Chapter 419: Japan-Korea Trade

Ping Qiusheng was very careful to hide—or rather, he thought he was hiding—his ambition to become the new generation’s shogun of Japan. So, he had always tried to present himself as a “fan of otaku culture.”

In the depths of his heart, he very much hoped to preserve Japan’s traditional culture and language, and let Japan continue on its original historical path—preferably all the way to the Taisho era, and then directly into the very loving Heisei era. The Showa spirit and all that could just be skipped.

But he never dared to mention this idea to anyone. It was somewhat “politically incorrect.” Ping Qiusheng found it difficult to grasp the Senate’s attitude towards Japan. It was neither the straightforward “Sinicization” approach taken with Korea and Vietnam, nor the unhesitating “final solution” used for Southeast Asia. It was a kind of ambiguous love-hate feeling.

Now, the fate of Japan is in my hands.

It was with such complex thoughts that Ping Qiusheng boarded the transport ship to Jeju Island.

The transport ship was an H800-class Harmony wheel: the Home Delivery. Although this ship was not as majestic as the 854 or 901-class steam warships and was slightly lacking in speed, a ship with a carrying capacity of 800 tons had an actual displacement of 1400 tons, only slightly smaller than the full-load displacement of the 854.

The larger the ship, the less it rocked, so apart from the naval Senators and those with urgent business, most Senators traveling to Hong Kong, Jeju, and Taiwan on business preferred to take the H800. The larger hull also allowed for better cabins: “high-class compartments” with a layout similar to a train’s soft seats were arranged in the stern cabin.

Traveling with Ping Qiusheng to Jeju Island were two other Senators: Huang Hua, who was preparing to open trade with the Later Jin, and Li Yao’er from the Agriculture Committee.

Since graduating from the intelligence training class, Huang Hua had been “on standby,” which meant continuing to work at the General Machinery Factory. He would report to the Intelligence Bureau every week, chat, and listen to lectures. In the terminology of the Foreign Intelligence Bureau, this was called “re-soaking,” meaning to prevent him from forgetting the training content over time.

He had been waiting like this for more than a year. Seeing that Jeju Island had fallen long ago and the Dengzhou rebellion was about to end, his overseas assignment was still nowhere in sight. Just as he was getting disappointed, the assignment suddenly came down. He was to first go to Jeju Island with the ship, and then wait for an opportunity to enter the territory of the Manchu Qing to carry out trade and intelligence work.

This brawny man from Heilongjiang was currently in a state of great excitement. He often stood on the deck, gazing at the sea and letting out long howls, full of the spirit of wanting to achieve great things in the wilderness, even saying that he would not hesitate to sacrifice his life for it.

Li Yao’er, on the other hand, seemed both excited and nervous. Ping Qiusheng saw that she had a proper and gentle appearance. Although she looked to be in her late twenties, she still spoke like a bubbly little girl. He didn’t know why Wu Nanhai would send such a girl to Jeju Island.

The journey was long and boring. Ping Qiusheng learned from chatting with her that she originally worked in the finance department as an accountant. But because she was not interested in accounting and was instead very interested in gardening and loved cooking, she applied to be transferred to the Agriculture Committee. It just so happened that the Wudaokou system was vigorously promoting monetized settlement, and all departments needed full-time accountants, so Li Yao’er was officially transferred to the Agriculture Committee as the chief accountant.

Although she was still an accountant at the Agriculture Committee, and as soon as she took office, there were years of accounts to be cleared, followed by countless calculations, at least she had moved to a place she was interested in. Pushing open the window from the Agriculture Committee’s office, outside was a beautiful garden that bloomed all year round, planted with various herbs, medicinal plants, and flowers.

Working here was much better than in the cold, Bauhaus-style office building of the finance department, which was filled with “industrial beauty.” In her spare time, she could also tend to the garden with Wu Chuqing, Liu San, and his apprentice, Fu Wuben, and a few other gardening enthusiasts. Her life was very fulfilling. So, she insisted on moving into the Agriculture Committee’s apartment at the farm.

Li Yao’er’s husband, Mei Fa, worked at the Industrial and Energy Committee. After moving to the farm, the commute to work was too far. After a full day and night of negotiations, Li Yao’er finally reached an agreement with her husband by increasing the number of maids he could buy from two to four. Thus, the couple moved out of their apartment in Bairen New City and moved into the Agriculture Committee’s apartment.

“I didn’t expect you to be so generous,” Ping Qiusheng sighed when he heard this during their chat. Allowing him to buy maids was good enough, but she allowed him to buy four!

“I told him from the beginning that as long as the primary and secondary roles were clear, I wouldn’t mind. But a maid is a maid, and he’s not allowed to formally take a concubine!” Li Yao’er said nonchalantly. “Besides, if any maid dares to have any improper thoughts, I’ll crush her with one finger.” A cold smile appeared at the corner of her sweet and lovely smiling mouth, sending a chill down Ping Qiusheng’s neck. He realized that she was definitely not joking.

