The Rise of the European Emperor

In addition to tea and tobacco, Marin also left Tara a batch of banana seedlings and coconuts purchased from Daming, which he arranged to grow in the Havana colony. The banana seedlings purchased by Marin in Guangzhou are different from those purchased in India before. The banana seeds purchased in India are banana seedlings purchased in Guangzhou, which are bananas with degraded seeds, which are more suitable for consumption. The coconut seed is naturally the big coconut itself (there are small holes at the fracture of the coconut to germinate). In short, Marin treats Havana Colony as a multi-variety plantation area. After arranging the affairs of Havana, Marin led the fleet away from Havana Bay and continued eastward to Moa.

The environment on Moa's side is not very good. Compared with the beautiful scenery of Havana, Moa's side is more like an industrial town. There are fireworks everywhere, and the streets are a little darkened.

Wiltz himself was a prospecting engineer, so he built the small town of Moa into a craftsman base. On the edge of the town, there is a large concentrator, which specializes in washing laterite nickel ore. Fortunately, Marin was afraid of angering the local indigenous people, so he moved the steps of calcining nickel sulfide to the island of Inagua, off the island of Cuba. Otherwise, the foul-smelling sulfur dioxide gas escaping when the nickel sulfide is calcined will definitely make the local indigenous people stab them with spears.

Fortunately, Marin was thoughtful and put this heavily polluted processing step on the largely unpopulated island of Inagua, so that it would not cause disputes.

But after the discovery of chromite, Wiltz built several blacksmith shops in the town to smelt and forge chrome, which made the town a little smoky.

At the same time, Wiltz also discovered several small ordinary iron ore and a small copper ore during the prospecting process in the previous years. Therefore, the small town of Moa has become a metallurgical center.

What made Marin feel a little extravagant was that Wiltz used charcoal to smelt ferrochromium, ordinary iron and copper in Moa City. On the edge of the forest outside Moa City, there is a large workshop dedicated to burning charcoal. And this large workshop burns charcoal, using all kinds of fine wood produced in the local forest. When Marin went to inspect, he saw a lot of mahogany that had been cut down and put aside, and even sandalwood...

Marin jumped with rage:

"You actually use such precious wood to burn charcoal?"

Wiltz was stunned and said:

"Very expensive? I don't know... Besides, I see quite a few in the forest..."

Well, Wiltz is a mining man, don't expect him to know any precious wood across the border...

So Marin left a few of the boat builders he planned to bring to New York to identify the wood. The few shipbuilders Marin left behind were all from Hu Jian's side.

Not from Nanjing Longjiang Bao Shipyard. These craftsmen are also southerners, and they are quite adapted to the Cuban climate. And, because of their extensive shipbuilding experience, they were able to discern the quality of wood from experience. In this way, there is no need to worry about Wiltz, a layman, wasting precious wood in the future.

Just like the sandalwood thrown everywhere on the ground, if the core (sandalwood) is peeled off and transported to Daming, it is worth 055 to 0.56 taels of silver per pound, which is half a gold coin. The sandalwood of a whole sandalwood tree can be exchanged for a handful of gold coins when transported to Daming.

Marin was worried about how to eliminate the trade deficit with Daming. The sandalwood trees all over the ground gave Marin a great inspiration - these trees are used as firewood here, but when they are shipped to Daming, who likes sandalwood, they can be exchanged for a lot of money!

I remember that Marin saw a piece of news in his last life—the mountain people in Myanmar actually used the precious rosewood as firewood to cook, and burned wood worth millions in one meal...

In the past, Marin always felt that only selling perfumes was a bit monolithic. Now, Wiltz pointed him in the direction - selling wood...

Sandalwood is not popular in Europe, only Chinese people, because they like the taste of sandalwood, and Buddhist culture likes to use sandalwood beads to make utensils, so sandalwood is very expensive in China.

Honolulu, Hawaii in later generations, is the famous sandalwood origin. Moreover, the sandalwood produced in Hawaii at that time was shipped to the Qing Dynasty for sale. Because, only Chinese people are rare in sandalwood. And China has a large population, so the market for sandalwood is also huge.

In fact, because of the large population, the utilization rate of land in Daming is very high, and the precious wood has long been cut down. At least, there is no precious wood in the Central Plains.

Ma Lin remembered that during the Jiajing Dynasty, when Jiajing wanted to build a palace, Yan Shifan, who was the minister of households at the time, said that a lot of precious wood was going to be cut down in the south and transported to the capital, which cost a lot. And Yan Shifan also made a fortune by building the palace for Jiajing.

If other wood is sold to Daming, transportation may be difficult. However, selling sandalwood is easier. Because, sandalwood is not too big. And after peeling off the core, it is even less bulky, and it is easy to ship and transport. Moreover, you can also bring some South American rosewood and other types of precious rosewood ballast to Daming, so that the trade deficit can be smoothed out as much as possible. The best part is that these precious woods don't cost much, just take someone to the Cuban forest to watch the cutting. Of course, there must be someone who knows precious wood.

Marin suddenly remembered that there seems to be a lot of precious wood that can be cut down in Havana Colony. Also, more trees were cut down there to make Colonial Havana a plantation base. Therefore, the Havana colony needs the guidance of experts who understand wood, leaving valuable wood, so that it can be pulled to the Ming Dynasty to exchange for silk and porcelain.

Therefore, Marin asked Wiltz to dispatch a 250-level armed merchant ship exclusive to Moa, and carried several shipbuilders who were good at identifying wood to Havana to help Tara select precious wood, lest those precious wood be burned as firewood .

In order to obtain enough arable land in Havana, it can be said that a large area of ​​forest was cut down, and a large amount of wood was used to build houses and even burned as firewood.

Therefore, Marin gave Tara an order - the wood that will be cut down in the future will be "palmed" by several Ming shipbuilders to see if it is precious wood. And precious woods like sandalwood, even if someone has already used it to build a house, have to pick it off and use it for trade in the future. Anyway, there are so many other woods in the forest, there is no need to waste sandalwood to build a house.

Moreover, all the sandalwood in Cuba will be owned by Marin in the future, and private individuals are not allowed to keep it privately. And those few Ming shipbuilders will also teach a group of people to learn to distinguish sandalwood. Then, they would look everywhere for sandalwood, collect it and send it to Ming for trade.

Even Marin's idea hit the Hawaiian Islands. There is a Honolulu on Oahu. The reason why Honolulu is called Honolulu is because when people first came here, they found tens of thousands of sandalwood trees...

Tens of thousands of sandalwood trees... Marin's eyes are full of gold coins...

For these gold coins, Marin also plans to send a fleet to find Oahu, and then cut down sandalwood and transport it to Daming trade. Moreover, Honolulu is too famous, plus the Pearl Harbor incident, etc., the impact is very large... Marin recalled, and actually dug out the longitude and latitude of Honolulu from the depths of his memory - 21 degrees north latitude, 158 degrees west longitude...

Now that's it, Marin just needs to send a boat to find Honolulu according to the coordinates. Then, take the logging team to cut down the tree, peel off the sandalwood at the core, and transport it to Daming to exchange for money and goods...

Of course, in addition to sandalwood, other precious woods can also be exchanged for money in Daming. For example, South American rosewood, and mahogany, etc., can be used for trading.

And these things can be seen everywhere in the virgin forests of Cuba, and it is not too cost-effective to use them to fill the trade deficit...