Everywhere, hundreds of pictures are difficult to describe;

Cities and cities, thousands of purples are bustling with thousands of reds;

……

The national security is like a golden pot, and the land is prosperous in Fengcheng.

The above is a passage from "Spring Fu in Fengcheng" written by the famous Vietnamese poet Nguyen Tan An. Nguyen Tan An was active during the Lê Dynasty, when Vietnam's national power had begun to decline, rebellions and rebellions were rampant, but the local economy was still passable, and the burden on the people was not very heavy, so there was still some prosperity.

Now, more than 100 years later, Vietnam has fallen into a state of chaos between the North and the South. The Truong Truce in the north and the Nguyen lord in the south fought seven major wars in the past forty or fifty years, causing business to wither and people's livelihood to become difficult, and Vietnam's economy has declined at a rate visible to the naked eye, and has been hovering in the trough.

More than 10 years ago, the two sides finally could no longer fight, and finally signed a peaceful armistice agreement, demarcated the border, and entered a state of recuperation. And this state of affairs is a good thing for foreign businessmen, because the days of doing business in a war zone are so frightening. The red-eyed Vietnamese soldiers could turn their guns on the merchants who came to trade at any time, and they had no sense of security at all. Now that the north and the south are fighting each other, both Zheng Zhu and Nguyen Zhu have respectively issued policies to develop agriculture and encourage commerce, and have implemented them throughout the country. And the foreign merchants, like sharks that smell blood, chase them from everywhere.

"More than 100 years ago, the monarch of Vietnam was a literati who respected traditional Confucianism, exhorted agriculture and despised commerce. Vietnamese porcelain exports, which had flourished in the 14th century, began to decline sharply by the end of the 15th century, mainly because they were not keen to participate in the thriving international trade. Foreign businessmen are often turned away or subjected to strict, near-physical checks before they are allowed to enter. The ship's cargo was also coveted by many greedy officials and was often confiscated under various pretexts. "In Hoi An Harbor, on the deck of the stern of a merchant ship, a middle-aged man with a loud voice is talking.

"When an English merchant protested to the Vietnamese lord for unfair treatment, the Vietnamese king responded directly: 'Before you come, I am the king of Tonkin; After you are gone, I will remain the king of Tokyo; Foreign goods, our country wants nothing'. The middle-aged man continued: "The king of Vietnam who said this was very confident because of his large population (especially in northern Vietnam) and its agricultural self-sufficiency, so it is quite touching that although the country has a long coastline, foreign trade is not very developed. ”

"But after the partition of the Northern and Southern Dynasties, people didn't dare to do this, right?" Another, slightly younger voice asked.

"It's just a little better." The middle-aged man continued to complain: "And most of them are concentrated in the relatively weak south. Nguyen Huang, the founding lord of the Southern Dynasty, set up a foreign trade center here in Hoi An, and European merchants called it "Haipu" at that time. In those days, Europeans, Chinese, and Japanese flocked here to trade goods and sell them elsewhere. Hoi An was once very prosperous in trade and famous, bringing rich revenues to the Nguyen regime. But even so, Nguyen Huang, who was deeply influenced by Confucianism, was still not embarrassed by this, and he once wrote to a Japanese friend, saying that his country was "a country of poetry, books and ceremonies, not a place where goods gathered", which meant that although I could not do without the income from Hoi An trade and strongly supported overseas trade, I despised this kind of behavior that deviated from the fundamental roots of the saints, and it was only an expedient measure. ”

