New Shun 1730

If the trade in West Africa and South America was something that the Dashun sea merchants who had just begun to open their eyes to the world had not thought of.

Then, the trade in Persia, India, and Nanyang, where Dashun had taken over the VOC, was an unexpected but reasonable high profit.

They had seen the account books of the Dutch East India Company before. In the Dutch company, the trade in Nanyang, India, and Persia made money, but the cost was also high. It also involved the 17 gentlemen of the central faction, the seven provincial chambers of commerce, and some struggles with the local faction of Batavia, so the accounts were very complicated.

So the shareholders never doubted that they could make a profit.

But when Liu Yu reported the profit amount, they were very surprised. However, after Liu Yu finished talking about these factors that made more profits than the Dutch, they all felt that it was indeed reasonable.

The Dashun Western Trade Company was able to make high profits after taking over the Dutch, which was due to the special nature of Dashun trade.

When the Dutch were in charge, they always had to face a problem, that is, insufficient silver.

For example, the Netherlands had to go to Surat, India to buy cotton cloth, and then use the Indian cotton cloth to transport it to the Spice Islands in exchange for various spices.

Why didn't they use Songjiang cloth and Jinling cloth?

It's not because Songjiang cloth and Jinling cloth are worse than Surat's cotton cloth, nor is it because the cotton cloth in Dashun is more expensive than the cotton cloth in India.

It's because of... the silver problem.

In India, spices such as pepper can be used and circulated by comprador middlemen.

For example, Indian comprador merchants can collect spices, groceries, hardware, needles and threads from the Netherlands and calculate the price.

Then use the calculated price to pay the Dutch cotton cloth.

Among them, no silver is used for circulation.

But if the Dutch want to buy Dashun's cotton cloth, they have to face a problem: how to buy it?

At this time, the whole world is facing a problem. With the warming climate and the exchange of new crops, the population began to surge. In fact, since the 18th century, the per capita meat consumption in Europe has been declining. The decline in meat consumption has greatly affected the sales of spices.

The problem in Dashun is more serious than in Europe, with less meat per capita.

In rich areas, such as Yangzhou and Jiangnan, the cuisines here do not like spices very much. This is an aesthetic issue. Yangzhou cuisine and Suzhou and Hangzhou cuisine are all elegant and do not like the strong taste of spices.

This made the Dutch try to sell spices to Dashun in the early years, but failed.

Moreover, smuggling in Dashun is more difficult to control than in Britain. Dashun does not lack spices at all, even if the Dutch have a monopoly.

Even though the Dutch claim to have a monopoly on spices, Henan's Hu La Tang has never been cut off. Where do spices like pepper come from? Naturally, it comes from the smugglers of Dashun who are highly skilled.

So the situation emerged: the Dutch can only pay silver and gold in most cases when buying goods in Dashun.

After Liu Yu cut off trade between the Netherlands and Japan, the problem of insufficient cash became more serious.

The Dutch had already started direct trade with Dashun, but they had to choose Indian cotton cloth.

Because the limited silver was needed to buy irreplaceable tea, porcelain, and raw silk with higher profit margins.

The Dutch calculated that it would be more profitable to buy cloth in Southeast Asia for spices with one dollar and to buy tea in Europe with one dollar.

Good steel should be used on the blade, and the limited silver should be used on high-profit commodities.

At the same time, due to the shortage of silver and other problems, the Netherlands had to choose some daily necessities in Europe, because they could also use bonds for turnover in Europe.

As we all know, capital is profit-seeking.

If European daily necessities and hardware products could really make a profit in China, then their trade would definitely be mixed with a large number of daily necessities, and there would not be the speech made by the British East India Company in Congress in 1820: In the past 23 years, textiles and hardware products sold to China have brought the company a loss of 1.6 million pounds.

Therefore, it can be seen that Dashun's daily necessities and hardware products are definitely cheaper than those in Europe.

However, the Dutch East India Company was obviously closer to China, but due to the problem of insufficient silver, they could not sell cheap Chinese goods in Southeast Asia.

Limited silver had to be used to buy goods with higher profit margins. This made the small commodities they sold to India and Southeast Asia more expensive European goods.

At the same time, due to Batavia's special political status, all transactions had to be transferred in Batavia.

