Chapter 7: Discussion on Trade (Part 3)

From everyone’s reaction, Wen Desi knew that this proposal was not met with much enthusiasm. At this time, Mo Xiao’an spoke up, “Chief Wen, what you said is right, but mirrors are now our flagship product and have already left the impression of a luxury item on the common people. If we rashly make cheap products, I’m afraid it will be detrimental to the high-end product line—”

Wen Desi answered him, “Look, how many mirrors do you think the people of the Ming Dynasty can buy?”

Mo Xiao’an said, “A few days ago, the Guangzhou liaison station sent a message that a batch of mirrors had been sent to the capital for sale after the New Year. It is said that even the shops were crowded, and several people were injured. The Gao family is urging us to ship more, saying they want as many as we can provide.”

“How much does a mirror sell for now?”

“In Guangzhou, the retail price of a black jade mirror is between eighty and one hundred and twenty taels, and other colors are between one hundred and two hundred taels.”

“Crocodile, how much do you think the income of the middle class in a place like Guangzhou is?”

Yu E’shui said, “This range is very large. An ordinary shop assistant is about at the level of one to two taels a month. The chief shopkeeper hired by the Guangzhou dispatch station used to earn two hundred and forty taels a year, which was considered a high-income class in the Ming Dynasty.”

“A petty citizen with a monthly income of one or two taels definitely can’t afford it. Even the ‘senior white-collar workers’ of the Ming Dynasty would probably have to grit their teeth to buy our mirrors. How many wealthy households are left who can casually spend a few hundred taels? I guess at most a few thousand households. So, in the number of goods we shipped last month, there were more than 1,200 mirrors. The market will be saturated sooner or later.”

“Some wealthy households don’t just want one or two mirrors. Rich people have ten or eight concubines, and each one has to have one, otherwise the women will get jealous. With many wives, there are also many children. Don’t the daughters and daughters-in-law also need to be provided for?”

Hearing Mo Xiao’an’s words, everyone laughed.

“There are also the wealthy households around Guangzhou who have come to buy,” Mo Xiao’an said. “Including those from Fujian. I heard that there are also merchants from Jiangnan who have contacted Gao Ju and asked to purchase goods. Once they start purchasing, it will be thousands of mirrors at a time, right? They can’t just buy a few mirrors.”

“From a broad perspective, the situation is indeed very good, but the product line must have long-term considerations,” Wen Desi thought to himself that Mo Xiao’an’s business sense was very average. He would have to replace him next time. It was a pity that both professional salesmen were in Guangzhou… “Mirrors have a negligible cost for us. Producing more and expanding the user base will only benefit us and not harm us. As for high-end products, let the Guangzhou dispatch station consider it. They have so many jewelers, it’s easy to make the mirror blanks more luxurious. My idea is also to let as many people as possible use mirrors.”

“Can’t we consider selling mirrors to other places? For example, Southeast Asia?”

“It’s possible, that’s why we need to work on Macau, Liu Xiang, and Zhu Cailao,” Wen Desi explained. “Macau goes without saying, it’s a window in itself. The latter two both have a fairly extensive overseas trade network. Through them, we can dump these products in Southeast Asia.”

“Let’s just do it ourselves. Why should we let them get rich?” Li Haiping was very puzzled by this question. In his opinion, the Executive Committee really overestimated the power of these pirate leaders.

“I’ll say it again, at this stage, we should not make too many enemies. This is not an era of free trade. It still takes some skill to be a sea merchant,” Wen Desi said.

It can be said that in 1629, being a Chinese sea merchant was a high-risk, high-reward industry. They faced a space full of crises but with vast profits.

Zheng Zhilong, who was a combination of an official, a merchant, and a pirate, basically controlled the shipping route from Fujian to Japan. Trade ships passing through this area had to pay protection money, otherwise they would be robbed. Moreover, the Japanese shogunate only opened a few cities for foreign trade, and the objects of foreign trade were extremely few. The ports of some local daimyos could also be used for trade, but each ship was also charged a trade fee of 1,000 taels of silver.

The Portuguese/British/Dutch merchant fleets were both merchants and pirates. When they encountered a tough one like Zheng, they had to pay taxes. When they encountered a soft one, they would rob them.

Spain was obsessed with colonial and slave trade in Southeast Asia, and basically controlled the Philippines and the Malay Archipelago. Although they relied heavily on Chinese sea merchants to provide supplies and manpower for their colonies, they were unable to join the trade with China. They had to rely on the Manila galleons to continuously transport silver from the American colonies to lure Chinese sea merchants to trade. Due to their over-reliance on Chinese merchants, the Spaniards developed a pathological fear of the Chinese and spared no effort to suppress and control them. Chinese merchants were subject to many restrictions.

The Netherlands had the most powerful fleet in the China Sea, but as a latecomer, they had no good foothold. In order to seek new colonies, they tried to control Taiwan and Penghu, and fought with the Zheng family for decades. It was not until 1661 that Zheng Chenggong recovered Taiwan, and the Netherlands was defeated in the Anglo-Dutch Wars and finally declined.

