Wind Rises in North America 1625

Chapter 137: The Faltering Start of Industry and Commerce
December 1629, 12, early morning, light breeze.

Today, it is suitable to travel and offer sacrifices, but it is not suitable to dig ground or hold funerals.

The Shixing Port Pier was crowded with people. Despite the cold weather, residents came together to see off their relatives or companions who were about to sail away.

The annual immigration operation of Qiming Island has started again. Several large ships that have undergone maintenance and repairs have raised their sails one after another, leaving the dock one after another and heading towards the depths of the bay.

In order to receive the large ship that the Spanish smuggler Pedro might provide, Qiming Island also sent the "Shunyun No. 2" to accompany the fleet to the Mexican waters.

In addition to more than 60 trainee sailors, the ship also carried some iron farm tools, tools, pottery, potato wine and other goods produced by workshops, which were ready to be handed over to Pedro to test their sales.

At present, the iron smelting workshop in Guangfengbao has seen its production capacity increase by more than ten times as its technology has gradually matured and a large number of people are mining iron ore during the winter idle season.

Working day and night, the two small blast furnaces can produce one to two tons of iron.

As the amount of iron increased, the blacksmith shop's production also reached its peak.

Shovels, sickles, pickaxes, iron chisels, iron forks, axes, nails, hammers, sickles, as well as kitchen knives, butcher knives and many other production and living tools were made in molds in batches.

Agricultural machinery such as iron plows, iron rakes, iron soil crushers, metal seed drills, wheat harvesters, threshers, leaf crushers, and hay mowers are also being produced and assembled one after another by the craftsmen, providing more complete agricultural machinery equipment for the next year's agricultural production.

Ceramic workshops, wineries, brick and tile kilns, cement workshops, woodworking workshops, oil presses, fishery processing workshops and other workshops have also successively started vigorous large-scale production to provide the entire base with abundant daily necessities for the coming year.

The arrival of more than a thousand new immigrants finally allowed the time travelers to experience the benefit of strength in numbers.

In addition, during the winter slack season, agricultural production also temporarily stopped, which meant that all workshops and mines immediately had enough temporary workers.

It can be foreseen that with the substantial increase in population, a considerable number of workers will inevitably be added to the industrial production field. In the next year, some workshops will also get rid of the semi-shutdown and semi-production state, which will greatly increase the supply of "industrial products" on the entire Qiming Island to a certain extent, and there will even be a slight surplus.

In this situation, the decision-making committee decided to tentatively export some industrial products, so as to reversely promote the development and progress of the industry.

So, when the immigrant fleet carried a large number of oriental goods to Mexico for smuggling activities, they also delivered some of their own manufactured goods to the Spanish smuggler Pedro to see if they could open up a sales channel.

Due to the strict control of the Spanish royal family and government over the colonial territories, industrial development in the entire Spanish America region was far weaker than agriculture and mining, and development was extremely slow and backward.

When the Spanish Kingdom occupied the vast American region, its main purpose was to plunder local wealth, rather than to build a "model colony of the new era."

In addition, in order to protect the interests of its own handicraft industry, the colonial power only regarded the colonial territories as sources of raw materials and dumping grounds for industrial products when ruling them, and also wanted to monopolize the market.

The Kingdom of Spain did not want any colonies to compete with its own industries. After all, with massive amounts of gold and silver pouring into Spain, there was no decent industrial production on its own.

The Spanish royal family granted domestic merchants the monopoly right to supply European goods to the colonies, thereby obtaining huge trade income, so they were even more reluctant to see any development of colonial industry.

Spain's restrictions on colonial industry were much more thorough than those on agriculture.

The colonies produced abundant wool and cotton, but were strictly prohibited from producing cotton and woolen fabrics. Merchants from the peninsula purchased these raw materials at extremely low prices, transported them back to Europe, made them into various industrial products, and then sold them at high prices in the colonies.

Taking cloth as an example, Spanish merchants bought a shipload of cotton at the Grand Market of Portobelo, transported it back to their home city of Seville, and sold it to textile factory owners in the Netherlands (during this period, the Netherlands was the textile center of Europe). The cloth was woven into cloth, which was then transported back to Seville by the Netherlands. Then, Spanish merchants transported it back to the Grand Market of Portobelo and sold it to merchants from Lima, Asuncion and other places.

