Chapter 403 - Orders from Guangzhou
This year, the farm had expanded soybean planting, but soybeans themselves were in short supply, and Nick was also competing for them. Xun Suji decided not to fight with that Madman Ma and instead simply make a substitute—broad bean tofu.
Broad beans were easy to plant and grow, with high yields. Their root systems had nitrogen-fixing properties, and the bean shells made excellent organic fertilizer. The farm had planted a lot of them to improve the soil, so the supply was abundant. In years when supplies were difficult, broad bean tofu was a common substitute. Its drawback was rather unsightly appearance—pitch black—and its texture and mouthfeel were far inferior to real tofu's smoothness.
Since soybeans were scarce, and mung beans were an important dietary therapy item for relieving summer heat, the tofu workshop had to continue looking to broad beans for its bean sprout business as well. Xun Suji used porcelain basins and pottery jars to make sprouted beans.
After the tofu workshop's production using substitutes was on track, Xun Suji assembled a sauce garden team from the immigrants. This team was quite impressive: a bankrupt sauce garden owner, unemployed sauce-making masters and general workers—a group of sauce garden practitioners from all over the country had gathered in Lingao, forming the first commercial entity under the Light Industry Department: Tianchu Sauce Garden.
Rather than placing Tianchu Sauce Garden inside the food factory, he found a secluded spot in East Gate Market. Xun Suji's reasoning was simple: since the transmigrator group was gradually phasing out the supply system and more immigrants were joining, the consumption of pickles and such would increase daily. Placing both production and sales locations in East Gate Market was much more convenient than keeping them in the farm within the Green Zone.
He had originally wanted to name this sauce garden "Liubiju," but learned that Liubiju had already existed in Beijing for many years—legend had it the plaque for "Liubiju" was inscribed by the famous Yan Song. Using it again would inevitably raise suspicions of imposture. So he adopted the brand name of Wu Yunchu's Tianchu MSG Factory, the man who made outstanding contributions to the Chinese food industry and invented Chinese MSG.
"Actually, the name Tianchu is excellent. It has style! It has artistic conception!" Mo Xiao'an said when Tianchu opened. "Later, when the food factory grows big, it could also be called Tianchu."
Tianchu Sauce Garden used traditional techniques and equipment to brew broad bean paste, chili paste, and soy sauce, while also pickling various pickles and salted vegetables. The products supplied the various cafeterias and were also sold externally. The masters and workers in the sauce garden came from all over, bringing flavors from their respective hometowns. Xun Suji himself was a chef, knowledgeable about food, and skilled at blending the strengths of various schools. Before long, the reputation of Tianchu pickles had spread.
The Agricultural Committee praised this move greatly. Originally, a large portion of the vegetables in the farm's fields couldn't be consumed in time and had to be turned into feed, especially the high-yield cabbage and radishes. Now with the sauce garden, surplus vegetables were consumed by it without any waste. Huang Dashan came to the sauce garden several times to provide technical guidance and even brought several new fermentation strains.
The transmigrators were genuinely pleased to have such a sauce garden—having one more condiment to vary the flavors was always welcome. Not long after opening, many people came to Tianchu to offer advice and suggestions, contributing secret methods for making pickles and dried vegetables from their hometowns.
Seeing that demand for pickles was strong and the supply of red chili peppers was ample, Xun Suji ordered a good number of large pickling jars from Xiao Bailang and taught the sauce garden workers the technique for making Sichuan pickles. Soon, Sichuan pickles were available in the cafeteria. The refreshing and palatable pickles were very popular in the hot summer. Even gentry and officials in the county seat sent people to buy some to taste.
Next, he turned his attention to the small shrimp at the seafood processing plant. Every day, the catch at Bopu contained a large amount of undersized shrimp that didn't make the grade. Aside from being sun-dried into shrimp skin, they were used directly as phosphate fertilizer or feed. Xun Suji remembered eating "Jinzhou side dishes" in the Northeast, which were soaked in shrimp oil—delicious, extremely salty, and excellent with rice. The so-called shrimp oil was actually the clear liquid extracted from the upper layer after fermenting small shrimp with salt. As for the mixed sediment at the bottom, that was "shrimp paste," also a type of seasoning sauce.
