The words are divided into two ends.

The timeline goes back more than a year, in the late summer and early autumn of 1667.

London, the capital of England 50,000 miles away by sea.

The Ming ocean-going trading fleet, consisting of more than a dozen large flying scissors merchant ships, which had set sail in the autumn of 1666, finally arrived off the coast of England after nine months of sailing.

One day at the end of June, the fleet made a brief replenishment at Plymouth, but did not stay long or shipped, and then sailed east into the River Thames and headed straight for London.

The Great Plague of London lasted two and a half years, starting in the spring of 1665 and lasting until the late autumn of 1667.

So in fact, even if the ocean-going trading fleet of the Ming Dynasty did not arrive, according to the original course of history, the British would be able to wait for the last two or three months until the plague gradually subsided naturally.

But who made Daming rush by chance, just in the last two months before the end of the plague, he rushed to London and picked up a favor in vain.

It is also destined to leave a rich myth, so that Westerners in this era will have more reverence and worship for biochemical technology and medical skills from the mysterious East.

Of course, this will all happen gradually.

When the Ming ocean-going trading fleet first arrived, they would only appear as a wealthy merchant who had come from afar, and after making a name for themselves, they would carry out other activities. Therefore, the first to notice this group of visitors from the East was not the British royal family, but people from the business and academic circles.

……

In the early morning of the sixth day of July, with the last two days of their voyage to London, the fleet first made a temporary stop at Dover, outside the mouth of the Thames.

In order to let the wind out as soon as possible and create the impact, the fleet chose to ship some tea, silk and porcelain first.

After all, this is a fleet of twelve large clippers, and the amount of medicines and disinfectants transported from Daming is not enough to support the capacity of the entire merchant fleet.

The Ming side also had to consider the risks, such as whether the British believed in the efficacy of the chemicals brought by the Ming Dynasty at the beginning, whether they were willing to buy them openly, and recognized the high price offered by the Ming side.

Therefore, it is a more prudent way to carry seventy percent of the cargo's chemical products, and then transport three percent of silk tea porcelain.

First, you can use mature products that are destined to sell well to open up sales channels first, build goodwill, and create influence and traffic.

Second, the Ming side has also calculated with Dutch businessmen, as long as 30% of the capacity of the silk tea porcelain sold at the normal price, the profit can already cover the entire fleet of a round trip between Daming and Europe, including the cost of risk and time, and there is a small profit.

Even if seventy percent of the remaining things can't be sold, and then pull them back for nothing, Daming will not lose money. This is also what Zhu Shuren cares about, because he knows that there are too many pedantic arguments in the history of the Ming Dynasty that "the imperial court sails and the people hurt the money".

Therefore, even if Zhu Shuren goes to a foreign land to engage in diplomacy, he must ensure that there is a guaranteed net income, prove it to the sergeant doctor, and let them know that it is never a loss to go to sea to engage in foreign trade, and make a good start to this head.

As the fleet docked at port and prepared to ship, the three main responsible officers of the fleet also went to the bow deck to breathe and see the unfamiliar English scenery.

Among these three people, the nominally highest official position and the first identity is a Lang Zhong of the Ministry of Rites, named Wang Fuzhi.

That's right, it is Wang Fuzhi, the three philosophers of the Ming and Qing dynasties who are as famous as Gu Yanwu and Huang Zongxi in parallel time and space. In this life, Gu Yanwu took the relationship with Zhu Shuren and became Zhu Shuren's staff, and he has been soaring for more than 20 years, and now he is the secretary of the Ministry of Rites. Wang Fuzhi didn't have those opportunities, so he was naturally two levels lower, and he was still only Langzhong.

However, if this mission is completed well, and if you save some other credit in the future, it is not that you have the opportunity to climb the position of the squire.

In addition to Wang Fuzhi, there are two other independent characters in the fleet, one is sent by the Shen family to be responsible for specific business and trade work, and the other is sent by the Zheng family to be responsible for sailing and sailing.

Because the people of the Shen family were originally adapted to the shipping of the Yellow Sea in the north and did not understand ocean navigation, for the sake of safety, they still asked the Zheng family to send an ocean veteran to sail with Dutch consultants. As for the work of commercial trade and account auditing, the people of the Shen family can handle it themselves.

The person sent by the Shen family is called Shen Xiang, who is from Zhu Shuren's family, and helped Shen Tingyang to be the shopkeeper of several commercial houses in the past.

The level of the Ming Internal Affairs Office is on a par with the household department, and there are more than a dozen departments and institutes under it. The chief of the division is also at the same level as the chief officials of the household department, and he is Langzhong. It's just that there is no more staff below Langzhong, and it is directly the director and the commissioner (acting director).

Shen Xiang, as Zhu Shuren's family member in his early years, is now a director of the Municipal Department of Internal Affairs. And it is the highest ranking among the directors of the company, second only to Langzhong. This mission is completed well, and he will be able to be promoted when he goes back.

