The timeline goes back to more than a year ago, to the late summer and early autumn of 1667.
Fifty thousand miles away by sea is the capital of England, London.
The Ming Dynasty's ocean-going trading fleet, which set sail in the autumn of 1666 and consisted of more than a dozen large clipper merchant ships, finally arrived at the British coast after nine months of sailing.
One day at the end of June, the fleet briefly resupplied in Plymouth, but did not stay longer and did not ship any goods. Then they sailed eastward without stopping, entering the Thames River and heading straight to London.
The Great Plague in London lasted for two and a half years, starting in the spring of 1665 and lasting until the late autumn of 1667.
So in fact, even if the Ming Dynasty's ocean-going trade fleet did not arrive, according to the original course of history, the British would be able to wait for the last two or three months until the great plague gradually subsided naturally.
But Ming was so lucky. He arrived in London just over two months before the end of the plague, and gained a favor in vain.
It is also destined to leave a rich and colorful myth, making Westerners of this era pay more respect and worship to the biochemical technology and medical skills from the mysterious East.
Of course, all this will happen gradually.
When the Ming Dynasty's ocean-going trading fleet first arrived, they would only appear as a group of wealthy merchants from afar. After making a name for themselves, they would engage in other activities. Therefore, the first people to notice this group of Eastern visitors were not the British royal family.
, but people from the business and academic circles.
…
In the early morning of the sixth day of July, when there were only two days left before arriving in London, the fleet first stopped at Dover outside the Thames Estuary.
In order to spread the news as soon as possible and create an impact, the fleet chose to ship some tea, silk, and porcelain first.
After all, this is a fleet of twelve large clipper ships, and the volume of medicines and disinfectants shipped from Daming is not enough to support the entire merchant fleet.
The Ming Dynasty also had to consider risk issues, such as whether the British initially believed in the efficacy of the chemicals brought by the Ming Dynasty, whether they were willing to buy them, and whether they recognized the high price offered by the Ming Dynasty.
Therefore, it is a relatively safe method to carry 70% of the cargo volume of chemical products and 30% of the silk tea porcelain.
First, you can use mature products that are destined to sell well to open up sales, build goodwill, and create influence and traffic.
Secondly, the Ming Dynasty has also made calculations with Dutch businessmen. As long as 30% of the shipping capacity of the silk tea porcelain is sold at the normal price, the profit can cover all the expenses of the entire fleet for a round trip between the Ming Dynasty and Europe, including risk costs and
Time cost, and there is still a small profit.
Even if the remaining 70% of the goods cannot be sold at all, and they are brought back for nothing, Ming Dynasty will not lose money. This is what Zhu Shuren cares about, because he knows that there are too many pedantic arguments in the history of Ming Dynasty that "navigation by the imperial court is a waste of people and money"
, Zheng He's seven voyages to the West were about showing off his power, but he lost money and burned money in various ways.
Therefore, even if Zhu Shuren goes to a foreign land to show off his power and engage in diplomacy, he must ensure a guaranteed net profit and prove it to the sergeant-officials of the court, letting them know that it is never a loss to engage in foreign trade overseas, so he must make a good start.
As the fleet docked in port to prepare for shipment, the three main officers in charge of the fleet also went to the bow deck to take a breath and look at the unfamiliar English scenery.
Among these three people, the one with the highest official position and highest status in name was a doctor from the Ministry of Rites named Wang Fuzhi.
That's right, it was Wang Fuzhi, one of the three great philosophers at the turn of the Ming and Qing Dynasties who was as famous as Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi in parallel time and space. In this life, Gu Yanwu got in touch with Zhu Shuren and became Zhu Shuren's staff. He rose to prominence in more than twenty years and is now the Minister of Rites.
Wang Fuzhi didn't have those opportunities, so he was naturally downgraded by two levels. He is still just a doctor.
However, if this task is completed well, and if you accumulate some other merits in the future, you may have the opportunity to climb up to the position of minister.
