The huge exhibition hall is a little empty. Domestic enterprises should have come, but they only accounted for a part of the venue, and the representatives they sent brought some samples of factory production in the exhibition area for the merchants to see. In fact, the situation was similar at some of Europe's famous regular fairs at this time, except that the East Coasters made the process more standardized. Of course, the main thing is that their products are more distinctive.

Captain Couay at the entrance with John? Hill, George? The Hamptons met unexpectedly, and they both had some impressions of each other, so they politely exchanged greetings.

Captain Coot shrugged as the two fishy-smelling Englishmen walked towards the booths, and then looked at them as well. He didn't have any money on him, but he had more than 4,000 pesos in the Commercial Clearing Bank, but it was his pension money, and he was not ready to use it for the time being. In addition, he had in hand a few money orders from the Amsterdam Exchange Bank, worth about five thousand East Bank dollars, but he believed that they were of no use here—he first had to try to find a merchant who had money on hand to redeem them, even if he did not hesitate to lose a little commission for it, but unfortunately it did not seem easy.

Today's weather is good, and the sun is very comfortable shining on my body. There were more and more people in the exhibition area of the exhibition hall at this time, and Captain Kuayt looked at it, there were about 100 people, but it seemed that only about 20 of them were real merchants, and the rest were entourage. Some of these people stopped in front of the booth of Ping An Iron and Steel Plant, watching the standard-size steel bars on display whispering; Others crowded in front of the booths of the northern pharmaceutical factories, and they were not at all interested in the other drugs that were used to make up the numbers. Instead, ask directly about the price of aspirin and the amount of aspirin in stock - the effectiveness of this thing has now been noticed by some people. If you take it back to the Old World and sell it. I believe there should be a large market.

Of course, many more people gathered at the textile booth. The East Coast people have launched a lot of new products, such as twill cloth and so on, and the colors of dyes are also richer. Looking at the brightly colored cloths, the merchants from the Old World couldn't take their eyes off it, it was much better than what they dyed with plant dyes, they were not afraid of the sun, they were not scrubbed, it was difficult to fade, there was no more ideal cloth than this.

Captain Kuayt also lingered among the cloths. In fact, cloth and grain have always been the two most profitable commodities, and they are also the two best commodities to sell. He was now a concessionaire of the Dutch West India Company, i.e. he had bought from the West India Company the concessions for the sale of certain goods in certain areas - in fact the West India Company had seldom carried on its own less profitable business, and they had mainly sold the concessions. Captain Couay was able to sell steel bars, cotton cloth, metal products, and grain from the East Coast in the Caribbean, West Africa (Gold Coast, Grain Coast, Slave Coast, etc.) and the Dutch colonies in North America, and he was of course not the only franchisee who could operate in these areas, but in general the market was not saturated, and the competition was not fierce.

Grain is not sold at a high price in these areas, but cloth or metal products are in great demand and profitable. The local Dutch merchants liked to use these goods to trade with the Indians, to collect their skins or other good things. It's like they used Indian cotton cloth and Thai rice in the East Indies. Like buying spices from the local natives, they were born merchants. He is good at making high profits through guò trade between parties.

Captain Kuayt looked at the assortment of goods, then at the bank draft in his pocket, and sighed deeply: I had to wait a little longer. And while Captain Kuayt was helplessly waiting, somewhere in the exhibition area, John? Hill and George? The Hamptons had already negotiated, and they decided to buy a large amount of cotton cloth from the East Coasters, as well as some metal farming tools and a small amount of medicine.

Cotton cloth is naturally not white cotton, but dyed cloth and calico. The market for white cotton cloth in England at this time was not very large, and ordinary people in England wore mainly linen cloth - imported from the Silesian region of Germany, while the rich wore woolen cloth. As for the Indian cotton cloth shipped back by the East India Company, it was mainly sold to foreign markets - a business that accounted for about 15 per cent of the East India Company's profits.

However, there is no business for calico, which does not mean that dyed cloth and calico are also not business. The cotton cloth woven by the people of the East Coast is very dense and some varieties are very thick, which is very suitable for wearing in the climate of the United Kingdom. Coupled with the bright and dazzling colors, the Hills and their minds are still very marketable. Especially now that the situation in the UK is quite chaotic and local protectionism is gone, they can easily sell these goods.

