New Shun 1730

In Songjiang Prefecture, the internal information has been conveyed, while those outside who are not qualified to know the inside information but are still looking forward to buying shares are anxiously waiting.

A so-called "unfair competition" and "despicable" trade war means have also quietly started in Guangdong.

Everything is for the profit of trade.

Guangdong, Guangzhou.

The governor of Guangdong is looking at his memorial approved by the emperor, and his face is extremely ugly.

The governor's memorial does not necessarily have to be a big deal. Even if it is nothing, it is best to submit one every one or two months.

This memorial is nothing.

But the emperor's red comments at the back are extremely harsh, which makes the governor of Guangdong sweat.

"In the 42nd year of Wanli in the previous dynasty, Guo Shangbin, the criminal department official, submitted a memorial, saying that the barbarians in Macau abducted men and women from the city as slaves... This dynasty has repeatedly ordered that the gentry are not allowed to keep slaves, let alone the barbarians?"

"However, when the Duke of Xingguo went to Southeast Asia, he saw many Chinese slaves in Bangka, Pinang and other places. When asked where they came from, they all said they came from Macau..."

"What's more, the envoys of Britain, Guyana and Lebanon reported to the Duke of Xingguo that there were slaves trafficked from Macau on an island called St. Helena outside the ocean, growing vegetables and cultivating land for the purpose of transit and supply for ships. As for Goa, Bengal and other places, many Chinese people were enslaved as early as 200 years ago..."

"Also, since the first year of Taixing, I have issued an order that merchant ships of various countries are not allowed to bring opium, dinoga and other items into the country."

"However, someone reported to me that 43% of the opium in the Celestial Empire came from Macau..."

If you only look at these few lines, it seems that you can't tell how angry the emperor is.

Moreover, the emperor later comforted him "gently", saying that you are the governor of a province, and you have a lot of things to pay attention to on weekdays. You may not have noticed the things in a small place like Macau for a while, and I can understand it.

But even though the emperor comforted him so "gently" later, the governor of Guangdong was still scared to death.

Some things, if you don't look into them carefully, no one will care.

Once you look into them carefully, they will be extremely important.

The key lies in "looking into them carefully", which is an attitude.

If you say you have something wrong, you have something wrong, and you have nothing to say.

Just like the emperor's words in red, it seems that it is not too serious to say it is serious.

It's just a little bit of human trafficking, and many places are well aware of it.

Especially after the head tax was abolished and included in the land tax, the population has nothing to do with taxation. Local officials wish that these "extra" people would get out, and they might rebel if they stayed.

Before going to Southeast Asia, there were many ships transporting slaves to plantations, sugarcane plantations, and spice hills in Java; and there were also many ships transporting slaves to Bangka and other places to dig tin mines.

It is not necessarily true that the court did not know. But before, the court did not care about it at all.

This time, the emperor did not go through the six governments, but directly commented on the memorial and reprimanded the Guangdong Jiedushi.

How could the Guangdong Jiedushi not be frightened?

Just when he was panicking, he heard someone report: "Sir, the admiral of the Lingdingyang Fleet, the garrison of the Kowloon City Naval Fortress, the Guangzhou Defense Envoy and others want to see you."

He, the Jiedushi, was not the governor who was in charge of both civil and military affairs in the previous dynasty. The admiral of the Lingdingyang Fleet and the garrison of the fortress were all from the navy system, and he was not in the same system at all.

Although his official rank was higher than theirs in name, the two sides were not in the same system. Secondly, these people came to see him just after receiving such a reply from the emperor. Obviously, it must be about Macau.

He did not dare to neglect it, and hurriedly asked people to prepare, and went out to greet them.

When he went out, there were already four or five people standing outside.

The defense of Guangzhou made him recognize that he was a descendant of the Yi people who had surrendered when Liaodong was swept away. He also knew that he had made contributions in the battle against Luosha together with the now popular Xingguo Duke, and had also been to the Western Regions to suppress the Junggar rebellion. His name was Jiao Lao Butu.

In recent years, because things in the north have been stable, he was transferred here, and he came here to enjoy his old age. Although this is not the best place, it is worse than Jiangnan, but those places in Jiangnan are not his turn.

It is said that he made a lot of money in the trade with Luosha in the north, and now he came to Guangzhou, a place of luxury, to spend money and enjoy.

As for the remaining admirals of the Lingdingyang Fleet and the garrison of Kowloon City Fortress, they are all very standard naval personnel. They were all around 30 years old, with dark complexion. There was no one too old or too young. Those who could reach this position were all the first batch of students in Jinghai Palace.

In addition to the defense envoys and the navy, there was also a man wearing the uniform of the Beijing Boys Army. Although his rank was not high, the Guangdong Jiedushi dared not neglect the people of the Boys Army.

He quickly invited these people in, asked someone to serve tea, and after a few pleasantries, he went straight to the point.

"I wonder if you have any important business this time?"

The man in the Boys Army uniform bowed and said, "I came to Guangdong to handle a few things under the order of His Majesty."

The Guangdong Jiedushi hurriedly said, "Is it because of the trafficking of people and opium?"

"That's right. I believe you have also received the news?"

The Guangdong Jiedushi looked at the others and knew that they were all here for this matter. He subconsciously thought, could it be that the court wanted to take back Macau?

The defense envoy, the fleet admiral, the fortress garrison officer, and the spies of the Boys Army were all here. It seems that the matter is not small!