"In the Confucian cultural circle, the contempt and suppression of merchants has reached its peak. Such a closed society, which is peaceful and stable, will not be able to effectively increase productivity. Even if the sprout of capitalism sprouts, it will be suppressed by the deep and heavy social system, and the profits obtained from industry cannot be invested in expanding reproduction, so they can only go to the countryside to build mansions, buy heaven and earth, or simply cast silver winter melons and bury them. In such a country, the pace of progress towards capitalism is only frighteningly slow, unless it is broken by external forces. The middle-aged man kept saying, "Wasn't Vietnam's overseas trade developing during the period of the partition of the north and the south?" Zheng Zhu and Ruan Zhu fought back and forth, saw the benefits of muskets and cannons, saw the advantages and disadvantages of new tactics, and understood that they could not rest on their laurels and be frogs at the bottom of the well. Moreover, the huge financial burden caused by the war also forced the two sides to start to seek the development of overseas trade, otherwise they would not last long and be crushed by the other side. This is true in Vietnam, but in fact, why not in Chinese mainland? ”

Speaking of which, the middle-aged man did not continue because it was unnecessary. Everyone has just left China, what don't you understand? When the Qing people pacified the north and swept the south, they were also relatively ignorant. But in the next few decades, after being provoked by the people of the East Coast and making them hit their heads and bleed, these people who started in Beishan Heishui also understood. They began to stop rejecting foreign trade, they no longer excluded foreigners, on the contrary, they were still enthusiastic about it. In the case of the Qing Dynasty, because the Yangtze River basin was within the range of naval deterrence on the east bank, they also built a new trading center at the mouth of the Guan River, which shows their eagerness for foreign exchanges.

And if the Qing state was not completely opened up because of its close integration with the gentry, then the mud-legged regime Dashun, which was rooted in Huguang and Jiangxi, was much stronger in this regard. The high-level leaders of the Li Shun regime have never learned the subtle words of the sages, and they are not very interested in empty truths, and they belong to the master who only looks at the "curative effect" and does not listen to the "advertisement". They will promote whatever is beneficial to them, and abolish what hinders the development of productive forces, do everything possible to increase the productive capacity of the whole society, and strive to invest every penny of wealth created in the military field, so that they can compete with the Qing Dynasty, which is much larger than them.

Therefore, the Qing State and the Shun Kingdom were all forced. If Chinese mainland had been quickly unified, it would have been a closed country, leaving only a few foreign windows for trade, and a bird like Japan next door. Now that the mainland is occupied by all sides, attacking and competing with each other, whoever closes himself off from the country is tantamount to suicide, so that the degree of ideological activity, the degree of development of the productive forces, and the degree of commercial prosperity of the whole society have made great progress in Belgium during the same period, so that it has reached the point where the people on the east coast are faintly worried.

"In fact, Vietnam's trade is still promising, but I don't know why your Taiwan bank didn't pay attention to it at the beginning." After a short silence, another slightly younger voice sounded again, only to hear him ask: "There are many Chinese, Japanese, English, Dutch, and Portuguese in Hoi An, but there are very few of us. ”

"That's because the Vietnamese can't provide what we need, and we can't provide too much of what the Vietnamese need, it's as simple as that. Of course, I can't deny that we have neglected many countries in Indochina, including Vietnam, and it is time to make amends. It was Shao Shuguang, the former general manager of the Bank of Taiwan, who spoke.

Shao Shuguang, who was at the helm of the large syndicate company in its early days, just stepped down as general manager this year and plans to return to China for development. After serving in such a sensitive position for so many years, it is indeed time to retire, otherwise it will be a bit of an eyesore. You must know that the three brothers of the Shaw family now hold about 20% of the company's shares, which is a huge force in the board of directors.

The boat he is on today belongs to the Ministry of Immigration, a classic "sprint champion"-class migrant transport ship carrying more than a thousand war refugees from Chaozhou Province in Guangdong. The men's destination is Brazil in the northern part of the East Coast mainland, and it is expected that it will take more than a year to finally arrive.

Due to the design of the ship, the Sprint Champion class does not have a large cargo compartment, and there is not much space left to store cargo other than the necessary food, fresh water, medicine, fruit and livestock. But the ship that set sail from Macao still carried a considerable amount of copper flakes purchased from Japan, which were sold to the Vietnamese in exchange for large quantities of "Tokyo raw silk" (not necessarily from Tokyo, but from other rural areas of Vietnam) and Vietnamese porcelain.

