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Chapter 1343: Bloody Battle of Panama City 7
"If you put it that way, I do think you are a little different than before. Qingyu-dono, if possible, please tell me about your experience. I will keep it strictly confidential and will never talk about it with anyone else, regardless of whether they agree or not."

Looking at his companion whom he had known for a long time and had worked together in the army for several years, Mukuhara Taigei suddenly felt very strange. He had never seen that kind of expression and way of speaking before. He couldn't help but become extremely curious and wanted to hear what exactly could change a person so quickly.

"Well... when I was about ten years old, my father and I took a boat to Xiaoliuqiu. There is a tree called camphor there. After the branches and trunks are processed by a special process, they can produce a very fragrant oil called camphor oil.

It can be used as medicine, in addition to curing diseases, it can also prevent insects, especially silk and paper. With mothballs, you don't have to worry about being bitten by insects. Camphor is in great demand in Japan, but there are few channels to obtain it and the price is very high.

But I only found out about this later. My father and I didn’t know at the time, and many people in Japan and the Ming Dynasty didn’t know either. It is said that the Ming Emperor ordered the widespread planting of this tree, but it was not forced.

The emperor issued an edict telling the Ming people who went to Xiaoliuqiu Island to open up wasteland that they could receive subsidies from the Sun and Moon Bank for planting camphor trees and would be tax-free for five years, but the treatment for planting sugarcane and rice was not so good.

Even so, many people still choose to grow sugarcane and rice, which are quick to produce, with a harvest in two or three years, and they don't have to borrow money from the bank.

This was indeed the case in the first few years. Most of the people who planted sugarcane and rice had a harvest, but those who planted camphor trees had to borrow money from the Sun and Moon Bank every year just to barely maintain their plantations.

Seeing that others have made back their investment, some farmers are getting impatient and think that the future of camphor is bleak. They plan to sell their plantations. If the price is good, they can not only pay back the bank loan but also make some profit. Then they can buy wasteland to plant sugarcane and get a harvest in two years.

At that time, there was a Ming Dynasty businessman who wanted to buy more camphor tree plantations, but he didn't have enough money. He often came to Kagoshima to sell fine cotton cloth and woolen yarn. Every time he came, he would bring a few cans of rice wine from his hometown to my father while playing chess and drinking. Then he talked about this matter and wanted to ask if my family was interested.

When my father asked him why he was sure that the camphor tree plantation would make money, he only gave one reason: all the businesses initiated by the Ming emperor had never failed. He understood this principle, but he was troubled by insufficient capital, so he could only watch and could not take action every time.

Finally, my father was convinced and he and I bought five camphor tree plantations. Three years later, the camphor trees were producing oil. Guess what happened?

Huashan Qingyu is also a talkative person. He always tells the story from the beginning and asks questions while talking. He has already smoked half of the cigar, but he hasn't finished telling the story.

"Making money?" Taigei Muhara had no idea what a camphor tree looked like, or how camphor oil was made. If he hadn't used camphor balls before, he probably wouldn't have had the patience to listen to such a long story.

"It's more than making money, it's simply a gold mine! Just after the Spring Festival, the Ming government sent people to the plantation to count the trees that can be harvested for oil, and registered them one by one.

My father was very uneasy after hearing this, and he always felt that the Ming government was playing tricks, so he took a boat to Xiaoliuqiu. Even if he couldn't stop it, he had to see it with his own eyes.

The result was almost ruined, because the people who came to harvest were not the government, but the Ming army. They checked the registration books one by one, picked branches and leaves, cut bark one by one, loaded the harvest on four-wheeled carriages and transported them away, leaving only a receipt to the plantation manager. My father wanted to stop the carriage, but if the farmers hadn't stopped him and persuaded him, he would have been arrested and imprisoned. They said that all the camphor trees on Xiaoliuqiu Island were unified purchase and sale materials, and even those who owned plantations could not buy and sell them at will. They had to be harvested and refined by the engineering corps under the General Staff.

However, the engineers would not withhold the harvest from the plantations. The harvest from each tree and the price of camphor oil would be posted after the first month of the lunar year. The plantation owners only needed to take the receipts to the Sun Moon Bank to get the corresponding silver coins.

If you need some camphor oil for your own use, you can also submit an application to the local engineering corps and collect it from the refinery within the prescribed range.

My father secretly went to the gate of the local government office to read the notice. He was so excited that he couldn't sleep all night. He kept asking people to hit him with a small bamboo stick and then take out the receipt to look at it, for fear that he was dreaming.

My family owns a large share in the five plantations. Every year, the income from collecting branches and leaves and cutting tree oil alone is enough to cover all the stone revenue paid to the shogunate. It is more than the income from ten sugarcane plantations!

I heard that there are many rubber plantations in Annan, Luzon, Ayutthaya, and Batavia, and the income is higher than that of camphor trees. Unfortunately, I found out too late. The Ming Empire changed the rules for purchasing plantations and did not allow foreigners to invest more than 20%.

In fact, even if it is allowed, it is useless. Since the camphor tree plantations in Xiaoliuqiu have made a lot of money, no one is willing to resell them easily. The rubber plantations are even more so. They are all kept as treasures. It is not cost-effective to spend a lot of money to buy shares.

In fact, my father went to court with the Ming merchants for the shares of these five plantations. In the end, the Ming government ruled in my father's favor, and he finally saved all his hard work over the years."

When talking about his family's investment experience, Huashan Qingyu was sometimes excited and sometimes sighed. Although most of the details were told by his family, they were as vivid as if they were personal experiences.

"Will the Ming government be fair to the Japanese? Your family will have to spend a lot of silver coins!" Muhara Taigei knew nothing about camphor, let alone the operation of a plantation. The only thing that interested him in this experience with the Karayama family was the process and outcome of the lawsuit.

In the minds of many Japanese, the Ming Empire was like a tiger lying at the doorstep, very powerful and dangerous, and had to be handled with caution. In addition to being wealthy, Ming merchants doing business in Japan were also quite arrogant and domineering, and when there were conflicts between the two sides, it was usually the Japanese people who suffered.

You have to endure the loss in your own home. If you go to someone else's territory to sue, you will never win under normal circumstances, even if you are absolutely right. The only exception is bribery, using silver coins to buy off Ming officials or influential businessmen for help, which may work.

"On the contrary, my family didn't spend a single silver coin except for the round-trip fare, and we also received compensation. All litigation costs were paid by the Ming merchant who lost the case, and he also had to pay a huge fine.

The camphor oil brought back from Xiaoliuqiu this time was his compensation, but my brother did not take advantage of the situation and calculated it according to the lowest market price, which resulted in his father scolding him. He said that business should be business, and kindness today will not be rewarded tomorrow. "

(End of this chapter)