On May 9, 1724, heavy rain, Suiling (present-day Malacca, Malaysia).

A two-day storm has gradually subsided, and the winds have begun to ease, but the rain has shown no signs of abating, and it has rained heavily and rapidly. Holding an oilcloth umbrella, Harder Semmel walked down the sewage-ridden street toward the merchants' club in the distance.

That three-storey clubhouse, built fifty years ago, is the city of Malacca – oh, the city has been renamed Suiling after the Qi people took over – second only to the Governor's Palace. After countless merchant ships passing through the Straits of Malacca docked here, merchants and sailors liked to gather at this club to talk about their adventures at sea, exchange business information with each other, or complete a cargo transaction with brokers.

Malacca City is located on the northern shore of the Taiwan Strait, and its transportation location is extremely important, and for hundreds of years it has been a trading port between the east and west, and has attracted many forces to compete for it. In 1642, the Dutch East India Company and the Kingdom of Johor Sultan seized it from the Portuguese (the original historical time and space is 1641), and maintained its rule until October last year, when it was transferred to the Qi State. For more than 100 years, the place has changed hands four times, and the competition is very great, which can be seen.

However, the prosperity of Malacca City was lost more than 20 years ago. The Qi people first occupied Temasek Island (present-day Singapore Island) and Longmen Island (present-day Batam, Indonesia) at the eastern end of the strait, and established the Strait Governorate. The two islands were heavily resettled and built to become an important commercial hub in the East Indies. With the increasing scale of Qi trade with India, Persia and Arabia, and the increasing number of merchant ships, Temasek Island has also achieved unprecedented prosperity, completely obscuring the aura of Malacca City.

In addition, at the western end of the Straits of Malacca, the colonial stronghold of Penang Island (present-day Binzhou City, Malaysia) owned by the Qi State, backed by several Malay princely states such as Kedah, Perak, and Pattani, has also developed extremely strongly, and has also taken away a lot of the scenery of Malacca City.

In addition to the Dutch East India Company's merchant ships docking at the port when entering and leaving the strait, more foreign ships will choose Temasek Island, which has more trade opportunities, better port conditions and more comprehensive services.

However, two days ago, a storm struck suddenly, and merchant ships passing through Malacca came to shore for safety, causing a sudden increase in the number of ships anchored in the harbor, and merchants and sailors who had escaped the storm poured into the city, turning the silent port into a noisy place.

Harder Semmel was previously the port master of the Dutch East India Company, and his job was to inspect the merchant ships passing through the port of Malacca, to make sure that the goods they were carrying were in order, whether the quantities matched, and whether they were going to trade in unpermitted ports.

But after the Qi people took over the port, he was naturally replaced by the "Baba" staff with an oriental face, because in the eyes of the Qi people, these Peranakan descendants may be more worthy of their trust.

Leaving his post at the East India Company, Hader Semel was not discouraged and did not return to Europe in a huff. He found a new career in the Port of Malacca as a merchandising agent. In other words, the traditional name of the Oriental people is to recommend Qi goods and Malay specialties to agents at all levels under the Dutch East India Company and other foreign merchants, such as whose goods are good, whose prices are cheaper, and whose delivery speed is fast.

This new job was naturally a little less decent than the previous position in the East India Company. However, because of his eloquence and friendship with many Qi merchants in his previous work, he also had a very good relationship with the local Malay merchants in Malacca, and he could always get all kinds of goods that met the specifications, quantities and prices in a timely manner.

Thanks to the storms of the past two days, there are many safe merchant ships parked in Malacca, and the clubs that used to be deserted immediately seem to be full of people, and the upstairs and downstairs are full of people drinking and chatting.

Well, in this case, there should be a lot of business opportunities.

"Oh, why are there so many Qi officers in the club today?" Harder Semel drank a glass of honey wine (sugar cane wine, i.e., rum) and watched as a number of Qi officers in military uniforms gathered on the side of the window.

"On a rainy day, these officers won't stay in the barracks and sleep in a daze." Carmelo Garde, a trader from Portugal, laughs: "After all, the club has a variety of delicious drinks, as well as satisfying snacks and snacks. Oh, and of course, there are also beautiful ladies, and maybe you have a wonderful affair. ”

"The discipline of the soldiers of Qi is very strict, and they will not mess around in the club." Harder Semel has dealt with the Qi people for many years and has a certain understanding of their soldiers. Unless it is a long vacation, under normal circumstances, the soldiers of Qi State will not get drunk on weekdays, let alone seduce women from good families.

