Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 228 Discussion of Trade ([-])

Judging from everyone's responses, Wen Desi knew that the response to this proposal was not very enthusiastic.At this time, Mo Xiaoan said: "Mr. Wen, you are right, but the mirror is now our flagship product, and it has left an image of luxury to the common people. If we rush to make cheap products, I am afraid Bad for a high-end product line—”

Wen Desi replied, "Look, how many mirrors do you think the people of Ming Dynasty can buy?"

Mo Xiaoan said: "A few days ago, the Guangzhou Liaison Station sent a message that a batch of mirrors had been sent to the capital for sale after the year. It is said that even the shop was smashed and several people were injured. The Gao family is urging to release As for the goods, tell me how much you want.”

"How much is a mirror selling for now?"

"Guangzhou market: the retail price of black jade mirrors is between 120 and 200 taels, and the price of other colors is between [-] and [-] taels."

"Crocodile, what do you think is the income of the middle class in a place like Guangzhou?"

Yu Eshui said: "This range is very large. The average shopkeeper is about one to two taels a month. The big shopkeeper hired by the Guangzhou dispatch station used to be 240 taels a year, which is considered a high-paying class in Ming Dynasty. .”

"Small citizens with a monthly income of one or two taels will definitely not be able to afford it. Even Daming's 'high-level white-collar workers' will probably have to grit their teeth to buy our mirrors. How many wealthy households are left who can spend a few hundred taels casually? I guess how many at most Thousands of households. Then, among the quantity we shipped last month, there were more than 1200 mirrors. The market will be saturated sooner or later.”

"Some wealthy households don't just need one or two mirrors. The rich have ten or eight concubines, and they must not be alone. Otherwise, women will be jealous. If you have many wives, you will also have many children. Daughters and daughters-in-law are not Do you have to do something?"

After hearing what Mo Xiaoan said, everyone laughed.

"There are also wealthy families around Guangzhou who come to buy." Mo Xiaoan said, "Including those in Fujian, I heard that there are also businessmen in Jiangnan who approach Gao Ju and ask for purchases. Once they start purchasing, they will buy them all at once. Thousands of mirrors, right? It’s not necessarily just a few mirrors.”

"The overall situation is indeed very good, but the product line needs to be considered in the long term." Wen Desi wondered if Mo Xiaoan's business sense was average, and he had to be replaced next time. Unfortunately, both professional salesmen were in Guangzhou... "The cost of the mirror is very small for us, and the expansion of the user base is only good for us. As for the high-end products, this is left to the Guangzhou dispatch station to consider. They support so many jewelry craftsmen. It’s easy to make a mirror rough and luxurious. My idea is to make mirrors available to as many people as possible.”

"Can't we consider selling mirrors to other places? Like Southeast Asia?"

"It's okay, that's why we have to do the work of Macau, Liu Xiang and Zhucai Lao." Wen Desi explained, "It goes without saying that Macau is itself a window, and the latter two have a wide range of overseas trade network through which they can dump these products into Southeast Asia."

"We have experienced it directly, why should we make a fortune for them?" Li Haiping was very puzzled by this question. In his opinion, the executive committee really overestimated the strength of these pirate leaders.

"Again, at this stage, we should not make too many enemies. This is not an era of free trade. Being a maritime merchant still requires some skills." Wen Desi said.

It can be said that Chinese maritime merchants in 1629 were a high-risk and high-return industry.What they are facing is a space full of dangers but huge profits.

Zheng Zhilong, who is a combination of officials, businessmen and robbers, basically controls the route from Fujian to Japan. Trade ships passing through this area have to pay for the road, otherwise they will inevitably be robbed.Moreover, the Japanese shogunate only opened up a small number of cities for foreign trade, and there were very few foreign trade targets. Some local daimyo ports could also conduct trade, but each ship also charged a trade fee of 1000 taels of silver.

The Portuguese/British/Dutch merchant fleets are both merchants and thieves. They have to pay taxes like Zheng when they encounter hard ones, and rob them when they encounter soft ones.

Spain was obsessed with the colonization of Southeast Asia and the slave trade, and basically controlled the Philippines and the Malay Archipelago.Although they relied heavily on Chinese maritime merchants to provide materials and manpower for the colonies, they were unable to join the trade with China, so they had to rely on Manila galleons to continuously transport silver from the American colonies to lure Chinese maritime merchants to come to trade.Due to being too dependent on Chinese businessmen and Chinese, the Spaniards developed a morbid sense of fear of the Chinese, and spared no effort to suppress and control the Chinese, and Chinese businessmen were restricted a lot.

The Netherlands has the most powerful naval fleet in the China Sea, but as a latecomer, it has no good foothold.In order to seek new colonies, they tried to control Taiwan and Penghu.There have been wars with the Zheng family for decades.It was not until 1661 that Zheng Chenggong recovered Taiwan, and the Netherlands also failed in the Anglo-Dutch War and eventually declined.

