Late Yuan Dynasty: I am the true emperor

Chapter 539 Huge Harvest

In a rubber processing workshop in Xiangxun Port, a Ming Dynasty immigrant is showing several Aztec merchants around; these are local rubber suppliers.

The Yuanwang ship will be leaving soon, and the ironware and other goods it brought have been mostly sold. In other words, the rubber trade will soon be suspended for a period of time until the Ming Dynasty's new ships arrive with cargo.

However, although the rubber trade has been suspended, the local natives' rubber harvesting operations cannot stop. It would be best to keep stockpiling rubber during this period, just in time for the Ming Dynasty's new ships to arrive.

The new ships won't have to wait as long as the Yuanwang ships did. They can conduct large-scale transactions directly, and leave immediately after the transactions are completed, saving time and improving trade turnover efficiency. This way, they can make at least one round trip across the Pacific Ocean every year.

So Wang Dayuan specially called these rubber merchants over and taught them rubber preservation techniques.

The rubber collected by local merchants was mostly natural latex that had been directly tapped and had not been processed in any way. This natural latex was collected in earthenware jars and would naturally solidify into white, bouncy rubber lumps. These lumps were rich in water, and when collected manually, the water had to be squeezed out. Then, these rubber lumps could be bagged or packed into baskets and transported by alpacas or boats to Xiangxun Port to be sold to people from the Ming Dynasty.

However, such rubber balls cannot be stored for a long time, mainly because they are prone to mold and insects. Therefore, they need to undergo some processing in order to preserve and transport them for a long time.

Lu Jin taught Wang Dayuan the smoking method, which was also the easiest method to promote. First, wash the rubber balls, squeeze out the water, and let them dry. Then, smoke them, just like smoking cured meat. After smoking for three days, they can be stored in a warehouse for long-term preservation or transported across the ocean.

Several Ming Dynasty immigrants were directing the slaves they had bought from the local area to string together washed and dried rubber balls into long strings using thin hemp ropes and iron needles. These strings were then hung high on the beams of the smoking room, filling the entire room with them.

After the warehouse is filled with rubber, it is sealed and a fire is lit to smoke it. After three days, the white rubber lumps are smoked until they turn brown. Then they can be pulled off the ropes, compressed and bagged, and then stored or transported.

Wang Dayuan and his team used a box-shaped mold. They first lined the inside with a layer of packaging cloth, then put the smoked rubber balls inside. There was a lever-shaped wooden mallet several meters long on top to press the soft rubber tightly. Then they added new rubber until the entire mold was full and could not be pressed down any further. Finally, they wrapped it tightly with the prepared packaging cloth and sewed it up.

Each bag of rubber weighs 100 kilograms. It is small and compact, making it easy to transport and taking up little space in the ship's hold. With the same hold volume, more rubber can be loaded.

The Aztec merchants who were invited to visit watched the entire process. They asked the Ming immigrants for help with anything they didn't understand, and quickly learned the rubber-smoking technique. Moreover, these immigrants would not leave, and they could come back to ask for help again if they still had questions.

However, Wang Dayuan is different; he is already preparing to leave.

The warehouse doors of Xiangxun Port opened, and the purchased native slaves immediately pushed wheelbarrows and two-wheeled carts over, loaded bags of rubber onto them, and then transported them to the Yuanwang ship at the dock. The Yuanwang ship then used its own pulley crane to lift the goods up.

The Yuanwang ship stayed in Central America for more than a year, and it wasn't a wasted trip. Through the efforts of Wang Dayuan and others, and by using the connections between the Ming Dynasty envoys and the Aztec high-ranking officials, they were able to contact many influential figures in the region and learn how to develop the local rubber tapping industry. In just one year, they collected nearly 60,000 catties of rubber, which amounted to more than 28 tons.

Even the Aztec priest recognized the value of this industry. At present, they are only looking for wild rubber trees to harvest. Although rubber can be harvested every two or three days, the yield of wild rubber trees is very limited, and wild rubber trees are not concentrated enough, making harvesting very troublesome.

So the priests had their families start planting rubber trees together. Some planted them directly, some used rubber tree branches for cuttings, and some dug up wild saplings and transplanted them to the rubber plantation. They used all sorts of methods to see which one had a higher survival rate. In this way, the first artificial rubber plantation in Central America was established.

However, it takes at least six to ten years for a rubber tree to grow from seed to a point where it can be tapped. During these ten years, rubber can only be harvested from wild rubber trees.

The priest knew that Wang Dayuan was collecting rubber seeds and saplings, but he didn't care. First of all, these things grow very slowly. The demand for rubber in the Ming Dynasty was so large. By the time they grew their own trees, how much rubber could they harvest from such a small number of trees? They would still have to buy from them anyway. As long as the Ming Dynasty existed, they would not lack a market.

