Chapter 2956

Six hundred miles southwest of Cam Ranh Port is Vung Tau Port, another port under Hai Han's rule. After the Annan Civil War in the early years, this place was assigned to Hai Han by Annan as one of the conditions for Hai Han to help the war.

Chinese.

Although the two countries have nominally designated the land as a concession, Hai Han can renew the lease indefinitely, which essentially means that Vung Tau Port has been included in Hai Han's own territory.

Due to environmental constraints, the size of the port here is far less than that of Cam Ranh Port, which has unique natural conditions. However, due to its special geographical location, Vung Tau Port has become one of the most important ports on the Indochina Peninsula.

Vung Tau Port is located exactly at the junction of Annam and Champa. Nearby is Saigon, the most densely populated area at the southern end of the Indochina Peninsula. Vung Tau Port, located on the east bank of the Dong Nai River, belongs to Annam, while the west bank of the Dong Nai River belongs to Shou.

The Champa State supported by Haihan.

Champa State was also one of the major powers in Indochina hundreds of years ago. Half of Annan’s current territory was once Champa territory. But now there is a huge disparity in strength between the two countries, and Champa’s territory has shrunk repeatedly. If it weren’t for Haihan’s support,

, I am afraid that it has long been divided up by neighboring Annan and Cambodia.

The only product that the Champa Kingdom can produce is rice. The territory of Champa happens to be the estuary of many rivers in the Mekong River system. The fertile soil of the Mekong River Delta provides an excellent rice planting environment here. In addition, the late rice provided by Haihan

The planting technology makes it possible to harvest rice twice a year. This industry alone can ensure the food and clothing of the people in Champa.

However, the entire territory of Champa is a coastal alluvial plain, and the coastline is all tidal flats. There is no decent shipping port at all. If the large amount of rice produced needs to be concentrated and sold overseas, it can only be done through the nearby Vung Tau Port.

Since Champa and Annam have been at war for a long time, it was of course difficult for such a trade channel to operate smoothly before Hai Han took control of Vung Tau Port. However, now that Vung Tau Port has become an international trade port, rice from Champa enters Vung Tau Port.

There will be no more obstacles.

After entering October, the late rice grown in various places in Champa has also entered the harvest period. This year, there was abundant rain and sunshine, and there were no pests or typhoons. It can be said to be a rare good year, and rice farmers generally achieved a bumper harvest.

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But what the bumper harvest brings to farmers may not be the results they expected.

The Champa court has announced that for the sake of national security, it will expand the size of the Champa navy and land forces and build multiple large fortresses on the border to withstand the military pressure from Cambodia and Annan.

Whether it is to expand the army or build defense lines, it is a very expensive project. The main financial revenue of Champa comes from agriculture, so the taxes collected from farmers this year have almost doubled compared with previous years. Obviously the court is also aware of this year's food harvest.

This is a rare opportunity to raise taxes, and we must take this opportunity to extract a lot of money from the private sector.

However, misfortunes never come singly. Due to the bumper harvest of grain, the supply on the market exceeds demand. Grain merchants purchasing grain in various places in Champa also took the opportunity to significantly lower the purchase price, which was almost half lower than in previous years.

With this ups and downs, the income of grain farmers, instead of increasing due to the bumper harvest, is actually lower than in previous years.

Some people who have seen the world do not intend to sell grain in this traditional way. They know that there is a large grain merchant in Hai Han in Vung Tau Port, and the purchase price there is much higher than the price offered by local grain merchants.

Therefore, in order to increase their income, a large number of farmers decided not to sell their rice to the grain merchants who came to buy it, but to ship it to the Vung Tau Port hundreds of miles away. Anyway, the local grain merchants also shipped it to the Vung Tau Port after purchasing it.

Instead of giving the price difference to the grain merchants, it is better to earn it yourself.

Of course, this cross-country trip to sell grain is not easy for most farmers. Those who can farm may not be able to drive a boat, and those who can drive a boat may not be able to go to sea and find the location of Vung Tau Port. Otherwise, in previous years

There will not be so many people selling grain to local grain merchants.

As a result, many villages organized their own grain transport fleets, with people with rich boating experience as leaders. Some villages lacked such people and even had to spend money to hire ship bosses who had been to Vung Tau Port to lead the teams.

In late October, large and small grain transport fleets began to move down the Mekong River, Dong Nai River, Xun Ku River, Kujang River and other rivers, transporting large amounts of grain to Vung Tau Port. On the sea near the Mekong River Delta, everywhere

It can be seen that swarms of small boats and even fishing boats have all temporarily acted as grain transport ships, and the scene is truly spectacular.

On Pier 3 of Vung Tau Port, there is a large signboard that is two feet high. On such a large signboard, there is only one unusually eye-catching big character - meter.

Most people who have been to Vung Tau Port know that Pier 3 is actually a private property. When Hai Han developed Vung Tau Port, the large merchant Fu Ruifeng invested 100,000 taels of silver to participate in the port construction project. Pier 3 is the official

In return for Furifeng.

With such a big move, Fulifeng certainly did not just build a wharf far away from the mainland of Hai Han. In the more than 20 years since Vung Tau Port was put into use, Fulifeng has also gradually increased its efforts here.

Due to its scale of operation, a large number of goods produced in the Ming Dynasty and Hai Han were imported into Champa and Saigon areas through this place. For a long time, local people associated the name of Furifeng with Hai Han goods.

Of course, in addition to selling goods, Furifeng will also purchase some local specialties and traffic them back to the country. Although the commercial profits of selling these agricultural products cross-border are limited, this is also one of the measures for Furifeng to maintain its influence locally, even if it does not make money.

, it will still run for a long time.

Champa rice is not an agricultural product that Furifeng is interested in, because the main advantage of local rice is its low price, so that it can be exported to countries including Haihan. But low price means low profit. It is difficult to transport a ship of rice.

Of course, the profit is far less than that of other commodities, and Furifeng often just assigns the task of transporting rice to returning cargo ships to reduce transportation costs.

However, this year's situation is a bit special. Shopkeeper Jia of Fulifeng recently received an order from his superiors, asking him to purchase 500,000 kilograms of rice at Vung Tau Port, and there are certain requirements on time limit and quality, because this batch

The purpose of rice will be as military ration.

Shopkeeper Jia actually didn’t quite understand why Fulifeng had to come forward to purchase so much military rations. You must know that the purchase of military rations in previous years was always the responsibility of the military’s logistics department, and Fulifeng could only help out.

Provide temporary maritime transport capacity for the military.

But this order came from Li Nai, and Furifeng's business in the entire South China Sea region was under his control. Even if Shopkeeper Jia didn't understand it, he could only start to complete this task immediately.

He ordered people to erect huge advertising signs on the pier, so that both local rice merchants and farmers who came to Vung Tau Port to sell rice would notice the movement of Pier 3 as soon as they entered the port.
Chapter completed!