Huang Xuan doesn't have much time, but it's not that he doesn't even have time to talk about business. About 10 tons of wheat and rice, as well as dozens of kilograms of spices, were laid down by Lorraine at a loading dock in the harbor, almost breaking the Dutch with the Spaniards.

In order to cool the enthusiasm of both sides, and also to let the other captains hear the news, Huang Xuan decided to start the official transaction early the next morning, and the price was 30 riyals or 10 florins per 1,000 pounds, and it could be exchanged for whales and other seafood.

The florin is a gold coin, containing 110 ounces of gold in 5,500 currency units, and is worth about $6 per florin at the current price of gold. It is equivalent to 0.2 yuan per kilogram of grain.

Calculated in this way, it seems that Huang Xuan has lost a little, but if you take into account the inflation rate in the past 400 years, then the price is much higher, if it is not for being in the desolate Arctic Circle, you should have made a lot of money with this grain at hand.

However, people are content, Huang Xuan is very grateful that he was not sent to a certain Indian jungle, and hopes that the travelers of the Great Plane Era will have less of this kind of perversion, and there will be less such plane data.

Huang Xuan carried a total of 1,500 tons of grain, equivalent to about 3.3 million pounds, worth 33,000 florins, which was a huge asset, more than enough to build a fleet, and he also brought tons of spices and fine white sugar, which were several notches higher in taste and appearance than the sucrose that Europeans now use.

In the area of Green Bay near the warehouse, Huang Xuan set up a small stall, and behind him was a small warehouse with a volume of hundreds of cubic meters, and in front of him, rice, wheat, spices and cane sugar were placed at a time.

The Governor seemed to be very busy and did not come, Juan stood behind Huang Xuan with interest, and the Dutch of the East India Company seemed to be hiding at home, only the passing sailors looked at Huang Xuan's stall and asked the price by the way, but when they heard that it was sold at 1,000 pounds, they left one after another.

A sailor risked his life to spend three months in a filthy ocean-going ship, and could only get 20 florins, and buy 1,000 pounds of wheat, which he could not eat himself, and in this way, Huang Xuan sat in the warehouse area for a morning.

But he was not discouraged, yesterday afternoon, he had already understood that as long as the price was right, the captains in Green Bay who were rushing for profit did not mind whether they brought back to Europe whale oil or grain, and for those ocean-going ships that catch whales, they could sell whale oil at European prices, and even other parts of the whales that were used as garbage, and collect a large amount of grain, which was equivalent to making two dollars, so why not.

Juan didn't think so, and he persuaded Huang Xuan: "Mr. Philips, I can take all your grain at the price of 18 florins per 1,000 pounds, it's all, and you don't think about it anymore?" ”

"But you're going to defer paying." Huang Xuan shrugged helplessly and said, "I need cash." ”

Deferred payment is the gadget invented by the Dutch, it is this mercantilist country that invented the financial basis of deferred payment, letters of credit and other financial foundations, and developed the modern banking industry, so that the whole of Europe willingly sent wealth to Amsterdam and then used the assets of the whole Europe for business activities.

Now, the Spaniards have learned the same method, but Huang Xuan can only apologize for refusing, as a plane traveler, the most unbearable thing is the postponement.

Juan was a little unhappy, he spent two hours explaining why the delay did not affect his income, but Huang Xuan, who had long been accustomed to Lorraine's infinite verbosity, did not change his mind because of the Spaniard's saliva, he stubbornly asked for cash, and Juan had little money.

"You can't sell it that way." Seeing another dirty sailor leave the stall, Juan said angrily: "You don't understand business, you don't understand!" ”

"Whatever you want." Huang Xuan wasn't ready to eat, he sat cross-legged with his eyes squinted, waiting for the next customer to arrive.

The sun in Svalbard is pleasant, bright but not hot, the light is soft, especially in an environment of 3 or 4 degrees Celsius, standing under the sun and feeling unusually warm.

Huang Xuan's heart was very calm, compared with Juan, the latter was more like a businessman who couldn't sell things, so he sat down until the afternoon, and the first real customer came to the door.

Dutch captain Gonnard owned an old four-masted schooner, and his main job was whaling and cod, as well as the occasional transport business, as most Dutch merchants do. Later this morning, his second mate told him that there was a Spaniard who was selling wheat and buying whole or divided whales for 1/8 of whale oil (Note 1), and he and the first mate laughed happily that no one would do such a stupid thing. But in the afternoon, he decided to check it out.

Gonal's ship had come into port with some ice floe, and although there was no problem with the keel, it still needed to be repaired, and the sailors had gone to Longyearbyen for a drink, and he was going to stay in port and watch the workers repair it, and since the ridiculous Spaniard had not left, he wanted to see it, perhaps the stupidest guy in the whole northern hemisphere.

"Where did you get your wheat from? Paris? Gonnard laughed as he spoke, revealing half of his missing front teeth.

Gonal wore a tight-fitting captain's suit, certainly not flamboyant, but it was clean - on a ship without fresh water, cleanliness was also a privilege. This seems to be a guy who can buy wheat, Huang Xuan grabbed a handful of wheat and sprinkled it in front of him, and said, "10 florins per 1,000 pounds, or 30 riyals." ”

The captain rubbed the wheat grains indifferently, then threw another one into his mouth, chewed it, and said, "It's just ripe wheat, you can't really have shipped it from Europe, right?" Gonal was speaking to Juan, and because of the natural superiority of white people, he took it for granted that this Spanish was the traitor, and Huang Xuan, perhaps, was a slave?

"I just have to sell it." Gonnard became more and more strange when he replied to the "slave", and he rubbed another grain of wheat and said, "This wheat is yours?" How many do you have? ”

"Of course it's mine." Huang Xuan put down his hat, revealing a black head, and said, "I can sell you 20,000 pounds now, if you want." "20,000 pounds weighs almost 10 tons, which is the capacity of the small warehouse behind him.

Gonnard didn't answer immediately, but turned over the pile of grain in front of him, looked at it carefully, and then said, "I heard that you are willing to buy whales at the price of whale oil, is there such a thing?" ”

"If it's other parts of the whale, I trade it for wheat or rice, and I don't have a lot of cash on hand."

"If your wheat is like this, we'll talk about the price."

"Of course."

Note 1: The rial is often divided into 1/2, 1/4 or 1/8 for change, and this rule is derived into other units of weights and measures. Therefore, to this day, the minimum unit on the London Exchange is 1/8, not 1/10.