Chapter 132 Visit [Part 2]
Enli's voice was earth-shattering, and all the sea merchants looked at him sideways with strange and indescribable expressions - this was the usual behavior of wealthy merchants who made a living on the sea. Once they had an advantage, they would show it off without hesitation. Even if it was bluffing and boasting, they had to create established facts in their words to intimidate potential competitors. Everyone had seen the world, and of course they were familiar with this routine.
However, being familiar with the situation did not mean that everyone could remain indifferent in the face of such a blatant provocation; especially when Governor Hai, who was sitting at the top, quickly turned his head and actually cast a glance at Enli. As this person looked around with an almost complacent look, all the merchants who came with him frowned.
At such a critical moment, it was the highly respected Mr. Paul who was able to keep the situation stable and took the initiative to ask questions:
"May I ask what your country wants to do with this 'oil field'? With all due respect, these desolate and remote lands are not suitable for growing food. Only very small shrubs can survive. Even the most barbaric natives would not settle there."
This was another question that had already been asked before. Hai Gangfeng went over it in his mind and answered immediately:
"The great emperor of our country of China is devoted to the art of making lead and mercury elixirs of the Taoist school, and needs some exotic objects from outside the world to assist in his cultivation. This is just a little sincerity from us ministers in serving His Majesty, and it is actually not a big deal."
That's right, in the training of the "Situation Notice" of the Foreign Affairs Office, all the strange things demanded from foreign vassal states - whether it was cinchona trees, "oil fields", various kinds of grains, or some "uranium mines" that glowed in the dark - were all pushed onto the current Feixuan Zhenjun Wanshou Emperor, claiming that these incredible requests were purely the result of the bureaucracy's plundering to cater to the emperor's personal interests; the entire request did not have any remarkable intentions, and there was no need for any profound speculation. The King of Chu loved thin waists and many people in the palace starved to death. That's all the fact.
Of course, as a capable official who was trained as a key cadre by the Foreign Affairs Office, Hai Gangfeng thought about it again and again, and was actually half-believing and half-doubting this explanation; half of the doubt was because this information was compiled by the prince of Duke Mu, and the Mu family seemed to have never had any history of plundering local products to please the emperor, so the sudden change was really inexplicable; and half of the belief was... Judging from the crazy operations of Master Feixuan and Emperor Wanshou in cultivating immortals in the past ten years, if you really say that he suddenly got crazy and wanted to use petroleum to make elixirs, in fact - it is actually quite reasonable.
This is the role of personality, and this is the hard result of more than ten years of word of mouth. No matter how absurd and unbelievable the request is, as long as the title of the current Feixuan Zhenjun Wanshou Emperor is attached, it will inexplicably appear reasonable, at least it will be difficult to refute...
Unfortunately, Paul obviously didn't quite understand the value of Master Fei Xuan. He was puzzled:
"…'Medicine'?"
As a well-informed know-it-all, he actually knew a little about Chinese Taoist "elixir", knowing that it was a kind of mystical technology similar to European alchemy (in other words, equally unreliable); but what did alchemy have to do with those black and sticky oil fields that often "spontaneously combusted"?
This question is quite reasonable and normal. But Hai Gangfeng, the prefect who always answered questions, had to remain silent again. To be honest, as a Confucian scholar who did not talk about supernatural things, he really did not want to repeat the bunch of inexplicable and lengthy bullshit in "What to Know"; but there was no way, the order from the Foreign Affairs Office was very clear and accurate, so he had to speak dryly and recite the content in full:
"...According to the opinions of some alchemists, the 'oil' in the oil well is the essence of underground fire. After millions of years of polishing, it has lost its luster and become its current inconspicuous appearance. As long as this essence of fire is carefully refined, the raw materials of Kanli Divine Fire in the alchemy can be extracted..."
Paul seemed to understand, or perhaps he didn't understand at all, and could only nod blankly. He might not understand a single word, but at least he could hear a clear meaning from these confusing descriptions: it seems that the emperor of the Central Plains really likes this "oil" evolved from the essence of fire.