“Besides, even if I firmly disagreed, if he really wanted to do it, could I stop him?” Li Yao’er said. “Men are all like that! Liu San just dumped his wife. Instead of getting that reputation and then being dumped, it’s better to have conditional openness, which is much more controllable.”

Ping Qiusheng was speechless at Li Yao’er’s theory. He changed the subject. “What are you going to do in Jeju?” Ping Qiusheng was very curious about this.

“To develop ginseng resources,” Li Yao’er said. “I’m very interested in ginseng and have learned a lot of professional knowledge. Aren’t ginseng the special products of Korea and Liaodong?”

She then went on and on about the various knowledge of ginseng identification, cultivation, and extraction. It was very niche, and he didn’t know why a girl who studied accounting would like this kind of niche knowledge.

“The conditions on Jeju Island are quite harsh.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’m naturally a travel lover and not afraid of hardship. I probably inherited my dad’s adventurous genes,” Li Yao’er said quickly and excitedly. “I used to be a senior backpacker and have been to many wild mountains and ridges.”

She stood up excitedly and said, “I’m super excited just thinking about the many great mountains and rivers in this time and space that haven’t been polluted and transformed by humans!”

The escort fleet made a short stop in Kaohsiung to replenish food and water and unload a batch of cargo. Then it sailed towards Jeju Island and finally entered Chaotianpu Wharf smoothly in early June.

After disembarking, Ping Qiusheng immediately began to prepare for his trip to Japan.

Developing trade with Japan was a policy that the Senate had long decided on. In the past, due to the lack of suitable departure ports and concerns about the strength of Zheng Zhilong, Liu Xiang, and the Dutch, this trade had not been carried out. Now that Jeju Island was in their hands, the Dutch were semi-allies, the forces of Zheng Zhilong and Liu Xiang were at a stalemate, and their own naval strength had greatly increased, it was time to officially make a move. The Industrial and Energy Committee and the finance department had long been coveting Japan’s silver and red copper.

Si Kaide’s instructions to him were not only to try to start trade with Japan, but also to carry out some infiltration work in Japanese society, establish a trade and intelligence network, and do a good job of intelligence gathering to prepare for the next step of work against Japan.

“It’s not enough to just set up a trading post in Hirado. The shogunate is also very suspicious of the Chinese,” Si Kaide said. “Originally, the Chinese in Hirado could rent and live scattered in the Japanese residential areas, but later they were banned. If we only set up a trading post, we would be no different from the foreigners in the Thirteen Factories in Guangzhou.”

Si Kaide had originally wanted him to buy grain in Japan to supply the refugee camps on Jeju Island, but Ping Qiusheng believed this was impossible. At this time, the entire northern part of the East Asian continent was affected by the Little Ice Age, and the grain production of the Ming, Korea, and Japan had been declining for years. So he said at the time that this was impossible to do. Even if he could get some grain, the price would not be cheap, and it was a question of whether the shogunate would allow it to be exported.

Fortunately, since the Agriculture Committee sent Wanli Hui to Jeju Island to plant potatoes, the food supply tension on Jeju Island should be alleviated soon. This was no longer an urgent matter.

For trade with Japan, Ping Qiusheng believed that relying on exporting goods from Lingao was unreliable. The industrial products of Lingao were limited by production capacity, and the consumption for their own use was large. In addition, the long journey north made the cost unacceptable. The most ideal way was to purchase various goods in Jiangnan through the Shanghai station and export them to Japan. After all, these goods had long been popular in Japan. Simple processing industries could also be established on Jeju Island to manufacture some primary Australian goods to open up the Japanese market.

As for trade with Korea, his idea was to exchange patent medicines from Lingao for Korean ginseng and cotton cloth. Korea in this time and space did not have much purchasing power, but a large number of drugs, including the frostbite cream developed in Lingao, still had a market in the north. Ginseng was a hot commodity in both Japan and the Ming Dynasty, and cotton cloth was a major item in the Japan-Korea trade. At that time, Japan had a large demand for textiles.

Ping Qiusheng had submitted a report to the Executive Committee, suggesting that the trade with the Later Jin should also be dominated by such items. First, the Later Jin was not short of silver, and second, Huang Taiji was very resistant to the trade of luxury goods. But regardless of these national policies, medicine was always needed, especially for a bandit-style regime like this that was built on war and plunder and was constantly at war. The demand for red medicine was particularly huge. To exchange for the population of Liaodong without large-scale grain, patent medicine became a very good product.

The raw materials for patent medicines could be obtained directly from Korea nearby, or imported from the Ming Dynasty. The advantage of Jeju Island was that it was very close to Korea, Japan, and the Ming Dynasty. Some low-cost drugs could be considered for production in factories on Jeju Island.

Although the shipping route from Shanghai to Hirado was fast and convenient, with the addition of Jeju Island as a superior transit point, the trade routes had more diverse options, and a certain degree of triangular trade could be developed.