In addition, at the beginning of the year, Mr. Zhao asked Jinke to build a Chongming Navigation School on Chongming Island. In addition to training qualified crew members for the Royal Shipping Group, the school also plays the role of supplying excellent navigation talents to the Coast Guard School, which can be regarded as a preparatory course for the Coast Guard School.

Zhao Hao hopes that this will reduce the teaching pressure of the Coast Guard School and shorten the training cycle for police officers, so as to achieve his goal of expanding the Coast Guard force to 8,000 people as soon as possible while minimizing the impact on combat effectiveness - although he is negotiating with the Portuguese, he must also be prepared for war!

By then, the Portuguese would certainly send out a strong enough fleet. If they don't make every effort to expand their military and prepare for war and improve their combat effectiveness, how can they defeat the invading enemy? !

Therefore, at least in the next two years, the vast majority of students from Chongming Aviation School will go to the Coast Guard School after graduation.

~~

The next day, Mr. Zhao inspected the future timber yard and timber processing plant. In the future, the logs sent by Japan would be dried in the shade by the strong sea breeze, and then roughly processed into suitable timber for transportation and sent to the Jiangnan Shipyard to build warships.

Ship timber is currently the most important military material, so it must be built in the garrison base to ensure safety. But after comprehensive consideration, Zhao Hao decided to place the shipbuilding site in Chongming.

It can only be placed in Chongming, because in order to build excellent sea ships, a complete handicraft system is needed to support it, and Jeju Island does not have this system.

A large shipyard is a place with a high concentration of personnel, funds, and materials. It can be said to be a super factory with the highest technological content at present, and it needs to purchase thousands of materials. At least dozens or hundreds of upstream supporting factories such as blacksmith shops, copperware bureaus, weaving workshops, rope making factories, sesame oil workshops, paint factories, etc. are needed to support it.

Moreover, these factories have their own upstream factories. How could they all be moved to the security area?

Although this kind of handicraft system is not as hopeless as the industrial system, it is still not something that can be built just by saying so. Otherwise, why is Japan's shipbuilding industry still at the level of 500 years ago? It is because there is no complete handicraft system. Even if they get a big ship, they can't build it. Not to mention Western ships...

If Master Zhao did not have the support of the Jiangnan region, which has the most developed handicraft industry in the world, he would not have dared to be so arrogant as to just catch a galleon and imitate it.

Therefore, he couldn't place the shipyard on the isolated and inadequate Tamra Island. Besides, if such a large industry was placed in Chongming County, it would boost the economy of the entire county... The consumption of tens of thousands of middle- and high-income craftsmen alone would be enough to restore Chongming to its former glory as the East China Sea Yingzhou.

~~

After inspecting the timber yard, he turned around and listened to the Tamra Chamber of Commerce's suggestions on trade with Japan.

Although they had to accept whatever goods Jiangnan Group supplied, in fact, domestic suppliers did not understand the Japanese market as well as they did, so these Li Dynasty merchants actually had a lot of say in what goods to import and how much to import.

According to Zhao Hao's request, Jin Xishan compiled a price list of major Japanese products. It's really shocking until you see it.

Due to the lack of resources and backward handicraft industry, Japan has a very scarce variety of domestically produced goods, but it has no shortage of gold and silver... Therefore, the price of all Ming Dynasty products in Japan has increased by at least five times, generally around ten times, and sometimes twenty or thirty times.

Zhao Hao noticed that the most in-demand item in Japan was raw silk. In Jiangnan, a pound of raw silk cost only 700 coins, but the landed price in Japan was eight taels of silver per pound.

Ordinary Japanese people simply could not afford the expensive Japanese satin woven from raw silk, so the relatively inexpensive and high-quality silk, satin and cotton fabrics from the Ming Dynasty were also very popular, with the profit being nearly ten times higher.

In addition, the export profits of various porcelain, pottery, ironware, incense fans, umbrellas, tea, felt, socks, needles, paper, ink, brushes, inkstones, books, paintings, etc. are also about ten times. Even directly trafficking copper coins to Japan can make more than five times the profit...

Of course, the most profitable items are war materials, such as medicinal materials, which have a profit of dozens of times, and are in short supply. For example, worthless medicinal materials such as Chuanxiong and licorice are actually worth 70 taels of silver per catty in Japan! The profit can reach 100 times, surpassing saltpeter to become the most profitable single product!

Using the booklet in his hand to cover his mouth, Master Zhao tried hard to close his mouth, and then put down the price list.

In the past, he only knew that he could make a lot of money from Sino-Japanese trade. Today, he knows exactly how much money he can make.

If managed properly, tens of millions of taels of silver a year would be a piece of cake!

No wonder the nine major parties were fighting over this, and no wonder the Portuguese were so shameless as to break the contract and interfere.

Thinking of this, Zhao Hao suddenly realized that there would be a battle between him and the Portuguese!

What did Ma Zi say? With a 50% profit, he dared to take risks; for a 100% profit, he dared to trample on all human laws; with a 300% profit, he dared to commit any crime, even risking being hanged.

The profit from trade with Japan is over 500%. Aren’t the Portuguese going to be overjoyed?

How could they agree to this if I cut off their source of income?