Metal tools were of course also urgently needed in Britain, and there was a great demand for high-quality metal tools in some areas that had just ended the war and were resuming agricultural production. As for medicines, it is an inexhaustible source of income. In the humid and cold climate of the UK, there are not too many people who have rheumatism, and if aspirin is as effective as people say, then there will be a big market in the UK, which Hill is very confident about, and this is why he bought some in small quantities and went back to try to sell them.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, several Ottoman merchants wearing flowered hats entered the venue, which attracted even more attention. These two people were representatives sent by the Hornisian family, although it is said that the people on the east coast regarded the Ottoman market as their own place and were ready to run it alone, but since they came to buy it themselves, they could not stop it. Moreover, this is also a good thing, and it also reduces the risk of shipping for the East Coasters.

The Ottomans' focus was always on the latest soap from the East Coast. There are high-end and low-grade soaps, and high-end products are obviously made from whale oil or seal oil, and the raw materials of low-grade products are ordinary animal fat (butter). There is no doubt that the Islamic world in this era was relatively civilized, well, at least they bathed more often than the people of Christendom, and the Syrian region of the Ottoman Empire was the traditional soap production area.

However, the soap of the Ottoman Empire was produced by hand by traditional methods, with many impurities, poor effect, and some of them also contained a peculiar smell, which was naturally not as strong as the soap produced by the chemical factories in the north. Therefore, they are ready to buy some in large quantities to bring back to the country for sale, and with the sales network of the Hornisian family, it should not be difficult to sell them and make a lot of money. In addition to soap, the Ottomans are also preparing to purchase some steel bars, textiles, dyed leather goods, and so on, all of which will be transported back to the port of Smyrna by several flute-shaped merchant ships that were first delivered to the Ottoman government this year.

The fair went on like this, and when a third of the time had passed, on May 10, Captain Kuayt's son finally docked in the port of Qingdao with two merchant ships under the dispatch of the pilot ship, much to the relief of Captain Kuat. He has been wandering around the exhibition hall for a long time, and he has taken a fancy to many goods, and some of the prices have been negotiated, and now he is waiting to pay for the goods.

Outside the warehouse where the goods were picked, the merchants' entourage or servants took the bills of lading, counted the goods purchased by themselves on the horse-drawn rail wagons one by one, and then followed the wagons to the dock to load the ships, which was busy and orderly.

"In ten days, 120,000 horses of various textiles, more than 7,000 steel bars, 100 boxes of aspirin, 4,500 boxes of soap, more than 10,000 pieces of leather goods, more than 6,000 pieces of metal farm tools, more than 2,500 pieces of hardware tools, 85 trucks, and a large number of munitions and equipment have been sold. On the wharf of Qingdao Port, the mayor of the town, Minghui, said with a smile.

"The total value has exceeded 700,000 yuan, and the conservative estimate of the profit is about 500,000 yuan, which is really amazing." Qiang Quansheng, who came to Qingdao Port to inspect the financial system, also said in a slightly amazed tone, "It has only been about ten days, and there may be some businessmen coming next, I hope they can give a little bit of strength, so that the turnover of our expo will reach a peak of 1.5 million yuan, I personally estimate that it is not very difficult." And this time, in addition to selling a large number of products, we also took the opportunity to launch some new products, which can effectively share the risk of our product structure being too homogeneous, such as aspirin, soap, refined flour, soybean oil, etc. In addition, our three types of liquor have also familiarized foreigners, and there should be a certain market in the future. ”

"It shouldn't be difficult to achieve sales of 1.5 million yuan. We did a lot of work in the early stage, and almost every merchant who came to the East Coast to trade emphasized this matter, and promised to give certain benefits, and now it seems that the effect is still very significant. In the past ten months, 37 businessmen have opened current accounts in the Commercial Clearing Bank or Banco de la Plata, and more than 50 businessmen have promised to participate in the Qingdao Autumn Commodity Trade Fair. Qiang Quansheng continued to praise.

"The only obstacle now may be the monopoly agreements we have with the Dutch and the Genoese, right?" Speaking of this, Minghui obviously lowered his voice, and then said: "But these merchants are also clever enough, when we ask them where the goods are sold, the answer is outside the scope of the franchise, so there is no problem." After all, we can't check them all out, but we can only warn them not to sell them to the Dutch West India Company and the Genoese franchise. As for how to prevent foreign goods from entering their own sphere, let the Dutch and Genoese supervise it, after all, it is their own business, and it has nothing to do with us. (To be continued......)