Chapter 425: Nintendo

After the pleasantries, the two chatted for a while. Master Zhou asked about Australia. Although he had lived abroad for a long time, he still had some old acquaintances in both the northern and southern capitals. In addition, he was a sea merchant. Although he had not been out to sea in the past ten years due to old age and poor health, his information was still up-to-date. He wanted to first get a feel for the background of this Australian sea merchant.

Ping Qiusheng understood Master Zhou’s thoughts and repeated the story of his background that he had made up before. Then he said that although his ancestors were Japanese, he was now a subject of the Ausong. This time he came to Japan, first, to return to his homeland and fulfill his ancestors’ wishes; second, he had offended them on Jeju Island and had come to apologize; third, Australia was a country founded on industry and commerce, with many strange goods. He originally wanted to do some business with Japan, but because he had been away from the country for a long time, he had no connections now. He then said some polite words.

Master Zhou stroked his beard and nodded repeatedly. He did not speak in a hurry. In his opinion, this so-called descendant of the Ping clan, the Australian sea merchant, was just talking nonsense and using the name of the Ping family. But it didn’t matter—it was human nature to claim a famous ancestor, especially since he wanted to do business in Japan.

But the meaning in this Master Ping’s words was very clear: they wanted to do business with Japan. Although he had been living in Japan and had not seen the strength of the Australians with his own eyes, their fame had already spread to Japan with their goods in the past few years. The occasional Australian goods brought back by the Tang ships that came to Nagasaki and the red-seal ships that returned from the Ming Dynasty were of high value and were almost sold out as soon as they arrived in port.

Now that this Australian merchant had come to his door, he naturally had to discuss cooperation with him. He was both overjoyed and a little worried. After all, the Australian sea merchants were a behemoth no less than Zheng Zhilong. It was hard to say whether working with them would allow him to ride their coattails to the sky or be crushed to pieces.

Ping Qiusheng presented Master Zhou with ten jars of Lingao-made pickles and two bottles of Guoshi Wushuang. Zhou Xingru was from Southern Zhili, so he naturally felt a special connection to the pickles. The Guoshi Wushuang made him secretly marvel. He had never seen such a transparent glass wine bottle. Because glass wine bottles were fragile, and this wine was in short supply in Guangzhou, people often asked someone from the capital to buy it for them. Japan had never had a batch of goods.

He couldn’t help but sigh at the intelligence of the Australians. Since they were talking about business, the atmosphere gradually relaxed. He knew that the Australians were best at making utensils and had hot-selling goods that were rarely seen. Now, with one look at this Guoshi Wushuang, he knew why it was so popular.

“I am not talented, but I still have some connections on these islands of the East. I wonder what kind of goods you are selling, and how much you need?”

Ping Qiusheng saw that there was a chance, so he ordered his attendants to bring out another exquisite paper box and a thick book like a photo album.

This large, sheepskin-bound book was a product catalog. The binding and drawings were all done by Trini, the patterns were all engraved on copper plates, the paper was heavy-weight, and the decorative printing was extremely gorgeous. By the standards of this time and space, this catalog was a treasure in itself.

These hardcover booklets were brochures and product selection lists to be distributed to potential trading partners in trade. To prevent people from discarding them, they were made so exquisite and luxurious.

Just like the catalogs in the Lingao shopping mall, the first half of these catalogs described in detail the appearance, performance, quality, and FOB price of the goods that the Senate could provide, as well as other necessary trade data. Some products also had line drawings—the remaining amount of photographic paper was not enough for this kind of large-scale consumption, so before the photography technology and equipment were restored, this ancient and effective method had to be used for the time being. In terms of actual effect, the works of this Italian artist seemed to have a better effect than the simple photo printing of the printing factory.

The appendix at the end of the catalog contained information on the goods that the foreign trade company wanted to purchase. The content of each catalog was adjusted according to the region and the target audience—some were in the product content, and some were in the pricing. To facilitate the reading of the natives, the catalogs were printed in multiple languages. The one given to Zhou Xingru was printed in traditional Chinese in vertical columns. Anyone who got these catalogs and had the intention of trading with Lingao could easily understand how to conduct transactions through this catalog.

Zhou Xingru flipped through this large booklet and couldn’t help but marvel. He had dealt with many merchants, and for the first time, they all came with real gold and silver samples for him to see in person. He had never seen anyone show him a booklet like this. The exquisiteness of the booklet, the detailed and realistic patterns, and the detailed introduction opened his eyes.

In particular, the introduction of the goods was not only detailed to the size, color, material, and weight, but also explained the packaging methods that could be adopted.

There were many kinds of goods. Zhou Xingru flipped through them roughly. The sales catalog was divided into five categories: food, daily necessities, weapons, textiles, and agricultural tools. Each category was further divided into many sub-items, which were dazzling and made Master Zhou’s eyes spin.

He flipped through it with great interest for a long time before reluctantly putting it down. “Your people are truly extraordinary!”