As for the Ming Dynasty changing its industry structure by growing its own rubber seeds, who knows when that will be?

After loading nearly 60,000 catties of rubber, there was also the most important ballast material from this trip to Lizhou: more than 200 tons of gold and silver, which, if calculated in taels, amounted to more than 7 million taels. Damn it, the cash tax revenue of the Ming Dynasty in the first two years after its founding might not even be that much.

The salt tax in the Ming Dynasty is very high now, with the total salt tax in the country amounting to nearly ten million taels a year. However, after paying rewards to soldiers and salaries to officials, there is hardly any cash left.

Currently, the market price of silver and salt and iron certificates is roughly one to two, with one tael of silver exchanging for two yuan of salt and iron certificates. Looking at it this way, you can see how incredible the value of the more than seven million taels of gold and silver that Wang Dayuan acquired is. And this doesn't even include the fact that he will go to San Francisco to collect another batch of gold dust from the natives.

The Yuanwang ship was fully loaded with nearly 4,000 tons of cargo. In addition to the crew and food on board, Wang Dayuan took more than 600 tons of ironware with him when he set sail. These included iron pots, knives and tools, as well as more valuable blue and white porcelain and silk brocade, which made them highly sought after by the Aztec nobles.

Even a set of blue and white porcelain plates, bowls, spoons, and tableware could be exchanged for several hundred taels of silver, and a set of Hanfu made of Yun brocade could sell for over a thousand taels. Add to that the hundreds of tons of ironware, and it was with these hard currencies and luxury goods that they were able to acquire thousands of slaves, as well as so much gold, silver, and supplies in just one year.

However, most of these goods have now been sold out, and some of the remaining goods were left at the outpost in Xiangxun Port. Only a small portion was left on the Yuanwang ship for trading supplies with the natives on the return voyage.

Gold melons and silver ingots, each weighing over a hundred pounds, were hoisted onto the ship and then loaded into the hold. After loading the gold, silver, and rubber, the crew began loading corn, potatoes, and sweet potatoes onto the ship. These were their provisions for the return voyage, while other seeds would be priced separately.

Wang Dayuan, Chen Youliang, Nahachu, Yang Hui and others personally went to a warehouse in the walled building. They saw that the warehouse was filled with jars the size of heads, with red paper seals on them and the names of the contents written on them. There were dozens of varieties of corn alone.

Corn is a rare cross-pollinated crop, making it easy for natural hybridization to occur. As a result, in the thousands of years of indigenous corn cultivation, there are thousands of varieties of corn produced by natural hybridization alone. The cold-resistant corn suitable for planting in mountainous and high-altitude areas only appeared through natural hybridization around the Tang Dynasty in China.

In other words, even if one traveled back to before the Tang Dynasty and built ships to the Americas, it wouldn't necessarily be possible to find cold-resistant varieties of corn. Wang Dayuan and his team collected almost all the common corn varieties found in the Aztecs, including waxy corn, sticky corn, waxy corn, early-maturing, mid-maturing, late-maturing, yellow, purplish-black, white, and light yellow varieties, as well as some with colorful, agate-like patterns. Some even had 12, 14, or 16 rows per cob; the more rows, the thicker the cob, and naturally, the higher the yield per acre.

The "high-yield corn" that is commonly seen in later generations, with eight pairs and sixteen rows of kernels, meaning the entire cob has 16 rows of kernels, has now been developed, but it is only in its rudimentary form and is far from reaching the high yield of 600 kilograms per mu in later generations. However, compared with other crops, the yield is still not low.

The corn planted by Wang Dayuan and his colleagues on the newly reclaimed land yielded about 210 jin per mu without much fertilizer. In contrast, during the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, the wheat yield in the north was only 120 to 130 jin per mu. By the late Ming Dynasty, wheat yields in some fertile irrigated lands in the north reached 195 jin per mu.

In other words, even if the yield per mu of these corns does not increase, if they are taken back and used to implement wheat and corn rotation in northern Ming Dynasty, with two harvests a year, the yield per mu in half of the country north of the Yangtze River can be more than doubled!
This is the result of planting in newly reclaimed, unfertilized land. If it were brought back to the Ming Dynasty and planted in mature land with compost, the yield would definitely increase even further.

In addition to dozens of corn seeds, there are rubber seeds, continental long-staple cotton, several kinds of tobacco seeds, peanuts, sunflowers, peppers, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, physalis, zucchini, beans, herbs, white cinnamon, cinchona seeds, bark and seedlings, as well as rubber tree seedlings.

Of course, the most important potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cassava were also collected by them, with each of them having more than a dozen varieties.

