New Han Dynasty 1834

Chapter 63 Three Nations Visiting China

Chapter 63 The Three Kingdoms Mission to Han

The trade practices between the United States and the Han Dynasty were quite different from those between Britain and the Han Dynasty.

The Americas, where the United States is located, are a new continent, and they contain many products that are hard to find in the Old World.

Examples include animal fur, teeth, ginseng, hardwoods, jade and jewelry, etc.

These items sell well in the Han Dynasty.

Mexico, next to the United States, also has a rather large silver mine.

American merchants could take their country's early industrial products, including cotton cloth, firearms, and machinery, to neighboring Mexico to sell in exchange for silver.

Then they took their own ginseng, furs, and precious timber, as well as gold and silver from Mexico, to the Han Dynasty.

They sold all their American goods and purchased Eastern specialties such as silk, porcelain, and tea to sell back in the United States or Mexico.

This trade is relatively balanced and stable, and it is also how many American businessmen have made their fortunes.

For a long period of time, Guangzhou was the only port for foreign trade in the Qing Dynasty.

Many Americans at the time knew that Guangzhou was a far-off, wealthy commercial city.

As a result, the Cantonese pronunciation of Guangzhou has been used in the naming of many towns in the United States.

Most places in the United States called Canton are actually Guangzhou.

Opium was originally produced primarily in India, a British colony, not in the United States.

The trade routes between the United States and the Han Dynasty would go directly through the Indian Ocean after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, and enter the South Pacific region through the Sunda Strait next to Java Island, without passing through India itself.

Americans who wanted to sell opium had to travel to India specifically to purchase it, which was an additional expense.

If there are enough profits, they are certainly willing to take a roundabout route.

However, under Liu Desheng's continued crackdown, the opium trade shrank for thirty years, and the scale of trade continued to shrink.

The key issue is that smuggling is extremely risky, to the point that even the British have to consider whether to give up this trade, let alone American merchants.

Americans were more receptive to the requirement to cooperate in combating opium smuggling than the British.

As long as the Han Dynasty makes a slightly forceful threat, American merchants are willing to cooperate, since the plantations to be destroyed are located in British colonial India.

In early 1835, Forbes and others sent news of the Great Han's expulsion of the Britons back to the United States. They raised funds to lobby Parliament and the government to send envoys to the Great Han to negotiate a solution.

At this time, President Andrew Johnson of the United States accepted the advice of businessmen and members of Congress and instructed Secretary of State John Forsyth to send diplomats to the Han Dynasty for negotiations.

At that time, the Panama Canal did not exist in the Americas. The United States could not travel to the Han Dynasty via the Pacific Ocean. Instead, like Europe, it had to go south around Africa, cross the Indian Ocean, and enter the South China Sea.

At this time, most ships were still sailing ships. Due to the monsoon climate of the Han Dynasty, sailing ships heading to the Han Dynasty could usually only arrive in early summer.

Therefore, the arrival time of the US mission was basically the same as that of Britain and France in Europe.

The initial mission from the United States to the Han Dynasty was small in scale, and its purpose was simply to clarify the differences between the United States and Britain to the Emperor of Han, and to try to persuade the Han Dynasty to lift trade restrictions on American merchants.

However, at this time, the United States had very close ties with Europe.

Many people frequently traveled between Britain and the United States, including many engineers and inventors.

For example, in 1835, Samuel Colt, the founder of the Colt company and the inventor of the modern revolver, was just 21 years old.

After perfecting his new revolver design, Colt prepared to apply for a patent at the patent office.

The first commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office was Henry Levitt Ellsworth, a friend of Colt's father and the brother of Lee, the then governor of Connecticut.

The funds Colt used to refine the revolver design were provided by his "uncle," Ellsworth.

Therefore, Colt waited until the other party took office before applying for patent registration.

Ellsworth gave Colt a cursory inspection of the pistol sample he had made, and then exclaimed with great delight, "Very well done, it's practically a masterpiece. You'll make a lot of money, kid."

Upon hearing the evaluation, Colt excitedly urged, "Then please, Uncle Ellsworth, sign it quickly and grant me this patent certificate!"

Ellsworth smiled and shook his head: "I'm sorry, child, I cannot grant you this patent at the moment."

Colt was stunned: "You're not kidding, are you?! I believe it's a masterpiece, you just said it was a masterpiece too—"

Ellsworth explained earnestly, "Precisely because it is a masterpiece, you should obtain the widest possible patents, including those in Europe."

"The British Patent Office has a bad habit: if an invention has already been patented in the United States, they will not grant it a British patent, but the reverse is true."

"So you should take your masterpiece and hurry to Europe to apply for patents in Britain and France."

"Then come back and collect the American patent I gave you."

Colt finally understood: "Thank you, Uncle Ellsworth, you're so kind, I'm going to Europe right now—"

Colt, with his pistol in hand, bought the nearest ship ticket to Britain.