Although Mr. Zhao suggested that they could sell the goods to Ryukyu, it would be impossible for them to get too much profit. The Jesuits didn't care, because they were all ascetics who had made four vows. As long as they could preach, they didn't care about so many other things.

But the Portuguese would never agree to give up such horrific profits.

So let's take a step back and share the Japanese market? Obviously, it is totally unfeasible, because the premise of huge profits is exclusive monopoly. If you don't buy from me, you won't be able to buy, so you can only accept my blackmail. But as long as you can produce a certain product domestically, the price will immediately drop. Or if another seller appears in the market, it will cause a collapse in prices.

Therefore, Zhao Hao had to attack Japan's national handicraft industry on the one hand and drive all competitors out of the market with the other hand.

Therefore, a confrontation with the Portuguese was inevitable - either we completely defeated them and made them give up the idea of ​​trade with Japan, or they defeated us and temporarily gave up the idea of ​​trade with Japan.

"There is absolutely no other possibility..." Zhao Hao silently accepted the reality.

Fortunately, he has been preparing for the worst - isn't he so anxious to expand his military and prepare for war just to prevent the talks from breaking down and eventually having to fight the Portuguese?

"In short, we must try to delay the battle as much as possible..." Young Master Zhao secretly calculated: "The earlier the war starts, the more disadvantageous it will be. The later the war starts, the better!"

"Young Master, Young Master..." Seeing that he had turned into a clay sculpture and remained silent and motionless for a long time, Jin Xishan couldn't help but call him.

"Oh, ah?" Zhao Hao finally came back to his senses and looked at him and asked, "Where were you talking about?"

"Speaking of the selection of goods to be exported to Japan," Jin Xishan quickly reminded.

"Oh ah..." Zhao Hao took a sip of tea and organized his words, "First, of course, we must pay attention to the variety of goods we deliver and the reasonable ratio. Don't always ship a few items. If there is oversupply, the price will be untenable."

"Yes." Jin Xishan nodded and smiled, "But you can rest assured, young master. The Japanese have a huge demand for raw silk. For example, even if we collect all the raw silk on the market in Ming Dynasty, it will not be enough for them."

"Are they going to eat it?" Young Master Zhao scolded with a smile: "Anyway, just be careful. The profits have dropped too much. You should quit your job as the chairman."

"I understand!" Jin Xishan stopped laughing immediately.

"Second, we must pay attention to controlling the inflow of military supplies into Japan, such as saltpeter, gunpowder, muskets, swords, armor, leather, medicinal materials, etc...." Young Master Zhao warned again: "It's not that you can't import them into Japan. You can't miss the opportunity to make money from the war, but you must ask me first about how much to sell and to whom."

"Yes." Jin Xishan responded seriously.

The flow of strategic materials can change the balance of power among the Japanese princes. It must be controlled by Master Zhao himself in order to use military supplies to maximize the power of offshore balancing.

"Third, we must focus on attacking Japan's handicraft industry." Young Master Zhao continued, "You need to investigate what local products they have that can compete with us, and then sell them cheaper than them to squeeze their products out of the market. I have already informed the merchants in Sakai City about this, so you should cooperate and try your hand with cotton cloth and porcelain first."

"Sir, all the porcelain in Japan was sold to our country..." Jin Xishan whispered proudly.

"Oh, really?" Mr. Zhao only heard the Tang people say that Japan had expensive Ming porcelain and cheap coarse porcelain. He subconsciously thought that they were made by the Japanese themselves.

"The Japanese can only make pottery, but they don't have the technology to make porcelain. We can use porcelain as ballast and sell it to Japan." Jin Xishan hurriedly said to the Li Dynasty to dispel the evil intentions of Mr. Zhao: "Of course, our dynasty is not well-versed in technology, so we can only produce some coarse porcelain, and the quantity is not large. It can't threaten the exquisite Jingdezhen porcelain of the Celestial Empire..."

"Hmm." Young Master Zhao nodded without comment. He remembered what the man said. Indeed, when Japan invaded Korea later, it abducted a large number of people from the Joseon Dynasty, including porcelain craftsmen. Then, around the time of the old turtle's death, which was ten years after the end of the Warring States Period, this group of craftsmen successfully fired porcelain in Hizen National Farm, which opened the history of Japan's porcelain industry.

By the time of the Qing Dynasty, Japan not only stopped importing large quantities of porcelain from China, but also produced Karak porcelain to sell to Europe, which directly impacted the sales of Qing Dynasty porcelain.

"We must nip the problem in the bud and not let your country's porcelain-making technology flow out. Remember that?" Anyway, the porcelain-making industry in Jiangnan was not well developed, so Master Zhao would not compete with the people of the Li Dynasty for these leftovers.

"I understand." Jin Xishan said confidently: "The porcelain of our dynasty is all produced by craftsmen and slaves in the official kilns. Private production is prohibited among the people. This is to keep the porcelain-making technology secret for the Celestial Empire!"

"Yeah." Zhao Hao nodded, thinking that the Ming Dynasty also concentrated the porcelain industry in Jingdezhen, and it was probably also to keep the technology secret from the outside world. However, it seems that the folk kilns in Fujian are already very developed, and can even provide customers with in-depth customized services. It can be seen that the level of confidentiality of the Ming Dynasty is just so-so.

ps. I'm still writing, but there's still a lot to go, so I'll post it tomorrow morning.