Chapter 3492
Chapter 3492
Chapter 3492
During the visit of foreign dignitaries to Hangzhou, in addition to visiting various infrastructure achievements inside and outside the capital, another important arrangement is various meetings with the Hai Han Executive Committee and various countries.
With Hai Han acting as the middleman, it became very simple to organize meetings between politicians from various countries, and even the venue for the meetings was prepared by Hai Han.
Taking advantage of this rare opportunity, Li Li also asked Hai Han to arrange meetings on his behalf with politicians and diplomats from Portugal, the Netherlands, Champa, Siam and other countries.
Li Yi really hopes to take this opportunity of coming to Hai Han to find more trading partners for North Korea.
The meeting went smoothly, but the results were far from ideal, as there were still many issues that needed to be resolved by Li Yi.
Although countries in Southeast Asia are also willing to establish trade relations with North Korea, the navigation level of these countries is often not ideal, and most of them are even worse than North Korea, and their ability to build large ocean-going sailing ships is almost zero.
For a country that doesn't even have an ocean-going fleet, one can only imagine its trading capabilities, and the actual benefits it can bring to North Korea are very limited.
Although countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands do not have such problems, they have not shown much interest in the foreign trade goods that North Korea can provide.
The commodities that North Korea can export are still mainly agriculture and animal husbandry, which is not attractive enough for merchants coming from Europe. After all, traveling so far to load a few ships of agricultural products is not the business they want to do when they come to East Asia.
What Europeans really wanted were high-value goods such as spices, ivory, gems, tea, silk, and porcelain, but these goods were either not produced in North Korea at all, or their quality was far inferior to that of other places of origin, and they had no obvious advantages at all.
Li Yi spent a lot of time and effort to get the other party to agree to increase the purchase of silk products produced in North Korea - this is also one of the few relatively good products in North Korea. Although the quality is not as good as the products produced in the Jiangnan region of China, fortunately the price is cheap and it can be sold after being brought back to Europe.
But the problem is that North Korea's silk industry is still at the traditional handicraft level, and its production capacity is very limited. However, in the silk producing areas under Hai Han's rule, industrialized silk crushing and silk weaving factories have appeared, and the silk products supplied to the market are at least a hundred times more than North Korea's production capacity.
The industrial chain formed by small peasant economy and small handicraft industry is certainly not very competitive in the face of Hai Han's advanced industrial production capacity. The agreement reached between Li Yi and the Europeans can only play a drop in the bucket in boosting the country's silk industry.
However, in the process of contact with other countries, Li Yi discovered other situations.
Although his younger brother Li Hao did not come to Hangzhou in person, he secretly sent his senior officials there and also contacted other countries on trade matters.
Compared to the southern part of the Korean Peninsula, which lacks industrial raw materials, the northern region under Li Hao's jurisdiction has coal and various metal deposits. Moreover, as early as the period when Hai Han was stationed in the Taedong River, it began to build coal-iron composite industries along the coast. Its time of exposure to primary industrialization was much earlier than that of the south.
The situation in northern Korea is quite similar to that in Annan. Thanks to the mining industry, the various ores and crude processed products supplied to Hai Han every year are enough to allow the small court under Li Hao to live a very comfortable life.
The shipyard built by Hai Han near the Taedong River base in its early years made the shipbuilding industry in the northern region far ahead of that in the south.
As a result, Pyongyang, which had separated from the Han Dynasty, had an advantage in foreign trade over Seoul, which made Li Li, who claimed to be the orthodox leader, feel uncomfortable. Li Li had no idea how many deals the people sent by Li Hao had negotiated here, but at least one thing was certain, that is, this move must have been tacitly approved by Hai Han, and it was even possible that Hai Han had deliberately pushed this matter forward behind the scenes.
During a meeting with senior officials of the Executive Committee, Li Yi once again expressed his dissatisfaction with the situation of the Korean Peninsula being divided into two, and demanded that Hai Han stop supporting the Pyongyang authorities and allow the Kingdom of Korea to return to a unified situation.
However, Li Yi's complaints were just old stuff. He could only make demands but could not come up with any exchange conditions that could convince the Executive Committee.
Dividing Korea was one of the Executive Committee’s long-term strategies for Korea. Using two separate courts to ensure that this vassal state would always remain loyal to Hai Han, but Li Yi was unable to prove to the Executive Committee that a unified Korean Kingdom would be more beneficial to Hai Han than the current situation.
Compared to this unattainable goal, another matter that Li Yi had to negotiate with the Executive Committee was much smoother.
Li Yi proposed to send his fourth son Li Xuan to study in Hangzhou, and at the same time let his eldest son Li Bai, who was 18 years old, return to China to begin learning how to govern the country.
Perhaps because he had greeted Ning Qi on the day he first arrived in Hangzhou, the Executive Committee did not embarrass him on this matter and readily agreed to Li Li's request. After Li Li's visit is over, he can return home with Li Bai.
This made Li Yi breathe a sigh of relief. When he came here, he was a little worried that Hai Han would not release Li Bai and would keep him here to continue instilling some unreasonable ideas.
After all, Li Yi himself had studied in Hai Han for a period of time, and he knew very well how powerful Hai Han's brainwashing skills were. When talking with Li Bai the day before yesterday, he had already shown his reluctance to return to his country. If he were to stay here for a few more years, he would probably become a complete Hai Han person.
While Li Bai has not yet been completely brainwashed, letting him return to China to change his environment and prepare to inherit the throne is far more important to Li Yi than continuing to study abroad.
The third topic raised by Li Yi was the inspiration from his previous meeting with King Zheng Zao of Annan. He hoped to increase the scale of labor exports to Hai Han.
Li Li’s change of heart was beyond the expectations of the Executive Committee. Although the two Joseon kings, Li Jong and Li Li, were both happy to cooperate with Hai Han, they were cautious about the population loss caused by their own people changing their nationality and joining Hai Han, and were unwilling to promote labor exports at the official level.
But this time, Li Yi suddenly came to his senses and took the initiative to ask for stronger cooperation in labor export. It seemed that he was also influenced by some external factors.
Tao Donglai took the initiative to ask: "Li Li, before when I asked you to organize North Korean people to work abroad, you always refused and gave various reasons. Why did you suddenly change your mind?"
Li Yi said sternly, “I just realized a few days ago that our country has contributed too little to Hai Han but has benefited too much. This is really wrong. Organizing more people to work in your country will actually have many benefits for our country. It’s just that I was shallow-minded before, so I hope you will forgive me.”
Tao Donglai wanted to test him, so he continued, "If your people were to go to a place thousands of miles away from Korea, would you be willing?"
Li Yi responded without hesitation: "I am willing to follow your country's arrangements on all matters."