Vietnam's Southern and Northern Dynasties and Northern Dynasties also needed to pay 1000 taels per year for port trade.The Southern Dynasties opened a city exclusively for Chinese trade.Both the Southern and Northern Dynasties of Vietnam called themselves Little China, but each of the North and the South found foreigners to support them: the Northern Dynasty was supported by the Dutch, while the Southern Dynasty was supported by the Portuguese.

As a rising star, although the British came late and did not find a foothold in this area, they always wanted to break into this market.

Economic, political, religious, ethnic, these messy factors are intertwined, making the entire East Asia-Southeast Asia waters into a Darwinian jungle.

Although the traversers have strong ships and guns, they are sparsely populated, especially the lack of ships and sailors, and the geographical environment is not favorable, so they are not qualified to participate in this carnival at sea for the time being.Selling through the ready-made networks of those powerful maritime groups became the only option.

"Chinese products are very popular in Southeast Asia, which is an excellent way to make money, and we also need many special products in Southeast Asia." Zhong Lishi said regretfully, "Now we can't get silk, tea and porcelain for export. Right, selling mirrors is also good. I remember Chinese bronze mirrors used to be a traditional export commodity.”

"Trade talks are so heated, import and export, but what about ships?" Li Haiping continued to doubt.

"Insufficient capacity." Wen Desi sighed.

The current situation of the traveler is a bit like Japan. Lingao itself produces very few industrial and mining raw materials, and the commodities sold by the traveler and important industrial raw materials all rely on ships for import and export.Not only that, even the transportation of salt from Yanchang Village to Bairen City—although the simple road between the two places has been built through the public, but due to the lack of animal power and vehicles, bulk sea salt products are still transported to Bopu by boat. transport.

This makes the traversing crowds heavily dependent on ships.Since the attack on Baitu Village, the number of fleets owned by the Transit Group has increased by leaps and bounds.At this time, there were already three 70-ton brigantine ships, namely "Dengyingzhou", "Fubo", and "Tongji", two 3-ton single-masted ships and more than a dozen small ships.Except for the "Fubo" which is equipped as a warship, the others are used as transport ships. Among the five large and medium-sized ships, except for Fu Bo, who was not suitable for entering Guangzhou Port because of his armed forces, all of them were dedicated to the Guangzhou route, and they brought a large amount of urgently needed materials for the industrial sector.The problem is that the speed of delivery is still not keeping up with the needs of the industrial sector.Sailing boats are slow and have a small carrying capacity.The Ministry of Maritime Forces intends to expand the size of the fleet, but the issue of sailors has been bothering them-the prospect of several major maritime groups preparing to fight to the death makes sailors scarce, whether it is Liu Xiang, Zheng Zhilong, Zhu Cailao, or even the magistrates of Ming Dynasty, everywhere They are all recruiting coastal fishermen and people with sea experience.The time travel group is obviously not favored by the common people.

"We still hope to build a large ship, preferably with power." Li Haiping said, "Not to mention a ship that is too big, it must be at least two to three hundred tons in weight, right? If it has power, the speed will be much faster. , and the demand for sailors will be much less. Deng Yingzhou is faster than the other ships, if it is not always out of diesel—”

"Mr. Wen, hasn't the Planning Commission approved the construction of a two-masted schooner? This kind of ship should weigh 200 tons, right? There are only 10 sailors."

"Shipbuilding is not so simple. There is no trace of many equipment. To build a ship, you must first complete the equipment of the shipyard." Wen Desi also had a headache for this matter: after all, shipbuilding is not a shipbuilding model. It took nearly [-] years before and after the Swedes copied the Gothenburg For ten years, more than half of the time was spent on researching the shipbuilding technology at that time.This is still under the premise that the Swedes have complete information.

"Let's hurry up and complete the shipyard first. Make a list of what you need, and we will have a separate meeting with the mechanical department to resolve it later."

"As for the engine problem." Wang Luobin said, "I don't think whether it is a steam engine or a self-made single-cylinder diesel engine, it is not a problem for our industrial capabilities. Especially the single-cylinder diesel engine can not only be used as a marine engine, but also meet many requirements. , For example, in agriculture, it can be used as a prime mover for pulling small agricultural implements, pumping water, or even as a short-distance transportation tool. The fuel is also easy to solve. Even if there is no diesel, vegetable oil or gas will do. "

The manufacturing technology of a single-cylinder diesel engine is the simplest among internal combustion engines.The earliest internal combustion engine that came out was a diesel engine, and the early diesel engines burned vegetable oil instead of diesel.

Wu Nanhai immediately supported: "That's good. I have a lot of small agricultural machinery here, but they can't use it because they don't have power."

Wang Luobin continued: "Although the power of our self-made single-cylinder diesel engine cannot be compared with regular diesel, it is generally enough for use. If the power is insufficient, industrial equipment can also be driven by this engine. Early factory equipment used steam engines. Or driven by other power engines. Considering the difficulty of self-produced electric motors, future factories may need to be driven by steam engines or diesel engines for a long time."

(End of this chapter)