Chapter 72 Announcement Part Three, Chinese and Foreign
In more than a month, many ships anchored at Haizhou Port will fly south like migratory birds.
Monsoon climate is like this.
Summer and autumn come and winter and spring go, and this happens every year, creating a large number of "migratory birds" for trade.
Many people have bought land, built houses and settled down in Donghai and Qushan.
Because the importance of this northern port is growing day by day, more and more people are doing this - even if the cargo owner himself has to leave, he will let his nephew or trusted confidant stay here.
Not for anything else, just to buy and sell goods.
As the new generation leader of the Tuoba family, Tuoba Ju also built a house on the island, which occupies a large area and is very grand - it can also be used as a goods yard.
On this day, he arrived at Fangshi early to attend the last trade fair of the month.
"Coral, agarwood, shark skin..."
In his shop located in Fangshi, the clerks checked everything to make sure everything was correct before carefully placing it in the warehouse.
Next door was a pepper shop run by a big cannibal. A businessman with a Hebei accent was bargaining with him, and it took him a long while to decide.
A businessman from Hebei had several large carts of porcelain brought over. After delivering the goods to Da Shiren, because the amount of pepper he bought was relatively large, he made up for it with a batch of silk and satin. After the final reckoning, he still owed a lot.
Having no other choice, the man took out a few silver bowls and handed them to the others with a look of pain on his face.
The big eater frowned, not wanting to accept it.
First of all, he wanted to receive the goods more than the silver bowl, because when he went back and resold it, he would make ten times or even dozens of times the profit.
Secondly, the weight of this silver bowl is easy to measure, but I don’t know the quality. Is it possible that someone has deceived it?
To be honest, he was surprised that the "Qin people" were extremely backward in business, and they actually used silver bowls, silver plates, silver bottles and other utensils to trade, and there were a lot of them.
One of his relatives was engaged in the overland silk trade. In the early years in Dunhuang, the local people, like the Tubo, mainly traded silver, not silk, which was common in other places.
When buying goods in the market, I will give you a silver bowl. If it is not enough, add a few more bags of wheat. If there is more, I will cut the silver bowl directly and give you a part - don't laugh, these types of utensils often appeared in commercial transactions in the Tang Dynasty.
In China, it is used as currency and is commonly seen in various contract documents.
He was surprised. Are silver bowls, silver plates, silver spoons, and silver bottles easy to measure?
"Dilhan! Dilhan!" The big cannibal finally gave up the cashier bowl, shook his head and said, "I only want Dilhan."
The merchants from Hebei muttered a few words, and finally untied a baggage, took out dozens of silver coins, handed it over to the merchant, and said: "Here you go, Da Xia Dilhan, I won't do business with you next time."
Tuoba Ju smiled slightly as he watched.
Since many years ago, a trade fair in various markets in Daxia has ended. Everyone has made accounts and cleared the accounts. If there is a surplus, the merchant will receive a silver dollar note.
Silver dollar bills are usually used to deduct taxes, and occasionally they are used as gifts, but if there is an opportunity, they will eventually be exchanged for silver dollars and taken home.
When the court collects taxes, they would rather pay copper coins and silk. If they don't have enough, they will use gold and silverware such as silver vases, silver plates, and silver bowls to offset the bill, and the court will also collect it. But after collecting it, they always
I will give you a few words of advice: Next time, try to pay taxes with copper coins, silk, silver dollars or silver dollar bills.
But no one would do that, stupid?
The eighteen-baht silver dollar established during the Shuofang Army era was exquisitely crafted, constant in weight, full of fineness, easy to carry, and extremely easy to calculate. I don’t know how convenient it is when buying and selling goods privately.
Over the past thirty years, the unit of measurement for many goods has become silver dollars - otherwise, what do you use to measure the price? Silk? Then I want to talk to you about width, longitude and latitude, new and old, and workmanship. Why should you?
Priced at one thousand? I said it was only worth eight hundred!
As for the pricing of copper coins, it is not impossible, but it is too heavy and is really inconvenient for long-distance transportation.
After much choice, the eighteen baht silver dollar is more suitable as the unit of measurement.
