Chapter 1434 Luzon San Francisco
Luzon.
In the Freeport of San Francisco, countless merchant ships are moored in the harbor. The rail carriages on the pier are transporting loads of goods to the pier. Most of the people responsible for loading and unloading are dark-skinned Kunlun slaves. ···
A busy and lively scene.
"These are peppers, cloves and nutmegs over there, cinnamon is loaded on the carts lined up behind, sugar and black tea are loaded at the wharf over there, cotton and coarse sugar are unloaded at the B-word wharf... "
The chief steward at the pier was introducing Qin Lang and his party carefully, and at the same time said that he sent the few spices that had just been inspected to Qin Lang, "The pepper we transplanted in Luzon Island has a good harvest this year, and the processed black pepper and white pepper The peppers are all very good, good quality and good yields."
"Where are the peppers going?"
"Guangzhou, this batch will be shipped to Guangzhou, the next batch will be shipped to Hangzhou, and some will be shipped to Yangzhou, Dengzhou, and Tianjin Port." The manager is very excited. , the Nanyang Spice Market has changed.
In the past, in Palembang, Qiantuoli, one hundred catties of black pepper could be bought for a penny, but when transported to the Central Plains, a catty of black pepper could be sold for ten pennies, and the price difference was a thousand times.
However, it is not too far from Qiantuoli Palembang in Nanyang to Guangzhou, and the profits are so high that it is outrageous.
As a common commodity in spices, pepper itself is not valuable or rare. Unlike cloves and nutmeg, which are only produced on a few volcanic islands in the spice archipelago, pepper is from Tianzhu to the Lion Kingdom to the Nanyang Islands, and even Pyuyue true La and other places also have output, and it is very cheap in the place of origin.
It's just that the merchants keep changing hands, and the heavy taxation along the way has caused the price to continue to rise.
Whether it is the Tang Dynasty in China or the Western countries, the price of spices is extremely high, and merchants make a lot of money selling spices.
"What is the export price of this batch of black pepper?"
"According to the top, middle and bottom, they are divided into three classes. The top class is 60 coins, the middle class is 50 coins, and the bottom class is 40 coins."
At the time of Zhenguan, the black pepper in Palembang, Nanyang was about ten cents per catty, which was still the out-of-port price. If you purchased pepper directly from the natives, the price could be even cheaper, and it might even be available for ten cents per catty.
A few years after the establishment of the Spice Alliance, the price of spices in producing areas has increased significantly. Although Tianzhu and other places also have spices, the civil war has not stopped since the collapse of the Japanese Empire in the north of Tianzhu these years. This has not only affected the picking and processing of pepper, but also affected In addition to selling, those local kings who were in conflict and separatist regimes set up cards and increased taxes everywhere, and even thieves and bandits everywhere, so that the pepper in Tianzhu is now of poor quality and small quantity, and it cannot be shipped out.
On the contrary, the maritime environment in Nanyang is very good. The joint fleet of Nanyang Xuanwei Division patrols and escorts pirates, so that merchants don't have to worry about being robbed.
Even if they are robbed, the Nanyang Xuanwei Department will still pay compensation. They have this confidence and strength, as long as the merchant ship pays a sum of insurance, they will pay if they can catch the pirates and take back the cargo.
On the other hand, the Nanyang countries established the Spice Alliance, which unified the quality standards of spices, delineated the price of grades, and even agreed on unified taxation. It will not be said that repeatedly intercepting taxation.
So even if Nanyang can no longer directly purchase cheap spices or raw materials, the quality is more guaranteed, taxes are also standardized and low, and even safety is more guaranteed.
60 cents a catty of high-quality black pepper, this is the export price of the Nanyang spice trading company, excluding tax. The tax is uniform, ten taxes are one, this tax rate is not very high for hot goods like spices.
Sixty-six dollars a catty can transport the best black pepper.
At this time, the ship loading pepper in the port is a trading ship of Luzon’s own Luzon Shipping Line. The ship belongs to Luzon, and the owner of the cargo is also Luzon itself. The spice shop in San Francisco Port placed an order, purchased the spices, and delivered them to Guangzhou by its own fleet. According to the agreement with the imperial court, half of the spices were bought to the Guangzhou Shipping Department.
The price is 1,200 renminbi per catty for high-grade black pepper, 1,100 renminbi for medium-grade black pepper, and 1,000 renminbi for low-grade black pepper, which is almost twenty times the direct export price.
But compared to the arrival price of black pepper at the beginning of Zhenguan, it is ten times cheaper.
However, Luzon also has its own spice shop in Guangzhou, which has a license to import spices.
The last 45% of the spices, as usual, keep 25% for their own incense shop, and sell the remaining 20% to other incense shops.
