Chapter 2203: Renzong Chronicles 12: The True Explosion of Maritime Trade

By the twenty-first year of Zhengtong, trade remained Shanghai's most important, most frequent, and largest-scale economic activity. Domestically, reaching west to Bashu and north to Youyan, merchants of the Great Han gathered the native products and wealth of all parts of the empire through convenient waterways, rivers, lakes, and seas;

overseas, merchant groups numbering in the hundreds of thousands crossed the waves, continuously importing into the homeland every resource within the radiation range of Han civilization that could be used by the empire's scholars and commoners, in exchange for sought-after imperial commodities.

By now, on the busy South Seas overseas trade routes, all kinds of spices, rarities, timber, and seafood remained the mainstream goods shipped to the imperial homeland. However, compared with decades ago, the categories had grown richer—rice, sugar, salt, and coal were also gradually becoming mainstream—and this benefited from two factors.

One was the increasingly vigorous demand within the Great Han Empire itself; the other was that, after nearly a century of development (counting the military conquests of the Shizu era), the South Seas states had finally grown, strengthened, and accumulated considerable wealth.

Market demand plays a dominant role in economic vitality, and even with the empire's vast territory and abundant resources, its need for overseas resources seemed insatiable—especially rice and sugar, in which the empire's productivity gains simply could not keep pace with the demand brought by the surge in population.

In the import of grain, the imperial court even implemented a series of preferential policies specifically to encourage the many grain merchants engaged in maritime trade to transport grain from the South Seas states. By the twenty-first year of Zhengtong, the customs duty on grain imports had gradually been reduced to two li.

This was extremely tempting for many merchants, and it was also related to the empire's rapidly developing shipping capacity. The Great Han fuchuan vessels currently plying the seas could carry at least three thousand dan of grain per round trip, and as many as five thousand. At Shanghai's current price of 45 wen per dou of rice, a one-way trip was worth more than two thousand guan, while the cost of purchasing grain from the South Seas was far lower than domestically.

The reason the court was willing to grant such generous preferential treatment on grain imports was naturally not out of concern for the people's livelihood—at least not entirely. The origin lay in the famines that occurred between the sixth and eleventh years of Zhengtong: successive severe droughts in Hebei and Jianghuai led to the Wang Ze uprising in Hebei and grain shortages in the two capitals.

No matter how fierce the chaos in Hebei or how many people died, there were plenty of officials to suppress it, but grain shortages in the two capitals were a serious political problem—they stained the empire's glorious picture of prosperity with ugly ink marks.

In those years, to alleviate the grain shortage, the court continuously transferred grain from all regions, investing enormous costs, and even causing Guanzhong and Chuanshu to fall into high grain prices, triggering successive urban unrest.

Among the many measures, the court officials discovered that only purchasing grain from overseas seemed to be the option with the least lingering harm and backlash. However, mindful of the inconveniences of the vast ocean, and to encourage merchants, under the direction of Fan Zhongyan, then Director of State Affairs, the customs duty on grain imports was further reduced, and to this day, South Seas rice maintains the lowest tariff—unique in this regard.

By comparison, cane sugar, which had higher added value, had its tariff fluctuating between 5 and 8 li, while items such as spices, coal, and salt were higher still, and luxury goods like ivory, agate, coral, pearls, jadeite, and precious timber were even higher.

The imperial customs' tiered tariff management was also formally implemented starting from the Jianghai Customs. During Wang Anshi's tenure as head of the Jianghai Customs General Tax Office, he carried out bold reform measures in this regard, greatly improving the commodity tariff structure and increasing imperial fiscal revenue.

Against the backdrop of South Seas grain imports, a group of grain merchant tycoons naturally rose among the maritime merchant community. However, those who could eat from this bowl and grow large were invariably connected to the powerful and noble—either imperial nobles or the upper echelons of the vassal states.

Annam and Linyi, which possessed uniquely favorable geographical and climatic advantages, were the main states in the "southern grain transported northward" effort, because the two states produced more, had more arable land, could harvest three crops a year, and were closer in distance, making maritime transport more convenient.

It was precisely for this reason that, after a "long race" of sixty to seventy years, Annam and Linyi stood out and became the two "great powers" with the strongest national strength among the South Seas states. Of course, this also had innate genetic factors at play, since from the very beginning, the two states had been the vassal states with the deepest degree of Sinicization.

Among the bulk imported commodities, salt was the most special, because of the empire's internal salt and iron monopoly policy and its important position in the imperial fiscal system.

Therefore, it had long been in a suppressed state, which led to rampant coastal salt smuggling. The first to pursue this idea was the state of Gouwu (descendants of Liu Hui, the seventh son of Shizu, northern Borneo), which had a tradition of salt evaporation; salt and spices were also the main goods in Wu's trade with the imperial homeland.

Later, the state of Beilu (descendants of Liu Ai, the eighth son of Shizu, enfeoffed in the northern Philippines) also joined in. With these two vassal states orchestrating behind the scenes, as time passed and scale grew, they caused a serious impact on the empire's southeastern salt market.

When Bao Zheng served as Fiscal Commissioner of the Southeast, he observed this situation, investigated it deeply, became greatly concerned, and submitted a memorial that startled the court, which had previously been turning a deaf ear. Then, with the support of Cao Lun, then Director of State Affairs, and Wang Shilin, the Finance Commissioner, he pushed for "foreign salt entering through customs."

