1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 162
Li Nai was about to reply, when he saw He Qiang winking at him quietly, he clasped his fists to Tao Donglai and said, "Please allow us to discuss for a while."

Tao Donglai knowingly pulled Schneider back a distance to give them space.

He Qiang said in a low voice: "Third Young Master, this item can be purchased in large quantities!"

Li Nai asked in astonishment: "Why is this? Our militia in Lijiazhuang has only a hundred members, even if half of them are equipped with this kind of firecrackers, only forty or fifty of them are enough. It's only a few hundred taels of silver, and they have stock. I am afraid that Haihan people will not be able to supply immediately if they buy in large quantities.”

He Qiang said: "Third young master, this is a good thing. Not only can we keep it for our own use, but we can also resell it to make money!"

Li Nai shook his head and said, "Those military leaders in the army eat people and don't spit out their bones. It might work if you let them sell their weapons, but if you want them to pay for them...it's absolutely impossible!"

"Even if they are willing to buy it, how much money can they make by selling it to the army?" He Qiang looked at Tao Donglai and Schneider who were standing in the distance, and continued: "If we sell this thing to Fujian, at least we can sell it to the army." Make twice the money!"

"You mean...to sell it to Shibazhi?" Li Nai asked with some uncertainty.

He Qiang nodded, and didn't say anything more. He believed that Li Nai could naturally figure out whether this matter was feasible.

The so-called Shibazhi is a pirate alliance led by Fujian pirate leader Zheng Zhilong.Zheng Zhilong used to travel around Southeast Asia when he was young, and worked successively under the great pirate merchant Li Dan and the Dutchman. In 1624, Zheng Zhilong married the daughter of Yan Siqi, the leader of the Japanese pirates, and inherited his estate after Yan Siqi died the following year. Gathering pirate leaders from all walks of life, the "Eighteen Zhi" was established, becoming the most powerful armed force in the coastal areas of Fujian.By the way, it is worth mentioning that the son of Zheng Zhilong, the national hero Zheng Chenggong revered by later generations, was born in 1624 and is still in the form of a child.

Li Dan also passed away in August of that year after Shibazhi was established, so all his properties in Taiwan were controlled by Zheng Zhilong, while the properties in Xiamen fell into the hands of sea merchant Xu Xinsu.At the time when the Crossing Group settled in Sanya, Shibazhi was using Hong Kong, Taiwan as a base, constantly fighting with the Ming army along the coast of Fujian and Guangdong, and at the same time attacking Xu Xinsu's sea power.

"Fu Ruifeng" also has a semicolon business in Fujian, and even has private business contacts with Xu Xinsu and Shibazhi, and is very clear about the situation there.Now Zheng Zhilong and Xu Xinsu are trying their best to eliminate each other and dominate the southeast sea. They have a huge demand for various materials, and weapons are naturally the top priority.

Since the Ming army in Fujian is at war with Shibazhi, it is obviously impossible for Shibazhi to buy standard weapons from the army, and the only Dutch who can provide large quantities of weapons to Zheng Zhilong and Xu Xinsu has been holding on to Sibazhi. With a mentality of watching tigers fight, they rejected the requests for help from both sides. Obviously, they had to wait for them to decide on their own before deciding on the next cooperation partner.

Under this situation, if another arms dealer intervenes in the market, it will undoubtedly be sought after by these parties involved in the war.As for the prices of these weapons, as long as they don't exceed the existing black market prices, these wealthy patrons will definitely buy them in large quantities.

This kind of underground arms trading is certainly dangerous, but for "Fu Ruifeng" who is used to doing big business, their ability to resist risks is far stronger than that of ordinary commercial banks - every year they pay a lot of money to eat delicious food The militias that are well maintained are not vegetarians. These people are usually militiamen guarding villages and villages, and they transform into armed escorts when escorting caravans.Now that Li Nai plans to further weaponize the militia equipment, it is foreseeable that its combat effectiveness will soon be greatly improved.And as the business of "Fu Ruifeng" in the southeast coast grows bigger and bigger, the scale of the militia controlled by it will also need to be further expanded. Even if they can't be sold at that time, there is no problem with digesting these matchlock guns internally.

After Li Nai made up his mind, he walked back to Tao Donglai and said, "I want to buy two hundred of this kind of firecrackers, and the price will be the same as the previous quotation. I want a set of 12 taels, what does Mr. Tao think? "

Tao Donglai said: "Two hundred pieces is no problem, but we don't have so many in stock at the moment, how about trading one hundred pieces first this time, and another one hundred pieces in half a month's time?"

"If this is the case, then I would like to ask Mr. Tao to give you more discounts." Li Nai took the opportunity to bargain.

"Then all guns will be distributed with [-] rounds of ammunition, which is equivalent to sending [-] more rounds of ammunition to the head office, right?" Tao Donglai will definitely not lower the price, and would rather give more gifts. .