Well, I have to say that the combat power of the Qi army is strong, not without reason.

"By the way, Mr. Semmel, as a well-informed merchandise agent, do you have tea, coffee, and in-demand steel bars at the right price, and recommend them to me?" Carmelo Garde beckoned the waiter at the counter to fill Harder Semel's glass, then asked with a smile.

"Do you need Qin State tea, or Qi State tea?" Harder Semmel raised an eyebrow, his face full of eager expression.

"It's still Qinguo tea, equipped with a small amount of Qi tea."

European merchants who often trade with the East know that although the Han continent of Qi has been transplanted for more than 50 years, due to the factors of water, soil and climate, the harvested tea is generally inferior to the tea produced on the mainland of Qin in terms of taste and quality, so most of them are reduced to low-grade tea, which is generally used as a consumer product for the people at the bottom.

Since the discovery of wild tea trees, from raw boiled soup to cake tea loose tea, from green tea to multi-tea, from manual operation to mechanically assisted tea making, the Qin tea has undergone complex changes during the period, all of which are far from being comparable to the Qi tea with only decades of tea cultivation experience.

The price of tea between the two is generally three to five times different, and those top-quality tea leaves that have been roasted for many times will even have a difference of more than ten times, and the price is comparable to the same weight of silver.

Of course, whether it is low-grade Qi tea or high-end Qin tea, the sales channels are generally controlled by Qi people, and a large amount of trade balance income is grabbed.

"Do you need chintz?"

After some heated discussions, Harder Semmel quickly finalized Carmelo Garde's intention to demand goods. Although if he had driven a boat directly to Quang Ninh (present-day Cilegon, Indonesia) or Batavia, the price of the goods he needed might have been much cheaper, but the fact that he could bring goods directly from Malacca saved some distance and time, didn't it?

Comfortably drinking the wine in his glass, he casually asked, hoping to facilitate another cotton trade and get more commissions.

"Oh, not for now." Carmelo Gard shook her head and said: "Many countries in Europe have become more and more restrictive in terms of chintz. Many countries have imposed various bans to reduce or ban the import of cotton cloth. In order to promote the country's cotton textile industry, England has increased the tax on all chintz and Indian linen products from the previous 20% to 25%. When I left Europe, a new decree was being hatched in their parliament making it illegal to import chintz and that it could only be imported into England for further processing. In order to protect the silk and wool industry, the French also issued a number of royal decrees and Privy Council rulings in an attempt to suppress the import and production of cotton textiles. There are also Venice, Flanders, Spain, these countries and regions, are implementing varying degrees of restrictions on the import of chintz. ”

"Oh?" Harder Semmel was surprised to hear this, "If you say that, isn't that a strict trade ban on all kinds of chintz in the whole of Europe?" With so many countries and so many people in Europe, can they meet the market demand by relying only on the cotton cloth production in their respective countries? ”

"European countries are looking at the cotton cloth business of the Qi people, and it is not a day or two." "European countries thought that by raising import tariffs on cotton from Qi and India, they would be able to keep their products out and take advantage of the opportunity to develop their own cotton industry," said Carmelo Garder. But who would have thought that after the import tariffs of more than 20% were imposed, the cotton cloth of the Qi people still had a great price advantage, which had a huge impact on the cotton cloth industry in European countries. Therefore, many European countries have directly issued bans on the import of cotton fabrics, or set up various restrictions to protect their cotton industry. ”

Decades ago, European countries enacted a series of trade restrictions on cotton cloth, initially to protect domestic producers of wool, linen and silk. It has evolved into a clear development plan to encourage domestic cotton textile production. Through these trade protection policies, domestic manufacturers who cannot compete freely with Qi cotton fabrics will realize that the cotton market is very promising, and reduce the outflow of precious metals.

The earliest Indian cotton cloth, and the various cotton fabrics that were later dumped in the Qi Kingdom, not only had the same quality as the linen produced in France, the Netherlands, and Flandren, but also at least three to five times the price of cotton fabrics. The quality is almost the same as linen, but the price is only one-third or one-fifth of it, which is the advantage of cotton fabrics.

Due to the long-term focus on woolen production, non-wool fabrics, such as linen and other linen textiles, all rely on imports, so people did not have much resistance to the import of cotton fabrics instead of linen at that time, and in a short period of time, it became one of the largest sales markets for cotton fabrics in Europe.

