10 June 1724, Light Rain, Viceroy of the Straits Strait, Bishui County (present-day Johor Bahru, Malaysia).

Under the leadership of Jin Yanlin, the governor of the Bishui County Bureau of Commerce, a delegation of more than 10 Qin businessmen braved the drizzle rain and walked in a lush rubber plantation, carefully and meticulously inspecting the growth of rubber.

"Rubber trees can be cut after 6-8 years of planting, and the amount of cutting in the first few years is less, generally reaching the peak production period after 3-5 years, and the harvestable year is about 30 years." Jin Yanlin introduced the basic situation of rubber to the accompanying inspectors while walking, "The growth rate of rubber trees is the fastest in an environment with a temperature of about 30 degrees, and our Bishui County has high temperatures all year round, and the climate is extremely suitable for rubber growth." The number of rubber tapping knives per rubber tree does not exceed 15 times per month, and the annual yield of a single plant is generally about 4 to 5 kilograms. According to the calculation that about 300 rubber trees can be planted on one acre, the yield per mu can reach 1.2 tons to 1.5 tons, and the income is still quite considerable at the current price. ”

"May I ask Governor Jin, this rubber forest is already ripe, why don't any farmers come to cut the glue?" Cai Hongrui, a maritime merchant from the Qin State, looked around, except for a few guards, but did not see any peasants and native coolies appearing among them, and couldn't help but ask suspiciously.

"Shopkeeper Cai doesn't know that this cutting glue is particular." Jin Yanlin explained with a smile: "When tapping rubber in rainy days, it will be washed by rain, which will affect the quality. In addition, if the temperature is too high, the water evaporates quickly, the latex solidifies quickly, and the debinding time is short, which will also make the debinding volume small. When the temperature of rubber tapping is 20 degrees to 25 degrees Celsius, the content of latex and dry rubber flowing out at this temperature will be relatively high, and the quality is also the best. As a result, these plantations generally tap rubber from 4 a.m. to around 7 a.m. when the temperature is not high. However, when the temperature is below 18 degrees, the flow rate of latex will slow down, and it will also cause diseases such as dead skin on rubber trees. ”

When everyone heard this, they said yes. The officials of this Qi State are still easy to speak, and they are not as domineering as the officials of Great Qin, and the two sides communicate with each other, and their attitudes are also extremely kind, as if they are on an equal footing, which makes many investors and businessmen present feel an inexplicable comfort.

Over the years, I have been dealing with the people of Qi for a long time, and the concepts of weight units, weather temperature, time and hour, etc., have long been well-known to everyone and applied to daily production and life. Not to mention, such an accurate description gives everyone great convenience, and when you hear these numbers, you will have a general understanding.

Yes, they are all from the Qin State, and they are a group of maritime merchants who have accumulated a huge worth of tens of thousands by relying on the trade of Qin and Qi. In addition to buying land and building luxurious houses on the mainland, they also went against the tradition by not piling up the gold and silver they earned in cellars, but depositing them in the banks opened by Qi in the local area to obtain safe and stable interest.

This situation is nothing new on the mainland. The banks opened by the Qi State won the favor of many Qin merchants because of their strength, absolute security and unjustified acceptance, and the availability of interest money. At any time, as long as the amount of no more than 2,000 taels of silver is withdrawn, the Bank of Qi will accept it in time (an appointment is required for a large amount), and Qinguo silver coins, Hanzhou silver dollars, and even gold yuan coupons can be presented in full according to the customer's requirements.

What's more convenient is that when they buy and sell goods overseas, they can obtain the acceptance gold bill issued by the Bank of Qi according to the deposited money, and then they can withdraw the corresponding coins at any overseas branch of the Bank of Qi, thus avoiding the trouble of carrying a large amount of gold and silver, which is extremely convenient.

This time, a group of more than 10 maritime businessmen came to the Viceroy of Malacca to inspect the operation of rubber plantations, which was invited by several trading partners to come to the overseas territories of Qi to seek investment opportunities and seek a long-term livelihood for future generations.

As a businessman, he actually deposited money in the bank one by one, just to covet that little bit of interest, which seemed too unproductive!

In my country, if you invest in a certain industry casually, you will have at least five to ten times the income, which is much higher than the interest rate of the money obtained by depositing in the bank. Even if you are worried about market risks, you can consider investing in a plantation, and the annual return is much more cost-effective than saving in the bank.

