The Rise of the European Emperor

After receiving the support of Ming Qingliu headed by Liu Daxia, Ma Lin was finally satisfied and planned to go south for big purchases. But before going south, Malin specifically asked Kong Tai to contact various guild halls in the capital.

The so-called guild hall is the place where scholars from various provinces come to Beijing to rush for exams or businessmen from all over the country come to Beijing and settle down. Such places are usually collectively funded and built by businessmen with strong financial resources, but they are open to the same scholars, and even give discounts on board and lodging. As for why? Of course it is human investment! The scholars who came to the capital to rush for the exam were at least a Juren, and they themselves were reserve officials. And once you get a Jinshi, the lowest starting point is the Qipin county magistrate. Therefore, building a guild hall (also called a trial hall) is a very good human investment business.

Of course, in addition to giving preferential treatment to those scholars from the same country and making human investment, the guild hall itself is also the contact center for businessmen from all over the capital in the capital.

And being able to come to the Beijing Guild Hall to do business must be because the business has grown and the place can't accommodate it, so I came to the "Longtan Tiger's Den" in the capital to test the water...

In addition, not everyone from every place can open a guild hall in the capital. Generally speaking, it is only in affluent places, or places that have special products to be sold in the capital, that they will open guild halls in the capital. In poor places, there are few businessmen who have the capital to open halls in the capital.

To give a simple example, Jingdezhen wants to sell porcelain to the capital, and Huzhou wants to sell silk to the capital. These two places must have guild halls in the capital. In addition, some wealthy prefectures in Jiangsu and Zhejiang will also open guild halls in the capital.

Anyway, as long as you find the guild hall in the corresponding area, you will definitely be able to contact the businessmen from this area who came to Beijing, and they are all big businessmen...

Moreover, most of these guild halls are gathered outside the first three gates (Zhengyangmen, Xuanwumen, and Chongwenmen), and most of them are outside Xuanwumen, so it is easier to find.

Marin wants to go south to purchase supplies, and he can't do without acquaintances. Otherwise, it will be like headless flies bumping around and wasting time.

Therefore, if you want to go to various places to purchase special products, it is best to find a local to cooperate with. And where to find locals? Naturally, it is the corresponding guild hall... So, Kong Tai was sent by Marin to contact businessmen stationed in Beijing from all over the world...

Before going south, the first batch of businessmen that Kong Tai went to practice were not the businessmen from the south where Marin was going, but the businessmen from the north of Zhangjiakou...

Why are you looking for businessmen from Zhangjiakou? Because they have a commodity that Marin needs very much-mouth alkali...

Mouth alkali is food alkali, also known as sodium carbonate. Because most of the caustic soda in Ming Dynasty was sold to Zhangjiakou by Mongolian merchants, and then sold to the inland by Zhangjiakou merchants, so it is also called caustic soda.

Daming's caustic soda is very cheap, and it only costs 10 Wen per catty. Why is it so cheap? Because these alkalis were randomly picked up by Mongolian herdsmen from the edge of the salt lake,

No cost...

Speaking of which, there are also many salt lakes on the Mongolian plateau, but the tragedy is that most of the salt lakes on the plateau are not salt lakes, but either produce alkali or Glauber’s salt (sodium sulfate). Therefore, the ancient Mongolian herdsmen were also very tired-there is obviously a salt lake, but no salt is produced... Only a small part of the salt lake produces salt, and then it becomes the target of various tribes fighting for life and death...

As for the salt lake that produces caustic soda, it is rejected by various Mongolian ministries. Fortunately, people in the north of Ming Dynasty mainly eat pasta, and alkali is needed to leaven the noodles, so the demand is not small. Therefore, the Mongolian herdsmen went to the edge of the alkali-producing salt lake to pick it up casually, or scraped the alkali frost on the ice in winter (soda ash is easy to frost), and then the merchants on the grassland took it to Zhangjiakou and sold it to Han businessmen. If it weren't for the high cost of land transportation, I'm afraid it wouldn't be sold for 5 Wen per catty. As a matter of fact, when the merchants bought the caustic soda from Mongolian herdsmen, the price was less than 5 cents a catty...

And soda ash has so many functions, whether it is glass manufacturing, paper making, or soap making, a large amount of soda ash is needed.

Although Marin can now purchase natural soda ash produced in the Alkaline Wadi near Cairo from Egypt, the price the Egyptians demand is very expensive, at least several times the price of Daming. Moreover, Marin has been worried that Egypt will be captured by the Turks. At that time, the supply will definitely be cut off. Therefore, Marin thought of an idea in advance, planning to open up a way to import soda ash from Daming, to avoid being stuck by the Egyptians, or to prevent Egypt from running out of goods due to the war...