These Vietnamese specialties can be sold at a good price in India, the Middle East, East Africa and other places, and then you can also purchase some goods locally and bring them back to the East Coast for sale, and the profits obtained can subsidize a little immigration costs. It may feel like a drop in the bucket, but it's better than nothing, isn't it?

"Now the southward trade strategy that the Southern Pioneer Team is planning and implementing is to make up for such a link. And the commercial capital of the Ningshao region also had the urge to expand these maritime trades, so it all unfolded naturally. Shao Shuguang explained: "Now, because of the serious lack of our own strength, we need to bring in the Portuguese, the Spaniards and the people of the Zheng family in Fujian to trade, and this way of huddling together for warmth is also the most effective way to deal with the Dutch East India Company." ”

In fact, the current trade routes planned by the four together are still quite inadequate. For example, the final leg of their planned Dinghai-Xiamen-Macau-Hoi An-Manila trade route was quite inefficient. According to the original idea, Hoi An was to trade in Malacca City to buy some Indian products before heading along the coastline to the Philippine Islands.

But Malacca was now in the hands of the Dutch East India Company, and after moving their commercial cheese, there was no guarantee that the Dutch would not close the market to them. Coupled with the rampant piracy in the nearby seas, they still gave up this section for the time being, and will talk about it later.

As one of the most important players in the southward trade, the Bank of Taiwan plans to set up a large cargo distribution center in the port of Hoi An in the future, and then open up feeder markets to Siam, the East Indies (like the British, who secretly buy spices), Myanmar and even India. These small short-haul routes, if they are really to be managed well, should not be underestimated, as can be seen from the fact that the Portuguese are still running the Macau-Bay of Bengal route.

These so-called short-haul trade routes undoubtedly posed a serious competitive threat to the merchants of the Dutch East India Company. When those Dutch people find that their business has been robbed and their purses have shrunk severely, they don't know if they will make any drastic moves. Perhaps, when some anger cannot be suppressed, an incident similar to the massacre of English merchants in Banten will also be staged on the East coast, which is also an important factor that cannot be ignored.

Of course, there are many benefits to expanding trade routes, and the biggest thing besides profit is undoubtedly influence. If you look at the large number of Japanese and Chinese commercial associations in Hoi An, you can see how dominant these two groups are in the local trade position (the influence of the Japanese has also declined rapidly in the last two decades with the closure of the shogunate), and the people on the east coast now hope that Fujian, which has always been mountainous and has little land, can use these trade routes to extend outward and immigrate through commerce, and eventually change the local demographic composition.

These immigrants do not need to spend a penny on the East Coast themselves, and once the future becomes the climate - it is almost inevitable, many of the initial immigrants in Nanyang were business immigrants, and then slowly brought relatives and friends from their hometowns, and slowly formed a huge community scale - but it is an excellent medium for East Coast people to expand their influence in Indochina, Malay Peninsula and other places. With the strength of the navy on the east coast, as long as these overseas Chinese are not stupid, they know which thigh to hug.

This is a long-term strategy for several decades but a hundred years, and it will not produce any effect in the short term. And this, obviously, also needs a huge commercial and nautical capital to support it, depending on how much capital the local businessmen in Ningbo will have to carry out this kind of overseas export after digesting the newly acquired Shaoxing Mansion land. But in any case, the brave East Coast Navy will definitely do everything in its power to escort this kind of capital export, and not let outsiders take advantage of it.

On October 30, 1685, after finishing the docking and replenishment of Hoi An Port, the "Sprint Champion" class migrant transport ship carrying Shao Shuguang also pulled anchor and set sail, leaving the coast of Vietnam and heading at full speed towards Diu Island in northwestern India.

Obviously, this is a migrant ship that travels through the Strait of Malacca, and after coordinating its interests with Portugal on the east coast and building a base on the island of Diu, these migrant ships in the Strait of Malacca have adjusted their route accordingly, making it an important stop on their journey, and this is how the ship sails today.