Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 120 Fur Trade
May 1629, 5, 23: p.m.

The sky is clear and the sun is shining brightly.

Two tall three-masted sailing ships slowly sailed into Guangzhou Port. The white canvases fluttered gently in the breeze, setting off the large ships, as if two huge white whales were cruising on the sea.

On both sides of the ship, many sailors were lying, with long-lost joy on their faces, as if they were full of anticipation for arriving at the port and disembarking.

Many people gathered at the dock.

There were laborers carrying bags and goods, merchants looking forward to business opportunities, officials and clerks from the Maritime Customs, and many vendors selling fruits and snacks. They looked at the two large ships from afar with curiosity, pointing and whispering.

As the ship drew closer to the berth, the crowd began to grow noisy.

Merchants were thinking about how to sell their goods to them, officials and clerks were thinking about how much profit they could get from the ships, brokers were thinking about how to obtain the other party's customs declarations and trading agencies, and porters were looking forward to having more goods on the ships so that they could earn a considerable amount of hard work fees.

The two sailboats finally came to a stop, and the cables were tied firmly to the mooring posts at the pier.

The gangway was lowered and out came a group of tanned sailors.

The hatch was opened, the heavy planks were removed, revealing the exotic cargo in the hold: furs, cocoa,...

Uh, it seems that it is gone.

The variety of goods is very lacking!

When the brokers from Guangzhou's "Li Shun Hang" heard the news and rushed over, dozens of brokers from other industries gathered at the dock left in disappointment.

These two large ships from overseas must have been cooperating with "Lishunxing" for a long time. As soon as they met, both sides seemed to be very familiar with each other.

"Isn't your Commander Luo here?" Deng Shuhan watched his followers pack a bundle of high-quality sea otter skins and take them off the boat, then turned around and asked with a smile.

"He didn't come this time." Wei Yingbin said, "After all, many affairs in our territory still need to be managed and supervised by the commander, so he has no time to rush to the Ming Dynasty in person."

"Yeah, that's right. Sailing is hard work, and we can't let the local commander personally lead the charge." Deng Shuhan nodded. "That's fine. We at Lishunhang have an old relationship with you. Whether he comes or not won't affect our cooperation."

"Then I will have to rely a lot on you, Lishunhang, for this trade." Wei Yingbin imitated the people of the Ming Dynasty and bowed to him.

"No problem, no problem!" Deng Shuhan replied with a smile.

These foreign merchants were quite sensible and knew how to leave enough benefits for us in order to reduce the customs duties and fees to some extent.

What is even more rare and valuable is that although they rented a large warehouse in Guangzhou and stationed two staff members there, when purchasing various supplies, they still gave most of the purchasing opportunities to "Lishunxing", allowing them to earn a lot of difference from it.

Well, they are really fat sheep, oh, no, they should be our best customers.

"However, the amount of furs you've brought in this time is quite large!" Deng Shuhan walked around the deck, then turned around and smiled, saying, "This may have a serious impact on the fur trade in the entire Guangzhou market."

"Hmm?" Wei Yingbin frowned upon hearing this. "Shopkeeper Deng, if it were considered the Guangzhou market, the number of furs we've brought in might be a bit much. But compared to the entire Ming market, it's like a drop in the ocean, not worth mentioning at all. Even in the Jiangnan region, these nearly 4,000 furs wouldn't even cause the slightest stir."

You, Lishunhang, are not thinking of lowering the price because we shipped too many furs?

This time, the "Breaking Waves" and "Zhengtu" carried a total of 1260 sea otter skins, 170 seal skins, 125 sea lion skins, 670 beaver skins, 15 bear skins, 440 deerskins, and 1270 rabbit skins, for a total of 3950 skins. This was not only eight times more than the first year's shipment, but also over more than the previous year.
Based on the prices of the previous two years, the prices of seal skin and sea lion skin were similar, averaging more than 40 taels of silver each, beaver skin was 3 taels of silver each, sea otter skin was 15 taels of silver each, deerskin was 5-6 taels of silver each, rabbit skin was the cheapest, about 4 cents of silver, and bear skin was the most expensive, which could be sold for more than 18 taels of silver (Note: the price is based on the transaction price of American fur to China in the th century, and there may be some discrepancies).