The Lingdingyang Fleet was one of the main fleets of the imperial court. The previous fleet commander was now the Protector General of Nanyang, and the previous deputy was now the Governor General of Ceylon.

Although its strength is far inferior to the real main force in Bohai Bay, it is also a sea force that the court can count.

The city wall of Macau had been demolished before, because the court expelled Catholics last time, and also dealt with Macau by the way. It was considered that it was illegal to build a city wall in Macau. How could the city wall be built without the permission of the court?

It was demolished a few years ago.

Even if the city wall is still there, with the Guangzhou Defense Envoy and the Lingdingyang Fleet, wouldn’t it be easy to capture Macau?

Could it be that the court wanted to take back Macau while going to Nanyang, and he, the Jiedushi, had to adjust and supervise the logistics?

In fact, he thought too much.

Dashun did not want to take back Macau now, because a lot of Catholics were better to be stuffed here first. And now they did not want to have a dispute with Portugal.

However, there was nothing wrong with the four words "deliberately finding fault".

Since it was deliberately finding fault, then human trafficking and opium smuggling were not the real reasons.

The real reason is the change in the Sino-European trade pattern caused by the War of the Austrian Succession and the profits of the Western Trading Company after the Sino-Dutch cooperation.

Since the start of the War of the Austrian Succession, it has spread to the whole world in the later period. From Luzon to South America, from Canada to India, it was fought everywhere.

Fighting everywhere means hijacking ships everywhere.

After the Netherlands and Britain officially declared war on France, and after Britain and France started fighting in India, hijacking ships became the norm.

Privateers, pirates, and navies, no place on the sea is safe.

Historically, the War of the Austrian Succession led to a short-lived prosperity of the Swedish and Danish East India Companies. It also led to the Swedish East India Company's over-investment during the war, so that the profit rate of peace after the war was greatly reduced.

The famous shipwreck named Gothenburg in history was the one that set sail from Guangzhou in 1945 and eventually sank. It was also a voyage during the Swedish war to increase trade volume and over-investment-because Sweden was neutral.

In addition to Sweden and Denmark, Macau, which was occupied by Portugal, also experienced a brief period of abnormal prosperity during the war, and there was a sense of "rejuvenation".

Britain, France, Spain, etc. were all at war, hijacking each other's ships, and all companies reduced their trade volume.

The Netherlands was directly copied by Dashun and was sent to the west of India by Dashun's navy.

Originally, with the development of Songjiang Prefecture's trade, the foreign trade center moved from Guangdong to Jiangsu, and with Dashun's attitude of opening up trade, Macau's special transit port status declined rapidly.

After the expulsion of Catholics, it has basically become a gathering place for human traffickers and opium dealers.

Formal trade... Who goes to Macau for formal trade?

Portugal has declined into what it is now, and it has lost its unique transit port status. The trading houses of various countries are all built in Songjiang Prefecture. The decline of Macau is almost visible to the naked eye.

However, with the outbreak of the war, Macau briefly restored some prosperity.

As the war became more and more intense, from the European continent to the sea, many merchants in Dashun found that the shipment volume of Songjiang Prefecture had dropped sharply in recent years, and the trading houses of Britain, France, the Netherlands and other countries did not accept the goods.

Although the volume of goods of the Japanese trading company increased every year, the increase was in accordance with the law and there was no explosive increase.

The Dutch trade was directly cut off.

So the land transportation line from Jiangxi to Guangdong, which was already half dead, became busy again.

The Portuguese also increased the currency and goods purchases in recent years, taking advantage of his neutrality in the war in Europe to make a fortune.

Liu Yu deliberately let the Macau trade prosper for a short time. Not only did he not trip it up, but he provided a lot of convenience up and down. This is called luring the snake into the hole and then pouring boiling water.

Because he wanted to take the opportunity to pit the Portuguese merchants and the British East India Company in Macau, and use means other than war to try to gain more trade volume for Sino-Dutch trade after the end of the European war.

The market is so big, and it is impossible to expand the market for the time being, so he will look for it in the transit merchants.

To deal with Denmark, his method was to ask the Duke of Qi to go to Denmark to find fault and directly increase export tariffs. Then Sweden, Russia and Dashun divided the trade share of the Danish East India Company.

To deal with Portugal, he had to take advantage of the short-term prosperity of Macau and the opportunity of the Anglo-French War to continue to export Dashun goods.

After all, the war with the Netherlands and the war between Britain and France would greatly affect Dashun's exports. And the war always has to end, and he doesn't want this war to cause a lot of goods to be piled up, so as to lose Dashun's handicraft production capacity.

At the same time, he provided convenience from top to bottom, allowing the British East India Company to temporarily transfer the pick-up place to Macau and transport goods with the protection of the Portuguese.

This was the credit of the French and Spanish hijacking of the ship; it was also Liu Yu's consistent anti-British and pro-French attitude that set up some small obstacles in Songjiang Prefecture, forcing the British East India Company to consider not putting all its eggs in one basket.

Now the war is about to end, the negotiations on the Dutch side have been in sight, and Europe is about to usher in a wave of retaliatory consumption after the end of the war... In this case, of course, Macau must be taken.

Let the Portuguese and the British learn what "unfair" competition means, and teach them the logic of doing business in Dashun. If the bureaucrats want to deal with you, they can make you live a life worse than death.

The relationship between Britain and Portugal is there. France is hijacking British ships, and the British East India Company is operating in Macau under the banner of Portugal. Portugal is a small player, but who made it close to Britain?