In recent years, due to the serious shortage of eighteen-baht silver coins in existence, some merchants in Haizhoufang City have begun to spontaneously use dinar gold coins and dirhan silver coins to do business. Even if the court does not recognize such foreign gold and silver coins, they privately
When trading, they still use it - just like during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, merchants abandoned silver coins and broke silver and switched to Spanish double-column silver dollars. They who do large transactions know very well which kind of thing is more convenient.
"Oh, Jianji Silver Dollar." Tuoba Ju was holding his arms, but was a little surprised when he saw that the Hebei merchant took out a larger Jianji Silver Dollar.
The so-called Jianji Silver Dollar is a newly minted silver coin after the founding of the Xia Dynasty. It is provided to various markets in case someone needs to exchange it. Currently, the number is not large and it is very rare.
The official name of Jianji Silver Coin is "Daxia Silver Coin". It has only one face value: one yuan. It weighs twenty-one baht, and is nine silver coins and one copper. According to the regulations of the Ministry of Household Affairs, one yuan of Daxia Silver Coin is equivalent to two coins.
Actually, if you strictly follow the current price ratio of silver and copper and calculate purely by weight, one yuan is worth 1,400 yuan (two yuan = 1,600 yuan). It seems that the court took advantage of it (seigniorage), but the merchants did not
not give a damn about.
Anyway, after the wear and tear of this silver coin is reduced, others will recognize it, and it will continue to be used as two coins and circulate in the hands of different merchants. This is enough.
After the Dashi merchant received the Daxia silver coins, he was all smiles. After counting the number correctly, he just collected it without looking at it. Next, he would go to other merchants to buy goods, and these silver coins were just in time to be used.
"Alas, all the silver coins saved in Beizhoufang City were given to the cannibals in one go." A merchant from Hebei looked at Tuoba Ju and asked, "Why doesn't the imperial court mint more silver coins?"
"The imperial court would like to, but we have to have silver." Tuoba Ju laughed loudly.
Everyone knows that silver coins are more useful than silver bowls, silver plates, and silver bottles. Whenever there is a chance, they will throw out the messy and strange-shaped silver in their hands and exchange it for silver coins to keep at home. But the problem is that the imperial court really does not have that many
Silver is used to make money.
Tuoba Ju knew some inside information. He also chatted with King Qi at the wine table and knew a lot of things.
According to King Qi, at the time of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty, all silver mines in the country were taxed, with a tax of 20,000 taels of silver per year. In the Tang Dynasty, silver mines were privately owned, government-owned, and government-private joint ventures. Just like salt ponds, ordinary people could also fish, and the government
It's not a franchise, it's just tax collection.
Extrapolating from the silver tax, the annual output of silver is less than 80,000 taels.
In the early Tang Dynasty, the output was even smaller, less than 20,000 taels per year. In the Tang Dynasty, for 300 years, the average output was only 50,000 taels per year.
Daxia's silver output was a bit larger than the early 100,000 taels in the late Tang Dynasty. After all, many new territories were added to Helong, Liaodong, and Yunnan, but it was difficult to exceed 10,000 jins (160,000 taels) - the annual output during the heyday of the Northern Song Dynasty
There were 800,000 taels of silver (made in the Song Dynasty, one tael is equivalent to about 40 grams, slightly smaller than that made in the Tang Dynasty), with an average of 500,000 taels, but most of them did not flow into the market, and were mainly "gifted" to the Liao Kingdom and Xixia.
Ten thousand kilograms of silver, based on the new silver coins minted after the founding of the Xia Dynasty, would only amount to more than 182,800 coins minted every year.
This amount is far from meeting market demand, so as long as the imperial court releases a batch of silver coins, they will surely be taken away by merchants.
Of course, the imperial court made a little money from it, and the annual seigniorage revenue was converted into copper coins, which was about 80,000 yuan - if the value of the silver itself is not included.
But to be honest, the court looked down upon this small amount of money compared to rectifying the chaotic business order.
"I feel that the saint is well-deserved for his honorary title." Hebei merchant also sighed after hearing this. He knew that Daxia was short of silver, and it was very short, but the saint introduced two accounting currencies and silver coins, one virtual and one real.
The things still made the life of the merchants much easier, so he said: "Some people have suggested that this person can be the new ancestor of our merchants. I have read little and don't know much about it. I just want to ask you, if you are at home,
Is it against the law to worship holy images?"
"This..." Tuoba Ju was dumbfounded by the question, and he didn't know.
