Hundreds of people were carrying heavy boxes from the ship to the pier. There were already nearly a hundred large boxes on the pier, each of which weighed two hundred kilograms.
Chao Kun ordered the soldiers to open a box. Inside were pieces of blackened silver ingots. Each piece weighed ten kilograms and seemed to be of relatively rough quality.
"Is it thick silver?" Chen Qing frowned.
"Reporting to your highness, their silver refining skills are not good, and they only produce coarse silver!"
"Then there aren't actually 800,000 taels of silver?"
"no no!"
Chao Kun quickly waved his hand and said: "Eight hundred thousand taels is the amount of fine silver. We have estimated that one pound of coarse silver can be refined into about fourteen taels of fine silver. Two taels are waste. The other party also admitted that the coarse silver we got is
There are 960,000 taels of silver in total, which is 60,000 jins."
“This business is doing well!”
Chen Qing was very satisfied and exchanged pig iron for silver, and their piles of old soldiers and armor were also sold.
"What is this?" Chen Qing walked to a dozen smaller boxes.
"This is gold, it's all gold sand. There are thirty thousand taels in total. Some famous people don't have enough silver, so they use gold sand to pay the bill, according to the ratio of one to three."
Chen Qing nodded, "Then what? In addition to silver and gold, did you buy any other goods?"
Chao Kun smiled bitterly and said: "Japan is still a really poor country. There are no special products, or some worthless bamboo utensils, wooden utensils, and poor quality cloth. The price of rice is more expensive than in Jiangnan. The only useful thing is dried fish. The output is
It was very big, and there were also pearls, conches and the like, but not many of them were valuable. The humble fleet had to come back loaded with dried fish. Each dried fish cost a penny, which was very cheap. They bought all the dried fish they had accumulated for two years.
.”
"Dried fish is also good. It can improve the soldiers' food. It's better than coming back with an empty boat!"
Chen Qing asked with a smile: "Where are the pirates? There is so much silver and gold, aren't the pirates greedy?"
"We were escorted by three warships. We tested an iron fire mine in the harbor of Hizen Province and blew up a dilapidated ship to pieces. The sound was like a huge thunder. Thousands of people in the harbor were frightened, so they didn't see it.
Pass the pirates.”
Chen Qing burst into laughter. The pirates also knew that life was more important than silver.
Chao Kun waved his hand, and the soldiers carried up two smaller boxes. Chao Kun said: "These are some treasures presented to His Highness."
"What treasure?"
Chao Kun opened the box. Inside was a box of precious conches and a small box. Chen Qing picked up the small box and opened it. Suddenly, the treasure was shining brightly. Inside were twenty longan-sized pearls. Each pearl was round and jade-like. It was really good.
thing.
"Where is this box?" Chen Qing pointed to another slightly larger box and asked.
"This is an unexpected treasure. A fisherman sold it to us for only 20 yuan."
Opening the box, there were several large pieces of black gelatin inside, weighing one hundred and fifty-six kilograms. Chen Qing sniffed it, crushed a little bit more, and turned around and shouted: "Lao Zhou, here comes your treasure."
Got it!"
"What baby?"
Zhou Kuan was looking at the color of the gold sand, but his ears were perked up. He quickly came over, looked down at the color gel, and his expression changed, "Ambergris!"
"That's right! I've never seen such a big ambergris!"
Zhou Kuan took a breath of air, "It is very rare to find ambergris weighing twenty kilograms. The largest one weighs hundreds of kilograms. These pieces are not small. How much do they weigh in total?"
"Reporting to Counselor Zhou, a total of one hundred and sixty-four kilograms!"
Zhou Kuan likes spices. He rubbed his hands and said with a smile: "I don't want more, just give me a pound and I will be very satisfied."
"It's your share!"
Chen Qing said to the soldiers: "Send it to Tianxiang Pavilion, let Tianxiang Pavilion cut it into small pieces, put it in a box, and then send it to my house."
"Your Highness wants to reward hundreds of officials?" Zhou Kuan came to his senses.
Chen Qing nodded. He took another largest conch and handed it to Zhou Kuan, "This is for your grandson!"
"Your Highness, I have two grandsons!" Zhou Kuan said with a cheeky smile.
Chen Qing had no choice but to get another big one for him.
