The quail is the size of an egg, and even has a somewhat similar appearance, with a similar spotted pattern, but the pattern is jujube red, which looks a bit like kidney beans. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Two capsules!

Looking at the two seeds in his hand, Zhu Yifeng looked at Ding Yunjie in front of him and said in a sighing tone.

"It's really a grain of gold!"

Each grain is worth a tael of silver!

In terms of weight, it is not even inferior in price to gold.

But it's all worth it, not to mention that it costs one or two pieces of silver per seed, even if it costs one or two gold, maybe for people in this era, they don't know what these seeds are conscious of, but Zhu Yifeng knows very well what kind of wealth these seeds can bring in the next few decades.

"It's too expensive, it cost more than 136,000 taels of silver to get back 130,000 rubber tree seeds, but there is no way to spend so much money, after all, these seeds need to go deep into the rainforest on both sides of the Amazon River to collect, and in order to collect seeds, even a few guides died......

Ding Yunjie looked a little nervous, he was just a businessman, he had been doing small business in Nanyang for the past 20 years, and the reason why he was able to become an agent of Hantu and go to South America to collect rubber tree seeds was very simple, he had rowed a small boat into the rainforest of Nanyang to do business with those headhunters.

It was because of this courage that he dared to go to places where ordinary people would not dare to go and do business with people who did not dare to do business, and it was because of this courage that he was chosen to go to South America to collect rubber tree seeds.

"I know that collecting these seeds in the rainforest is going to be a dead death! One grain and one tael of silver, not expensive......"

Noticing the nervousness on Ding Yunjie's face, Zhu Yifeng comforted him.

"Besides, it's not easy to go deep into the rainforest to collect so many seeds! It can be said that it is a great achievement. ”

It is indeed not easy, in another time and space, when the Brazilians monopolized the supply of natural rubber, the British thought of planting natural rubber, so they secretly collected more than 70,000 seeds of wild rubber in Brazil and smuggled them to Liverpool, which also took a lot of effort, and now Ding Yunjie has collected nearly twice as many seeds in the rainforest in less than a month, and those seeds are packed in wooden barrels filled with sawdust, and now they are all sent to North Borneo, where the 130,000 seeds will be cultivated into saplings, Then there will be the world's first rubber plantation in North Borneo, and of course that plantation is on its own land.

As the largest shareholder of North Borneo, Zhu Yifeng owns more than 10,000 square kilometers of land there, and in the future, part of it will become a tropical plantation, planting various cash crops, such as coffee, cocoa, rubber and other tropical cash crops, which will bring extremely rich returns to himself.

"A pound of rubber costs a tael of silver, although we don't import much rubber now, mainly used as a military, such as the sealing ring of a Han-style rifle, but if the rubber is used on the wheels of the carriage, it can not only reduce noise, but also make the wheels last longer, it can be used in all aspects......"

Rubber is naturally extremely versatile, and it will only become more and more versatile in the future, and as it becomes more and more versatile, its price will become more and more expensive. Especially in the rapid development stage of the automobile industry, the output of rubber tires is also rising, and the demand for natural rubber has increased significantly. Natural rubber has been transformed from the plaything of indigenous people into an indispensable industrial raw material, and people even call it "black gold". With the increase in the value of natural rubber, the collection of latex from rubber trees has become a lucrative industry. Countless people flock to the Amazon jungle where the clover trees grow with dreams of making a fortune, trying to find a "black gold mine" that can make them rich.

Cultivated rubber trees have significant advantages over natural rubber trees. It can provide a sufficient amount of rubber, and the rubber trees bred through this collection will gradually multiply into rubber plantations in the future, and when the demand for rubber increases in the future, its own plantations will be able to provide enough rubber to meet the needs of the market, just like the rainforests in Brazil.

As for now...... Despite its high price, it is not in high demand. People are not yet aware of this "black gold mine".

"All in all, it's worth it! As we originally agreed......"

Taking out a check that had been prepared a long time ago, Zhu Yifeng looked at Ding Yunjie and said.

"This is a prize of 50,000 yuan! It's what you deserve! ”

50,000 yuan!

That is, more than 33,000 taels of silver, many people can't earn so much silver in a few lifetimes, in the face of this money, Ding Yunjie suddenly had an impulse, and in the face of Han Du's gaze, he said tentatively.

"Han Du, I wonder if the villain can invest this silver in North Borneo?"

"He's a smart guy!"

After Ding Yunjie left, Lin Zhiping said with some sighs.

