"There are another 700 pieces of cotton imports this month. Xinhua Port should be complaining again, right?" In a brick house near the Asami Port Port Terminal, two customs officials are dealing with a bunch of documents. Most of the documents are related to import and export trade. It clearly records the quantity, time, amount and tax amount of various commodities. It has always been the focus of attention of the customs system and even merchants from all walks of life.

The import of cotton cloth they mentioned just now refers to the dyed cloth, printed cloth and other cotton cloth products sold to nearby Indian towns through the Asakusa Port. Because the East Coast people have accumulated profound technical accumulation in chemical processes such as dyes and bleaching, the sales of such commodities through the New China Island re-export trade in recent years have been good in India. However, since the second half of last year, the sales of such textiles have begun to decline. Although there are occasional recurrences in the middle, the overall market share is indeed shrinking, so that by last month (May 1695), there were only more than 2,500 textiles sold to India through the Asakusa Customs, which annoyed the merchants and complained to the government, accusing the Indians of unfair competition.

The government naturally sees the ugly behavior of merchants, but they cannot help but react. After all, there are so many state-owned or private textile factories and chemical factories in the local area. The government is also planning large areas of cotton production areas and textile industrial cities. There are also a bunch of people who make a living by re-export trade in Xinhuaxia Island. Their interests are more or less to take care of. Therefore, we must think of ways to reverse the decline in sales in the future.

"Our cloth is basically only used by rich people or monks, and ordinary people cannot afford it. Now the civil war in India is in full swing, and heavy taxes have been imposed in many places. The private capital has been greatly reduced. Many Indians who might have been able to afford our dyed cloth and printed cloth will now turn to the traditional dyed cloth. Although the color looks bad and is easy to fade, it is better to be cheap." Another customs official hurriedly sorted out the documents on the gems and raw silk trade at hand, and replied: "The complaints from Xinhua Port are understandable, but I think they should not sigh and think about how to sell more white cotton cloths. This is the real challenge."

To be honest, it is basically impossible to sell white cotton cloth in India in large quantities. Unless you set up factories in India and hire a large number of Indian workers, it will be difficult to compete with Indian cloth. Their cost is lower than Chinese cloth, and East Coast cotton cloth can't even handle Chinese cloth, let alone the cheaper and more affordable Indian cloth. The only advantage of East Coast people is to rely on their technical advantages in dye chemical industry to sell high-quality dyed cloths that are brightly colored and not easy to fade. Apart from this, you can't even get into the Indian textile market.

"Textiles have made them give up. Instead of trying to do this, it is better to find a way to grab more goods from the Dayuhe Factory and the Northern Factory. Whether it is muskets, cannons, bayonets or armor, anything you get can be sold at a good price. The troops of Sultan Aurangzeb of Delhi, the Maratha guerrillas on the Deccan Plateau, or the warlords and governors in the local area have endless demand for weapons and equipment, because everyone has a low sense of security." The official continued.

Indeed, as he said, although Aurangzeb of the Mughal Dynasty had destroyed the two countries of Bijapur and Gorconda on the Deccan Plateau, local resistance never ended and restrained many of the Mughal empire's armed forces. In addition, the most important Marathas never surrendered.

With the support of generals Danaji and Santaji, Rajaram, the heir of the Maratha power, used Jinji City as the final resistance base, and attracted a large number of main troops of the Mughal Empire. Aurangzeb's men attacked the city through weapons purchased from Diu Island and St. George Castle (which belonged to the East India Company of England), but ultimately failed. Jinji City was too strong. The Mughals continued to besieged for six months and had no results. Instead, they died and injured a large number of people due to the epidemic caused by the rainy season. They could not conquer the city in the past few months, so it was basically difficult to conquer (the Mughals siegeed for nine years in history before finally succeeding).

After attracting a large number of main forces from the enemy, the Marathas launched a series of offensives on the periphery. Their light cavalry acted quickly and had a firm fighting spirit. They continued to attack the food transport team of the Mughal army, which made the front-line army always face the dilemma of insufficient ammunition, food and drug supply, and their morale was greatly affected. There was constant rumors in the army that Aurangzebu was dead, so that the commanders of the Mughal army slowed down the offensive and even began to talk to Rajaram.

According to the information revealed by French colonists who had close contacts with both sides of the war, the commander of the Mughal army at Jinji City was waiting for the exact news of Aurangzeb's death. He no longer wanted to consume the lives of soldiers in the siege.