In addition to Wang Fuzhi, there are two other unique roles in the fleet. One is sent by the Shen family to be responsible for specific business and trade work, and the other is sent by the Zheng family to be responsible for navigation.
Because the Shen family was originally accustomed to shipping in the Northern Yellow Sea and did not understand ocean navigation, for the sake of safety, it was better to have the Zheng family send an ocean-going veteran to sail with a Dutch consultant. As for commercial trade and accounting work, the Shen family
You can do it yourself.
The person sent by the Shen family is called Shen Xiang, who was born as a servant of Zhu Shuren. He helped Shen Tingyang become shopkeepers of several businesses back then. Now that the Shen family has turned into a family, all the servants and shopkeepers in his family will naturally join the family.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ming Dynasty.
The level of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Ming Dynasty is the same as that of the Ministry of Household Affairs, with more than a dozen divisions and courtyards under it. The chiefs of the divisions and courtyards are also at the same level as the chief officials of the departments of the Ministry of Household Affairs, and are called Langzhong. However, there are no Yuanwailang below the rank of Langzhong.
It is directly the principal, appointed principal (acting principal) and so on.
As Zhu Shuren's servant in his early years, Shen Xiang is now a chief of the Municipal Shipping Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, with a rank of 6. He is also the highest ranking among the chiefs of this department, second only to the doctor. You have completed this mission well, go back
He can be promoted to doctor.
The navigation chief sent by the Zheng family is named Xiao Gongchen. He is a subordinate general under Zheng Hongkui. He is also an old man who has been at sea for nearly thirty years and is now a deputy general.
In addition, people sent by the Zheng family and the Shen family, because they are often exposed to Western trade, also know some foreign languages, and can directly translate for Wang Euzhi when necessary. On the other hand, Wang Euzhi himself, a traditional scholar in his forties, cannot learn it.
foreign language.
It was the first time for these three people to come to England. Looking at the pure white lime cliffs of Dover, which stretches for ten miles, the three of them also felt that it was spectacular.
"The world is so big that it is so small. We have left the Ming Dynasty and have sailed more than 50,000 miles, but we can still see this stunning scenery. It's a pity that I have little talent and little knowledge. If Qinglian lay one or two times as talented as a poet, he wouldn't be able to see this ten miles of snow."
Ya can't hold back a few words."
Wang Fuzhi stayed on the deck to observe the scenery for a long time and sighed with emotion, but saw that Shen Xiang had already finished a trip to Dover Commercial Store and returned to the ship, bringing several English businessmen with him.
The blond and blue-eyed businessmen were all very excited. It was obviously the first time they saw merchants from the Ming Dynasty come to sell goods. After boarding the ship, Shen Xiang ordered his assistants and waiters to show the samples to the foreigners.
Wang Fuzhi and Xiao Gongchen were naturally watching the fun with great interest. Recently, they had grown fond of appreciating the fuss and fuss of foreigners who had never seen the world before.
As expected, when the several British businessmen saw the samples that Shen Xiang brought out, they immediately let out endless exclamations.
"Oh my God, how come there is such a huge porcelain? Wasn't porcelain used as tableware or flower arrangement in your Ming Dynasty? How can it be so big and still have such exquisite decorations?"
Shen Xiang couldn't help but be speechless when he saw this - he had long thought that foreigners were inexperienced, but he still didn't expect that they were inexperienced to this extent.
It turned out that Shen Xiang had just brought out a bunch of precious porcelain. But what those British businessmen valued most were ordinary blue-and-white porcelains that were not very valuable in the Ming Dynasty and were just relatively large in size. And those that were regarded as imperial products in the Ming Dynasty
The expensive items used by the royal family lack the ability to appreciate them.
What's even more bizarre is that the huge porcelain jars and altars that Shen Xiang took out were not even brought by him deliberately for trade, but were just used as containers for shipping chemicals such as concentrated sulfuric acid and carbolic acid.