While Colt was registering his patent in London, he learned from the newspapers about the current relationship between Britain and the Han Dynasty.

Then Colt got excited: "The Emperor of the Great Han actually wants to invite British engineers to open a factory."

"The Han Dynasty has 20 million militiamen! And at least a million regular soldiers! How many muskets would that require!"

"If my pistol could become the standard-issue weapon of the Han army."

"My God, I'm going to be the richest person in the world!"

Colt was a crew member a couple of years ago, and had sailed the Indian route, so he wasn't entirely unfamiliar with the big guy.

Colt had seen traditional revolvers used by others and was inspired to design a new percussion revolver.

Colt calculated the time and realized that if he returned to the United States and then tried to find a way to get to the Han Dynasty, he might arrive a year later than others.

Colt was less an engineer than a shrewd businessman, and he saw the British mission to the Great Man as an excellent opportunity.

If I had gone to the Han Dynasty a year later, I might not have had the opportunity to meet high-ranking officials and would most likely not have gained their attention.

All the Han officials would be focused on dealing with the work left behind by the previous year's mission, and they would be neglected.

So Colt boarded the British ship with the British patent certificate.

Anyway, the Han Chinese consider the American people to be British as well.

However, before Colt went to Britain, the news that the Great Han had invited the British engineers to visit had already been sent to the United States by other people traveling between the two countries.

Just as Colt had imagined, the Han Dynasty's vast population and army represented the world's largest potential market.

The Han emperor's invitation to the British engineers was naturally interpreted as an opening of the market.

Therefore, the US mission to China continued to expand as the news spread.

Apart from the official envoys, most of them were inventors seeking investment, preparing to try their luck in the Han Dynasty.

Similar situations have occurred in Britain and France as well.

On the other hand, senior officials such as the President and Secretary of State of the United States gradually learned about the general situation of the British and French mission, and knew that they had arranged for the Foreign Secretary and even the Prince to participate.

If the United States were to send a separate envoy to the Han Dynasty, that would be one thing, but sending an ordinary envoy would give them a chance to have normal conversations.

Now, other countries that are also going to the same destination have arranged for their highest-ranking diplomatic officials or even members of the royal family to participate, so ordinary envoys may not even get to meet the foreign minister of the Han Dynasty.

So President Andrew Jackson ordered that the status of the official US mission be raised as much as possible, and that Secretary of State John Forsyth, who also served as Foreign Minister, should personally make the trip.

Finally, in the winter of 1835, the missions from Britain, France, and the United States set sail one after another.

The departure times were very close, the routes and objectives were highly consistent, and the planned stopover and resupply locations were also basically the same.

This caused the fleets of the three countries' envoys to get closer and closer, and they finally met when they reached the Cape of Good Hope for resupply.

The British are very unhappy about France and the United States trying to ride on France's coattails.

But the other party wanted to visit the Han Dynasty, not Britain, and the British had no right to stop them.

Britain wouldn't go to war with those two countries over something like this, otherwise their navy would seize their fleet.

France and the United States knew this situation, which is why they used the pretext of a visit to conduct trade.

Furthermore, the more ships in a fleet, the safer it is to cross the ocean.

If some ships in the fleet are wrecked or damaged, people and cargo can be transferred to other ships, minimizing losses and casualties as much as possible.

Therefore, when preparing to cross the Indian Ocean, the delegations from the three countries gathered together for the voyage.

Finally, on April 18, 1836, the three missions successfully crossed the Indian Ocean and approached the Sunda Strait.

Crossing the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java leads to what the Han Chinese call the South Pacific Islands, which Europeans commonly refer to as the East Indies.

The large fleet of the three kingdoms' envoys encountered a patrol boat of the Dutch here.

The veteran naval officers in the three missions all noticed that the Dutch patrol boats were very tense.

"They shouldn't act like this normally."

"There may have been a war recently, and the Dutch are under threat."

"The Britons have resolved their conflict with the Dutch; the only country capable of waging war is the Han."

"Luzon? Or even Borneo?"

"The Han Dynasty probably won't attack Singapore, right?"

Amidst the various speculations of the people on board, the fleet crossed the strait toward the British colony of Singapore.

The crew and officers found that the security measures in Singapore were actually slightly relaxed.

So they relaxed a bit. As long as the Great Han didn't attack Singapore, the matter of the Netherlands didn't matter.

Meanwhile, as arranged by British Prime Minister Melbourne and Foreign Secretary Palmerston, the naval fleet that escorted the British mission here was the same naval fleet that had been sent to Singapore.

British patrol boats around Singapore's port, as well as lookouts in the harbor, visibly breathed a sigh of relief upon spotting the large fleet from Britain.

Finally, we can enhance our defenses a bit. Whether it's physically useful or not, it's definitely psychologically beneficial.