...

Originally, Marin planned to order large quantities of saltpeter. However, the merchants said that because saltpeter is the main raw material for making gunpowder, commodity transactions need to be controlled by government uniforms. Cannot order in bulk without official license.

In desperation, Marin had no choice but to go to Zhengde and the ministers, seeking to order saltpeter. In this regard, the emperor and ministers of the Ming Dynasty did not have any opinion. Anyway, saltpeter is really not a rare thing in Daming. And Marin is now considered one of his own, so selling some saltpeter to Marin is really not a problem.

But what Marin wanted was that the quantity was too large, and he asked for 1 million catties per year, which frightened the emperor and ministers of Ming Dynasty. It's not that Daming doesn't produce so much saltpeter every year, but that Daming itself consumes a lot of saltpeter. Moreover, it is not because the army consumes a lot, but because it consumes too much to make fireworks...

Therefore, after discussing with the Ministry of War, the Ming cabinet agreed to sell 400,000 catties to Marin every year, that is, 200 tons, at a unit price of 25 Wen per catty. Although there is a gap with Marin's expectations, it is enough for Marin. Moreover, Marin will develop Chilean saltpeter in the future, so it doesn't necessarily need to buy too much saltpeter from Daming.

Moreover, the large-scale purchase of saltpeter from Daming is not only cheap, but also serves as a cover for the development of Chilean saltpeter. When the European countries saw the large amount of saltpeter imported from Daming by the North Sea, it was difficult to notice the large amount of saltpeter produced by Chile...

...

After negotiating the supply of two bulk goods, saltpeter and caustic soda, Marin went south with peace of mind.

At this time, Kong Tai also negotiated with merchants in various guild halls outside the first three gates, and expressed his willingness to pay a large price to purchase a large number of rare goods and medicinal materials from various places...

In addition to some special herbal medicines in the north, for other herbal medicines, Marin asked merchants from various guild halls to return to their hometowns to prepare a large number of goods and send them to Wuchang, the most central place in China.

The reason why Wuchang was chosen as the central point for purchasing herbal medicines was that apart from the fact that Wuchang was indeed located in the core area in the middle of China, the convenient water transportation conditions were also an important reason why Marin chose this place.

In this acquisition, Marin needs to acquire a large number of coptis, mainly produced in Shuzhong, Huguang (there was no distinction between Funan and Fubei in the Ming Dynasty, and Huguang Province was divided into two provinces in the north and south in the Kangxi period), Guizhou Province and Shaanxi South.

The Coptis chinensis purchased from Shuzhong can be loaded on a ship and flow down the river to Wuchang. The same is true for the coptis purchased in southern Shaanxi, which can be transported down the Han River to Wuchang. Funan also has the convenient water transport conditions of the Xiangjiang River, so it is very convenient to transport to Wuchang.

In this era, road transportation mainly relied on horse-drawn carts, with a small volume of goods and high costs. Water transport, on the other hand, has a large volume of cargo and low cost, which is in line with Marin's requirements.

In addition, after the acquisition of Youyang Artemisia annua in Chongqing, it is also very convenient to transport it to Wuchang by water. Funan's Anhua black tea is also relatively easy to pass through the Zijiang River, water transported into Dongting Lake, and then into the Yangtze River, and then down to Wuchang...

Therefore, it was a very correct choice for Marin to place the herbal medicine delivery location in Wuchang.

However, Panax notoginseng, which seems to be produced in southern Yunnan, is the main drug of Yunnan Baiyao, and it is very inconvenient to transport it by water. Moreover, to purchase panax notoginseng in southern Yunnan, it seems that you need to greet the local toubob king Mu's family first.

After thinking about it, Ma Lin decided to suspend the acquisition of notoginseng and other special medicinal materials in southern Yunnan. He first hired a broker to go to southern Yunnan to say hello to Mu's family, and then cooperated with local powerful medicinal material dealers to acquire notoginseng. Then, through the Nanpan River, a tributary of the Pearl River, the water transported across the Pearl River and arrived in Guangzhou. Then, Kong Tai sent a merchant ship from Keelung to Guangzhou to buy...

And Marin himself is going to go directly to Wuchang to sit in town and wait for the medicinal materials merchants from all over the world to deliver the medicinal materials and medicinal seeds he needs to his door. Anyway, the price he gave was high enough, so I don't worry about those profit-seeking businessmen refusing to sell it to him...