Valley Emperor

Chapter 1011 East Asia Route

Guangzhou Business District is the first area dedicated to foreign trade in the Tang Dynasty, and it is also the most active and largest foreign trade area in the Tang Dynasty.

The business district is a special administrative division in the Tang Dynasty. Taking the Guangzhou business district as an example, the area is not very large, but it is located in the southwest of Guangzhou City and on the north bank of the Pearl River. The area is five kilometers long and three kilometers wide. There is only an area of ​​15 square kilometers. The entire area is surrounded by walls and is directly guarded by the military.

However, this area is only about 15 square kilometers. Its administrative level is the state level, and the head of the business district is the fifth grade. At the same time, like other state capitals, it has a complete variety of subordinate institutions, various aspects and other There is no difference between the state-level yamen, the only difference is that there are several more special jurisdictions, mainly for foreign businessmen and some management departments of trade.

The various constitutions and systems of the business district are formulated by the cabinet, and the yamen of the business district does not have the power to change it on its own.

The main function of the business zone is to use it for Chinese and foreign businessmen to conduct transactions, for foreign businessmen to live and live, and to buy real estate on a long-term lease. In other words, this is a relatively large trading market with some residences and warehouses , dock and other supporting settings.

At present, there are seven such commercial and trade zones in the Tang Dynasty, no more or no less, and every trading port has one.

In addition, it is worth noting that the commercial and trade zones are completely different from the concessions that lost power and humiliated the country in later generations. The original intention of the Tang Dynasty to establish the commercial and trade zones was on the one hand to facilitate trade, and on the other hand, it was also to concentrate foreign merchants. manage.

Note the word 'management'!

Foreign businessmen do not have any privileges when they come to the business zone, and even face many restrictions. For example, they are not allowed to leave the scope of the business zone and enter other areas of the Tang Dynasty.

For example, it is necessary to abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty. All the laws, such as the laws of the Tang Dynasty, prohibit the sale of people and abolish any form of servants. Even if the landlords and gentry are rich, they can only hire servants by means of employment, but it is absolutely impossible to say that Spend money to buy this person, and then have some personal restrictions on the slaves or something.

And many foreigners don't talk about slaves, they even have slavery. If these foreigners want to buy slaves or even slaves in the commercial zone, it is absolutely not allowed.

Of course, those slaves brought by foreigners, the Tang Dynasty said that they still do not recognize it, and you are willing to beat the other in private, but if someone reports to the official, then directly arrest the person and fine it without negotiation.

It is not because they say that this is a foreigner, and their country can have slaves, and then they can legally own slaves when they come to the Tang Dynasty, because in this case, strictly speaking, there will be a serious problem of extrajudicial power.

Therefore, the Tang Dynasty is too lazy to take care of it. As long as you come to the Tang Dynasty to trade, then you must abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty, including slandering, slandering the Son of Heaven and the royal family, all of which are not allowed.

If you are unwilling to abide by the laws of the Tang Dynasty: Get out!

Of course, in order to welcome foreign businessmen and slaves, they could not take the boat with them. As long as they did not disembark, the law enforcement officers of the Tang Dynasty would be too lazy to take care of them.

As for the Chinese people wanting to enter and exit the business zone, it was more troublesome before, and only the staff of the approved merchants could enter and leave.

But now it is much simpler. Basically, as long as you show the pass issued by the yamen in the business district, you can enter and leave the business district at will, and there is no requirement to apply for this pass. Only the citizens of the Tang Dynasty can apply for it. Temporary The pass is limited to one month, and the cost is 20 yuan. The price is not much, but the price is fixed. There is no need for any intermediary agent. Go to the application window and show the road guide issued by the police station where the household registration is located to confirm that it is correct. After that, you can get the pass on the spot.

For long-term entry and exit cards, this has to be handled by an agency instead of facial expressions. Individuals cannot handle it. Usually, they are employees working in the business district. Individuals do not need it, and they need to enter and exit for a long time. It is enough to do it once a month.

The price is clearly stipulated, and the old man is not deceived.

In theory, the thief Jiang Yang can also apply for a pass, but whether he will be found out when he goes to apply for the card, and then be caught is another matter.

Today's business zone does not restrict the entry and exit of Chinese people, but restricts the entry and exit of foreigners, and there will be no things that people of the Tang Dynasty are not allowed to enter.

Datang's current seven business districts, Tianjin Business District and Jiaozhou Business District have just begun to be listed, and even the walls have not been built yet. They are just empty shelves for the time being. The ones that are really in operation are Lianzhou, Guangzhou, Quanzhou, Ningbo and Shanghai. Without land, foreign businessmen to trade in China can only go to one of the five ports mentioned above.

