Chapter 5: Discussion on Trade (Part 1)

“Selling to the Later Jin is probably a long shot. Huang Taiji was initially a prohibitionist, and later a tobacco trade protectionist. It won’t be easy to sell this stuff to him.”

Tobacco was introduced to Liaodong during the Tianqi era, said to be a habit brought by soldiers transferred from Guangdong to Liaodong. Later, either through trade, capture, or a Korean conspiracy—anyway, by the time Huang Taiji proclaimed himself emperor, some people in the Later Jin were also smoking tobacco. Not only were some people smoking, but it was probably quite widespread, so much so that Huang Taiji enjoyed the title of the world’s first ruler to officially order a ban on smoking. When Yu E’shui mentioned this historical material, the Later Jin should have already issued the first edict banning smoking, because a few years later, he issued an edict to lift the ban on smoking, but it required his subjects to grow and smoke their own, and not to buy from Korea—a typical trade protectionist measure.

A few years later, the Joseon Dynasty, which was not good at fighting, probably planned to use tobacco to carry out “unrestricted warfare” against the Later Jin, and gave a large amount of tobacco to the Manchu nobles and high officials as gifts. According to the Veritable Records of the Joseon Dynasty, at that time, the Crown Prince Sohyeon of the Joseon king was a hostage in Shenyang. The Korean envoy secretly brought 300 jin of tobacco as a gift. Huang Taiji believed that this thing was “not a local product, and wasted money,” and after discovering it, he once again ordered a strict ban.

“So it will be difficult for us to sell tobacco to the Later Jin.”

“It’s only 1629 now. Let’s take this opportunity to make a big score!”

“With the quality of the ‘Holy Ship’ brand cigarettes, you call them luxury goods? Do you really think the wild boarskins are stupid and rich?” Yan Quezhi, who had tasted the local tobacco, sneered. “The tobacco always falls out, and you’ll burn your fingers after a few puffs.”

The transmigrators were not impressed with the scarce, specially supplied “Transmigrator” brand cigarettes. Although the tobacco imported from Macau was of good quality, it was not the flue-cured tobacco that modern people were used to. Coupled with the poor quality of the cigarette paper and the clumsy rolling process—smokers had to be very careful, otherwise the loose tobacco would suddenly fall out and burn a hole in their clothes—it made cigarettes just something better than nothing.

Cigarette paper was a special type of paper in the 20th century. It belonged to the thin paper category, with a specification of no more than 25g per square meter. The whiteness of the paper reached more than 82%, and the texture was dense, soft, and delicate. It was opaque, had high longitudinal tensile strength, a certain degree of air permeability, and a suitable burning speed. The main raw material was bleached hemp pulp, and some bleached wood pulp or straw pulp was also mixed in. To adapt to the burning speed of tobacco, a small amount of combustion aid was also added. The paper surface was also pressed with a roller to create a ribbed pattern to increase air permeability and improve the appearance.

If they were to make do with what they had, the paper from students’ exercise books would be a more suitable substitute. Unfortunately, the paper that the transmigrators could make did not even reach this level.

Although the paper-making workshop had been in operation for a long time, the quality of its products had never surpassed that of the era—the paper-making workshop was still making paper according to the 17th-century paper-making technology. This greatly affected the quality and output of the paper. However, the paper-making workers were helpless—they lacked two key raw materials for paper-making: caustic soda and sulfuric acid.

Without caustic soda, the paper-making workshop could only use a very small number of raw materials to make paper, including all kinds of rags recovered from the “purification” process of immigrants, discarded hemp nets and ropes from fishermen, waste cotton, and the bark of a few trees. This greatly limited the source of raw materials. Without sulfuric acid, the pulp could not be bleached. Therefore, the paper produced was neither white nor smooth. Apart from solving the problem of toilet paper and packaging paper for the transmigrator group, it had no other use. As a result, the education department could only issue slates to students and have them write and calculate with chalk on the slates.

“It’s not a big problem. We’ll strive to put it into production within the next month,” Ji Situi patted his chest. With more than a thousand laborers on the construction site, they could use manual and makeshift methods to erect those large structural frames and various towers.

“I’ll be relieved if we can produce the three acids and two alkalis,” Ma Qianzhu said. “So many important things are stuck on this now!”

Wen Desi said, “These are not important. As our industrialization progresses, overcoming technical difficulties is only a matter of time. Lingao, and even the entire island of Hainan, is too small to provide all the manpower and material resources for our industrialization. To build and to immigrate is destined to make the transmigrator nation a trading nation. The light industry plan should also be based on this.”

Lu Rong, the general manager of the foreign trade company, stood up and said, “I would like to report on a comprehensive plan for future trade from the foreign trade company. This plan will require the strong assistance of our colleagues in the industrial sector.”

“We can refer to the current situation of international trade. We mainly import raw materials with low technical requirements, rough processed products, and light industrial products: such as raw cotton, ore, pig iron, non-ferrous metals, timber, livestock, and population. In the first five-year plan, the transmigrator nation’s light industrial product exports should reach the top, accounting for 60%. High-tech industrial products will account for 20-30%. Ocean trade services and financial services will account for 10%.

