The history of Fujian Province is still very strange. This place was a wilderness before the Tang Dynasty. It was called a huge area of ​​Baiyue in ancient times.

Mountainous, coastal, and blocked roads... Agriculture cannot develop here at all!

However, due to the gradual rise of maritime trade in the Tang Dynasty, a series of trading cities emerged along the coast of Fujian! And the name Fujian began in the Tang Dynasty.

Because the tall and continuous Wuyi Mountains blocked the pace of expansion of the Central Plains here, wars and chaos in all dynasties did not affect it much. Fujian was still very quiet and peaceful during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.

When the Song Dynasty entered the Song Dynasty, the development of navigation technology once again led to the commercial atmosphere in Fujian. At that time, Quanzhou was respected by Arab merchants as the City of Light, and this honorific title continued until the Yuan Dynasty.

The wars that Fujian experienced since the Tang Dynasty were only a few years when the Southern Song Dynasty was destroyed, and the rest of the time was still very peaceful, and the peaceful environment further stimulated the development of business.

The scale of ocean-going trade in Fujian in the Yuan Dynasty was even more unprecedented, and the scene of thousands of sails gathering continued to flow all year round!

But the good times did not last long. After China entered the Ming Dynasty, the policy of closing the country completely destroyed China's ocean trade. Since then, no Chinese caravan has taken the initiative to go abroad to trade.

China's right to trade with the ocean fell into the hands of Western merchants and even pirates!

Without the maritime trade, Fujian's economy suffered devastating damage and even its population had sharp declines. This place is not a good place to develop agriculture. Without the blessing of ocean trade, the Great Depression is inevitable.

It started to go downhill from the Ming Dynasty, and it was even more unlucky when it arrived in the Qing Dynasty!

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Southern Ming forces fought against the Qing Dynasty, and then Zheng Chenggong's forces joined in. After the Three Feudal Rebellion, there was a battle to combat Taiwan. Fujian completely became a battlefield in the early Qing Dynasty.

The Manchus really had no ability to fight at sea. They could only passively be beaten in the face of the Zheng family's navy in Taiwan, and in the end they had to rely on the power of the Han general Shi Lang.

In order to defend against the Zheng family's fleet, the Qing Dynasty issued a very strict sea ban, not only was it allowed to go into the sea, but it was even necessary to move all the people on the coastline.

This is the controversial sea ban and sea ban in history!

These two bans are too cruel and directly destroyed all the foundations of Fujian's ocean-going trade. In particular, the relocation order drove away the people on the coast dozens of kilometers, and would rather let those coastlines be deserted than inhabited.

This trick is so amazing!

During the past ban, people could still engage in some smuggling business for the sake of their interests. Although it was illegal, it at least retained the vitality of commercial trade!

There were merchants, mature sailors and captains, and a group of skilled shipbuilders!

The foundations of these ocean-going trades can be dormant for a while, but they will definitely rise easily when they encounter opportunities in the future!

However, this migration of the sea destroyed the population structure and destroyed the foundation of ocean trade. All the foundations of Fujian's foreign trade can be said to have been completely destroyed.

Poverty is the only thing left. The Qing Dynasty recovered Taiwan and brought about a complete poverty in Fujian Province. The foundation of commercial trade accumulated over the past thousand years no longer exists.

It was not until the First Opium War that Xiamen and Fuzhou were forcibly switched by the British, but at that time there was no longer the glory of the Song and Yuan dynasties.

It has been decades since Fujian opened its port, but the economic development is still very slow, and the recovery of basic things will not take place overnight.

When Westerners see that it is too poor, there is no good product to buy, and they cannot dump much industrial products. They don’t have much oil or water except for selling opium, so they are even more reluctant to invest.

Over the years, except for Zuo Zongtang who has some strategic vision to choose Mawei Shipyard in Fuzhou, there is no other government-oriented support and investment at all.

The economic scale of Fuzhou City is not comparable to that of Shanghai and Hong Kong, not even some cities on the Yangtze River!

Shen Baozhen knew the economic scale here very well. Although there are more than ten ticket accounts in Fuzhou City, the scale is very small, and together they are not as large as a medium ticket account in Jiangnan.

Not to mention compared with Chinese banks, this is also an important reason for his difficulty in raising funds in Fuzhou, because the local economy is really weak and there is no more money among the people.

Are there any foreign banks? Of course there are, but they are all very small semicolons, and many bulk businesses cannot be handled. These small bank semicolons can only provide some basic financial services to foreign merchant ships. The significance of testing the waters is far greater than making money.

And the worst thing is that the branches of foreigners did not take charge of foreigners, but hired merchants from the Qing Dynasty to conduct business.

This is conceivable. Shen Baozhen took the promissory note from the Bank of England to exchange for cash bank, but he encountered a wall again and again.

I originally planned to exchange one million silver dollars in cash, but I didn't expect that the people in charge of these bill numbers and the bank's shopkeepers didn't know each other.

It’s not a fault for not knowing it. The economic scale here really doesn’t come into contact with the Bank of England, which is the banknote issuing bank of the British Empire!

The serious central bank is unimaginable in scale, and the small businessman can't even get in!

From the beginning, the British side never expected that he would come to such a small place to exchange for the military aid from Zaichun's suitcase. Except for Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, it is difficult to exchange money for any place left.

"Long live! Just this 400,000 silver dollar is still some merchants who heard that His Majesty was in Fujian. They all thought that they were taking huge risks when they accepted these promissory notes!"

"More businesses dare not accept it at all. They were forced to kneel down and kowtow and cry and beg me to let them go..."

"What's the matter with this! They thought I was going to grab the money!"

With a bang, Zai Chun punched the table with a punch, "Damn it! It's really damn!"

When the eldest son heard this, he quickly continued, "Yes, damn... Lord Shen! You are doing errands like this? Such a bastard without a monarch and father, why don't you catch your head and chop off?"

"Kneel down! Bastard!" Zai Chun was so scared that Sixi, the big girl, knelt down directly.

"Long live the anger...Long live the anger... I've said the wrong thing again... I opened my mouth..." This senior girl didn't know what happened recently, and she couldn't even look at things. She said the wrong thing several times in a row, and her face was beaten like a pig's head.

"Are Is I a fool who kills innocent monarchs? If the people don't know each other, it means we don't know each other. This means we didn't do a good job before! Can this blame the people?"

"Who made our Qing Dynasty stay closed? It's not their fault for the people to have no knowledge!"

"What I want now is a solution! I don't listen to the complaints, I want to solve the problem! It's going to dawn, and 30,000 tigers are waiting for me to fulfill my promise!"

"What's your 400,000 yuan worth it? Do you want to throw my face to Java?"

At this time, the Sanbao suddenly said, "Your Majesty... I... I remember there is a Chinese central bank's semicolon in Fuzhou City... They should have knowledge!"
Chapter completed!