Cao Lun was the grandson of Cao Bin, the second son of Cao Can, the elder brother of Cao Wei. The Cao clan was extremely prominent during the Jianlong and Zhengtong reigns. According to "principle," after Fan Zhongyan was dismissed as chancellor, a descendant of the meritorious nobility should have taken charge of governance, and the reason Cao Lun was able to stand out, besides possessing a certain level of ability, was also related to the fact that there was an empress surnamed Cao in the palace.

When Cao Lun rose to power, even Wang Shilin, the trusted confidant of Emperor Liu Weizhen from his days as prince, had no choice but to yield the position of Minister of Personnel. Of course, Liu Weizhen did not treat him unfairly—he was reassigned to head the Finance Bureau, and his power and influence remained.

And with the adjustment of the salt and iron policies of the Finance Bureau, overseas salt primarily from the Wu and Lu states was able to openly enter the imperial domestic market through the several major customs houses.

Of course, under the strict supervision of the foreign affairs department of the Salt and Iron Bureau, and at the same time, compared with coastal smuggling, the risk was smaller and the scale larger. Although it was difficult for it to become the market mainstream due to issues of output and quality, the price was cheap.

The import of foreign salt was in fact also a shock to the empire's deeply entrenched "expensive salt," "salt merchants," and "salt gangs" forces. At the same time, with more supply on the market, salt prices experienced their first decline in thirty years.

In the twenty-first year of Zhengtong, the salt price in Shanghai was only 71 wen per dou—a level that nearly matched the price after the "salt reform" increase during the Kaibao era of Shizu. And when Shanghai salt prices were at their highest, they once climbed to 108 wen per dou, greatly affecting the production and daily life of the city's scholars and commoners.

However, due to the concentration of resources, Shanghai never lacked supplies, which also reflected the livelihood conditions of other cities in the empire. The most notable were the two capitals—had the court not been concerned with face and vigorously suppressed and regulated prices, they would have long spiraled out of control.

And in places where central supervision was lax or influence was weak, the situation was far more serious, with countless disturbances and popular unrest arising from natural disasters and man-made calamities.

In fact, given the Great Han Empire's nearly century of commodity economy development and "urbanization" process, the unprecedented growth of domestic population and productivity was certainly the foundation, but without the supplementary support of overseas resources, it would have long ceased to function.

Taking the import of South Seas sea salt as an example, regardless of the struggles and distribution along the profit chain, for ordinary scholars and commoners, they gained tangible benefits from the reduction in salt prices.

Of course, even though "Wu salt," "Lu salt," and even "Yong salt" and "Yue salt" could enter the imperial market through official channels, coastal and riverine salt smuggling remained rampant—there were always merchant ships that brought salt back to the homeland along the way, or some illegitimate "dirty salt," whose ultimate destination was also the empire's prefectures, counties, towns, and villages.

The salt-producing vassal states of the South Seas did not care who the buyers were—they would sell to anyone with money—and the empire's lower classes never lacked risk-taking salt smugglers, nor itinerant peddlers and porters who carried loads on shoulder poles or pushed wheelbarrows, venturing into mountain villages and rural areas to sell smuggled salt.

As for coal, from the Shizu era onward, it developed continuously from the noble to the common, from the north to the south, gradually becoming an important fuel for heating in the lives of the empire's scholars and commoners, especially urban residents.

In the late Kaibao period, "honeycomb briquettes" were born, and their convenience and benefit to the people were obvious to anyone. With the widespread dissemination of the technology, a large number of "briquette factories" emerged throughout the north.

However, the use of coal had always been limited by both mining and transportation. The main domestic production areas were in Jinzhong and Ru-Xu, and the transportation situation was hard to describe—it was difficult to cover the entire country. Therefore, coal prices remained high year after year, and it was also difficult for honeycomb briquettes to enter the homes of countless ordinary families.

Yet the empire's demand for coal was growing daily, especially in the smelting industry, where the calorific benefits brought by coal were extremely significant. With market demand, naturally there were shrewd merchants to satisfy it.

Coincidentally, in the various South Seas states—whether the state of Nanliang (Sumatra), the Yong and Yue states on the island of Java, or the state of Wu—all possessed vast open-pit coal mines with astonishing reserves that were extremely easy to mine.

With the large-scale import of South Seas coal, the people of the empire's south, especially the prefectures of the southeastern circuit, the economic core, were finally able to use affordable honeycomb briquettes, enjoying the benefits brought by the great pioneering efforts of Han folk.

Of course, the resources imported into the imperial homeland from overseas states were far more than this. Through these rich trade activities, one could also reflect on the development and accumulation of each state.

But even so, by the Zhengtong era, for the Great Han Empire, in terms of resources, it was still exporting more than importing, because the empire possessed too many irreplaceable resources—political, military, and economic.

Silk, porcelain, and tea—these old three staples needed no further mention—but cotton cloth, lacquerware, ships, ironware, weapons, including books, technology, and even population, were all urgently needed by the overseas states. Moreover, with the development and growth of the market, they continued to increase.

Initiated personally by Emperor Shizu, consolidated and passed down by Emperor Taizong and the Liu vassal lords, and carried forward by countless Great Han folk who braved the wind and waves to reclaim and pioneer, it took nearly a century of effort before the maritime trade scale of the Zhengtong era underwent its complete transformation and explosion.

Even Emperor Shizu himself, in his lifetime, probably could not have imagined that the South Seas strategy would have such a profound impact on all of East Asia, and that the Great Han Empire and the South Seas states would become what they are today.

As the important role players in the circulation chain, wealth was born from this, and disputes arose from this. To be fair, the enduring prosperity of the empire's overseas trade was also closely related to the large number of interest groups that emerged alongside it, and the city of Shanghai was clearly one of the bases of these people.