The ship had to come to Batavia first, and then go to India after the goods were distributed and packaged, and then they were exchanged for cotton cloth and the like, and then distributed in Batavia and sent to various regions.

Sometimes they had to consider the problem of insufficient currency and had to reduce the supply of goods.

Reducing the supply of goods and maintaining a monopoly would obviously lead to rampant smuggling - Spain had taught the Dutch several lessons. If they had to monopolize when they had insufficient goods, wouldn't they be looking for smuggling?

Now that Dashun has taken over the Dutch, at least in terms of the source of goods, it has eliminated the problem faced by the Netherlands.

In terms of the supply of goods, Dashun is absolutely confident.

Even China's shortcomings in the watch industry have been lamented by the British in history. After selling high-priced clocks and music boxes to China for twenty years, the result was that twenty years later, the clockwork craftsmen in Birmingham took on more apprentices due to the prosperity of foreign trade in the past twenty years, and then they were all unemployed twenty years later.

Another thing is that Batavia is worthless to Dashun. It was the "capital" of the Dutch East India Company, but for Dashun, Malacca was more important, and Batavia was not special at all.

Therefore, Dashun's cargo ships were directly allocated in Songjiang Prefecture, and then directly transported to various cities and islands in Nanyang.

Silver capital was sufficient, and at the same time, relying on paper money and the absolute advantage of handicrafts, paper money credit was established.

Take it, sell goods, and collect money; buy spices and pay money.

There is no need for compradors to add a layer of price, nor is there a need for compradors to circulate silver. The warehouse model is directly adopted: the company builds its own warehouse, and receives and sells goods in the warehouse.

This is also the difference between Dashun capital and Dutch capital.

The interest rate in the Netherlands was too low, so the Dutch East India Company's share capital was always small, and it issued bonds when it was short of money; the interest rate in Dashun was too high, so the share capital of the Western Trade Company was much larger than that of the Netherlands on the first day of its establishment, because it was destined to be unable to borrow money, and could only rely on share capital and profit accumulation, and its working capital was more abundant.

Dashun did not have to face the "silver shortage" of the Netherlands.

Dashun really didn't know how to create a trade deficit in trade, and the sea merchants didn't want to do so - this was not even a good thing for sea merchants. They went to Europe to fill up with goods, and when they came back, the ship was basically empty except for silver. This round trip was a buy and sell, or only sell without selling, and the profit difference was huge. The problem was that the sea merchants thought about it for a long time and didn't know what to bring back - but the benefit on the other hand was that Dashun didn't need to engage in that kind of troublesome barter transaction, and directly used money as the intermediary, rather than the comprador class as the intermediary.

Just for this point, the profit of Dashun in Nanyang was much higher than that of the Netherlands.

The profits from India and Persia are also "thanks" to the Dutch pepper market opened in recent years.

Liu Yu has always said that the Seventeen-member Committee of the Dutch East India Company caught up with the trend of the times, an era when pigs could fly to the sky.

In terms of decision-making ability, if there was any decision-making ability, it would not have led to the disorderly expansion of the sugarcane plantation in Batavia, which led to the Chinese rebellion.

The same is true for the pepper problem.

During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, because the air routes were cut off, the supply of pepper in the European market was less than the demand, and the price soared to 1.1 florins per pound.

The Seventeen-member Committee saw that this price was not profitable, right?

So they ordered Batavia to stock up pepper.

He didn't even think about why the price of pepper soared during the Second Anglo-Dutch War.

If it was the first time, it would be understandable.

In fact, a similar thing happened during the First Anglo-Dutch War, and the war also caused the supply of pepper to be less than the demand, and the price soared, and then plummeted.

Even if it is a dog, the first time the bell is rung, the second time the bell is rung, the third time the bell is rung, the dog should know that there is some connection between the bell and the food, right?

Being able to summarize this connection into a law and make sense is science.

The Seventeen Gentlemen lack basic scientific literacy.

After the Second Anglo-Dutch War, they let Batavia stock up on pepper and collect as much as they want.

In the years after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, 10 million kilograms of pepper were shipped to Europe every year.

Then they did not stop and continued to expand the purchase volume, which finally led to the pepper price falling to the lowest point in history in 1680, from 1.1 at the peak to 0.19 at the lowest point, which was not a halving.