After he mentioned his idea to the seafood processing plant, he soon obtained this "shrimp oil." The characteristic of "Jinzhou side dishes" was that they were mostly pickled using "baby vegetables"—baby cucumbers, baby eggplants, and the like were most popular, and these cost almost nothing—they were culled from the vegetable gardens anyway.
Neither Xun Suji nor Mo Xiao'an expected that Tianchu Sauce Garden would later become one of the Light Industry Department's most important export enterprises.
A few days after Mo Xiao'an handed over the food factory matters, Zhang Xin returned to Lingao. That evening, Mo Xiao'an sent someone to invite him to his office—he wanted to hear the opinions of this professional who was on the front lines and had a sales background regarding export products.
"I don't know how you plan to sell MSG," Zhang Xin said after hearing his preliminary ideas. "In my opinion, if there are no grain control issues, the instant rice vermicelli idea is good because everyone has to eat. But MSG is just icing on the cake. The rich don't need it, and the poor don't find it necessary."
Rich people were particular about what they ate, using high stock slow-simmered from whole chickens and ham. They wouldn't look twice at artificial flavor enhancer. The poor had trouble just getting enough to eat and wouldn't think of wanting this stuff—besides, MSG was just seasoning, not canned soup. Adding a little MSG couldn't turn plain water into chicken soup, which made its sales prospects problematic.
"So there's no hope then?"
"No—there is still a market," Zhang Xin said. "Besides the rich and the poor, there are middle classes in this world. But expecting to export it in large quantities is impossible. Also, the small merchants coming to Lingao for trade won't want this—their customers don't need it. The likely users would be the catering industry."
"The catering industry is fine too. As long as it sells, it's good."
"We can try this out." Zhang Xin thought they could first use it in the kitchens of inns and mule stations owned by Qivei. If the response was good, people would naturally come asking about it.
"If you were a small merchant from Guangdong or Fujian coming to Lingao and selling off your goods, what products would you feel would be popular to bring back?" Mo Xiao'an listed examples. "Salt is probably out of the question since it's illegal. Sugar is a bulk commodity—bringing back a few dozen jin is meaningless, and Leizhou has sugar, Fujian has plenty too..."
"First, it needs to be cheap. Second, novel and unavailable elsewhere. Third, useful," Zhang Xin said. "Australian goods already have a reputation for being exquisite and useful. Ordinary citizens can't afford mirrors or glass, but the envy and desire to use Australian goods already exist. It's just like how someone might not be able to afford a Mercedes-Benz but insists on getting a Mercedes-Benz logo as a keychain—the same psychology."
Zhang Xin's opinion was to develop products that were cheap, high-quality, and possessed "uncanny ingenuity" to cater to this market sentiment.
"Actually, sewing needles would be good. Good steel, and in terms of appearance, they'd rank first in the market. They really embody the impression everyone has of Australian goods," Zhang Xin evaluated.
"But sewing needles require steel, which is a level-one controlled material..."
"How much steel can that really use?" Zhang Xin disagreed. "How much iron does the cannon fire out in just one twelve-pound shell? One shell could make a whole lot of needles."
Mo Xiao'an hesitated. "There's also the issue of production capacity. Sewing needles are produced by the machinery plant. Since it's not an urgently needed item, it's often prioritized last."
In fact, sewing needle production had stopped after totaling less than ten thousand needles. The machinery plant not only had too many things to do, but everyone also lacked interest in manufacturing such small hardware daily necessities.
"This equipment shouldn't stay at the machinery plant. Although you all belong to the Industry and Energy Committee—the people in the machinery plant play with machinery. They're all building steam engines and boilers and still feel it's not enough; you expect them to make sewing needles for you? Talk to the Supervisor. Ask the machinery plant to manufacture a few sets of needle-making equipment and assign them to the Light Industry Department. As for workers, ask the machinery plant to help train them for you, and get the raw materials allocated by the Planning Commission. That way, the sewing needle factory can guarantee daily operation."
Mo Xiao'an thought, Why didn't I think of this earlier! With machines and personnel in other people's hands, naturally things wouldn't go smoothly.
