This is the second day after I arrived in Tianjin.
In the morning, I woke up from a very comfortable big bed.
This kind of bed is different from our European beds. I did some research first. This kind of bed is called a spring bed by the Ming Dynasty. There are many springs made of steel under the bed.
When someone sits on it, it is very soft and comfortable.
I have to admire the wisdom of Ming people again. This bed is really comfortable.
After getting up, I went to the bathroom to wash myself.
The cities in Daming have a kind of tap water. When you turn on the faucet, the water will flow out by itself. The reason why their city is very clean depends entirely on this tap water.
They built huge underground drainage and sewage systems in the city, and all the dirty things in life were drained underground through these systems, and then processed uniformly.
Very clean, very convenient and comfortable.
They use a toothbrush and toothpaste to brush their teeth in the morning. The toothbrush is made of pig hair and the toothpaste is a white paste. I tried to use it.
It is very easy to use and very comfortable. My teeth have become whiter and my bad breath seems to have disappeared.
In the Ming Dynasty, I had a somewhat inferior self-esteem, as if I was a barbarian who came to a civilized country. I didn't know or understand many things, so I had to ask the waiter in the store.
We had breakfast here in the lobby of the inn.
Daming's breakfast has a wide variety of types, including noodles, rice noodles, steamed buns, dumplings, wontons, pancakes... My favorite is their noodles, I ate five bowls of them.
While having breakfast, I discovered an interesting phenomenon.
People in Ming Dynasty like to drink morning tea while reading newspapers.
Newspapers are a very magical thing. Because my vocabulary was very limited, I couldn't understand what was written on them. I asked the innkeeper about it.
He told me that newspapers are an important tool for everyone to understand world events. Almost everyone here in Ming Dynasty likes to read newspapers. If you can't read newspapers? You can go to the teahouse? There will be a special newspaper reader to tell you.
After hearing this, I made up my mind. I must learn the writings of the Ming Dynasty carefully. Only in this way can I understand the newspapers of the Ming Dynasty and know the major events that happened in the Ming Dynasty.
I was very curious about what the newspaper said? So I asked the innkeeper to tell me some of the things written in the newspaper.
The boss was very nice and accepted my request very happily.
He said that today's newspapers mainly reported that the Ming Dynasty encouraged immigrants to the three provinces of Xianglin, Jiaozhi and Zhenghe.
In order to encourage Ming people to immigrate to new provinces in Nanyang, the Ming court will provide every Ming citizen who immigrate to Nanyang with thirty acres of land and five years of tax exemption. At the same time, the Ming court will bear the food and lodging during the immigration process.
cost.
The Ming Dynasty recently launched a war in Nanyang, annexed many places one after another, and incorporated these places into the Ming Dynasty's territory. So in order to develop these places? The Ming Dynasty court is encouraging immigration.
I asked the boss in detail about the situation in Nanyang.
Nanyang is located to the south of the Ming Dynasty? There were originally many countries there, but these countries united to offend the Ming Dynasty, so the Ming Dynasty launched a crusade.
The Ming Dynasty was extremely powerful. It is said that it dispatched 100,000 troops and used hundreds of warships? It easily swept through the Southeast Asian countries and wiped out several countries? These places were included in the territory of the Ming Dynasty.
In addition, it is said that you can reach India, Persia and the Middle East by going all the way west from Nanyang.
God, when I heard the news? You know how excited I was.
I can already roughly draw a map of the world we live in in my mind.
Going east from Europe? Is that the Middle East? Going further east can reach Persia. To the east of Persia is India, and to the east of India is almost the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty went east and crossed the vast Pacific Ocean to reach the Americas. The Americas went east and crossed the Atlantic Ocean and returned to Spain again.
I have an idea. When I return to Spain, I plan to return to Spain via routes from the Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and Africa. However, I am afraid I will have to take a Portuguese ship to return.
The Portuguese had arrived in the Indian Ocean and India a few years ago, and they must have met the Ming people.
After breakfast, we left the inn, and Pablo and I started walking around Tianjin very leisurely.
The first place we went to was the commercial street.
There are many large and small shops here, and there are so many types of products, it is dazzling.
Here, in addition to products from various parts of the Ming Dynasty, there are also products from Korea, Japan, Nanyang, the West, the Western Regions, the Middle East, and Persia.
There are many kinds of goods, and most of them are not cheap, especially goods from the West, the Middle East and Persia, which are extremely expensive.
But business is very booming.
The people of the Ming Dynasty were very fond of pearls, jade, jade, coral, ivory, gemstones, agarwood, etc., and were willing to spend a lot of money to buy them. Therefore, the merchants specializing in maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty were also very profitable.
The silk and porcelain that I am most interested in are very cheap here in Ming Dynasty.
In our Europe, silk and porcelain are equivalent to gold. Here, a piece of silk can be bought for only a few taels of silver. As for porcelain, if it is just porcelain for daily life, the price is very cheap.
They even specially produced a kind of porcelain, which is used to spread on the floor and stick on the wall. It is very clean and beautiful.
The cloth of the Ming Dynasty is very cheap. They use cotton and wool to weave cloth. They have special factories to weave cloth. The output is said to be very high, so the price is very low.
One Ming Dynasty silver dollar can buy several pieces of cloth. If the quantity is large, the price can be even lower.
I looked at their fabrics carefully. The quality is very good, much better than the fabrics we have here in Europe, and they all have beautiful colors and patterns.
Therefore, I think that in the future, when visiting the Ming Dynasty, we can sell Ming Dynasty cloth to Europe. Such cloth can be sold for two or three Riels per piece in Europe.
There are many types of food here in Daming.
Their staple food is rice and flour, in addition to millet, sweet potatoes, corn, and potatoes introduced from the Americas, and the prices are also very cheap.