And the person in charge of navigation sent by the Zheng family, named Xiao Gongchen, is a subordinate general under Zheng Hongkui, and he is also an old Jianghu who has been at sea for nearly 30 years, and now he is the deputy general of the official residence.

In addition, the people sent by the Zheng family and the Shen family, because they are often in contact with Western trade, also know some foreign languages, and they can directly help Wang Fuzhi translate when necessary. It was Wang Fuzhi himself, after all, a traditional literati in his forties, who couldn't learn a foreign language.

All three of them were visiting England for the first time, and looking at the pure white limestone cliffs of Dover, which stretched for ten miles, the three of them also felt that it was spectacular.

"The world is so big, it is so far, I have left the Ming Dynasty, has sailed more than 50,000 miles, and I can still see this superb scene. It's a pity that the old man is only shallow in learning, if there is a poet or two of Qinglian monks, he will not be able to hold back a few words when he looks at these ten miles of snow cliffs. ”

Wang Fuzhi stayed on the deck to watch the scenery for a long time, but saw that Shen Xiang had already returned to the ship after a trip to the Dover Merchant House, and brought a few English merchants.

Those blonde and blue-eyed merchants were all very excited, apparently it was the first time they had seen a maritime merchant from Daming take the initiative to peddle at their door. After getting on the boat, Shen Xiang instructed his assistant and the guys to open the eyes of those foreigners with all the samples.

Wang Fuzhi and Xiao Gongchen naturally watched the excitement on the side with great interest, they have recently fallen in love with appreciating the fuss of foreigners who have never seen the world.

Sure enough, when the English businessmen saw the samples that Shen Xiang had taken out, they immediately let out endless exclamations.

"Oh my God, how can there be such a huge porcelain, isn't porcelain used as tableware or flower arrangement in your Ming Kingdom? How can it be so big, and the ornamentation is still so exquisite. ”

Shen Xiang couldn't help but be speechless when he saw this—he had long thought that foreigners didn't know it, but he still didn't expect them to have seen it to this extent.

It turned out that Shen Xiang had just taken out a bunch of precious porcelain. But what those British merchants valued most was some of the ordinary blue and white porcelain that was not very valuable in the Ming Dynasty and was just relatively large. And there is a lack of appreciation for the expensive goods that were used as imperial royals in the Ming Dynasty.

What's even more strange is that the huge porcelain jars and porcelain jars that Shen Xiang took out were not even deliberately brought by him for trade, but only as containers for transporting concentrated sulfuric acid and carbolic acid.

Concentrated sulphuric acid and other chemicals are known to cause serious corrosion to metal vessels and barrels, so they can only be shipped in ceramic or glass containers.

In Daming, although the technology of firing glass is also popular, and the glass is not very valuable, when Shen Xiang was loading in Hangzhou, he considered that the glassware was even less valuable when it was shipped back to Europe, and if the porcelain was used to load chemicals, then the utensils could be sold at a good price after the medicine was sold, and it was not a waste of capacity.

In order to make the porcelain jar loaded with liquid and seaborne so that it will not be broken due to bumps and inertia, Daming has also done a lot of experiments, such as ensuring that the liquid is filled a little bit and reducing the swaying of the liquid in the jar, these technical details do not need to be repeated.

Anyway, it fully considers physical inertia and other scientific considerations, and also uses the better navigation stability and wave resistance of the clipper ship than the Galen ship, and all kinds of factors are blessed to achieve tens of thousands of miles of shipping chemicals, anyway, this kind of thing is not possible for Dutch and British maritime merchants today.

Of course, the porcelain transported by the Ming caravan was not all containers for carrying chemicals, and there were also some ballast goods purely for the purpose of adjusting the center of gravity-

In ancient times, when the sea trade set sail from East Asia, an important consideration for each ship must carry porcelain, for the sake of navigation stability, the lower deck of the cabin must use heavy cargo ballast that is not afraid of moisture.

So even if you don't transport porcelain, you have to transport some stone ballast, so it's better to transport porcelain. If the lower center of gravity is also filled with tea and silk, the density of those goods is too fluttering, and the ship will be unstable. In addition, tea leaves are particularly susceptible to moisture and mildew, so they can only be placed in the upper ventilated cabin.

Therefore, we will see the three-pronged trade combination of silk tea and porcelain, these three things are actually the highest profit margin of tea, and the sales are also the fastest. However, the transportation conditions of tea are also the most demanding, so we have to classify other inferior cabins and stuff goods at all levels without picking the environment.

……

At this moment, the "ignorance" of these British businessmen has also repeatedly refreshed Shen Xiang's cognition, making him more truly feel the pulse of the market and the true aesthetics of foreigners.

A huge porcelain jar can be sold for tens of pounds, or even hundreds. Unfortunately, he still has a lot of chemicals to ship, so he can't sell too many containers at once.

So he talked to the British businessman, saying that the first ten large porcelain jars accepted barter, and asked the British to exchange a thousand dark brown large glass bottles for a large blue and white porcelain jar. As a result, a few businessmen who happened to have a glass workshop at home, or a related owner of the workshop, booked this order and delivered a large number of huge dark brown glass bottles to the ship on the same day.