"I'm suddenly enlightened!"
"We also hope the light industry sector develops more new products for sales. Selling mirrors and glass vessels all the time will eventually cause aesthetic fatigue."
"How are the sales of flat glass?"
"Like glass mirrors—how big a market can such things have?" Zhang Xin had a clear view on luxury goods. Although luxury goods had windfall profits, they weren't the main direction for commodity development. However, it was lonely at the top now. The measure proposed by Wen Desi to cheapen small mirrors hadn't been implemented yet because everyone was unwilling—after all, the current profits were both substantial and stable.
The Industry and Energy Committee itself was currently unwilling to cheapen mirrors either. The glass factory's capacity was limited. Once cheapened, sales would skyrocket, making it even harder for the already strained glass factory.
"You could also look into food items—not MSG—are there any cheap, popular snacks? The kind where one wen can buy several... for example—candy."
"Candy?"
"Candy!" Zhang Xin said. "Right, the kind children eat. When I was little, living in a small county town in Hunan, a relative went on a business trip to Guangzhou and brought me back a bag of fruit drops. I felt it was an incomparable delicacy on earth..." Zhang Xin was immersed in memories of the past.
"Will there be a market?"
"At least in Guangzhou, it's impossible for there not to be one. Don't forget how Wenzhou people made their fortune back then."
"I know that—exchanging chicken feathers for candy."
"The candy exchanged for chicken feathers was just maltose made by farmers during the slack season. If Wenzhou people could accumulate their first pot of gold in China when material conditions were extremely scarce, perhaps it can work in the Ming Dynasty too."
"I understand—start a confectionery industry." Mo Xiao'an nodded. This was indeed a worthwhile line of thought. First, sugar was a bulk product of the transmigrator group; there was no shortage of raw materials, and this would be deep processing to increase the product's added value.
Currently, although sugar prices weren't low, sugar was sold by the shi (stone or picul). No matter how cheap candy was, it would still sell for one or two wen per piece. Calculating it out, the profit from candy was much higher.
Zhang Xin also mentioned several materials that could potentially be exported in large quantities. First was writing paper. Since the chemistry department could already produce sulfuric acid and caustic soda, large-scale batch papermaking was no longer a problem. Whether it was bagasse papermaking in Leizhou or straw papermaking, the paper produced by the transmigrator group would definitely be the cheapest. With the addition of kaolin, they could also make paper with the highest whiteness.
"Writing paper is very expensive," Zhang Xin said. Although the raw materials for papermaking were cheap, in the past era without chemicals, rotting the raw materials into pulp took a long time and a lot of labor. The only chemical that could help was lime.
Under Mo Xiao'an's Light Industry Department, there was a rudimentary papermaking workshop, run by papermaking workers found among the immigrants from the mainland, using entirely traditional methods. Mo Xiao'an was well aware of the low efficiency of traditional papermaking. The paper produced, aside from some better quality used for writing, mostly served as toilet paper.
The papermaking industry in the Ming Dynasty was already quite developed, but paper's value remained high. Besides the specific "tribute paper" detailed down to individual sheets that various paper-producing regions had to offer to the government, there was also a "paper tax" system: prisoners interrogated or admitting guilt had to pay a certain amount of paper, and later, even litigants involved in cases had to "pay paper."
The paper used for account books in the past was already extremely coarse and poor quality, yet Zhang Xin had still seen people writing on the backs of such sheets. Writing paper was simply very expensive at that time.
"Speaking of paper, we must talk about books. Books are also not cheap. We have an opportunity there," Zhang Xin said.
How much did books cost in Guangdong? Zhang Xin said the prices were high—higher than in any country in the twenty-first century. A set of well-edited and carved market edition books cost at least one or two taels of silver.
"Woodblock printing technology should be very mature in the Ming Dynasty. Woodblock carving is labor-intensive, but once done, can't it be used repeatedly?"
"The cost of woodblocks is very high, and storing them isn't easy either. Worms eat them, they rot. Every year some need repair or replacement. This long-term maintenance cost isn't low."