Of course, if he read the booklet carefully, he would find that the emperor of the Central Plains not only liked oil, but also liked a lot of random things from all over the world; for example, this booklet also spent a lot of space describing a certain "uranium ore", saying that this ore can emit a lusterless green fluorescence at night, and is a treasure transformed from the essence of the moon. After careful extraction, it can be refined into a magical golden elixir. As long as you take one pill, you can be transformed into an immortal, and the moon can be refined for a thousand years without decaying, which is a miracle...
In short, in order to meet the endless needs of the current Master Feixuan in practicing Taoism, the Da'an court abides by the will of its subjects and opens the door to convenience. As long as they could find and present the various treasures listed in the booklet, they could be called "old friends of China" and enjoy the same privileges of large-scale iron trade; in this regard, the Portuguese already had sufficient experience to learn from.
For the sea merchants who came together, such conditions could not but be heart-shaking; they could even temporarily ignore the various strange demands in the booklet - in fact, if you think about it carefully, the hobbies of the upper class are strange and indescribable; judging from the current world situation, the Ottoman Sultans are mostly double-plugs who have affairs with lesbians; the King of England established a new church in order to get a divorce; the King of France was infected with syphilis and was even entangled with his own sisters; the sea merchants traveled all over the world, what kind of world had they not seen? Compared with the depravity and shocking lewdness of foreigners, the Chinese emperor who was merely pursuing exotic objects and obsessed with elixirs can be regarded as a breath of fresh air in today's world.
Therefore, the sea merchants carefully read through the manual and racked their brains to recall all the things they had seen and heard in their lives. No matter how far-fetched or forced they were, they had to make up some "experiences" that were similar to the treasures in the manual. Moreover, after most people tried their best to recall, what they said might not be completely false. Even if it was just a few vague traces, they could still deduce something.
Also following the instructions of the Foreign Affairs Office, Hai Gangfeng brought people down to toast and greet each one, and at the same time instructed the yamen runners around him to receive them one by one, record the vague hints from the maritime merchants, vaguely reveal ambiguous gestures in their words, and pull each other with the greedy capitalists. To be honest, Hai Gangfeng was not a fan of such materialistic occasions by nature. The reason why he could patiently learn the art of speech and adjust his attitude was, on the one hand, to obey the orders of the Foreign Affairs Office, and on the other hand, he saw the real effect of the so-called "investment promotion" - regardless of whether it was money-making or not, after a large amount of capital was injected into the small area of Shangyu, a large number of workshops, shops and various industries were established in a year or two. The strong demand attracted countless migrant workers from all directions, and even attracted nearby farmers, who tried every means to find people to work here after the busy farming season.
To achieve such a prosperous state of all industries within just one or two years is a miracle that traditional bureaucrats could never dream of. All I can say is that the magic of capital is so charming and enchanting that it is truly an irresistible temptation. For such temptation, many things have to be done.
The scriptures only talk about being content with poverty and practicing benevolence and righteousness, but never about developing production and promoting benefits, or enriching the country and strengthening the military. But in the world, people have always only cooked rice in a pot. How can it make sense to cook in a pot? The books of sages are exquisite, but when they are used to do things, they are often useless. The longer Hai Gangfeng stayed at the grassroots level, the more he understood this logic. Therefore, he had to make decisions based on his own situation, let go of his stubbornness and obsessions, and try to adapt to another bizarre overseas world, a world where capital never sleeps; sometimes he even had to break free from the traditional constraints of Confucianism and try to understand some unorthodox practices, such as the prince's practice...
——Well, no matter how he broadened his horizons, it was still difficult for him to understand the world of Prince Mu. But leaving aside the Prince of Mu, Hai Gangfeng, after many trials and tribulations, is now accustomed to this kind of temptation and counter-probing; unlike the still immature business at home, none of the wealthy people who can trade across borders are good people. No matter how respectful and cautious they appear to be, the officials in charge must handle foreign affairs carefully and guard against these smiling tigers with no bottom line. This kind of struggle is even more sinister and brutal than that in Da'an's officialdom (after all, there is no True Lord Feixuan to preside over the situation in today's world), and it really requires a considerable level of skill to deal with it.