In England in the 17th century, glass was already very worthless, and the dark brown glass bottle, in the eyes of the world, was a representative of inferior quality, and could not be used as a window, and the light transmission was too poor. As everyone knows, the storage of chemicals is to avoid light, and Shen Xiang is just right for it.

In the process of trading, Shen Xiang inevitably gave these related customers a little concession in exchange for asking for more information. Then he learned that the one who was most obsessed with giant porcelain in Europe today was the Saxon king of the HRE Empire.

That guy claims to have collected nearly two hundred huge blue and white porcelain jars from the Ming Dynasty in his life, and he has made extraordinary moves, the average price of a large porcelain jar can be worth five full sets of knight equipment.

That is, five sets of metal full-body plate armor, knight sword and shield, plus five qualified knight war horses and matching horse armor, just to exchange for a huge blue and white porcelain jar. Nowadays, those fine metal swords and armor in Europe are not as valuable as they were at the beginning, but knightly horses are still very valuable, which shows the high price of these things.

As for the other princes and kings in the HRE region, they are not as exaggerated as the kings of Saxony, but a large blue and white porcelain jar can still be resold for three or four sets of knight equipment, or can be exchanged for a few cannons.

All in all, the aesthetics of Europeans seem to be the most stupid and coarse black among the nobles of the German region in later generations, and they first look at whether the size of porcelain is magnificent. And they, the British profiteers, are still mainly second-tier dealers and distribute them in the interior of the European continent, not because of their own aesthetics.

Shen Xiang successively poured out the large porcelain jars that were not on the table, and also replaced the chemicals with dark brown glass bottles that were more suitable and easier to distribute, and the supply cost of this voyage had been recovered by more than half.

After dealing with the most urgent matters, he continued to sell a little tea and brocade and Suzhou embroidery in Dover, and opened up the market to create momentum.

As for the fine silk fabrics and embroidery woven in Suzhou, those British merchants were naturally stunned again. After all, whether the pattern of silk is exquisite or not, it can be distinguished at a glance.

But this was not the most shocking thing for the British, because they soon drank a new tea from Daming for the first time, which they had never seen before.

"Why does this tea look so pale in color? It doesn't seem to be as black as the one I bought before, and it doesn't taste good enough and isn't mellow enough. ”

A few British businessmen who were accustomed to drinking black tea were the first to question it. And Shen Xiang's disdain for ignorance in his heart was completely insufficient, so he didn't bother to explain this time, but just made an exception for the few people who bought porcelain the most boldly just now.

If you are not afraid of not knowing the goods, you are afraid of comparing goods. After a few sips of tea, those foreign dishes immediately felt the gap.

Shen Xiang said proudly: "You used to drink black tea (black tea is BLACK-TEA in English, and now Daming does not have the word black tea, so it is directly reversed), and today, it is called oolong tea." The fermentation of oolong tea is not as thorough as that of black tea, but it can retain more of the fragrance of fresh tea leaves, and the flavor type is more complex.

If it weren't for the speed of my Ming ships, which would have sailed to England in nine months, you wouldn't have been able to drink this good tea. The traditional Galen ship has been sailing for too long, and only by pre-fermenting the tea leaves can it avoid a year or two of mildew at sea. ”

Historically, the acceptance of tea by Westerners, from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, did begin with black tea. Later, in the eighteenth century, with the popularization of clippers and the shortening of the shipping cycle, oolong tea gradually stood on a more high-end ecological niche than black tea, and drinking oolong tea became more compelling.

For example, the most famous John who took the lead in the Boston tea party before the independence of the United States. Hancock (you can go to see the photo of the "Declaration of Independence" in the United States, and the name with the largest signature in the middle is John. Hancock), who was the largest oolong tea merchant in North America at that time, was also the richest man in North America, which was equivalent to "Zheng Chenggong of the United States" at that time.

Britain imposed a tea tax in North America, which hurt John. Hancock's interests, he paid to make trouble and dumped the tea imported from the official channels of the United Kingdom, instigating a rebellion, which shows the energy of the oolong tea merchants at that time.

Therefore, green tea may not be acceptable to Westerners, but oolong tea is absolutely acceptable, as long as the navigation conditions are improved and the sailing time is shortened, who will not drink oolong tea if they can drink it.

Daming's move suddenly raised the compulsion of European tea drinking luxury to the top, allowing those rich idlers to find a new fashion chase point to flaunt their status.

Whether the taste is crushed or not is secondary, the key is that scarcity can be used to pretend to be forced, as soon as you drink oolong tea, others will know that you bought tea from the "high-speed fleet", not the kind of slow Galen old ship.

——

PS: Actually, I've finally saved up the manuscript until June 30, and I started writing a new book today.

However, the new book will be released in early July, so the book will be updated regularly for more than ten days to be completed.

Everyone hopes that it is better to send it at a regular time every day in the future, and you can leave a message. I can usually schedule an update before work at 8 a.m., or before lunch at 11 a.m. Let's pick one.

(End of chapter)