The day in Fujian is getting hotter and hotter, the harvest season of spring tea has gradually passed, there are fewer and fewer merchant ships from various countries that stay in the ports of Fujian to purchase tea, some merchant ships have a keen sense of smell, pay attention to the information early, grope the channel to arrive at the ports of Fujian, harvest a lot in this area that has just been opened, eat the first bite of cake, some are a few beats slower, after touching a nose of ash in the Guangzhou market, only to know that this year's tea in Fujian can indeed only be bought in Fujian, and then feel the touch of Fujian, but found that the tea market has ended, You can only do it empty-handed.

In the sparsely scattered port of Xiamen, a fleet of 20 ships sailed out one after another, the head ship had already sailed into the open sea, and the tail ship had just left the port of Xiamen.

This fleet is all composed of old lock ships, and now in the entire Chinese seas, the largest number of old lock ships is not the Portuguese in Macao, but the Zhou Lang sailors.

The people of Xiamen are no stranger to Zhou Lang's fleet entering and leaving the port, and this spring, it is not the first time that Zhou Lang's fleet sails out of the port in such a formation.

Since Fujian had just opened its port this year, most Western countries were not prepared, either because they did not notice the information released by Zhou Lang in Macao and Guangzhou, or they were not familiar with the shipping routes and did not dare to rush north, and most of the foreigners' merchant ships still went to Guangzhou to trade according to their habits.

But it was difficult for them to buy tea in Guangzhou this year, not because Zhou Lang did it intentionally, but after Zhou Lang occupied Wuyi Mountain, he indirectly cut off the overland tea trade route, forcing Fujian tea merchants to enter the ports of Fujian to sell tea by water.

On the one hand, the impact of the French Revolution has greatly reduced the number of merchant ships from the West to the East, and the number of merchant ships going to Guangdong to trade this year has also decreased.

The combination of various circumstances led to a small transaction volume, but the Lianli Bank presided over by Wei Lianli made a guarantee for the majority of tea merchants and purchased the tea of Fujian tea merchants without restrictions.

In the end, only 80,000 quintals of tea were bought by foreigners, but as many as 100,000 quintals of tea were bought by Lian Li Xingbao.

The total trading volume of 180,000 quintals is 20,000 quintals lower than the average annual volume of more than 200,000 quintals of Fujian tea imported into Guangzhou in recent years. It is believed that Western merchant ships have known the news of the opening of Fujian's port, and with the advantages of Fujian's more convenient tea transportation waterway, the tea trade will certainly increase by a large margin next year.

80,000 quintals of tea were transported away by foreigners, of which 50,000 quintals were purchased by the East India Company, which cooperated most closely with Zhou Lang, and the alliance agreement between the two sides has been signed, and Zhou Lang, who controls the entire Fujian, already has the capital to cooperate with the East India Company.

After the two elephants formed an alliance, they were both facilitated by each other. The East India Company succeeded in procuring the largest number of best-selling goods in the newly opened province, and Zhou Lang assembled a fleet to transport tea to India for trade. The fleet that transports tea is also twenty ships, which is the same size as the fleet that leaves the port today.

100,000 quintals of tea, but 5,000 tons, and a fleet of twenty ships, enough to send it all to India. Zhou Lang's ships are all large armed merchant ships, with a load of around 500 tons, and the tonnage occupied by weapons and equipment and necessary navigation materials is removed, and one ship can carry more than 300 tons of cargo, so not all of the 20 ships transport tea.

Among them, there are three ships, loaded with hundreds of different kinds of goods, all of which are all kinds of handicrafts that can be purchased in Fujian, and these are just samples for test sales. The products sent for trial marketing are not purchased casually, but targeted. I had consulted with the East India Company and they knew what products were marketable in India.

According to the information provided by the East India Company, silk fabrics are the most marketable for Chinese goods in India. Although India also has its own silkworm industry, and it is sizable, even before Chinese silk fabrics entered the international market on a large scale, India was the largest supplier of silk fabrics in the international silk fabric market.

But in this era, the quality of China's silk fabrics is still the world's best. The silk fabrics produced by India themselves, due to the yellowing of the silk of Indian silkworm seeds, lose the color of the white silk in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and China.

In terms of the quality of raw silk, China is the first in the world. It was not until the 19th century, after the Industrial Revolution, that Italy and France cultivated silkworm seeds comparable to Chinese raw silk. It was not until the 20th century that Japan surpassed China in terms of quality.

Chinese raw silk, especially the Central China silk in the south of the Yangtze River, especially the Jili Lake silk in the Huzhou area, is bright and warm in color, which can be called a treasure. The raw silk in other parts of China is not comparable, such as the South China silk represented by Guangdong is pale yellow. Japanese silk is off-white, while Indian silk is yellow. In the international market, raw silk is the best in Central China, followed by Oriental silk, followed by South China silk, and Indian silk is the second. It was not until the beginning of the 20th century that Italian raw silk surpassed that of Central China silk, for example, in the New York market in 1918, a kilogram of Italian silk could be sold for $4.18, Central China silk $4.12, Oriental silk $3.66, and South China silk $3.18.