"Let me cut another pound of ambergris, and I won't care about anything else."
Chen Qing picked up a palm-sized piece of ambergris from the bottom of the box and handed it to him, "This is enough, at least two kilograms!"
Zhou Kuan was overjoyed and took the ambergris and conch to see his gold sand again.
Chen Qing immediately asked his soldiers to carry the ambergris to Tianxiang Pavilion. Tianxiang Pavilion is a government-run shop that specializes in selling spices from Southeast Asia and also sells ambergris. It is very expensive, costing twenty taels of silver a piece, or half a tael at most.
In the afternoon of that day, Chen Qing held a meeting in the Internal Affairs Hall. In the large courtyard of the Internal Affairs Hall, more than 300 large boxes were filled with the yard. All the lids of the boxes were opened, and they were filled with heavy thick silver ingots.
Counselors and major officials from various departments also visited together. They heard that this was exchanged for silver with 500,000 jins of pig iron and a batch of old soldiers' armor. The officials were very surprised. It was equivalent to one tael of silver for one jin of pig iron. You know
A hoe weighing several kilograms only costs a few hundred pennies, including the blacksmith's wages.
After this trip to Japan, the profit was almost a hundred times, and there were still 30,000 taels of gold sand. This trade was really cost-effective!
In the meeting hall, five counselors and Chen Qing discussed the establishment of the Foreign Trade Administration. Chen Qing said to everyone: "Everyone has seen the huge profits from overseas trade. This is an important shortcut to solve our financial shortcomings. I want to do this."
Let’s talk about the establishment of the Overseas Trade Administration!”
Zhou Kuan said with a smile: "The Financial Secretary is firmly supportive. This time, the 60,000 kilograms of crude silver can be refined to more than 50,000 kilograms, which is equivalent to 800,000 taels of silver, or four million guan. We can do a lot of things, and I am in charge
The old man from the Finance and Taxation Department has never felt so comfortable."
Jiang Yanxian also smiled and said: "Actually, we all agree with the establishment of the Overseas Trade Administration. It has all the benefits and no harm, but we have to think clearly about what can be sold and what is prohibited. We must set a charter and then constantly revise it based on practice.
, and finally formed a law.”
"Counsellor Jiang is right!"
Zhang Miao also said: "The Department of Human Resources is considering staffing and how to select outstanding talents. We can set up an overseas business subject within the manufacturing department to select outstanding talents, but the top priority is to establish a framework."
Chen Qing nodded, looked at Zhang Xiao again, and said with a smile: "Overseas trade, the military department will also appear!"
Zhang Xiao smiled slightly and said: "Your Highness is referring to the escort. There is no problem with that, but I have another idea!"
"Counsellor Zhang, please speak!"
Zhang Xiao said calmly: "Overseas trade is actually a part of foreign trade. There is also land foreign trade. We have been doing it, but we always feel that it is relatively loose and there is no complete law or system for management. The previous
When the commercial tax was exempted in 2011, Sogdians and Hu merchants from the Western Regions were also exempted. They made huge profits, but they should not be exempted, so I won’t go into detail here.
What I mean is that we should take advantage of this opportunity to establish various systems for foreign trade, not only official, but also private, how much tax should be collected, who will be responsible, etc., and make it clear together."
Lu Qingshan also said slowly: "Counsellor Zhang is right. I also think that a trade supervision should be established. Under it are the Domestic Department, the Overseas Department, and the Overseas Department. But this is only limited to official trade. Private trade is still limited to the taxation department and the overseas department.
The Municipal Shipping Department is enough. In addition, a catalog of prohibited items is issued, which strategic items are strictly prohibited from being exported to mainland China and overseas, such as silkworm seeds, spinning wheels, textile craftsmen, porcelain craftsmen, etc. As for weapons, pig iron, etc., overseas
You can get out, but not on land."
Lu Qingshan is indeed a person who has served as the Prime Minister of the imperial court, and his opinions and ideas are at a higher level. If he didn't say it, no one would realize that the export of silkworm seeds should be strictly prohibited.
Chen Qing nodded and said to Jiang Yan first: "This matter will be led by Counselor Jiang. People from each department will form a preparatory group to prepare for the establishment of a trade supervisory authority."
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[I went to go online for vehicle inspection today, it took half a day, and there were only two updates]