Chapter 616: 616
The old single horse carriage drove toward Dongyi . As the catkins gradually decreased, people gradually gathered together . Fan Xian and the Shadow silently watched the scene with uneasiness . Perhaps the Shadow was deeply moved, but Fan Xian was shocked by the sights reflected in his eyes .
No wonder Dongyi was the biggest city in the world . It covered a vast area . The two-person carriage drove for a long time through the city but was still very far from the agreed upon place . All along the way, they saw buildings of all colors mingled together and bustling people crowded among them . Goods from all over the world gathered here . Countless accents rang out on the streets . Countless people wearing different kinds of clothes were bargaining and using a sign language unfamiliar to Fan Xian .
Marketplaces of all kinds were plainly visible . Fan Xian sat in the carriage and gazed up the street . He found there was no item that couldn't be found within this city . He couldn't resist secretly sighing in admiration . When an outside traveler came to such a lively and bustling place, who would resist pulling out bags of silver?
The Qing Kingdom began to set up a large scale merchant port in Quanzhou over 20 years ago . It relied on the massive production power of the palace treasury to forcefully steal part of the market share from across the sea and foreigners . It not only caused the downfall of Danzhou port, but it also struck a great blow to Dongyi . The city still remained the center of the commerce world . In particular, the ships going out to sea were skilled in the art of controlling the waves and had a great deal of trade of the large land hovering far beyond the ocean . Thus, its trade had remained prosperous .
Even if the palace treasury wanted to take the sea route, it would not all go out to sea from Quanzhou . Many adventurers and merchants from across the sea were still used to using Dongyi to trade .
The change of such an attitude probably needed decades of time . After Fan Xian saw a dozen foreigners on the streets, he accepted this opinion in his heart . When he had been in Jiangnan, the farthest foreigners were willing to go to was Quanzhou, so he had not a single one .
"Do you find it very strange?" The Shadow asked from beside Fan Xian in a very low voice . "The foreigners only trust Dongyi . Whenever Qing people see these blue-eyed people, they always find it strange . "
Fan Xian smiled but didn't say anything . In his previous life, he had once been the awesome person who had taught overnight mahjong in the foreign students building . How could he find seeing foreigners strange?
"Why don't the foreigners trust the Qing Kingdom? At most, they were willing to stop at Quanzhou for a few days, but they've never entered deep into the land . " Fan Xian asked in a quiet voice . "Northern Qi has no suitable port, so that makes sense . But the Qing Kingdom has built three new ports in the Jiangnan region . The Quanzhou port has been around for more than 20 years . Why has it not completely supplanted Dongyi's position?"
"I am not sure about that either . " The Shadow pulled down the brim of his straw hat . "I heard that the Quanzhou navy and foreigners had a good relationship over 20 years ago . Later, something happened to the Quanzhou navy . It scared many of the foreigners away . "
Fan Xian raised his brows and didn't ask anymore . As they had been driving into the city, Fan Xian had kept his eyes and ears out . He finely savored the unique atmosphere of this marketplace, which was so different to the mainland, and gradually understood some of the reasons .
Dongyi was able to continue being the center of commerce was because its people's nature leaned toward freedom . The words and actions of the merchants were guided by personal interests . On the street, other than officials of the government who were there to maintain the peace, there were not many official figures to be seen . Although he hadn't had the opportunity to personally witness the specific process of the trading, Fan Xian already had a powerful sense that Dongyi's trading had a prototype agreement . Regardless of whether it was the Master of the City or the Sword Hut, neither tried to control the actions of the merchants . They just set a few rough rules for the marketplace .
In comparison, although the commerce in the Qing Kingdom's Jiangnan area was developed, the development and prosperity were, for the most part, because of the palace treasury . The Jiangnan commerce relied on the singular production of the palace treasury, so its prices could be completely set by the court or himself . There was little fluctuation .
The trading in Jiangnan was a business monopolized by the Qing court . Regardless of whether it was the once illustrious Ming family, Lingnan Xiong family, or Quanzhou Sun family, they were all vassals under the palace treasury . If the court wanted these families to die, they had no choice but to die . The court did not care about the sanctity of a contract with merchants .