"Have you ever seen a saint?" he asked.
"I met him once many years ago at Bai Sima Ban." The merchant said, "His voice, appearance, and smile...well, let's not talk about it anymore, haha."
Tuoba Ju also felt that this topic was dangerous, so he said instead: "Yesterday, dozens of Japanese merchants came to the market..."
"Have you met him?" Hebei merchant's eyes lit up and he asked.
The current image of Japanese businessmen is that they are stupid and have a lot of money.
They had no idea what kind of bad luck they had, and they actually dug out a lot of silver mines at home. According to rumors from maritime merchants, silver mines and copper mines are still being discovered one after another. There is no end to them.
How much is buried underneath?
After several years of mining, the Japanese are now really "arrogant"——
I used to be so stingy that I didn't even want to stay in a hotel. I could even spend a night in an inn or a thatched pile. But now, I eat at the best restaurants, stay in the most luxurious hotels, spend money generously, speak loudly, and look like a rich man.
appearance.
"They brought several thousand kilograms of silver bullion and opened an account in Donghaifang City, which directly alerted the city's shipping envoys." Tuoba Ju said: "I heard that there were five or six ships in total, and all the goods on board were added.
Look, it’s not as valuable as those silver coins. I’m probably going to buy a lot this time. I don’t know who will get this piece of fat.”
One thousand catties of silver can be cast into more than 18,000 silver coins, worth more than 36,000 coins.
What the Japanese brought was silver bullion, which was worth thirty-two thousand min. Considering that their smelting technology was not good, the silver contained many impurities, and it might have to be hacked, so it might only be worth thirty thousand min.
But it’s really quite a lot! With a big business of more than 100,000 yuan, this group of businessmen should be very knowledgeable in Japan. They have a high status. Once they became rich, they rushed to the Central Plains to buy. This abacus was calculated.
It's really cool.
Tuoba Ju could actually get a share of the pie, but it was inconvenient for him to say it in front of this Hebei businessman.
Our caravan is still working tirelessly to transport supplies to the imperial court, so the imperial court will naturally take care of it.
Haizhou City's envoy, King Shao Guancheng of Qi, has made it clear that the Japanese want to purchase silk, porcelain, leather, medicinal materials, books and various Central Plains handicrafts. You will be given as much business as you can find, with an upper limit.
Fifty thousand coins.
Tuoba Ju was of course very grateful. If he didn't take away 20,000 yuan of profit from the Japanese for the 50,000 yuan of goods, he would close down and stop doing business from now on.
This transaction is a great benefit to Tuoba Trading Company.
There is really nothing to say about working for the saint. I will try to find ways to make you money and make up for the deficit in the Western Region.
"I can't eat the Japanese fat meat anymore." The Hebei businessman sighed and said, "It's enough to transport this batch of Annan pepper back to Hebei and sell it slowly. I can make my own share with peace of mind, and don't want to sell it to others."
Thinking about the West."
Tuoba Ju always felt that his words were implying something, so he did not continue, and instead said: "Annan Trading Company also shipped a lot of pepper to the north this year, why do they need to buy big food?"
Da Shihuo is actually made from Annan, and may be mixed with some pepper from other places, but the quality of the two is almost the same.
"Da Shi Ren also has cloves, nutmeg and other types of spices. If you buy his pepper and buy these spices together, you can get a lot cheaper." Hebei merchant said.
"That's it." Tuoba Ju nodded.
He doesn't do much in the spice business, and he doesn't really understand the twists and turns involved. The big food merchants are also very clever. When they saw the opening of Annan Trading Co., they wanted to gradually steal their pepper business, but they were able to pull this off.
This method of competition is interesting!
"Next step, the saint will plant cloves and cardamom in Annan, right?" The Hebei man said again: "If Annan really produces these spices, I will not buy big food in the future. The Supreme Emperor gave us merchants Qianweiwei
On a good day, I will naturally do things for his old man."
"You have this intention, and it is not in vain that the saint has worked so hard for so many years." Tuoba Ju sighed with emotion.
Some people sowed the seeds thirty years ago, and now they have achieved fruitful results and are highly regarded by the public.
At least, in the eyes of many merchants in Daxia, the title of "Supreme Emperor Jianwen, Shenwu" is worthy of the name and not adulterated at all.