As we all know, chemicals such as concentrated sulfuric acid can seriously corrode metal vessels and wooden barrels, so they can only be shipped in ceramic or glass containers.
In the Ming Dynasty, although the technology of firing glass has become popular and the glass is not very valuable, when Shen Xiang was loading the goods in Hangzhou, he considered that the glassware would be even less valuable when shipped back to Europe, and if porcelain was used to store chemicals,
Then after selling the medicine, the utensils can still be sold at a good price, so there is no waste of transportation capacity.
In order to prevent the porcelain jars from being broken due to inertia due to bumps and inertia when carrying liquids, the Ming Dynasty also conducted a lot of experiments, such as ensuring that the liquid was filled full and reducing the sloshing of the liquid in the jars. There is no need to go into details about these technical details.
Anyway, it is only by fully considering physical inertia and other scientific considerations, and also taking advantage of the sailing stability and wave resistance of clipper ships that are better than Galen ships, and the blessing of various factors, that we can achieve such a thing by shipping chemicals for tens of thousands of miles.
Even today's Dutch and British maritime merchants cannot do it.
Of course, the porcelain shipped by the Ming Dynasty caravans were not all containers for carrying chemicals. There were also some ballast cargoes purely for the purpose of adjusting the center of gravity——
In the ancient sea trade that sailed from East Asia, every ship must carry porcelain. An important consideration was that for the stability of navigation, the lower level of the ship must be ballasted with heavy cargo that is not afraid of moisture.
So even if you don't transport porcelain, you still have to transport some stone ballast, which is not as good as transporting porcelain. If tea and silk are also loaded at the lower center of gravity, the density of the cargo will be too high and the ship will be unstable. In addition, tea is particularly easy to transport.
If it becomes damp and moldy, it can only be placed in a ventilated cabin on the upper floor.
That’s why we see the three-pronged trade combination of silk, tea and porcelain. Of these three items, tea actually has the highest profit margin and the fastest sales. If we don’t consider shipping and only consider mathematical calculations, we should maximize profits.
All tea is transported. However, the transportation conditions of tea are also the most demanding, so we have to separate the cargo in other lower-class cabins into different categories to make up the number.
…
At this moment, the "illiteracy" of these British businessmen has repeatedly refreshed Shen Xiang's understanding, allowing him to more truly feel the pulse of the market and the true aesthetics of foreigners.
A huge porcelain jar can actually sell for dozens of pounds or even hundreds of pounds. Unfortunately, he still has a lot of chemicals to ship, so he can't sell too many containers at once.
So I talked to a British businessman and said that the first ten large porcelain jars were bartered, and asked the British to exchange a thousand large dark brown glass bottles for a large blue and white porcelain jar. As a result, someone happened to have a glass workshop in his home.
Or a businessman with connections to the relevant workshop owners placed the order and delivered a large number of huge dark brown glass bottles to the ship on the same day.
In Britain in the 17th century, glass was already very worthless, and dark brown glass bottles were regarded by the world as a symbol of inferior quality. They could not be used as windows because their light transmittance was too poor. As everyone knows, chemicals must be stored to avoid sunlight.
It just works for Shen Xiang.
During the transaction, Shen Xiang inevitably gave some concessions to these related parties in exchange for getting more information. Then he learned that in Europe, the person who is most addicted to giant porcelain is the King of Saxony of the Shinra Empire.
,
That guy claimed to have collected nearly two hundred huge blue and white porcelain jars from the Ming Dynasty in his lifetime, and his skills were extraordinary. The average price of a large porcelain jar could be worth five complete sets of knight equipment.
That is, five sets of metal full-body plate armor, knight swords and shields, plus five qualified knight war horses and matching horse armors, just to exchange for a huge blue and white porcelain vat. Nowadays, those sophisticated metal swords and armors in Europe are not as good as those in the past.
