"Then why can the ships of the Beijing Merchant Group sail through the Han River? Why are they not afraid of death?"

Hong Dashou was stunned when he heard everything the old man said was full of blood and tears. He used to scold Fang Qiu when he was a keyboard warrior on the Internet, but now it is very difficult to even pull a cargo ship.

"This is what they are capable of! It took so many lives to gain this capability." The old man sighed.

Before the founding of the Li Dynasty, the shipping fleet on the Han River was not as important as it is now. After all, there was no need to transport the tribute rice from all over the world to Hanyang. Therefore, it kept its mountains and rivers hidden and worked deeply.

We explored the hydrological conditions of the Han River Estuary bit by bit, and found a safe route with countless boat crashes and fatalities. The poor boatmen and fishermen were forced to do this in order to make a living.

But later the situation was very different, because the Li Dynasty was established!

Due to North Korea's mountainous terrain and poor land transportation conditions, it became inevitable to transport tribute rice from various provinces by water transport. After the officials in each province collected taxes, they sent the rice to various ports outside the Han River.

, and then sent to Hanyang by the cargo ship of the Beijing Merchant Group.

In other words, the national financial lifeline of the small court of North Korea was actually in the hands of these humble boatmen on the Han River.

King Taejong of North Korea was a ruthless man who forced his father to kill his brothers. At his worst, he killed four wives and brothers in one day. When he saw how powerful the Han River shipping fleet was, he monopolized the country's taxation and transportation rights.

Good guy!

I don’t believe in evil!

He is not a king for nothing, just like the keyboard warriors on the Internet. The feudal dynasty talks to you about nonsense democracy and human rights. The keyboard king directly puts the wives and children of the sailors on the Han River.

Mom caught them and forced these people to submit.

In the old society, the people would not fight with the officials, so the boatmen must have obeyed. But at that time, the leader of the Han River Shipping Fleet was a very loyal man. On the one hand, he spent all his wealth and bribed the powerful officials in the court at that time.

The founding ministers, on the one hand, unified the thoughts of the entire fleet.

Your iron fist of feudalism demands that we assholes submit to submission. Even if we die, we will bite off a piece of flesh from you stupid feudal keyboard kings.

Turning around, more than 20 tribute boats collided and died together at the mouth of the Han River. More than a hundred people were killed and injured. The leader immediately took in the families of all the boatmen who died.

Our lives are worthless, but you, the keyboard king, can’t force us to submit so easily!

At that time, Hanyang gathered thousands of families (not households) of two groups of nobles, as well as a large number of imperial guards and imperial guards. Hundreds of thousands of people in Hanyang were waiting for the rice from the Eight Roads to be cooked.

If you carry 10,000 shi on land and pull it on an ox cart, you won't even have 1,000 shi left over when you arrive at Hanyang.

The Keyboard King still has a keyboard. When he sees that the people are not submissive, he directly accuses their families of missing tribute rice. Not only does he not compensate the dead boatmen, he also executes hundreds of innocent family members of the boatmen.

Believe it or not, don’t you be afraid of the feudalist keyboard warrior’s sword!

But what was the result? Within two days, more than 20 government grain ships from Jeolla Province were collectively killed at the mouth of the Han River!

Now let alone the keyboard king, the whole of Hanyang is panicking. The aristocratic keyboard king doesn't care how many bastards die, but Hanyang is going to be out of rice.

This is just a point. Half of the sailors and ships of the Han River Shipping Fleet are left. If they come again a few times, hundreds of thousands of people in Hanyang will starve to death. Otherwise, they will collectively disband and abandon the capital of the country and go to the countryside to eat.

The senior ministers and elders who were in power in the Manchu court took the money and finally started to do things, constantly persuading and even threatening King Taizong who had gained the throne improperly.

In the end, the Han River shipping fleet, which suffered hundreds of casualties, obtained the state-recognized shipping rights of the Han River. The exclusive shipping rights can be inherited forever and last for about 500 years.

With this advantage, people from the Han River Shipping Fleet gradually became involved in the sale of the country's tribute rice and became North Korea's royal merchants. They almost completely undertook all the procurement matters of North Korea's Xuanhui Hall.

From a small merchant fleet with less than a thousand people, it gradually evolved into the leader of North Korea's business community, with influence touching the entire North Korea. Using the name of "tribute merchant", it directly controlled almost half of North Korea's business power.

Until now, the money and food in Cao Guancang and Xuanhui Hall of North Korea were not as much as the money and food in the warehouse of the Beijing Merchant Group. The Beijing Merchant Group made its fortune from a small fleet, and with the fierceness of the people, they finally counterattacked.

He has mastered wealth that even the Korean court has never had, and can possess it without fear.

After becoming rich, the Beijing Merchant Group was still quite honest at first, but gradually it started to get disgusting.

When the tribute rice from Badao arrived on the Jing merchant's ship, the Jing merchant directly took away 20% of the rice, replaced it with sand, and then soaked the rice bag in water to make the rice swell.

The North Korean court had no choice but to force the Beijing merchant group to transport rice, so it could only hold its nose and accept the rotten rice. At the same time, North Korea implemented a tax in kind, so it needed to exchange the rice for money to buy other needed things.

Xuanhui Hall had to pay more rice to buy the items it needed from the Beijing merchants because the rice was too bad. The Beijing merchant group used this trick to accumulate a huge amount of capital. They continued to buy the Neishan Temple, the Domestic Demand Department, and Xuanhui.

Officials from offices and other yamen, as well as powerful ministers in charge of government.

Even if the political situation changes, Jingshang will never fall, will always be strong, and will always stand at the top of North Korea's business community.

Then the shipping rights of the Han River, which they relied on as their foundation, became the core that united the entire Beijing merchant group.

They were extremely exclusive, passing on men but not women, and only passed down the routes on the Han River to members of the business group. The centripetal force and cohesion were so strong that a needle could not penetrate, and water could not pour in.

It is not that there are fools who are not afraid of death to explore the waterway, but they will not only encounter natural dangers, but also the revenge of the Beijing merchant group. So in the past five hundred years, no outsider has been able to control the route of the Han River.

Later, when the United States, France and other foreign interference incidents occurred, those European and American warships did not dare to sail into the Han River unscrupulously, leaving many records of measuring the water depth of the route and detecting the reefs.

Although this is a later story, it further proves that the Han River Estuary is insurmountable. Even if you are an iron-clad ship, you may hit the rocks and sink at the Han River Estuary, let alone these wooden fishing boats today. [Note 1]

After listening to the old man's description of how the Beijing Merchant Group made its fortune, it was a mixture of praise and tears in the early days, and mixed praise and praise later on, but now it has become the biggest obstacle to economic development.

"So, even if the king comes today, it will be useless? Without the fleet of merchants from Beijing, nothing can be done!"

"That's it, so young man, just put your money away and go somewhere else."

After the old man finished speaking, he patted his butt and prepared to leave.

"Don't you hate the merchants who buy out your fresh fish? I think they don't even give you cash."

"Hate it? Why hate it? Who in Xiongjin wouldn't be grateful to Jingshang!"
Chapter completed!