1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2355
Wang Tom couldn't be sure at the moment whether this Matsumae Kohiro really didn't know about Hai Han, or whether he deliberately acted like this to cover his own words. Out of prudence, he tried his best to introduce Hai Han's situation in a plain tone.Wang Tom described Haihan as a country that focuses on maritime trade and has established good trade relations with East Asian countries.As for Haihan's military expansion, Wang Tom didn't mention it at all, so as not to arouse hostility from the other party.

Kohiro Matsumae showed great interest in the cross-border trade mentioned by Wang Tom, and asked him about the specific trade content.

Although Wang Tom is a high-ranking military official, he is not completely unfamiliar with trade matters. He is also relatively clear about Haihan's products that are popular in international trade.However, the needs of Hokkaido may be different from those of mainland countries, so Wang Tom is also prepared for this.

Although the purpose of this trip was to explore unknown areas, and the nature was more military, but when Tom Wang set off from the Datong River, he also let the cargo ship load some products produced by Haihan in order to visit the ports encountered on the way in the name of trade.

"My lord, I have prepared a few small gifts, all of which are products produced in our country. Please accept them. We still have some products on board. If your lord is interested, you can send some samples later."

Wang Tom made a gesture, and Amakusa Shiro immediately handed over a specially brought wisteria box to Matsumae Shihiro.

Matsumae Shihiro took the box and went back to his father to open it. After Matsumae Kohiro looked at it, his face was a bit puzzled.Inside the box was a small flat cardboard box, a glass lamp with a copper base, and a book with the words "Three Hundred Poems of Tang and Song Dynasties" on the cover.

Wang Tom had expected it a long time ago, so he said, "May I allow my subordinates to show you how to use it, my lord."

Kohiro Matsumae readily agreed, and Amakusa Shiro stepped forward and took out the glass lamp from the box, turned on a small mechanism, took off the glass lampshade, and then took out the small paper box and pushed it lightly with his hands. Dozens of small wooden sticks, he took out one and wiped it on the side of the paper box, and the small wooden sticks burst into flames, making both Matsumae and his son's eyes widen.

Amakusa Shiro took the small wooden stick to light the wick, then exhaled to blow out the flame on the wooden stick, and put the lampshade back on the base. The flame was not disturbed by the surrounding air and burned extremely smoothly.

Amakusa Shiro finished the operation, and then introduced in concise language how to adjust the length of the wick with the dial on the oil lamp, how to open the cover, refuel the glass oil pot under the base and change the wick.After the explanation, he asked Matsumae Gonghiro to open the "Three Hundred Poems of Tang and Song Dynasties" to see if the oil lamp was bright and clear enough for reading.

Matches and oil lamps, the principles of these things are not complicated, but they are the embodiment of Haihan's industrial technology, and they are by no means comparable to competing products in this era.The glass windshield, the oil pot, and the mechanical structure on the oil lamp are all very delicate in the eyes of Matsumae and his son, and the matches that can be easily ignited make them feel very convenient.

Although it was daytime at this time, the lighting in the big room arranged by Matsumae City for the meeting was very ordinary, and this oil lamp was quite bright after being lit.Matsumae Kohiro opened the "Three Hundred Poems of Tang and Song Dynasties", and he really felt that the handwriting on it was very clear.

Of course, this is not entirely due to the effect of oil lamps. This "Three Hundred Poems of Tang and Song Dynasties" was printed by the printing factory in Sanya with the most advanced metal movable type and high-quality ink, and the special printing paper developed for this purpose. The clarity is definitely far better than the common printing methods such as engraving, wooden movable type, and porcelain movable type in this era.

Anyone who has frequent access to printed books will probably be able to immediately notice the unusual materials and printing techniques of this book, but Matsumae and his son are obviously not among them. The look is brought about by the lighting provided by glass oil lamps.

Kohiro Matsumae asked Tom Wang through Amakusa Shiro whether these things belonged to the goods sold by Haihan. After receiving an affirmative answer, he immediately expressed his willingness to spend money to buy some oil lamps and matches, and he was going to learn more about Haihan ships. Other goods brought by the team.As for books, they were obviously not in his sphere of interest.