So valuable, but knights and horses are still very valuable, which shows how expensive these things are.
As for the other princes and kings in the Shinra region, they are not as exaggerated as the King of Saxony, but it is still possible to resell a large blue and white porcelain vat in exchange for three or four sets of knight equipment, or a few cannons.
All in all, the aesthetics of Europeans seems to be that the aristocrats of later generations in the German region are the most silly, thick and black. When buying porcelain, they first check the size and whether it is grand. And these British profiteers are still mainly second-rate dealers, distributing in the mainland of Europe, not
They have their own aesthetics.
Shen Xianglu successively emptied out all the large porcelain jars that were not on the countertop, and replaced the chemicals with dark brown glass bottles that were more suitable and easier to distribute. The supply cost of this voyage has actually been recovered.
More than half.
After handling the most urgent matters, he continued to sell some tea, brocade, and Suzhou embroidery in Dover to open up the market and build momentum.
As for the fine silk fabrics and embroidery woven in Suzhou, the British businessmen were naturally once again stunned. After all, whether the silk patterns and patterns were exquisite or not, one could tell the difference at a glance.
But this was not the most shocking thing for the British, because they soon drank a new tea from the Ming Dynasty for the first time, which they had never seen before.
"Why does the color of this tea look so bland? It seems not as dark as the ones I bought before, and it doesn't taste as rich and concentrated."
Several British businessmen who were accustomed to drinking black tea were the first to question this. However, Shen Xiang's inner disdain for the ignorant was completely insufficient, so this time he did not bother to explain, but only to the few people who had just bought porcelain most generously.
, make an exception and try it.
You are not afraid of not knowing the goods, but you are afraid of comparison. After a few sips of tea, you will immediately feel the difference between those foreign dishes.
Shen Xiang then said proudly: "What you drank originally was black tea (black tea in English is BLACK-TEA. Nowadays, the word black tea does not exist in the Ming Dynasty, so it is directly translated back), and today's kind is called oolong tea. The fermentation of oolong tea is not
Dark tea is so thorough, but it can retain more of the fragrance of fresh tea leaves, and the taste is more complex.
If my Ming Dynasty's ships hadn't been able to increase their speed and sail to England in nine months, you wouldn't be able to drink this good tea. The traditional Galen ship sailed for too long. Only by pre-fermenting the tea can we avoid drifting on the sea.
Two years of bad luck.”
Historically, Westerners' acceptance of tea began with black tea in the 16th and 17th centuries. Later in the 18th century, with the popularization of clipper ships and the shortening of shipping cycles, oolong tea gradually became more popular.
Black tea has a more high-end ecological niche, and drinking oolong tea looks more classy.
For example, before the independence of the United States, the most famous one was John Hancock, the instigator of the Boston Tea Party (you can look at the photo of the American Declaration of Independence, the name with the largest signature in the middle is John Hancock), that is
At that time, he was the largest oolong tea dealer in North America and the richest man in North America, equivalent to the "American Zheng Chenggong" at that time.
The British imposed a tax on tea in North America, which harmed John Hancock's interests. He paid to cause trouble and dumped the tea imported through official British channels, instigating a rebellion. This shows the energy of the oolong tea merchants at that time.
Therefore, green tea may still be unacceptable to Westerners, but oolong tea is absolutely acceptable. As long as navigation conditions improve and sailing time is shortened, who can not drink oolong tea?
This move by the Ming Dynasty immediately raised the standard of tea-drinking luxury goods in Europe, allowing those wealthy and idle people to find a new fashion pursuit point to flaunt their status.
Whether the taste is overwhelming is another matter. The key is that scarcity can be used to show off. Once you drink oolong tea, others will know that you bought the tea from the "high-speed fleet" instead of the slow old Galen ship.
——
ps: In fact, I finally saved the manuscript until June 30, and started writing a new book today.
However, the new book will be released in early July, so the next book will be updated regularly for more than ten days until it is completed.
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