You can see the first investors who ran plantations decades ago, and which of them didn't make money lying down. Coffee, cocoa, palm oil, cotton, cane sugar, these commodities are in high demand, making many plantation owners make a lot of money. As long as you recruit a dozen armed guards, invite two or three experienced old farmers, and "introduce" more than 100 local coolies, you can lie down comfortably and collect money, what a beautiful thing!

In the past decade, in order to accelerate the development of the Nanyang Territory and attract more immigrants, the Qi government has made some policy adjustments in the operation of plantations, in addition to extending the lease rights of the land to a maximum of 99 years, which can be renewed after paying a premium to the local government after expiration, and allowing investors to buy the land wholly and have freehold property rights.

While the bull market in plantation commodities such as coffee, cocoa, palm oil and cane sugar has lasted for decades, rubber plantations have flourished much later.

Because, on how to use rubber, the people of Qi have also developed some effective application results after decades of research and a lot of experiments. After all, this is a kind of material that is widely used in later generations, and it is also in the case that Emperor Taizu of Qi attaches great importance to it, and many research institutes and scholars have made unremitting efforts to do so, until more than ten years ago, and gradually made some more practical rubber products, so that the income of rubber plantations has grown explosively.

The mucus secreted by a certain cell in the inner layer of rubber bark is the most important "latex" raw material produced by rubber. Collectors take out knives or axes and make incisions in the bark of trees, and the liquid from the incisions is collected into containers fixed to the trees. These collected liquids cannot be used directly, they must be properly diluted, then added with acetic acid to make gelling, and finally there is a heating and smoking process, which can be initially used.

These processing techniques Qi people are also in the years of continuous exploration and practice, only to gradually find some ways to process rubber. For example, analyze the composition of the liquid flowing out of the rubber tree, such as how to get rid of the impurities in the latex, such as how to make raw rubber, etc. - among them, making raw rubber is the most critical process.

It is common to take a stick coated with white latex from a small bucket where the latex is placed, and then place the stick on top of the brazier and smoke it repeatedly to dry. Then the sticks are inserted into the keg, and the surface is further coated with a layer of latex, and then smoked to dry. This was repeated several times until a large white gelatinous substance had accumulated on the stick, which was then cut off, set aside, and taken away by a special person.

At this time, the obtained substance is raw rubber. Sometimes, of course, there is a process in which the gelling is repeatedly rolled with a roller to remove the whey and then a film with a thickness of a few millimeters is obtained – a valuable intermediate product.

After that, it was time for the specific use of rubber. Earlier, the Qi people used rubber, in addition to the mention of Emperor Taizu's words, the first-hand information they had came from the Mameluco people in Brazil. By capturing Indians from the Amazon in the South American kingdom of Qingguo, researchers in Qi were fortunate enough to see how they used rubber.

The Indians who lived in the jungle discovered the wonders of rubber early on, and they knew how to make coarser films, which they then used to make rain boots; They also found that latex was waterproof, a remarkable feature in the rainy Amazon basin. That's right, the people of Qi smeared latex on canvas or clothing based on this, and made the original version of the raincoat, thinking that it was waterproof equipment.

The Indians also made a lot of rubber containers out of clay molds, which was another wonderful use. Of course, the greatest discovery of the Indians was the realization that latex had a leathery appearance after being smoked, and that it could be used to make many useful things.

The Indians have developed a lot of uses and processing methods of rubber in the long years, and after the Qi people have summarized this information, they have verified it one by one, and then began their own design and processing technology, preparing to use this new material - rubber on a large scale before the Europeans have not reacted.

In fact, as early as 1615, the Spaniards began to use rubber to make rainproof cloaks for soldiers, more than 60 years before the research of the Qi people. It was a pity that the Spaniards were not deeply aware of the other wonderful uses of this thing, and it was not until more than 100 years later, in 1736, that a French expedition to Peru studied rubber, and gradually developed various wonderful uses, which eventually became popular throughout the world. It can be said that it was the French who developed the great material of rubber. However, now the honor of this great invention will eventually fall on the heads of the people of Qi.

More than 40 years ago, Qi set up a rubber products research institute in Weiyuan (now Port Moresby) and began to research and develop the great task of rubber use. Following the ideas of the Indians and Spaniards, the technicians made many waterproof appliances, such as waterproof leather goods, tarpaulins (cotton, linen, woollen cloth, etc.). But instead of simply applying natural latex to the cloth as the Spaniards or Indians did, they tried all the chemicals they could find over and over again to soften and dissolve them before making them into rubber products.

The technicians of the research institute have used tar (benzene in coal tar can dissolve rubber), sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, soda ash, caustic soda, ether and many other materials, and finally found that ether is a good solvent for raw rubber blocks. The dissolved and softened rubber has very good viscosity, which can be blended into various sols, and then evenly applied to materials such as leather or cloth by manual brushes, and is a good waterproof material after it dries.