In the pre-industrial era, China not only had the best quality raw silk raw materials, but also the best silk weaving technology in the world. The plain weave silk woven with Jiangnan silk is already a bestseller and high-end product in the European market. And those silk fabrics such as Yunjin and Song brocade produced by Jiangning Weaving, Suzhou Manufacturing, Hangzhou Manufacturing and other government-run workshops that specially paid tribute to the court are top products in China itself, and occasionally flow into foreign markets, all of which are monopolized by the royal families of various countries.

Zhou Lang also can't get these top silk fabrics, Fujian's silk weaving industry is not developed, during the Ming Dynasty, Fujian benefited from foreign trade, Fuzhou and other places, the weaving workshop employed tens of thousands of workers. The production of cotton, leno, velvet, silk satin, silk, makeup, etc., sell well at home and abroad. At that time, it still occupied a place in China's silk weaving industry, and there were also some important technological innovations, such as the machine. During the Hongzhi period (1488-1505), a silk weaver named Lin Hong in Fujian Province changed the fabric woven with five layers of silk into four layers of silk, and weaved a new variety that was thinner and more practical than the past, which was called "changing the machine".

In the Qing Dynasty, especially after a mouthful of trade, Fujian lost the impetus of foreign trade, the silk weaving industry center quickly went south and north, Jiangnan is a well-deserved old silk weaving center, not relying on foreign markets also have a foothold, Guangdong relies on foreign trade, quickly replaced the position of Fujian.

Although Fujian's silk weaving industry is declining, there are still some silk weaving workshops that produce silk fabrics with local characteristics for local people.

Zhou Lang purchased some local silk fabrics in Fujian, such as weaving cotton, leno, velvet, silk satin, Lu silk, makeup flowers and other silk fabrics, especially makeup fabrics, which are unique to China, and Indians do not master this technology. Zhou Lang purchased, makeup yarn, makeup cloud yarn, makeup yarn, makeup satin, weaving gold makeup satin, makeup silk, weaving gold makeup silk, makeup flower silk, makeup flower Lu, makeup flower Luo, weaving gold makeup flower Luo, makeup flower machine, makeup silk cloth, weaving gold makeup silk cloth, makeup cloud cloth, makeup burnt cloth, makeup brocade and other 17 kinds of makeup fabrics.

In addition to these raw materials, there are also some silk handicrafts, such as silk fans, brocade fans, some embroidery and so on.

In addition to silk fabrics, there are some other characteristic handicrafts, but the market prospect is not optimistic, because in terms of technology, it is not as good as Guangzhou products, nor may it be comparable to Indian local products.

China and India, both huge agricultural countries, both have devastated handicraft industries, and Qianlong can say to Magalny that China does not need trade for anything, in fact, the Indians can say the same. Both countries have a complete range of handicraft industries, so that European products in the two markets will generally encounter competition from the same, but better quality products, even if there are no similar products, similar substitutes will be found. The British, within the territory of India they occupied, were now unable to sell British goods in large quantities to the Indians. Not to mention Zhou Lang.

Therefore, the East India Company was not optimistic about Zhou Lang's trade prospects in India, and they suggested that Zhou Lang purchase more products with European demand and send them to India, and then the East India Company would re-export them to Europe.

However, Zhou Lang's plan to expand direct trade between India and China, two large agricultural countries, should have potential, even if the level of trade activity is only one-tenth of that between European countries, it will be an unimaginably large market for the combined population base of more than 600 million on both sides.

So Zhou Lang insisted on purchasing these goods, and then went to India for test sales. After being shipped to India, it will first be sold to Indian merchants, if it has not been sold before returning to the voyage, it will be entrusted to the East India Company to sell, and the final sales situation, the British East India Company will give feedback to Zhou Lang.

This is part of the business alliance between the two companies, which helps each other sell products and share business information.

Similarly, if the European and Indian goods shipped to China by the East India Company cannot be sold, they can also be handed over to Zhou Lang for consignment, and the data of the consignment will finally be fed back to the East India Company, so that they can adjust the trade categories in a targeted manner.

In addition to sending fleets to India, Zhou Lang also sent fleets to Japan and Siam.

Japan's handicraft industry is also relatively developed, in the eyes of Europeans, Japan is also a big handicraft country, Japan's national name Japan, the English meaning is lacquerware, just like the Chinese name China, the English Chinese meaning is porcelain. Japan's handicraft industry is also relatively complete, and there should be everything, but strangely, Japan has always been the largest consumer market for Chinese handmade products.