By this calculation, all the furs they brought to Guangzhou this time could be sold for more than 36000 taels of silver.

In addition to being used to purchase various materials for the Ming Dynasty, this money can also be used to slightly subsidize some of the immigration costs so as to avoid too much loss.

But if "Li Shunxing" uses the excuse that the quantity of furs arriving at the port is too large and forces a price reduction, then Qiming Island will lose a lot of profit.

You know, as the number of immigrants increases, the production and living materials needed on Qiming Island also increase exponentially, so the amount of gold and silver spent is also a very huge amount.

Needless to say, in order to strengthen the defense of Qiming Island, a large number of firearms had to be purchased from the Portuguese in Haojing.

In order to increase shipping capacity, it is necessary to order large ocean-going ships from Pedro, the smuggling partner.

In order to recruit various craftsmen to Qiming Island, a considerable amount of "settlement fee" needs to be spent in advance.

When the population grows to a certain level in the future, Qiming Island will definitely no longer implement the current "big collective economy" model of unified production and unified distribution, but will gradually transition to a normal socialized production and independent individual life model.

Therefore, under this model, it is necessary to establish a normal economic order and a distribution system based on payment according to work.

Although time travelers don’t understand economics very well, they still know some simple concepts.

For example, as a central institution, before the credit foundation is established, it must have a certain amount of reserves before it can issue currency for social circulation (self-minted or with the help of Spanish silver pesos).

Therefore, the travelers of Qiming Island must seize every opportunity under the most favorable trade conditions at present to reserve more gold and silver currencies in preparation for the future.

"If Lishunhang is going to rip us off, why not consider working with another brokerage?" Wei Yingbin said with a look of surprise after seeing Meng Shengxin and Zhong Minghui coming to greet him. "They've probably made over ten thousand taels of silver from us in the past two years, right? Why aren't they satisfied and still want to take a bite out of us?"

"That's fine. I'll have a good talk with their boss, Deng Ruilin, later." Meng Shengxin said with a smile, "I believe they understand that it's better to have meat every meal than to overeat once. As shrewd businessmen, they know how to choose. Alas, the furs you brought this time are a bit too much!"

"Could it be that we have unified the entire Qiming Island and brought all the Indians under our rule, which is why we have such a great harvest?"

"With so few of us, how can we possibly unify the entire Qiming Island?" Wei Yingbin laughed bitterly. "However, we took advantage of the slack season to sweep through the Indian tribes within a 20-kilometer radius of Shixing Fort, gaining hundreds of people. That's like having a hundred or eighty more hunters. And with our training and guidance, and equipped with the right hunting tools, we've gained a lot more furs."

"Oh?" Meng Shengxin read the news with great interest. "Then should we continue to sweep across a wider area of ​​Indian tribes during the subsequent slack season? A conservative estimate for the number of Indians on such a large island would be around three to four thousand, right? If we could bring them all under our control, we could definitely accumulate a large population in the shortest possible time."

"You're overthinking it!" Wei Yingbin said, "Recruiting so many people at once, let alone whether we can afford to support them, their huge population advantage will make it difficult for us to integrate them smoothly. It might even bring about various hidden problems that will affect the foundation of our rule."

"Oh, that's a shame."

"So, we still need to speed up immigration. Once the population grows, it will be easier to integrate those Indians. For now, our approach is mainly to gradually influence and encourage more Indian tribes to accelerate the transformation of their productivity. Whether it's learning to farm or hunting furs more efficiently, it will be a beneficial supplement for us."

"I believe that a powerful force with more developed productivity and a richer material life will gradually attract the allegiance and dependence of the surrounding Indian tribes, and gradually lead them to our own use."

"Speaking of increasing immigration, we have good news for you." Meng Shengxin and Zhong Minghui smiled at each other. "The Portuguese have agreed to cooperate with us and are planning to try to help us transport immigrants this year."

(End of this chapter)