But Tom Wang doesn’t care. The main purpose of Haihan’s selling books abroad is to enhance its influence abroad from the cultural level. The profit is second. Many books don’t make money at all, and even need to use special funds to subsidize them.He chose the book as a gift, not for the purpose of selling books, but purely to show the lighting effect of the oil lamp, and to show the goodwill of his trip by the way.

As for special commodities such as arms, Wang Tom didn't plan to take them out at the beginning, so as not to make the other party feel suspicious.

As for the Matsumae Domain, due to its remote location, there are actually not many merchants who are willing to come here for trade, and even fewer people come to this icy and snowy place in winter.If this fleet from Haihan Kingdom came here for the purpose of trade, it would be regarded as a rare visitor.

Of course, if Kohiro Matsumae wants to maintain this hard-won trade relationship for a long time, it is definitely not enough to just spend money on the goods shipped by Haihan. He also has to produce souvenirs that interest Haihan people.

The Taonan area where the Songqian Domain is located is almost all mountainous, and the area that can be used for farming is extremely limited. The cultivated land is basically used to grow grain, and grain will obviously not be the reason that attracts Haihan people to come here for trade.However, the Matsumae domain monopolized the trade between Japan and the Ainu tribe, and there were some special stocks.

"We have all kinds of furs in our warehouse, such as deerskins, bearskins, foxes... There are also many good things harvested from the mountains. If you are interested, you can ask my son to take you to choose."

There are indeed not many things that Matsumae Kohiro can trade, and they are basically from the Ainu tribe.These things generally have to wait until the end of summer and early autumn, and then try to transport them to Edo for sale.However, the number of wealthy people in Edo who can consume these fur goods is limited after all, so there are still many stocks in the warehouses of Matsumae Castle.

When Tom Wang heard this, he was naturally interested in looking at Matsumae Fan's inventory.These furs are not local specialties that can be obtained anywhere. If they can be purchased in large quantities, the shipping costs will already be included in military expenditures, so at least the business will not lose money.

In order to further discuss the content of the transaction, Matsumae Kohiro invited Wang Tom to stay for dinner.Only limited by local products, this dinner is not up to the standard of a banquet. In Wang Tom's opinion, it is a homely level, and it is not even comparable to the officer's meal he ate on the ship.There are quite a few dishes on the table, but each serving is only enough for two mouthfuls, and most of them are seafood, so it can only fill you half full.

Of course, eating is secondary, and the main purpose is to get closer to each other and discuss the method and content of the transaction by the way.

That night, the Haihan Fleet stopped at the coast near Matsumae Castle to rest, and the sailors were allowed to take turns ashore for activities, but they were not allowed to approach Matsumae Castle on their own initiative, so as not to cause unnecessary trouble.Although this disappointed many sailors who wanted to go to the area near Matsumae Castle to see the Japanese style, but the military order was so high that no one dared to violate the prohibition.

Wang Tom and his party returned to the temporary station by the sea after dinner.Wang Tom is quite satisfied with the results of today's contact with Matsumae Kohiro.In fact, he didn't expect to reach a stable trade relationship with the Matsumae clan by relying on this visit. In a place as far away as the Matsumae clan, if there is no extremely lucrative income, it will be difficult to drive the merchants of Haihan to come here to do business on their own initiative. Activity.

As for the fur goods that the Matsumae clan can provide, although they are all good things, their value is far from high enough to make foreign businessmen ignore the shipping costs.Tom Wang will definitely not lose money if he receives the goods on the way. Anyway, there is no need to consider the shipping cost, but if Haihan merchants are to travel thousands of miles from places like Dinghai Port, the resale price of shipping back to Daming or Haihan may be higher. Set extremely high to protect capital.

Apart from these, Matsumae Fan seems to have nothing else to offer, and this place has no mineral deposits, no land suitable for establishing a colonial port, and no large resident population. For Haihan, it really does not have too much value. strategic value.According to Wang Tom's observation, the Matsumae Clan's financial, manpower and material resources are extremely limited, and they don't even have the qualifications to become Haihan's trading partner. They can only do a small business to establish a relationship, which may come in handy in the future.

However, apart from the trade negotiations, Tom Wang has a special harvest.During the meeting with Kohiro Matsumae, he said that he would continue to sail north and hoped to hire a local guide who knew the environment in the north. Kohiro Matsumae readily agreed and asked his son Ujihiro Matsumae to help arrange the matter.

