The Rise of the European Emperor

What is the concept of a one-way trip every two weeks in the wide Atlantic Ocean? You know, on land, if you don't change horses, Marin will only march more than 100 kilometers a day with one man and two horses. In two weeks, it was only more than a thousand kilometers.

The width of the Atlantic Ocean is more than 2,000 kilometers, so the clipper ship can run faster than one person and two horses, and it can carry a lot of cargo. Of course, for high-end goods like grain, they will definitely not be transported by clipper ships. Clipper ships transport, usually valuable items. For example, in the 19th century, clipper ships were generally used to transport high-value commodities such as crows and tea. For example, the clipper ship Cutty Sark sailed back to London from Guangzhou around the Cape of Good Hope in 100 days, which was specially used to transport tea. Because, at that time, the most popular black tea in Britain had a shelf life of only about one year. If it is transported by an old ship, it will take 10 months just for one way. Even if the imported tea is new, it is almost past the expiration date when it is shipped back to the UK. Therefore, clipper ships, which can run one way in 100 days, have become the first choice for transporting black tea.

It is precisely because of the shelf life of black tea that even if Marin knew how to produce black tea, he would not make it. In the Ming Dynasty, black tea did not come out until around 1568. The reason is that the local tea farmers were frightened by a passing army and did not have time to dry the newly picked tea leaves in time, resulting in the fermentation of the tea leaves, and then drying and processing, and black tea was born.

In fact, the green teas like Longjing Biluochun that Marin drank the most in later generations. But the shelf life of green tea and black tea is not much different, or even shorter. Therefore, from the perspective of economic interests, Marin finally chose black tea bricks that can be preserved for more than ten years. Not for anything else, just for the long shelf life.

Moreover, the "Earl Gray Milk Tea" invented by Marin is not brewed, but boiled with milk, sugar, etc. In this way, the problem of poor taste of brewing black tea can also be covered, so it doesn't matter.

In addition, the honeycomb coal stove "invented" by Marin is really awesome. It can make milk tea or provide hot water at any time, and it has become a standard appliance for wealthy European families. Anyone who doesn’t have a briquette stove to cook milk tea for guests would be ashamed to call themselves a wealthy family.

And the profit of tea is also extremely astonishing. In the beginning, in Western Europe, a piece of black tea brick of 2.5 catties cost 50 or 60 Wen in Daming, but when transported to Western Europe, it could be exchanged for a horse, that is, it was worth dozens of gold coins, or a few dozen taels of silver. This profit is more than a hundred times?

But later, with the sharp increase in the import of tea bricks, and the Portuguese also began to enter the coastal areas of Daming, they could also secretly get some tea, knowing the low purchase price of tea. Marin had no choice but to lower the price significantly, but a piece of tea brick was also worth 10 gold coins, that is, 4 gold coins per catty of black tea. This price is a unified price set by Marin after negotiating with the Portuguese.

After all, Portugal will always be able to get tea whether it is smuggling or finding other ways in the future. In order to prevent the two sides from suppressing the price too low due to vicious competition, Marin took the initiative to negotiate with the Portuguese to set the price of black tea bricks at 10 gold coins a piece. Although the price is more than half cheaper than before, it can be sold in the future, and the profit is still not low.

but,

The Portuguese didn't know that, like the Anhua area, which is rich in black tea bricks, Marin had already asked Kongtai to send businessmen to make arrangements in advance to control the supply of goods. Even if the Portuguese want a share of the pie, they must have a source of goods. And if ordinary black tea and green tea are imported back, at the speed of the Portuguese ships, even if the tea is shipped back, the shelf life will soon expire.

In addition, Marin had already asked Kong Tai to send someone to steal tea seeds. Moreover, on the island of Cuba, there are already experimental tea plantations. At that time, Beihai Country will be able to drink its own tea without having to go to Daming to import it.

However, Marin has doubts about the cost of tea produced in Cuba. Because, in this era, no other country has a lower labor cost than Daming. And the production of tea is very labor-intensive, which makes Marin feel that the cost of the tea produced by himself will be much higher than that of the Ming Dynasty...

Marin remembers that in history, in the 17th century, the wholesale price of British sugar production in Barbados was as high as 60 shillings per hundredweight, which was almost 137 cents per catty of sugar. Shipped back to London, it can be sold for 100 shillings per hundredweight.

However, during the same period, the price of sucrose in Daming was only 30 cash. This is still the price in the north. In the southern Guangdong and Guangxi production areas, the price of sucrose is only 15 yuan a catty.

The wholesale price at the place of production is several times higher than the market price in Ming Dynasty, which is embarrassing for Europeans. Therefore, Marin plans to dig workers from China to make tea as much as possible in the future to reduce costs.

Moreover, with the clipper ship, it will be faster to take the Pacific route. At three times the speed of the clipper ship, it takes only three months to go from Panama City to Keelung without any problems, but now it only takes one month. Even if it takes a big circle to go from Keelung to Panama City, if it is three times faster, it will take 2 months.

In this way, for some labor-intensive products, Marin is too lazy to produce them by himself, and he can just purchase cheap ones directly from the Ming Dynasty. Of course, only for non-essential items. For example, high-end consumer goods such as tea and sucrose, Marin would choose to import them from the Ming Dynasty. If it is strategic materials such as grain and sisal hemp, it must be produced by oneself to be at ease.

...

However, those experienced shipbuilders are skeptical of Marin's proposed clipper ship that can run three times faster. After all, the ships of the Beihai Kingdom can already run at a speed of 10 knots. Wouldn't it be possible to run at a speed of 30 knots three times faster?

In fact, they also misunderstood. The triple speed mentioned by Marin does not mean the maximum speed, but the average speed. After using the gaff sail of the technology of the 20th century, the speed of the clipper ship is about 50% lower than that of the downwind even if it is headwind, unlike the traditional square sailing ship, whose headwind speed is three or four times slower than that of the tailwind.

That is to say, the clipper ship using the gaff sail can run at a high speed of more than 10 knots even against the wind, which is faster than the current maximum speed of Marin's Galen ship. The speed of the boat will only be lower than 10 knots in calm or light wind conditions. As a result, the average speed of the ship is terrifying. Unlike traditional square-sail boats, tailwind and headwind are completely different situations, and the difference is huge.

In order to verify the "tide high speed" that Marin called, the master shipbuilders specially built a small clipper ship for testing. However, because the processing was not controlled properly, the hull was made too thin, a bit like a canoe. Even with the fins, it's kind of scary. Because, the hull is too narrow...

When Marin saw the "canoe" they built, he suddenly had an idea - it seems that the earliest catamaran in the world was the Polynesian catamaran...

This kind of catamaran canoe, because the two small boats are connected, makes it very stable, not easy to capsize, and very stable like Cao Cao's serial boats in Chibi.

So, Marin simply asked the shipbuilders to experiment with the catamaran, connecting the two test boats with crossbars to repair a deck. Then, a very stable catamaran was born...

After rigging three small topsails, the catamaran goes out to sea for trials. As a result, its speed is astonishing - 20 knots! This is the fastest speed the shipbuilders have ever seen, and it almost stunned them...