In terms of price, the import price of Luzon incense shop is 20% higher than that sold to the imperial court by Bo, and the price sold to other incense shops is 50% higher.
Although many black peppers in Luzon are self-produced, some are purchased, and the ships for freight are mainly self-owned, and even the incense shop in Guangzhou also has its own, but Luzon has always been one ring.
Each link is cleared and settled separately, and everything is done according to the market.
Moreover, there are not only the Luzon Ministry of Internal Affairs, but also the Qin family of the royal family, and there may even be public-private joint ventures, etc. Therefore, the accounts are still very clear, and they are responsible for their own profits and losses, and they are independently accounted for.
In general, Luzon currently accounts for more than 90% of the spice trade in the Central Plains. With its advantage in the transportation of treasure ships at sea, Luzon almost takes over the maritime cargo transportation between the Central Plains and Southeast Asia, and 80 to 90% of the cargo owners They all belong to Luzon.
The price of pepper shipped to the Central Plains to Hong Kong has dropped ten times, which was caused by Qin Lang. The main reason is to increase export sales. The purpose of small profits but quick turnover is actually to suppress other competitors.
Even if the Qin family lowered the sales price by ten times, it would not be a loss, because they seized almost the entire share of the spice trade with Tang Dynasty.
As for the Spice Alliance of the Nanyang countries, they are not opposed to the Qin family, because the Spice Alliance led by Qin Lang has increased the price of spices by five or six times, especially controlling the export of spices in their own hands. In fact, the links of planting, picking, processing, and sales are controlled, and then the export tax is also guaranteed. The people who grow spices, the processing and trafficking merchants, and the countries in Southeast Asia have benefited a lot.
As for the sea trade of spices, most of them also occupy a small share in the time. In the past, those who engaged in international spice trafficking were Tianzhu merchants, Persian merchants, even Egyptian merchants, and Central Plains merchants. They were often regional Relay sales, constantly changing hands.
The local merchants in Nanyang are basically going around in Nanyang, and they don't have many turnovers, so they don't care that after the establishment of the alliance, the Qin family's fleet occupies a major share.
Even because they boarded the alliance ship, the royal families or some big businessmen of the Nanyang countries have also started to trade spices internationally. They mainly rent the Qin family’s treasure ship, or take the Qin family’s cargo ship, or buy the Qin family’s Ships have also started to trade, but after all, they have just started this business, and their share is still very small, so they don't have much opinion on the current market share distribution of spice international trade.
It is precisely for this reason that Qin Lang established the Spice Alliance to control the price and supply of raw materials in the vast majority of spice origins on the one hand, and suppress the final price of spices on the other hand. The pattern is disrupted.
The import price of spice raw materials has skyrocketed tenfold, while the end market price has dropped tenfold. For most traditional spice merchants, this is unacceptable and adaptable, not to mention that the treasure ships of the Qin family can hold more goods. Run faster, turn around faster.
In particular, the spice ships of the Qin family have strong ocean-going capabilities, and there are not many ports of call along the way. They can even sail directly into the Mediterranean Sea by themselves. Tianzhu merchants, Persian merchants, Egyptian merchants, and Dashi merchants can only be reduced to the second class of the Tang family Distributors even reduced the link of being taxed in the middle. The Qin family's spice trade directly reaches the major trading ports for terminal sales, and most of the profits are in their own hands.
Traditional maritime profit traders have become secondary distributors of the Qin family.
The price of Qin family spices imported into the ports of various countries has basically dropped by about ten times compared to the past, but the sales volume has increased by dozens of times. No more.
The surge in sales is of course of great benefit to the spice producing areas.
The Qin family has now begun to grow pepper in large quantities in Luzon, and even monopolized the cultivation of cloves and nutmeg.
Don't look at the export price of black pepper that is only sixty yuan a catty, but this price is basically the same as the price of high-grade salt under the Datang salt monopoly today. But for a few dollars, pepper is thirty or forty times more expensive than rice, so the profit is naturally extremely high.
Besides the spice trade, especially in long-distance international trade, its goods are the lightest and easy to transport, so the profits are huge.
If you want to transport slaves, fur cloth, or precious metals such as gold and silver, or directly transport iron materials, etc., you will not be able to transport much in the ballast.
Besides, after almost monopolizing the international trade of spices, it also brought the Qin family a spice processing industry chain, the manufacture of perfume, and even the processing of spices, etc. These are also very good businesses.
Today, the Tang merchants, represented by the Qin family, almost occupy a dominant position in the international maritime trade. These new-style treasure ships of the Tang Dynasty are all over the world, sailing directly to the ocean. The goods in their hands are also liked by all countries, such as silk. Porcelain, tea, glass, spices and even gold, silver and bronze ware.
(end of this chapter)