When leaving Matsumae Castle, Wang Tom learned that besides the Japanese who immigrated from Honshu Island, there would also be some Ainu people from the northern region from time to time, bringing various goods here for trading. .Some Ainu people think that the living environment of Matsumae Fan is relatively more livable, so they will stay here for a long time.

After winter, land transportation is inconvenient, so some Ainu people who have arrived in Matsumae will wait here until spring begins.If the Haihan people want to find a guide, there must be Ainu people who are willing to leave here and return to their hometown by boat with the wind.

Sure enough, Matsumae Shihiro, who was in charge of handling the matter, did not spend too much effort, so he found two Ainu guides for Wang Tom.The cloth robes of these two men were wrapped with thick animal skins, and each carried a pair of earthen bows and arrows. The most striking thing was that they both had beards that were more than half a foot long, and their appearance was indeed significantly different from that of East Asians.

The two claimed to be uncles and nephews. They came here from the north on a merchant ship from the Matsumae domain in autumn, and sold various mountain products collected by the tribe to the Matsumae family. They planned to buy some daily necessities here after the winter, and then look for opportunities. Go back by boat.

Because the two have been doing business with the Matsumae clan all the year round, they can also speak Japanese and are familiar with the customs of the west coast of Hokkaido.After Amakusa Shiro communicated with him and confirmed that there was no problem with the communication, Tom Wang decided to let the two of them act as guides for the follow-up itinerary.

However, before departure, the transaction with Matsumae Fan must be completed first.Early the next morning, the vassals of the Matsumae clan sent five cartloads of various goods, and the total number of furs, large and small, was about a thousand.The two Ainu uncles and nephews who had just been hired immediately went to work as technical consultants to help inspect the goods.

In fact, there is no way to do this. Tom Wang’s subordinates are all sailors, and there are almost no people who are familiar with wild animal fur and various mountain products like Orion, far less expert than these two Ainu people.For this errand, Amakusa Shiro promised them a hundred catties of rice, and the two immediately regarded the Haihan people as temporary objects of allegiance.

After their selection, they finally selected three carts of goods, which were then discounted against the Haihan goods selected by Matsumae.In addition to high-end daily necessities such as matches and glass oil lamps, the goods sold to Matsumae were mainly iron farm tools and cooking utensils.

These iron products are very practical for the Matsumae Clan. After all, there is no iron ore in the area under the jurisdiction of the Matsumae Clan. If they want to buy a large amount of iron products, they have to go to a big city on Honshu Island. The intermediate cost is more expensive than that provided by the Haihan people. Iron products are much more expensive.

Most of Haihan's iron daily necessities have adopted industrialized production methods, and the production cost is much lower than that of traditional blacksmith workshops. Even if they are shipped from the far south, there is still a meager profit after deducting the transportation cost.These iron products are extremely popular in Ming Dynasty and North Korea, and it seems that Japan is no exception.

When the two Ainu saw that Haihan had traded so many ironware to the Matsumae clan, their eyes were straightened, and they hurriedly expressed to Amakusa Shiro that they would leave some ironware for their tribe, and they could provide more ironware than Matsumae. Fan's more favorable trading conditions, and even hope to exchange their wages for iron settlement.

For the Ainu who lack smelting technology, ironware is a very precious and scarce resource. If they can get a large amount of ironware for the tribe, the uncle and nephew will make a great contribution.

Amakusa Shiro immediately reported the situation, and Wang Tom was a little bit dumbfounded after hearing this. If he knew this, why would he buy so many goods from Matsumae Fan, and directly traded with the Ainu at the source of the supply, and there was no middleman to eat the difference. Wouldn't it be more cost-effective.

But things have come to this point, and he can't play with Haihan's business reputation, and the deal that has been promised to Matsumae Fan must still be completed.Anyway, you won't lose money, you just earn less.

Fortunately, there are many ships coming out this trip, and there are still many such goods on each ship as ballast, so there is no need to worry that there is nothing to trade with the Ainu.Immediately Tom Wang asked Amakusa Shiro to appease the two of them and told them to work hard first. After the errand was finished, he would give each of them an iron pot as a reward.

(End of this chapter)