"Then it's settled like this!" Li Nai was quite straightforward, and didn't get too entangled with Tao Donglai on this little money.After all, there was no weapon item in the trade content of this visit to Victory Port, it was just a temporary business.Although the transaction volume has already exceeded 2000 taels, in Li Nai's eyes, the trade with the Haihan people is far from stopping at the level of "thousand taels".

The only troublesome thing is that the Haihan people don’t use silver to trade directly. Li Nai and the others have to exchange the cash in the future into Haihan people’s "circulation certificates". Fortunately, the exchange rate between "circulation certificates" and silver is set at the same Compared with one, it is not too troublesome to exchange.Li Nai still has many deals to negotiate with the Haihan people during this trip, and he is not in a hurry to settle the settlement right now.

After negotiating the deal, Li Nai asked: "If you want to buy a large number of this kind of firecrackers in the future, can there be better conditions in terms of price and delivery date?"

Tao Donglai and Schneider, two old foxes, looked at each other, and they both had the same idea in their hearts - this guy wants to be a second-tier arms dealer!

Tao Donglai and the others don't mind Li Nai's idea. Although the agent will take away a considerable part of the profit margin, for the current crossing group that lacks people, ships and relationships, this is actually opening up the market in a short period of time. the most effective way.If you want to explore bit by bit by yourself, I am afraid that you will have to wait until next year at the earliest to sell the goods to Guangzhou. Now agents like "Furuifeng", "Anfuhang" and Luo Shengdong have quickly It can effectively sell the products produced by the crossing group to the areas that the crossing public can't reach at present.

It is even more difficult to open up a market for a commodity of a special nature like arms.Tao Donglai had discussed this matter with Luo Shengdong last time, but Luo Shengdong said that it would not be easy for the Ming army, which is struggling with funds, to purchase arms. A gun powerful enough to kill 100 people with one shot is useless.

However, the young owner of "Fu Ruifeng" raised this question obviously not aimlessly. Both Tao Donglai and Schneider were keenly aware of the business opportunities involved.

Tao Donglai coughed dryly and said: "As long as you can place an order in advance, we can negotiate the specific price and delivery time... In fact, besides matchlock guns, we can also buy other ordnance here. .”

Li Nai shook his head and said: "If it's an ordinary knife and gun, Mr. Tao doesn't need to sell it. Foshan is full of blacksmiths. It is very convenient to make these things, and the price is extremely low."

Tao Donglai also shook his head and said, "Mr. Li misunderstood me. I didn't intend to sell you those things. I mean, some weapons that are more powerful than matchlock guns. I wonder if Mr. Li is interested?"

Li Nai immediately thought of the forts that were being built on the bank slope when he entered the port, and blurted out: "Could it be the Hongyi artillery?"

Tao Donglai nodded and said, "If you are interested in buying, then we can discuss the price."

Compared with the matchlock gun business, Tao Donglai and the entire military and police department are more interested in selling artillery.The same one ton of pig iron requires much less personnel and man-hours to produce artillery than to produce arquebus, and the profit of the finished product is even more different.The current production cost of a [-]-style matchlock gun and bayonet is about two yuan, and the selling price is ten yuan, with a gross profit rate of about five times.

The production cost of a 6-type 50-pound army gun is less than 18 yuan, and the selling price is at least [-] to [-] yuan according to the estimates of the military industry department, and the gross profit rate is as high as ten times.Larger caliber guns are more difficult to manufacture, and the price has increased exponentially. For example, the large-caliber ship-mounted long and heavy guns sold by European merchants to the Zheng family navy, the price of an [-]-pound gun is thousands of taels of silver.The two weapons of guns are more important for foreign trade. From the perspective of profit, the result is self-evident.

For the arms sales that will come sooner or later, the military industry department has already worked hard to develop a foreign trade version of the artillery specially for export.Under the circumstances that the artillery cannot be upgraded in the short term, in order to adhere to the "generation difference theory" in the arms trade, the military industry department consciously weakened the gunpowder, range and service life of the foreign trade version.If one day the troops of the crossing group face the enemy with foreign trade weapons on the battlefield, the difference in range will be enough for the artillery to teach the opponent how to behave.

As for the sale of arquebus guns, there is no such fear, because the development of the next-generation main weapon, the flintlock gun, has been successfully completed. After the black soil port is put into operation, the coal will be shipped back. After the steelmaking furnace here starts to use, the tough steel will be eliminated. Due to a series of technical difficulties in military production, flintlock guns will soon become standard equipment for armed militias.The relatively slow firing speed and limited power of the matchlock gun will be completely reduced to foreign trade products.Of course, such eliminated armaments are still high-end products for the entire battlefield in the Far East at this stage. As long as the idea opens up a market, the military products of the Crossing Group will definitely quickly occupy the underground arms market in this region.

(End of this chapter)