At the same time, the Maratha army commanded by Ramchandra Niel Kante was very active in the Maharashtra area. He gathered many Maratha scattered soldiers and at the same time won over some other ethnic groups to jointly oppose the rule of the Mughal dynasty. In 1692, he received assistance from the army of Santaji and Danaji, and they launched a counterattack and regained a lot of land that had been occupied by the Mughal Empire. Many grain troop and transportation teams sent by the empire were attacked and appointed officials were killed or expelled, which had a great impact on the local area.

The opening of the second battlefield made Aurangzeb unable to siege Jinji with all his strength. When he dispatched his troops to chase Santaji and others, they quickly retreated with the familiar geographical environment, leaving the empire's bulky main forces exhausted. By 1693, these Maratha guerrilla troops could even defeat the regular army of the empire that came to pursue them. Their success even greatly inspired many Marathas, Dangals, etc. who had originally surrendered to the empire. They began to sharpen their swords and planned to wait for a suitable opportunity to betray Aurangzeb's rule again.

So, in such a chaotic situation, you can imagine how easy it is to do arms trade. The East Coast people, the French, the British, the Portuguese, and the Dutch people tried their best to launch their own relationships and find agents to sell weapons. Everyone made huge profits from the war. The local arsenals on the East Coast have now implemented shift systems, and they have tried their best to produce all kinds of weapons and ammunition. Even the armor production line that has been closed has been restarted and all kinds of furniture can be processed at full capacity.

, sent to India for sale. In addition, private enterprises that produce various military supplies have also received a large number of orders. The demand for these orders has exceeded their production capacity. The bosses were once very confused. Should they continue to produce step by step, or increase investment, recruit workers, and purchase new machines to expand production capacity? But no matter what, the local military manufacturing industry in the east coast ushered in a prosperous cycle, with workers' income rising sharply, and everyone thanked the Indians for their own killing.

"It is true that only weapons are easy to sell. Alas, even the sales of metal farm tools have dropped. The situation in India is really chaotic. If this continues, our country and India will be in a state of trade deficit for a long time. Silver is lost every year. Can the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Finance sit still? The surplus obtained from the trade in the New World and Europe has been filled in the pit of deficit between India and the Far East. This is really..." The spoken official shook his head, put a stack of documents aside, and sighed.

"Maybe this is trade." The other person was speechless and said after a long time: "But now we have already transported silver from Ningshao to the local area. Ningbo is too rich. After the taxes collected every year are eliminated from local expenses, we can already feed back the national finances. This is a good sign."

"Transfer it! The last time the silver ship sailed to Diu Island, stopped directly. They received the latest local order, and the funds were used to pay for the expenses needed to buy Bahrain and Diu Island exhibitions. Well, if there is still a little left, it will be used to pay for the next stage of military operations. In short, the money will not return to the local area." The spoken official poured a cup of tea for himself and his colleagues, and then said: "The amount spent on military operations is quite large, and it has exceeded 200,000 yuan so far. No one can guarantee how much it will cost in the future."

It is said that since the Portuguese increased their troops in India, the East Coast people have used the excuse of influencing business and dispatched more than 2,000 Eastern Portuguese coalition troops from Diu Island to the inland area many times, defeating several local Rajput troops. Local officials could not do so, so they could only report to the Delhi court, which they once did not look down upon, until 1678, when the Rajput people were still trying to resist the rule of the Delhi Sultan, let Aurangzeb make the decision for them. But how could Aurangzeb care about such a small matter? He did not devote much energy at all.

It was just ordered the local governor to handle it on his own. Unfortunately, the governor's decree was not very effective. The local generals, landlords and religious leaders had their own ulterior motives, and no one was willing to stand out for the interests of others. Therefore, in the end, the governor could only compromise after negotiations with the East Coast people, that is, he agreed to the Diwu County under the East Coast people to expand its boundary, with a range of ten kilometers to extend outward. This allowed the East Coast people to control about 300 square kilometers of land and guarded by the East Coast troops and pass through the East Coast system.

Not to mention that the East Coast people have also obtained considerable commercial privileges, such as low customs tariff rates, etc. This alone gives East Coast merchants a great advantage in competing with local Indian merchants. Because there are many inter-tax cards in various parts of India and there are many kinds of tyrants and miscellaneous taxes. East Coast merchants who go to mainland business can not only exempt some unreasonable taxes, but also enjoy preferential tax rates in some major taxes that everyone needs to pay. This is really wonderful for merchants. Although these tax privileges are limited to a few counties in the south, the benefits brought are also quite large.
Chapter completed!