“The agricultural and light industrial products of the transmigrators may include: various kinds of wine, white sugar, sewing needles, silk, glass, ceramics, canned food, paper, chemical fertilizers, pepper, and tea.

“Among them, spices, tea, silk, and ceramics will be traded through re-export. We will not directly produce the products ourselves, but will enter the trade as middlemen.

“Other products will be provided by the industrial sector. These are all products where we have unique technology or production capacity advantages.

“Relatively high-tech industrial products are: medicines, soap, MSG, optical instruments, precision instruments and tools—the latter few things only need to be made better than the European products of the time. Not only can we get the profit opportunity of re-exporting to Europe, but we can also take this opportunity to make the European scientific system dependent on our products, eliminate its creative inventions, absorb the other side’s excellent scientific and technological talents, and ultimately achieve the complete disintegration and elimination of the European scientific system—”

Dr. Zhong’s eyes lit up when he heard this. “Now I can really screw over Huygens! Forget it, I’ll just recruit him as my assistant.” He suddenly frowned. “Damn it, he was just born this year. It will be at least another 20 years before he can be my assistant.”

“Who is Huygens?”

“The inventor of the modern clock,” Zhong Lishi said. “Strictly speaking, he is the inventor of the pendulum principle. But I have decided to attribute these inventions to myself.”

Ma Qianzhu said, “Clocks are very useful to us, but as a trade item, they can only be considered a luxury. I don’t see the common people of the Ming Dynasty having a need for precise timekeeping.”

“The Europeans should have a greater demand. They have developed navigation, and precise timekeeping is very important for navigators to locate themselves at sea.”

“In this way, it is equivalent to completely destroying the future European watch and clock industry,” Lu Rong was immersed in his “trade to defeat the enemy” theory.

Ma Qianzhu nodded and motioned for him to continue.

“Then there are shipbuilding and various printed materials, which all have great competitiveness.”

Li Haiping said, “Well, I actually think that at a certain time—for example, halfway through the first five-year plan, things like instant noodle factories, canneries, and rice noodle factories should be encouraged for local gentry and merchants to invest in. We provide cheap technology and machinery, and they invest in factories to operate and sell. What do we have these things for? Civilian industry, as long as it’s not the core stuff, should be left to the private sector. They know better how to run a business and make money. We just need to teach them modern industrial production organization and enterprise management.”

Wang Luobin said, “This is too far-fetched. It’s more appropriate to have a planned economy for now—a planned economy is conducive to the unified deployment of manpower and material resources. Besides, we are cultivating a new generation of industrial workers, and this will not produce results in one or two years. If you privatize the enterprises, the characteristic of capitalists is to seek profit. They have no interest in cultivating any industrial workers. And Lingao may not have such capable gentry and merchants.”

Yu E’shui shook his head repeatedly. “Gentlemen, although our basic tone of establishing a trading nation is not a problem, have you considered a problem?”

Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

The history otaku from the imperial capital calmly said, “Gentlemen, before you continue your discussion, I must first read a few passages to you—I recently read a few books about the experiences of foreigners in China in the late Qing Dynasty, and I feel that the consumption habits of the feudal small-peasant economy and the modern commodity economy are completely on two different planes. I have excerpted a few passages here to pour some cold water: “

“All Chinese housewives know how to make the most of their cloth… what cannot be used in one place will surely be used in another. Some scraps of cloth must also be used to their fullest, to make the soles of shoes… these items will always be used to their fullest, and the final scraps will also be used with other cloths until they are used up.

“…Three sedan chair bearers carried him for 5 hours, a journey of 23 miles, and then walked back to Guangzhou to eat the breakfast provided for them. They walked 46 miles before breakfast, half of which was with a load, and this was just to save 5 cents.”

“…Most of the wheelbarrows in China creak when they are pushed. This is because of the lack of lubricating oil… However, those numb-nerved people think that noise is cheaper than oil, and would rather creak than apply a few drops of oil.

“A Chinese mother saw her child covered in dust and swept the dust off with an old broom. A curious foreign woman said, ‘Does your child bathe every day?’ ‘Every day?’ the Chinese mother answered in surprise and anger, ‘He hasn’t been bathed since he was born.’ For the average Chinese person, even if a soap retailer put up a sign saying ‘cheaper than dirt,’ it would have no effect.”

“…It is generally impossible to buy any ready-made tools, but you can buy some semi-finished products and then process and finish them yourself. Because processing them yourself is always cheaper than buying ready-made ones. Everyone wants to save money, so there are no ready-made goods.

“These descriptions may be biased and exaggerated, but they at least prove that the consumption concept of a small-peasant economy society is completely different from that of modern people. From this, we can summarize the common consumption concept of the lower-class working people in ancient times—at least in the Ming and Qing dynasties: time, physical strength, comfort, and convenience are all ‘free.’ As long as you can save even one copper coin, you can squander these ‘free’ elements at will. We can still see the remnants of this consumption habit in some elderly people today…”

“So far, strictly speaking, we have not really set foot in the production of mass consumer goods. From this, we can derive a topic: how to transform the consumption habits of the ancients for those who want to take the economic route and establish a trading nation in this time and space?”