With the success of these developments, several cities such as Weiyuan and Jinhua (present-day Lae, Papua New Guinea) established a series of rubber processing factories, which processed the glue produced from the plantations into fixed-gauge raw film, and then exported it to cotton textile factories and garment factories in Hanzhou. These companies then glue the film to the fabric – the dissolved raw rubber has very good adhesion and is used to make a variety of textiles such as raincoats, suspenders, and elastic pants.

With suspenders and elastic pants, then under the brainstorming of various brain-opening researchers, various other rubber products have also been developed one by one, such as inflatable beds, swimming rings, air pillows, air cushions, etc. The production of these products is quite simple, as long as the inner core of these items is immersed in a sol made of dissolved rubber. In addition, useful small things such as hoses, adhesive wires, tapes, gaskets, and elastic bandages have also been designed and produced and introduced to the market.

However, all rubber products in Qi are made of raw rubber, that is, rubber that has not been vulcanized. Although the stickiness, elasticity and elasticity of the items made of this rubber are quite good, if they are left in a low temperature environment for a long time, the rubber will slowly harden and then lose its elasticity, which means that in the cold winter, the rubber products will have a high chance of losing their effectiveness.

In addition, raw rubber that has been dissolved in solvents can easily decompose and lose its effectiveness in hot weather. It can be said that if these two defects are not solved, the sales of rubber products in Qi and even the world will encounter many limitations, which will eventually affect the broad development prospects of this industry.

To solve this problem, we can only think of a way to deal with rubber. However, many researchers have never been able to mention the chemical term "rubber vulcanization" to Emperor Taizu. Studying the deep principle, as well as how to vulcanize, and what the process is, Emperor Taizu is also vague and cannot give specific guidance.

Of course, you can't get the emperor in charge of state affairs to the laboratory to solve this chemical problem for you.

There is no way, it is still up to the technical staff of the research institute to figure it out by themselves. Fortunately, they already know a general direction, which is to use sulfur to react with rubber. As for whether it is burned, heated, or dissolved, it has to rely on a large number of experiments, and there is no other shortcut, but to try step by step, one by one, it is possible to rule it out.

Hard work pays off, under the temptation of huge capital investment and high bonuses, two years ago, a technician named Luo Sihan of a rubber processing factory in Weihai (now Cairns, Australia), inadvertently produced vulcanized rubber under repeated experiments, so that the rubber has high strength, high elasticity, high wear resistance, corrosion resistance and other excellent properties, in one fell swoop to overcome the shortcomings of raw rubber, so as to push this material to a larger scale of market application, eliminate various obstacles.

As a result, the Ministry of Industry Promotion and the Ministry of Agricultural Development jointly issued a document requiring Weiyuan Island, Sumatra Island, Borneo, and the Malay Peninsula and other overseas territories suitable for rubber growth to vigorously expand rubber plantations to meet the future development of the rubber industry.

"Therefore, everyone and relax, the rubber industry will have very broad development prospects in the future. If you invest in a rubber plantation in my water, it will definitely be the wisest decision of your life. Jin Yanlin stretched out a hand and pointed to a large lush wilderness in the distance, his words were full of bewitchment, "You only need to invest a small amount of money to plant this field with rubber trees, which is equivalent to having a hen that can lay golden eggs, and bring you and future generations a steady stream of income every year." ”

"Can manpower guarantee it?" A Qin merchant was already excited.

"At the beginning of the plantation, we can 'recruit' some native laborers for you, but in the long run, I still suggest that you can bring in more Han Chinese immigrants from the mainland to replace those stupid and stupid natives." Jin Yanlin smiled and said, "You also know that our Qi country is increasing the development of the Nanyang Territory, and the construction of various infrastructure will consume a lot of local people, and it may not be able to ensure the labor needs of all your plantations at that time. ”

When everyone heard this, they couldn't help but show a wry smile.

This Qi people have really made a good calculation, not only to let us help them develop overseas territories and establish rubber plantations, but also to introduce immigrants for them free of charge to enrich the population.

However, it doesn't matter, although our Great Qin has a northwest border trouble, but the country has been peaceful for decades, the population has surged, and there are landless farmers everywhere.

In other words, the price of land in the overseas territory of Qi is not too cheap compared to the mainland. Encircled thousands of children and 800 acres of land, even if you can't make money from that rubber, at least you can find a foundation for the family that will be passed on to future generations, right? ——

(End of chapter)