During this period, under extremely difficult conditions of transportation, the process of transforming cotton into cloth was so circuitous, clumsy and absurd that it was unbelievable.

As for the mining and processing of iron ore by individual artisans in the colonial territories, it was considered a criminal act and would be tried and dealt with by local prosecutorial courts.

Due to various restrictions imposed by the Spanish government, Spanish America had almost no industry, and the vast majority of production and daily necessities had to be imported from distant Europe. Furthermore, the Spanish government imposed strict control on commercial activities in the colonies. Not only did all goods have to be shipped by Spanish ships, but these ships were also forced to gather in Seville for departure, form fleets upon departure, and sail within a specified timeframe.

With Spain's declining industrial base, how could it meet the market demand of the colonies?

Moreover, due to the long sea routes and poor storage, the goods often had a high damage rate, were not durable, and were priced exorbitantly high, which deeply dissatisfied the vast majority of consumers in the colonies.

Even the colonial upper class and urban middle class criticized the Spanish government's industrial and commercial restriction policies.

It was under such circumstances that the smuggling trade in Spanish America became extremely rampant, and the entire market was flooded with smuggled goods from European countries.

The Dutch, English, French, Danes, Germans, and even merchants from the Maghreb region formed groups to come to Spanish America to "pan for gold" and seize the profits that originally belonged to Spanish monopoly trade merchants.

Although the industrial scale of Qiming Island is still small, the variety of goods is not large, and the quantity that can be provided is negligible, for the long term, the time travelers still hope to try to sell their own goods through smuggling channels.

If sales are good and profits are guaranteed, then we might as well take advantage of the relatively advantageous technology and organizational model to gradually increase production inputs, expand the scale and variety of commodity supply, and get a share of the surging smuggling tide in Spanish America.

Later, as the industry of Qiming Island continued to grow and develop, it was inevitable that the entire Spanish America region would be regarded as an established sales market, and the wealth of the Spaniards would be reaped through continuous trade exchanges (smuggling activities).

Since you don't produce anything yourselves, but are focused on mining, building plantations, and exploiting and squeezing those poor Indians, then let us, Qiming Island, provide you with all the daily industrial products and even the necessary means of production.

Of course, compared to the lucrative smuggling trade of Eastern goods, selling farm implements, tools, pottery, and even alcohol may not make much money in a short period of time.

However, this is extremely important for the nascent Qiming Island industry.

Only with demand can production be promoted, which in turn can drive the advancement of industrial technology and the expansion of production scale.

As for the much larger Ming Dynasty market, the time travelers didn't even think about it for the time being, and didn't even dare to hope for it in the short term.

During this period, the Ming Dynasty was able to produce almost all goods, and the prices were extremely internationally competitive.

This resulted in both the surrounding Chinese civilization circle and distant Europe finding it difficult to sell their own products to the people of the Ming Dynasty.

Only shiploads of silver, copper, and gold could be exchanged for Ming Dynasty goods.

The Ming Dynasty, like a giant Pixiu that can only swallow but not release, absorbed countless precious metals, and then sold its porcelain, raw silk, silk fabrics, tea and other commodities to every corner of the world.

However, there is still a certain market space among the wealthy class in the Ming Dynasty for rare items such as precious wood, ivory, rhino horns, etc. from Southeast Asia.

Only fur and antlers from Qiming Island were popular among Ming merchants, and they could barely be exchanged for a little silver.

Because after the Ming Dynasty lost the territory of Liaodong, it almost lost the main source of northern goods such as furs.

The amount of goods smuggled by Shanxi merchants through Mobei every year is far from enough to meet the demand for fur in the entire Ming Dynasty market.

As for wanting to seize the Ming Dynasty market by relying on the industrial products they produce, it is better to save your energy and not waste your efforts.

My Great Ming Dynasty is rich and abundant in resources. Why would we need things made in your barbaric land?

Well, think about it, back then, even with the power of the British Empire, Britain could not pry open the closed mainland market. So with the current weak industrial capacity of Qiming Island, how could it have the qualifications to sell a kitchen knife or a piece of pottery produced by itself to the Ming Dynasty?
Instead of trying hard to win over an "unattainable" rich lady, it would be much more practical to target the "stupid and cute" Spaniards.
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(End of this chapter)