In the Northern and Southern Dynasties of Vietnam, the Northern Dynasty also needed to pay 1,000 taels a year for port trade. The Southern Dynasty opened a city exclusively for Chinese trade. Both the Northern and Southern Dynasties of Vietnam called themselves “Little China,” but they each found foreigners as their backers: the Northern Dynasty was supported by the Dutch, and the Southern Dynasty was supported by the Portuguese.

The British, as a rising star, although they came late and did not find a foothold in this area, were always trying to break into this market.

Economic, political, religious, and ethnic factors were all entangled, making the entire East Asia-Southeast Asia sea a Darwinian jungle.

Although the transmigrators had strong ships and powerful cannons, they had a small population, especially a shortage of ships and sailors, and the geographical environment was not favorable. They were not yet qualified to participate in this maritime carnival. Using the existing networks of those powerful sea merchant groups for sales became the only choice.

“Chinese goods are very popular in Southeast Asia. It was originally an excellent money-making route, and many specialties of Southeast Asia are also what we need,” Zhong Lishi said with some regret. “Now that we can’t get the export rights for silk, tea, and porcelain, selling mirrors is not bad. I remember that Chinese bronze mirrors were a traditional export commodity in the past.”

“The trade is being discussed so enthusiastically, with imports and exports, but what about the ships?” Li Haiping continued to question.

“The transport capacity is insufficient,” Wen Desi sighed.

The current situation of the transmigrators was a bit like Japan. Lingao itself produced very few industrial and mining raw materials. The goods sold by the transmigrators and important industrial raw materials all depended on ships for import and export. Not only that, but even the transportation of salt from the salt fields to Bairen City—although the transmigrators had built a simple highway between the two places, due to the lack of animal power and vehicles, bulk sea salt products were still transported by ship to Bopu for transshipment.

This made the transmigrators highly dependent on ships. Since the Baitu Village campaign, the fleet size of the transmigrator group had grown by leaps and bounds. At this time, they already had 3 70-ton class two-masted sea ships, namely the “Dengyingzhou,” “Fubo,” and “Tongji,” 2 40-ton class single-masted ships, and more than a dozen small ships. Among these ships, except for the “Fubo,” which was equipped as a warship, the others were all used as transport ships. Among the 5 large and medium-sized ships, except for the Fubo, which was not suitable for entering Guangzhou Port because it was armed, all of them were dedicated to the Guangzhou route, transporting a large amount of urgently needed materials for the industrial department. The problem was that the transport speed still could not keep up with the demand of the industrial department. Sailing ships were slow and had a small carrying capacity. The Maritime Force Department wanted to expand the fleet, but the problem of sailors had always troubled them—the prospect of the major maritime groups preparing for a decisive battle made sailors scarce. Whether it was Liu Xiang, Zheng Zhilong, Zhu Cailao, or even the local officials of the Ming Dynasty, they were all recruiting fishermen and people with experience at sea everywhere along the coast. The transmigrator group was obviously not well-regarded by the common people.

“We still hope to build large ships, preferably ships with power,” Li Haiping said. “Not to mention too large ships, at least a ship with a deadweight of two or three hundred tons, right? With power, the speed will be much faster, and the demand for sailors will also be much less. The Dengyingzhou is faster than the other ships, if it weren’t for the constant lack of diesel—”

“Chief Wen, didn’t the Planning Committee already approve the construction of a two-masted schooner? This kind of ship should have 200 tons, right? And it only needs 10 sailors.”

“Shipbuilding is not that simple. Many equipment are not even in sight. To build a ship, you must first complete the配套 equipment of the shipyard,” Wen Desi was also troubled by this matter. Shipbuilding is not like making a ship model. It took the Swedes nearly ten years to replicate the Gothenburg, and more than half of the time was spent on researching the shipbuilding technology of that time. This was under the premise that the Swedes had complete information.

“We will speed up this matter and complete the配套 of the shipyard first. What do you need? Make a list, and we will have a separate meeting with the mechanical department later to solve it.”

“As for the engine problem,” Wang Luobin said, “I think that whether it’s a steam engine or a self-made single-cylinder diesel engine, it’s not a problem for our industrial capabilities. Especially the single-cylinder diesel engine, not only can it be used as a marine engine, but it can also meet many other needs, such as being used in agriculture to pull small agricultural machinery, pump water, and even as a prime mover for short-distance transportation. The fuel is also easy to solve. Even if there is no diesel, we can make do with vegetable oil or coal gas for now.”

The manufacturing technology of single-cylinder diesel engines is the simplest among internal combustion engines. The first internal combustion engine to come out was the diesel engine, and the early diesel engines burned vegetable oil instead of diesel.

Wu Nanhai immediately supported it. “This is good. I have many small agricultural machines here that can’t be used because they don’t have a power source.”

Wang Luobin continued, “Although the power of our self-made single-cylinder diesel engine cannot be compared with that of a Changchai engine for the time being, it is sufficient for general use. If the power is insufficient, industrial equipment can also be driven by this. The early factory equipment was all driven by steam engines or other power engines. Considering the difficulty of self-producing electric motors, future factories may need to be driven by steam engines or diesel engines for a considerable period of time.”