Some British businessmen once gloated that the import of cotton fabrics and muslin cloth made in Qi was a heavier blow to the flax industry, the main manufacturing industry of France, the Netherlands, and the German states, than to the wool textile industry.

Qi cotton fabrics, which flowed in as a substitute for flax, became popular in Britain in a short time with their attractive price, which could be purchased for two zhang after two weeks of work for a laborer earning 8 pence a day.

The British East India Company, which had gained a monopoly on the Oriental trade, imported the largest amount of goods each year, except for tea, steel bars, hardware products, and pepper, and cotton fabrics were the largest. From the high-end Qi fine-grained chintz to the low-end Indian homespun cloth, there is a huge market demand in the UK.

However, the high-end cotton cloth and Indian homespun cloth of Qi country that poured into the European market like a tide had a huge impact on the traditional flax and woolen products in Europe, and seeing that a large amount of gold and silver continued to flow to Qi and the east every year, European countries that had been bewitched by mercantilism began to gradually restrict cotton fabrics from Qi and India, and tried to support their own cotton spinning industry.

However, in the face of Qi countries' advantages in production costs and technology, European countries were a little unable from the beginning. Although it is possible to rely on the continuous increase of import tariffs to gradually reduce the import scale of cotton fabrics in Qi country. However, the cotton fabrics made with the country's inefficient and backward production technology are not only of poor quality, blurred prints and texts, but also have high prices.

European cotton textile counterparts feel more and more pressure in front of the crushing product advantage of Qi country. In this case, only by obtaining the corresponding production technology of cotton fabrics can we compete with Qi products in terms of price and quality.

In fact, the manufacture of cotton products in Europe decades ago was based on arguably the most high-profile industrial espionage in history. Qi textiles are very popular among consumers in Europe and other regions because of their exquisite patterns and bright colors and affordable prices. In order to compete with the excellent quality of Qi cotton cloth, European manufacturers, with the support of their respective governments, tried to steal various production technologies and knowledge from Qi countries.

However, due to the country's strict technical blockade and entry and exit control, the technology and methods obtained over the years are really limited. But the clever British took a different approach and set their sights on India.

More than 40 years ago, the Qi people completely established their dominant position in India's trade through a war, and a large number of cotton fabrics flocked into the Indian market, which collapsed the Indian cotton weaving industry in a short period of time, making countless weavers lose their livelihood work.

Under these circumstances, the British recruited and recruited a large number of skilled Indian weavers from Bengal to acquire and imitate Indian textile techniques.

It is true that India's cotton textile technology cannot be compared with Qi's country, but it is always a level higher than that of its European counterparts, which will certainly greatly promote the development of the European cotton weaving industry. For decades, British cotton printers have been collecting and using their Indian cotton printing expertise to reproduce Indian patterns. For example, the real oriental process of textile processing in Bangladesh and the dyeing process of local silk and cotton, or the real oriental process of quickly dyeing cotton yarn or cloth with a strong Turkish red, also known as Adrianople red, is a testament to the tireless pursuit and "introduction" of this technology transfer by the British.

Other European manufacturers have followed suit, and so far, through their efforts, French cotton manufacturers have been able to imitate almost all cotton textiles, except for the best quality Qiguo high-end chintz. Oh, of course, the cost cannot be compared with the high-end cotton cloth and Indian homespun cloth of Qi that arrived in Europe across the sea.

Although the rapid theft of Indian technology by Europeans led to the rapid development and progress of the European cotton weaving industry, until now, the scale of cotton cloth from Qi is still second to none. However, as European countries begin to continue to support and protect their own cotton textile industry, it will inevitably have a serious impact on the import of cotton fabrics in Qi country. Over time, they will increasingly embrace the domestic industry and challenge the manufacturing of Qi country.

"Since the demand for cotton cloth is weak, I have a new Qi country commodity here that I can recommend to you." Harder Semmel put aside the worries of Qi Guo's cotton cloth and immediately introduced another product to Carmelo Garde.

"Oh, what's the merchandise?"

"It was a very magical product. The people of Qi call it rubber. ”

"Rubber? …… What's that? Carmelo Gard asked curiously.

"A whole new kind of material." Harder Semmel said, lifting the rubber rain boots he was wearing on his feet, "See? It's made of this material. I think it's a game-changing commodity, and it's going to cover every aspect of our lives in the future. ”

(End of chapter)