Dongyi's trading business stemmed from a foundation of equal trade . No power would, like the Qing court, shamelessly force such a thing . No one could be like Fan Xian, using just the power in his hands to cause the Ming family to spray blood like a fountain and suffer innumerable losses .
For merchants, this latter kind of wealth was more reliable, longer lasting, and more trustworthy .
Dongyi was like a place for the merchants of the world to gather and rule over themselves . They used their sweat or cunning to plot for advantage . Their lives and deaths were in the hands of heaven and not an imperial power .
Fan Xian pulled his gaze back from the door of a largescale merchant . An absurd feeling suddenly surged in his heart . If Dongyi actually leaned toward the Qing Kingdom, given the Emperor's strong desire for power, how could he be willing to keep things intact for 50 years? How could he allow so many merchants to be on the land he ruled and not be under his control?
If the Qing Kingdom's might imperial power and glory truly descended on the head of Dongyi, would this wealthy and free, or secret and filthy, large city maintain its present vitality?
Fan Xian and the Shadow chose an unremarkable inn to stay at . After settling in the carriage, they returned to the main street and mixed in with the crowds . It was still early and inconvenient to do what they wanted . So, these two people, powerful warriors each with their own thoughts, decided to imitate a woman's situation and began, once again, to stroll through the streets of the chaotic seaside city .
Other than the groups of merchants drawn here by the shocking amounts of trade, Dongyi was also large because it gathered all kinds of strange people here . For example, the once infamous pirate Wang Qinian and, even earlier, the young lady of the Ye family and her young blind servant at her side .
With strange people, there were stories and legends . Adding in Sigu Jian, no one could guess how many lost and wandering people had come here in search of a life, or how many young Northern Qi and Qing Kingdom people had come to travel .
Even the Hu people on the grasslands and the snowy Man people from the North had come despite the tens of thousands of li . Each year was like this . Dongyi's population grew and grew, and the city became larger and larger .
Looking at the various styles of structures on the street, Fan Xian was astonished . He thought that Shanghai Bund was no more than this . However, the Shanghai Bund had been filled with western buildings, while the Dongyi buildings were in the style of the mainland . The black flying eaves the Northern Qi had inherited from the Wei Kingdom, the Qing Kingdom's solemn and square buildings, the round-roofed rooms from the grasslands, Nanzhao's gilded arrow-rain towers…
It was said that Western style buildings were popular once . However, following the rise of the old Ye family, the foreigners failed completely . The trade on this large piece of land had begun to move inward .
The silk, tea, and porcelain foreigners wanted to buy, they couldn't make . However, the valuable glass, mirrors, and other similar goods they sold could be made by the old Ye family . Furthermore, they could make them better and sell them cheaper .
Thus, the kingdoms over the seas were struggling greatly in the trading because Dongyi no longer needed their goods and requested they make their purchases with silver . If it weren't for the large silver mine they found somewhere in the wild lands across the sea a dozen years ago, they would probably have been emptied of their treasuries by Dongyi's crafty and ruthless merchants, as well as the Ye family that seemed to have dropped out of the sky . It would have no longer been able to support the luxurious needs of their noblemen .
After hearing Fan Xian's sigh, the Shadow coldly said, "There is no difference between the foreigners and us except for the fact that their martial arts are like their sorcerers, pretty to look at but useless in reality . They could only go with our exploitation and cry out bitterly every year . "
Hearing these words, Fan Xian couldn't help but smile . He still remembered the first moment he woke up in his new life . He had seen a shadow by his side flying across like a hawk instantly killing a sorcerer .
The sun had dropped slightly, but Dongyi remained as lively as ever . Although the stalls were gradually closing for the evening, the pleasure places in the center of each street began to light their red lanterns .
"Are you done looking?" The Shadow suddenly asked .
Fan Xian used his fingers to gently pull on his straw hat . After a moment of silence, he said, "Yes . "
He was a traveler from a foreign place . In this life, he couldn't just be a simple traveler . After a rare half day of travel in Dongyi came to an end, Fan Xian had to return to the darkness, leaving behind the joys of sightseeing and pick up his black dagger .
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