Potatoes alone come in all shapes and sizes: white-fleshed, yellow-fleshed, purple-fleshed, crisp, mealy, large, and small. By bringing them back and cross-planting different varieties, we can increase genetic diversity and reduce the risk of disasters like potato blight.

The same applies to sweet potatoes. Wang Dayuan also bought a white-fleshed sweet potato from local merchants at a high price. It tasted terrible and was far inferior to purple, red, and yellow sweet potatoes in terms of nutritional value. However, the yield of this white-fleshed sweet potato was ridiculously high. Even with primitive planting methods without fertilizer, it could yield two to three thousand catties per mu.

It is said that local merchants bought it from islands in the Caribbean Sea in the East China Sea, and its place of origin is either Cuba or Jamaica.

The sweet potato varieties that Wang Dayuan and his team collected from the Aztec region generally yielded only about 1,000 to 1,500 catties per mu, which was half the yield of this white-fleshed sweet potato, but the taste was much better.

However, it doesn't matter if this kind of white-fleshed sweet potato is a bit hard to eat, after all, the yield is there. Even if we go back and grow it to feed pigs, people can use it to feed pigs if they don't like it. Besides, if there is a natural disaster, even if the sweet potato is hard to eat, it can at least save people's lives.

Finally, there's cassava. This stuff has an even more outrageous yield per acre. Even the original varieties can easily reach thousands or even tens of thousands of kilograms per acre. Although cassava is poisonous, it can also be used to produce industrial starch, which is used to make putty powder for wall painting, sizing for textile yarn, pulp filler for the paper industry, and adhesive 'natural glue' for corrugated cardboard boxes.

Before tapioca flour existed, glutinous rice was used in the three-component soil for ancient buildings, and a large amount of glutinous rice was also used in the ash blowing method for mining silver. People used rice or millet to sizing cloth. With tapioca flour replacing these industrial uses, the original grains could be saved for people to eat, which indirectly increased grain production.

Lu Jin also attached great importance to this thing and specifically instructed Wang Dayuan to find it. They lived up to expectations and found two varieties of cassava: yellow-fleshed and white-fleshed. The yellow-fleshed cassava was slightly less toxic and was also a type of cassava occasionally eaten by the natives.

However, cassava has no seeds and does not reproduce by itself, but by its stalks. If you cut the whole thing down, cut it into sections and bury it in the soil, new cassava will grow. So Wang Dayuan bought a lot of cassava stalks, bundled up like sugarcane, and loaded them into the ship's hold.

It wasn't until the end of August that the last batch of live cargo was loaded onto the ship, mainly consisting of several cages of turkeys, Muscovy ducks, twelve weaned alpacas, as well as raccoons, dogs, and other animals. The ship also brought a lot of hay and feed for these animals.

After everything was loaded, on the first day of September, Wang Dayuan led the crew of the Yuanwang to bid farewell to Nahachu, Yang Hui, and others.

Yang Hui stood on the dock and bowed to them, saying, "Please be careful on your return journey, gentlemen. I wish you a safe journey. When you come again, please remember to bring the livestock and goods we requested."

"You two must also take care and manage this place well. Before the Ming Dynasty sends new ships again, do not buy any more new slaves. Currently, Xiangxun Port has a population of over five thousand, and the Han immigrants plus the native wives and concubines only number in the hundreds. If something unexpected happens, be careful that the slaves might riot. At that time, your few hundred people will not be able to suppress them at all," Wang Dayuan also reminded the two.

Yang Hui immediately said, “Your Excellency, please rest assured. You know how we treat slaves and servants. The treatment here is much better than that of the landlords in those Arab countries. We are well-fed, we are not beaten much, and we are not easily killed. If you do a good job and learn to speak Chinese, you will be given a house and land.”

“We treat them like tenants, while the landlords in A-Guo treat them like livestock. They know in their hearts who is good and who is bad, so why would they easily rebel?”

“We must remain vigilant and not be too kind to them, otherwise they will think we Han people are easy to bully. After all, you should understand the saying that a kind person is bullied and a good horse is ridden. If you encounter those who are disobedient, you should beat them or kill them as needed. Make an example of them and use both rewards and punishments to subdue these slaves. General Nahachu is in charge of this, so you should be more tolerant of him,” Wang Dayuan reminded him again.

Naha immediately cupped his hands and said, "Don't worry, sir. I will pay close attention to the defense of Xiangxiang Port. Nothing major will happen within a year or two. Besides, you have left us weapons, armor, and four cannons. Even if the natives come to attack, I can defend this place. Don't worry."

"Well then, take care, we'll set sail for Jinchuan (San Francisco) now."

"Take care of yourself."

"Bon Voyage!"

"Weigh anchor, hoist the sails, let's head to Jinchuan first, then I'll take you home!"

"Yes!"

(End of this chapter)