After entertaining the sea merchants with a banquet, Prefect Hai personally took people to visit workshops and shops in various parts of Shangyu. The distinguished guests had previously managed to take a tour of the textile factory, so the focus of this visit was mainly on the iron factory in the suburbs, inviting the guests to appreciate the splendor of large-scale industrial iron smelting.
Because of the long-term trouble of smuggling, the Da'an court had taken confidentiality measures for the official iron smelting site (of course, like most of the court's confidentiality policies, this measure was not even as good as a piece of waste paper); but since the introduction of funds for a large number of technological upgrades, the cabinet has greatly relaxed confidentiality restrictions; all technical details of manual forging have been erased from the factory, and outsiders entering the workshop can only see towering chimneys and huge blast furnaces, as well as dark red molten iron winding in the grooves on the ground. The guests walked around along the designated route, looking up blankly at the red-hot walls of the blast furnace, feeling the damp heat of a human steamer after a large amount of cooling water was evaporated by the high temperature.
Smoke, raging fire, dark red surging magma, but there was no smell of sulfur and mercury, otherwise the people present would probably think they were visiting hell.
After watching the iron smelting process one by one, Hai Gangfeng led them to the north of the factory to visit the artificial river outside the factory. In addition to blast furnaces, blowers and ironmaking ratios, the key renovation project in which the Foreign Affairs Office invested funds was the construction of anvil hammers driven by water power and steam.
These anvils and hammers of all sizes hammer day and night and can quickly turn the just-cooled crude iron into usable pig iron. Some products need to be manually processed to decarburize them into steel or wrought iron, but most of the pig iron only needs to go through a simple casting and forging process to make basically usable iron plates, iron pipes, and iron coils. Although the craftsmanship is still rough, the efficiency is really far superior to the primitive handicraft industry, with a difference of at least ten times.
Hai Gangfeng took his people on a tour, and his intention was of course very clear, which was to make a clear guarantee to the maritime merchants that the output of steel would always be sufficient and there would be no need to worry about supply issues.
In today's era where demand is greater than supply and there is an endless supply of gold and silver from the New World, such a statement is of course very important. But the merchants walked around the mountains of ironware by the river, and they were all silent with each other. Obviously, compared with the strong demand for iron, what they can perceive is something more straightforward and brutal - with the current jungle ecology of the ocean, merchants who can travel to Southeast Asia are basically half-pirates, and their understanding of weapons is not much worse than that of soldiers. They simply estimate the numbers and immediately realize the scale behind this productivity.
"...I heard that the King of France directly controls the forces of five Guards." The merchant who followed Paul said in a low voice: "If we roughly calculate, it would only take this small workshop...six days to equip these five Guards?"
This calculation was basically correct, so he heard the slight inhalation sounds around him.
"...What a majestic lion." Someone said softly.
There were only two ecological niches in the Age of Discovery: one was the lion and the other was the sheep. The fatness of sheep will only attract envy, but lions can show off their fatness as much as they want. In fact, the more they show off, the more respect and trust they will win. The sea merchants understood this principle very well, so they looked up at the iron tools, anvils and hammers, but did not dare to have the slightest evil intention in their hearts.
Of course, awe alone is not enough. A man of insight is a wise man. After seeing the new power, the original bid will of course change. As one of the leaders of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Paul, who is very experienced, certainly understands this principle. So he didn't say anything boring, but just counted the number of iron tools from top to bottom again. After confirming everything, he quietly took a step back, brought everyone in front of him, then gently pulled the runner beside him and silently handed over a gold ring.
"Please tell Lord Hai for me," he whispered, "I heard that there has been some discord between your country and Spain recently?"
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