Moreover, woodblocks consumed a lot of labor and material, and took up much space after completion. If it wasn't a popular book ensuring long-term sales, booksellers wouldn't be very willing to carve and print it. Therefore, publishing new books in ancient times was difficult. Often, authors had to pay for carving and printing themselves. Cash-strapped authors could only rely on finding sponsors to publish. Li Shizhen wrote the Compendium of Materia Medica, and it was only with the help of Nanjing publisher and bibliophile Hu Chenglong and the literary giant of the time Wang Shizhen that he saw his work begin to be carved during his lifetime. As for formal publication, that didn't happen until the sixth year after his death. The time span and immense cost of book publication were hard for modern people to imagine.
"You can consult Zhou Dongtian about this—he specializes in it. Put simply, just set up a movable type printing factory."
After talking with Zhang Xin, Mo Xiao'an felt greatly inspired—he wrote several full pages of notes. However, Zhang Xin had another business promotion matter to discuss with him.
"This matter has direct connection with the Light Industry Department and also concerns whether our Guangzhou Station can continue to occupy the high ground of fashion consumption in Guangzhou in the future!"
Ancient society also had trends and fashion. In late Ming Guangzhou, a place with a rich commercial atmosphere and supreme consumerism, occupying the high ground of fashion could largely change the consumption habits of wealthier citizens, thereby allowing various Lingao-produced "Australian goods" to smoothly enter the market.
"What is the specific matter?"
"Renovating Ziminglou," Zhang Xin said.
"It's not PEPI causing trouble again, is it?" Mo Xiao'an had an instinctive aversion and suspicion toward this person.
"Her ideas are included, but this is a collective discussion by the Guangzhou Station." Zhang Xin emphasized "collective discussion" right from the start. "We want to transform Ziminglou into a fashionable consumption venue in Guangzhou..."
"Don't tell me it's going to be a Ming Dynasty version of 'Heaven on Earth' nightclub. That would make gathering intelligence and building connections easy. High—really high!"
"Not at all," Zhang Xin laughed. "It's going to be more complex."
The guiding ideology of this reconstruction was to transform Ziminglou into a showcase of the "Australian lifestyle." They would install various modern living facilities and promote consumer goods to the wealthy and powerful families who could afford to spend big money—covering food, clothing, housing, transportation, and all other aspects.
"Note that these are lifestyle consumer goods, not luxury goods."
"What's the difference? Ordinary people can't afford them anyway."
"There are many kinds of ordinary people. In Guangzhou, there are still many people living affluent lives." Having been in Guangzhou for a long time, Zhang Xin had a profound sense of Ming Dynasty social life. The lives of people in Guangdong, especially in the Pearl River Delta region, were still considered stable and well-off. Especially in a city like Guangzhou—although people dying on the road and beggars were not uncommon, the living conditions of ordinary citizens were still passable.
This class of citizens, who could barely be called the "Ming middle class," might not necessarily be able to throw away thousands of gold at Ziminglou. But just as the modern middle class was particularly obsessed with words like "high-class," "elegant," "luxurious," "ultimate," and "noble"—enduring hunger to buy an LV bag, or occasionally pretending to be chic by spending money at a place where a cup of coffee would make their hearts ache for a while—the life enjoyment of the rich was the object of their imitation. Even if they couldn't enjoy everything, they could at least enjoy a small part.
"I roughly understand what you mean. Ziminglou will be similar to high-end clubhouses, nightclubs, and the like."
The model for Ziminglou was a modern high-end nightclub—nothing more than sensual pleasures, eating, drinking, and entertainment. It was just that all this would be packaged using technology, concepts, and products from the modern timeline.
"So is PEPI considered a famous courtesan or a madam?" Mo Xiao'an spoke without filter.
"Damn—PEPI will fight you. Nominally, she's Guo Yi's concubine..."
"Little Guo has a really good appetite."
"Didn't I say nominally?" Zhang Xin said with dissatisfaction. "Stop interrupting. This is a tentative commercial promotion activity by the Guangzhou Station on the mainland. If successful, your Light Industry Department will have rolling orders!"
"Okay, okay—I'm all ears."
"The first thing now is to develop a full set of sanitary ware." Zhang Xin gave him a list. "The sanitary ware must be produced within two months. The others can wait a bit."
(Chapter End)