The Ming Dynasty had a vast land and a huge population, and its maritime transportation was extremely developed. Goods from all over the Ming Dynasty gathered in Tianjin, giving the people here endless food.
People in the Ming Dynasty like to eat vegetables and sea fish, and their consumption of sea fish is extremely large. Every day, a large number of fishing boats come back from Tianjin Port to provide them with a variety of fresh sea fish.
The price of sea fish is also extremely cheap, only a few copper coins per pound. Copper coins are the smallest currency they use, a copper coin made of copper. A thousand copper coins are almost equivalent to one Ming Dynasty silver coin.
In addition, the Ming Dynasty also conquered the grassland people in the north, that is, the Mongols who invaded Europe, because they had vast grasslands.
Therefore, there is a continuous supply of mutton and beef, and the price of mutton and beef has become very cheap. You can buy a pound of it for only a dozen copper coins.
There are many types of spices in Daming, and all kinds of spices are extremely cheap, so cheap that you can’t believe it.
One silver coin could buy a lot of spices, and if these spices were shipped back to Europe, their price would be at least a hundred times higher.
I swear, after I return to Europe, I will form a fleet to do business in Daming. I can definitely make a lot of money casually.
After visiting the commercial street, I went to Tianjin’s industrial zone.
The founder of Tianjin City, a great nobleman of the Ming Dynasty, named Liu Jin, is said to be very, very young. It is said that the entire land of Tianjin belongs to him.
God, I really can't imagine how rich he is to own a big city like Tianjin. I'm afraid even the King of France is not rich like him.
He divided the entire Tianjin into many areas, living areas, industrial areas, commercial areas, port areas, etc.
The area of the industrial zone is very large. It is divided into areas by wide cement roads extending in all directions. There are a large number of factories and workshops in each area.
Thousands of workers are busy in factories and workshops. It is said that the largest factory here employs more than 100,000 people at the same time. The rice and fish consumed every day require four-wheeled carriages.
Put it on.
The cement roads here are full of horse-drawn carriages, and it is very busy.
Originally I wanted to visit the factory, but the factory management here is very strict, so I didn't get permission and could only take a look outside.
Here in Tianjin, there are cement factories, textile factories, shipyards, car factories, glass factories, dyeing factories, coal factories, furniture factories, etc., and various factories and workshops, large and small.
The goods produced here not only met the huge demand of the Ming Dynasty, but were also marketed overseas outside the Ming Dynasty through large and small businesses here.
Speaking of which, I went to a very important place in Tianjin, Shili Yangxing!
Shili Yangxing is the most important street in Tianjin. The street is very long, with high-rise buildings on both sides. Each high-rise building is an overseas trading house.
There are countless large and small trading houses. These trading companies not only built factories and workshops in the Ming Dynasty, but also had fleets traveling to various parts of the Ming Dynasty and overseas for trade.
They also established huge plantations here in Nanyang, planted sugar cane, and then boiled it into sugar.
God~
When it comes to white sugar, I have to praise it again.
Sugar is a very expensive thing in Europe, and only the real nobles and rich people can enjoy it.
But here in the Ming Dynasty, its price is very cheap. One Ming Dynasty silver dollar can be sold for several kilograms of sugar. They even add sugar to their tea, which is extremely luxurious.
Sugar was brewed by the Ming people who planted sugar cane in Nanyang. In order to meet the Ming people's demand for sugar, the Ming people established countless plantations in Nanyang.
I even suspect that the Ming people started the war in Nanyang not because the Nanyang people offended the Ming people, but because the Ming people wanted to obtain their land for growing sugar cane.
Sugar is a very important thing, and it can be sold to Europe in the future, and it will definitely make a lot of money.
There are many commercial banks here in Shili Foreign Bank. They are all doing big business and big business, and they all use banknotes.
Silver notes are currency issued by the First Bank of the Ming Dynasty. They are just a piece of paper, but they can be used like silver coins. They are very convenient and beautiful.
Because I am a European Spaniard, the boss of the business house received us very warmly.
I chatted with them all morning, invited me to tea and lunch.
I had a great time chatting with them. They really wanted to know about the situation in Europe from me, and they were also very eager to do business in Europe.
I told them that I am a big noble in Spain and I have a huge business in Spain. If they are willing, they can contact me in Europe and I will definitely be able to help them.
Therefore, I have made some good friends in Daming. Maybe when I come to Daming to do business in the future, things will become much simpler.
The bosses of these trading houses were very active. Many of them owned many merchant ships and owned many industries throughout the Ming Dynasty. They had their own factories, workshops, and plantations.
Even the Ming Dynasty recently passed a bill allowing Ming Dynasty's commercial banks to have certain private armed forces overseas.
God, I can foresee that in the future, Ming's giant ships and cannons will walk on every ocean in the world. No one can be their opponent and can only surrender to their powerful power.
At noon, I had a pleasant dinner with businessmen from Ming Dynasty. In the afternoon, they very warmly invited me to watch a football match.
I swear, anyone who comes to watch a football game will immediately fall in love with this damn sport.
Football is a sport. There are 11 people on each side chasing a football. Whoever scores more goals wins.
I dare say that the football stadium in Tianjin is bigger than the Colosseum in ancient Rome. People in Ming Dynasty who live a prosperous life basically watch football games in the afternoon.
A football stadium that can accommodate tens of thousands of people, it is said that every football game is packed with seats.
People in Ming Dynasty love football very much. Of course, if you come to watch a game in person, you will, like me, immediately fall in love with this magical sport.
Whenever a goal is scored, the entire stadium cheers and turns into a sea of celebration. Of course, there is also the hot dance at the beginning and the free money after winning the bet.
Thank God, I actually won hundreds of taels of silver betting on the football field today.