“Not at all, Master Zhou, you flatter me.” Ping Qiusheng saw his expression and knew that the matter was more than half done. He immediately clapped his hands again, and a servant brought over another reinforced box.

As usual, the box contained some novel items from Lingao, including glass mirrors and bone china, which amazed Master Zhou. The merchant’s mind immediately became active.

Every move of this Master Ping fully showed that he had sufficient sincerity. This was very attractive to Master Zhou, whose business was in decline. He didn’t have many ships, and his capital was not as heavy as that of the big sea merchants like Zheng Zhilong. If he could become a local import merchant, it would be a business of counting money with ease.

“I wonder how Master Ping plans to sell his goods here?” Although Master Zhou was excited, he still maintained a calm and friendly smile after years of experience. After all, on this Fukue Island, he was the host and the Australians were the guests, and there was much to be gained in between.

“I will have to trouble Master Zhou to make it happen,” Ping Qiusheng said very sincerely.

“Of course, of course,” Master Zhou also looked like a kind elder.

So, both of them had a sinister smile in their hearts.

The two sides then discussed “in-depth and close cooperation” and agreed to establish a joint venture trading post on Fukue Island, which would be handled by the Zhou family. The infrastructure investment and personnel would be the responsibility of the Australians, while the Zhou family would be responsible for purchasing local land, handling the local domain personnel, and all the connections to Edo.

The new trading post was named Nintendo. Ping Qiusheng was very satisfied with this name. Senator Qiao, who was a Sony fan, raised a not-so-firm protest, but it was easily rejected.

The total share capital of the trading post was 100,000 taels of silver. The Zhou family held four-tenths, with their shares in cash. The Senate held six-tenths, with their shares in cash and goods. Ping Qiusheng, following the old example of the Zi-surnamed enterprises in Guangdong, distributed the dividends according to twenty-three shares. The employee welfare reserve dividend accounted for three shares, and the remaining twenty shares of profit were distributed with the Zhou family according to their investment amount.

The manpower currently needed by the trading post was temporarily sourced locally with the help of the Zhou family. Although there were plenty of people on Jeju Island, after all, they were doing business on Japanese soil, so they still needed to know some Japanese. Ping Qiusheng specifically requested that it would be best to use local Chinese. Zhou Xingru said that the lord of the domain was currently building a city in Ishida, and most of the local manpower had been conscripted to the construction site, so it was not easy to find a Japanese laborer. In the end, two young servants were recruited, both around fifteen years old. According to Master Zhou, they were both the illegitimate sons of Ming sailors and merchants, and their mothers were Japanese. The ships of the Ming Dynasty had been frequently coming and going here for a long time, so it was natural that there were many seeds left by the amorous men of the Ming.

These two young servants were said to be Chinese, but their Japanese was actually more fluent than their Chinese. Ping Qiusheng was originally not very satisfied, but when he heard that they could both read and write Chinese characters, he felt that they were promising and kept them. Master Zhou also found a few local Japanese women to be maids for them, specifically responsible for daily purchases and housework. After all, this was not the Ming Dynasty, and it was not a big deal for unmarried women to do some things on the street. The locals were more familiar with the area.

When Qiao Tianzhi heard that there were Japanese maids, he immediately said that he wanted to personally select them. Of course, in the end, he gave up in disappointment. This height, this skin, these teeth… they were all off the charts. He then very morbidly told Ping Qiusheng that he wanted him to get a few local lolis from Master Zhou to implement the Genji Project.

“That’s easy, but it can’t be reimbursed,” Ping Qiusheng was not a fellow traveler, but he was also very much in favor of “raising maids from a young age.” There were plenty of young fisher girls on the island running around in tattered kimonos, with disheveled hair and bare feet, but there was no suitable reason to buy a few to raise. Since the incident with Old Chang, everyone had become more cautious about this kind of thing of using public funds for private purposes.

So the matter was temporarily put on hold. Master Zhou bought several abandoned samurai residences near the port. These houses were all well-built wooden structures, with large areas, and almost all of them were equipped with earthen warehouses with a certain degree of fire resistance. They could barely be used as temporary dormitories and warehouses.

The natural hydrological conditions of the port on Fukue Island were very good. During the time when Wang Zhi was rampant on the coast of China, it was the main base of the Chinese pirates and sea merchants. Thanks to the frequent comings and goings of the Ming merchants in the past, the port facilities here were complete, with wooden piers, and the H800 could directly dock at the piers to unload goods.

After settling down here, the first shipment of goods serving as share capital was also transported from Jeju Island. It included a large amount of salt, sugar and candy, mirrors, glassware, bone china, Chinese medicinal materials, and cloth. Along with the ship arrived a dozen or so naturalized citizens. This group of people would become the backbone of the Japan station.

After the personnel arrived, Ping Qiusheng appointed Qiao Tianzhi as the temporary general manager of Nintendo, responsible for redecorating the newly bought residences and renovating the pier. As soon as the goods arrived, the business would officially open.