"The biggest landlord in North Borneo is the lord, and there are a few important people in the house who are not the landlords there, who said that the land there is now hundreds of years old forests, but how can everyone let those lands be barren? He has now bought 15,000 acres of land for 50,000 taels of silver, and in a few years, that piece of land will be worth at least 200,000 taels, and when the time comes, he will make a lot of money......"

"Zhongzi, you underestimate that piece of land too much!"

Zhu Yifeng retorted with a smile

"If those lands are well managed, I'm afraid that the income in a year will be more than that, growing rice?"

Shaking his head, thinking about the investment of some people in the mansion there, Zhu Yifeng sighed.

"Luzon rice is only 0.5 yuan per stone, and the price of Vietnamese rice is only 0.6 yuan, and it is three crops a year...... Rice is really worthless in that place! ”

Rice in Nanyang is so cheap that even the most expensive Siamese rice is less than one yuan per stone, compared to the domestic rice price of about two yuan. It was precisely because imported rice was cheap that people would not starve to death in Guangdong, Fujian, and other places where there were few people -- rice merchants bought a large amount of rice from Nanyang to supply the needs of the cities.

Even now, in order to maintain the operation of the route from Guangzhou to at least Wuchang, the shipping company also operates as a rice merchant - no less than 1,000 tons of rice from Guangzhou is shipped from Guangzhou every month to Nanjing and other places for sale, so as to make a profit to maintain the route.

"Habit, habit, ......"

The lord's words made Lin Zhiping smile quickly, and then asked tentatively.

"The lord is going to plant a rubber tree there?"

In that case, shouldn't you also plant some rubber trees on your ground?

"Now there are not so many uses of rubber, and the demand is not so great, so take your time little by little! Now the plantations there have to grow things that have been short and fast, such as pineapples, which can be harvested twice a year in Nanyang, and can harvest thousands of catties per acre, and we have built canning factories and bottle factories there, using pineapples to produce canned food, and then exporting canned fruits to the outside world. Of course, there is not much demand for canned fruit in Europe right now. Therefore, sugar cane should be planted and sugar factories should be established to export white sugar to Europe and the Americas......"

Although he doesn't know much about tropical plantations, based on the books he has read in the past, Zhu Yifeng knows that spices, sugarcane, and rubber are known as the "three treasures of the tropics", and the first one has already declined after hundreds of years of development, and the sugarcane and sugar industries have only just begun, and the demand for rubber has not yet started. So Zhu Yifeng can give some advice at that time. After giving this opinion again, he laughed at himself.

"Of course, if you just want to be stable, you might as well grow rice, there will be more and more immigrants there, and there will always be food for people to live......

Food can be solved through trade.

What is Colonial Operation? It is the well-known large-scale cultivation of cash crops, and as for the labor-intensive cultivation of rice, it can be completely taken care of by the local indigenous people. As colonizers, they should grow more profitable cash crops, and this is the reason why 60 to 100 acres of land will be provided to immigrants in the future. Just right for a family to grow.

"Lord, of course the minister listens to you, and the minister will write to the past, let them be in that kind of sugar cane, but ......"

Looking at the lord, Lin Zhiping asked with a smile.

"If everyone goes to plant sugar cane, what is the lord going to do?"

"Of course it's a sugar factory, otherwise your sugar cane won't all rot in the ground!"

In Lin Zhiping's surprise, Zhu Yifeng directly diverted the topic.

"Any recent letters from the British side?"

In this era, communication between Asia and Europe took several months, and the telegraph, which had already been invented, did not extend to Asia, and all communication depended on fast mail ships.

"If nothing else, a mail ship will arrive in Hong Kong next week, and the letter will arrive next month at the latest......"

Lin Zhiping's words made Zhu Yifeng nostalgic for the convenient communication system in another time and space, the telegram that seemed to be the fastest in this era has been eliminated, and telephone, e-mail and other instant chat soft years. The Earth has become a veritable global village, and now?

It took three months for a letter to be transported from England to China, and even because Turkey had agreed to the passage of the British Post from the Suez region - in return for the help of the Anglo-French forces and, of course, the right to build the Suez Canal.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with China, and if possible, Zhu Yifeng now prefers to build a Suez railway, like the newly opened Panama Isthmus Railway, after all, whether it is "warship brand cigarettes" or "Stim luncheon meat" is too far away to transport around the Cape of Good Hope.

"Perhaps, you can think about ......"

But this thought was only fleeting, after all, the railway could not compete with the canal in the future. As for the goods sold to the Crimea, it was originally not for making money, but for "cultivating" the market.

"Let's hope everything goes well on the British side......" (To be continued.) )