Gang and 11 Huai Gang to rectify everything, and they began to pick and sell goods on the same day. ”

That is to say, after the tea from each producing area is concentrated in Xiangshui Port, it is mainly sold to two regions, one is overseas, and the other is the grassland (tea from Shaanxi and Gansu regions is also sold to the grassland nearby) and Russia. It is well understood that the sales to foreign countries are nothing more than English, Dutch, Portuguese and French merchants, and those sold to the steppes and Russia have to go through a long land transportation and then sell to the steppe merchants in Kouzhuang, which is not a small number every year.

The tea leaves on Haucks Clifford's ship were purchased at a time-honored tea shop "Deshengrui", and the quality was guaranteed to a certain extent, and he was also very satisfied, and he would definitely be able to make a lot of money when he went back. Of course, what was even more satisfying to him was that he had taken a great risk this time and sold the "things" he had brought from the Continent for a good price.

These "things" were "bought" by him in France, more than eighty French Huguenot officers and soldiers. He tricked them onto ships on the pretext of sending them to Quebec, and then broke his promise and sailed them all the way to the port of Xiangshui in the Qing Kingdom. There is no doubt that these military talents are exactly what the Qing court urgently needs, and they will be the most able to sell for a price. Clifford could deeply feel the country's desire for a strong army, so he took the opportunity to send a large number of desperate French Protestant officers and soldiers to Xiangshui Port, and at the same time obtained a large amount of monetary profits, he also won the favor of the buyers, and if he did business here in the future, he would be even more invincible.

"Tea, what a wonderful thing, has become one of the main ways to obtain cash for the Qing Kingdom, which was unimaginable a few decades ago." Haucks Clifford took a puff of his cigarette and said with a smile: "Now the tea market dominated by the east coast people in the southern Ningbo area is also quite prosperous, and it has seized a lot of market share. In order to get more cash, the Qing people kept selling tea at low prices, haha, this is really wonderful. ”

It had been almost ten years since Haucks Clifford first sailed to the Far East. In the past ten years, his life has been full of ups and downs, and it is wonderful: first, he has accumulated a huge fortune through the Qing trade, and restored a certain glory to the Clifford family, and then he has lost a lot of money because of his investment in overseas colonies, and most of his old capital has been tossed; As a last resort, he had no choice but to reopen the ocean trade with the Qing State, and finally succeeded again; Now, Haucks Clifford is already the owner of four merchant ships (although most of them are small ships of 200-300 tons), and he also has a certain reputation in the Qing Kingdom, and his status is not low.

This time, he purchased more than 10,000 pounds of tea in Xiangshui Port in one go, and the Qing officials were happy. You know, this is worth more than 30,000 taels of customs treasury silver, which is not a small amount. If there were a few more high-rollers like Clifford, Qingguo would not be able to obtain a turnover of six or seven hundred thousand taels of silver in tea alone, instead of less than 400,000 taels a year as it is now, which is still quite insufficient, and can only hope for the further development of the market in the future.

And just as Hawks Clifford was full of smugness in the most luxurious hotel in Xiangshui Port, a group of Qing officials were also meeting in the Xiangshui Tea Office, about two kilometers away.

"Chinese business, silk tea is its two major ends. In recent years, there are diseases of silkworms, and tea has the chaos of pseudo-quality. The businessmen are strict and do not pay attention to things. And Ningbo tea, but keep improving, in the long run, will strangle my throat, take my profits. An elderly official with a gray beard frowned and said worriedly: "Your Excellency is a good material for the country, please speak freely, what is the way to benefit." Lord Xiong, you are a professional who is well versed in Western affairs, so don't hide it, tell everyone about it. ”

The "Lord Xiong" named by the boss is about thirty years old, because he can speak fluent Dutch and English, so he was promoted like a rocket, and now he is an official of the Zhengliupin Imperial Court, and his future is limitless. I saw that he was a little helpless, and he stood up after a while, and arched his hand and said: "The boss is clear, and the lower officials have the courage to say it." What the imperial court asked for was nothing more than to expand the amount of tea sold, and the lower officials thought that they could start from two aspects. ”

"First, start with foreign merchants. The lower officials investigated and learned that many of the foreign merchants who came to Xiangshui Trade were treacherous and cunning. For example, after the order is placed, it deliberately delays the delivery of the pound, and the price of tea falls over time, so it uses the uneven quality of the goods as an excuse to cut the price and weigh the pound, all kinds of drawbacks. Our merchants in the Qing Dynasty have always suffered and lost because of this. In this matter, please ask the boss to play a division, give the tea office exclusive authority, rectify it as a whole, strictly prohibit unequal trade, and maintain commerce. ”

"Second, we should also start with ourselves. The lower officials also know that many local tea farms are mixed, and the quality is uneven. At the same time, there are unscrupulous profiteers who are shoddy, and it is common for foreign businessmen to be dissatisfied in the long run. Nowadays, all tea merchants should let their children learn the methods of tea making in the East or the language, business rules and laws of Western countries, and quickly implement the good laws of tea making. After completing his studies, he was a self-imprisoner, and he traded with foreign businessmen face-to-face, and his success or failure was blunt, that is, he was tied to his own family. ”

"Such a two-pronged approach can effectively increase the tea tax revenue of the national treasury, and at the same time, it can also attract more foreign businessmen to Xiangshui, which will weaken Ningbo's strength in disguise. Boss, this matter is actually simple and clear, between the Qing Dynasty and the East Coast, there is a great conflict of interest in tea and other commodities, and now is the time for our Qing merchants to unite and conduct business with the shameless Dongguo. Ladies and gentlemen, this matter must not be retreated, there may still be vitality in advance, retreat is a step into the abyss, and there is no ability to turn the tables. ”

It is not surprising that this person's remarks aroused the thinking of the officials present. To be honest, if they can "work" in the tea office, they are all rare doers, and their backgrounds are not too bad, and they have even more knowledge. Therefore, when "Lord Xiong" carefully analyzed all this, they all felt that it made sense, not to mention that these things he said could not only be substituted for tea, but also various other export commodities were more or less facing some such problems.

Is it really feasible to engage in a business war with the Easterners? Everyone was thinking silently in their hearts.