Other ports are not allowed to enter.

Guangzhou Business District is the earliest, and because of its geographical advantages, it is now the best developed business district. Here, there are businessmen from all over the world. At the docks of the business district, at least 20 ships are moored all year round. For the above large ships, during the peak period, that is, before the northeast monsoon starts to blow in winter, before the time period that is most suitable for going south to Malacca and even the Indian Ocean, you can even see hundreds of large ships crowded together, waiting for the monsoon to start, and then set sail Set sail to all parts of Southeast Asia and even to India and West Africa!

Don't think that there are less than 20 ships in normal times. You must know that these are all ships that are specially designed to go to the outer seas. Even the small boats that only run in the South China Sea have two or three hundred tons. Generally speaking, the tonnage is generally 500 tons. , seven or eight hundred tons are very common, and sometimes even thousands of tons of Spanish Galen ships can be seen coming and going.

And here, it's just a port in the business zone, and most of the ships parked here are ships that go out to sea.

Not far away is the Guangzhou Wharf, which is the berthing port for domestic routes. There are more ships, generally smaller, such as small sampans of several tons, and inland river ships of dozens of tons.

There are also large ships and sand ships of one or two hundred tons. In addition, there are various new merchant ships such as 350 merchant ships and 680 merchant ships built by Guangzhou Shipyard and Dingsheng Shipyard.

Large and small, at a glance, the river is almost covered, and there are probably hundreds of ships.

This is the busiest port in the Tang Dynasty, and even in the entire East Asia. Even the port of Shanghai, which has great potential, is temporarily inferior to the port of Guangzhou.

Here in the business area, the daily transaction volume is very huge, and from time to time, large ships are guided into the port of the business area!

Today, another Galen ship of at least 600 tons slowly entered the port of berthing in the Guangzhou Business District. This is a Portuguese merchant ship that departed from Malacca and headed north to Guangzhou in the southwest monsoon. The owner is Captain Slender.

Slander is a Portuguese businessman. Like many businessmen who only have one ship and are also captains, he is also a sailor. After struggling for decades, he saved up the money to buy a second-hand merchant ship.

However, after he purchased this second-hand Galen ship, he did not run the distant and long route from Europe to East Asia like many of his peers. The East Asian route he ran was roughly from Malacca to Japan.

This is actually the main route in the East Asian waters.

This route is not long at present, but it is not short either. The supply along the way is very convenient and the risk is small. Although the overall profit of running once is not much, it is better to run one round trip in a year. With a big economy as the support, there is no fear of running out of business. Today's Datang Dynasty wants everything and buys everything. As long as you don't act stupid, you will never lose money on this route.

This route is basically taking advantage of the southwest monsoon to go north from Malacca in summer, passing through several small ports in Annan, and then entering the area of ​​Datang. port for trade.

Some specialties from Europe, Africa, West Asia, India, Southeast Asia and other regions, such as spices from Southeast Asia. Sold a large part of the money back in the port of Datang.

Then buy special products of Datang in the port of Datang, such as silk, tea, porcelain, glass, soap, cloth, woolen, matches, etc. After these things are acquired, they can be sold no matter where they go. Something for a good price.

In addition, you can also buy weapons and weapons such as waist knives made of steel, plate armor made of steel, and even arquebuses. The three major weapon companies of the Tang Dynasty are happy to sell these weapons and armors. UU www.uukanshu.com and these things In Fusang or Nanyang, or even to India, there are a lot of people rushing to get it.

Especially the plate armor, which is so well-made that even the Portuguese are jealous when they see it. Many of the Portuguese garrisoned in Malacca are equipped with plate armor produced by Datang.

After leaving Shanghai, if there is enough time, they can continue to go north, go to North Korea, go to Ryukyu, and then go to Fusang. After selling the goods, they can buy some special products of Fusang, such as sulfur, there are many volcanoes in Fusang, and the output of sulfur It is also big, and the Tang Dynasty has almost unlimited demand for sulfur due to military and industrial needs, and the price is not bad, so every businessman who trades in Fusang brings some sulfur with him more or less. .

Then there's gold and silver!

Yes, that's right, the businessmen come to Fusang to trade, mainly for their gold and silver. Today's production of gold and silver in Fusang is relatively large compared to other regions in the same period. It is said that gold and silver are everywhere. It is not an exaggeration, and because of the shortage of copper coins, the exchange ratio of their gold, silver and copper coins is relatively low.

Many people come here with copper coins to exchange gold and silver, and then leave directly with gold and silver.