The Seventeen Gentlemen were not fools, but they were a little slow to react. By the time they reacted, they could no longer stop.

In this case, it can be said that "unintentional planting willows willows shade the forest", using price wars to ensure the Dutch monopoly on pepper in the European market.

Since a monopoly has been achieved, it is reasonable to reduce the shipping volume, create scarcity, and prepare to raise the price.

But at this time, the 17-member group of gentlemen became timid again, thinking that if the price is raised, Britain will be jealous? Will it go to rob Southeast Asia? They can't beat Britain and are facing the threat of France. Simply maintain this low price.

As long as I am cheap enough, then you will not be jealous, and disdain to be jealous.

Adhering to this attitude, the output caused by the expansion of the purchase volume in the past few years cannot be destroyed by artificial means like cloves. Isn't that tempting the British to rob?

What to do with such a large output?

Europe can't eat it, China doesn't want it, and Japan doesn't eat much meat and has never heard of pepper with salted fish. After looking around, they can only sell it to India and Persia.

In the first forty years of Dashun's voyage to Southeast Asia, the Dutch East India Company greatly expanded the Indian market and even made Indians like to eat various spices.

This is a kind of wedding clothes for others.

That's why Liu Yu said that the tangible assets of the Dutch East India Company are not much money. Whether it is equity, broken company buildings, or warehouses everywhere, these tangible assets are worthless.

But VOC's intangible assets are really valuable.

Over decades, a habit, a market, and a whole set of trade systems have been cultivated. These are huge intangible assets, all given to Dashun.

Different problems should be treated differently. Some will rise and some will fall.

For example, cloves have competition from Brazilian cloves. Dashun must expand its planting and use its low-cost advantage to destroy Brazil's clove plantations and regain the European market.

But there is no good substitute for pepper.

Dashun was not afraid of the British coming to grab it, and there was no need to consider what to do if the British became jealous after the price increase.

So Dashun took over the Indian pepper market left by the Dutch on the one hand, and raised the selling price of pepper by 50% on the other hand.

A 50% price increase is not calculated by a 50% increase in profit.

A product with a cost of one dollar is sold for two dollars, with a profit margin of 100%; if it is increased by 50%, it is sold for three dollars, with a profit margin of 200%.

This is a normal price.

The abnormal price is also due to Dashun's voyage to Southeast Asia and the war against the Netherlands, which led to a serious shortage of spices in the world market within two years.

The short-term price surge has even more amazing profits.

After all, Europeans are more skilled in hoarding, speculation, and monopoly. The price of pepper has been very high in recent years.

In addition to the trade of spices and cotton cloth.

Ceylon was also seized by Dashun, and after Colombo was changed to Gaolang Port, it completed the monopoly of Ceylon gems, cinnamon, and betel nuts.

Ceylon betel nut is an important dye for Indian cloth dyeing. Indians like the color of betel nut dyeing.

Although the gems, cinnamon and betel nut of Ceylon are all monopolized by the emperor and used as revenue from the treasury, the emperor and the company share the profits equally because they have to find trading companies to sell them.

Britain and France went to war in India, and Dashun went to war with the Netherlands. Dashun quickly solved the Nanyang issue, which enabled Dashun to quickly complete the monopoly of betel nut needed for the Indian market.

Britain and France did not want to offend Dashun on the Ceylon issue, and both sides tacitly withdrew their forces from Ceylon. There was no power in the first place, just three or two cinnamon factories, and it was not worth offending Dashun.

The war between Britain and France in India, where they hijacked each other's ships, allowed Dashun to seize the opportunity and make a lot of money. The profits far exceeded those of the Dutch era.

Not to mention cinnamon.

The sales of other spices decreased due to the impact of new hobbies such as tobacco, tea, and coffee. But cinnamon is the opposite. Cinnamon is a spice that Europeans like to add to coffee, tea, wine, sugar and even tobacco.

The widespread spread of new hobbies has led to the growth of cinnamon sales.

Most of these situations are considered to be a good start for Liu Yu to seduce people by calculating the timing and seizing the opportunity of the Austrian War of Succession. The profits are naturally ridiculously high.