xymnovel Chapter 132 The Tooth Man?
Chapter 132 The Tooth Man?
On the second day of the ninth lunar month, the autumn tide in Liujiagang was exceptionally strong.
Near the mouth of the Yangtze River, the muddy yellow river water and the blue-green sea waves intertwine repeatedly, creating a spectacular sight.
As dawn broke, the air in the harbor was already filled with the unique scents of the ocean-going vessel's hold—the astringent smell of hemp rope soaked in water, the rich aroma of Arabian frankincense, and the spiciness of pepper and cloves from the ballast.
A fleet of ships was slowly sailing into the mouth of the Loujiang River, taking advantage of the rising tide at Chenshi (7-9 AM).
The lead ship was enormous, with a high stern, and the waves it cleaved crashed against the fenders on both sides of the hull.
This is a typical Arabian dhow, with a very deep draft, fully loaded with exotic goods.
Near the waterline, seawater perpetually floods the area, leaving behind tiny holes eroded by barnacles and sea maggots—unique "scars" of ships weathered by countless storms.
On deck, the sailors were of various skin colors.
Arabs wearing headscarves were probing the riverbed with long poles;
There were expressionless Black men adjusting the sails under the direction of the Hui people;
A recruited local naval navigator was intently watching the compass in his hand, carefully discerning the slightest deviation in the needle's position, guiding the ship to avoid the hidden sandbars that stretched across the harbor.
Within the port, Liujiagang has already awakened.
As a port for six countries, the stone steps on both sides of the Loujiang River were crowded with merchants receiving goods and onlookers.
The first Arab dhow has landed.
The heavy cable was taut by dozens of towmen chanting, and securely tied to the stone pillars on the shore.
The gangplank hit the dock with a muffled thud.
Ali, with a headscarf wrapped around his head, went ashore surrounded by the sailors.
"Seramu." Shao Shuyi, who had been waiting, went to greet her.
Ali gave him a big hug and laughed, "Do you still remember the greeting?"
"I forgot," Shao Shuyi said straightforwardly.
Ali laughed loudly, then looked behind Shao Shuyi and asked, "Where are my two servants?"
"Unfortunately, Ahmad passed away a month ago," Shao Shuyi said. "Mahama didn't know you were coming today, but don't worry, you'll see him soon."
Ali paused for a moment, then lowered his head and said something.
Shao Shuyi couldn't understand, but he waited patiently.
"Where are the goods?" Ali asked. "Hopefully, they'll give me some surprises."
"You'll see him soon," Shao Shuyi invited. "The car is ready."
“No, my friend,” Ali shook his head and said, “I can’t leave yet. Your officials need to inspect the fleet and collect taxes. I still have some cargo that needs to be stored ashore.”
After saying that, Ali pointed to the dock behind him.
The officials from the Maritime Trade Office had already boarded a small boat and headed towards the anchorage of the larger ships. If they weren't mistaken, they would then carefully tally the cargo on the merchant ships and take a percentage—this was essentially "customs duty," but at this time it was called "taxation." Ali's flagship was the "Frankincense Road," and next to it was a merchant ship that had just finished taxation and was unloading its cargo.
Boxes of goods wrapped in rattan were hoisted down.
The box was opened slightly, revealing milky-white myrrh and lumps of borneol, which emitted a crisp medicinal fragrance in the sunlight. There was also a whole bag of sappanwood, tightly packed, with purplish-red sawdust scattered out, staining the dust on the dock red.
A merchant with a full beard stood at the stern of the ship, facing west, silently chanting something—but no one knew what he was chanting. Shao Shuyi suspected that he attributed his wealth to the blessings of the Creator.
Shao Shuyi and Ali looked away almost simultaneously.
The latter smiled and asked, "My friend, could you help me sell my remaining goods? I'm a little worried I won't have enough money to buy all the porcelain. If you can find buyers, I'll pay you a commission as per the rules."
"I'm afraid it won't work this year," Shao Shuyi said. "I must successfully register with the government before I can serve you as a broker." "That's a pity," Ali said regretfully.
As he spoke, he clapped his hands. Two servants stepped forward, one carrying a small bag and the other holding a knife.
Ali weighed the bag in his hand, then stuffed it into Shao Shuyi's hand, saying, "A small bag of silver coins, for our friendship."
After saying that, he took the knife again, drew it out halfway, and its cold light shone brightly.
The hilt appears to be made of ivory, and the scabbard is inlaid with precious gems.
Ali tossed the knife to Shao Shuyi, saying, "It's all for our friendship."
Shao Shuyi accepted the silver coins and knife without ceremony, then turned and handed them to Tie Niu before bowing in thanks.
Ali hugged him again and said, "Now that you've accepted my friendship, could you please have someone bring some porcelain over? I'm in a real hurry." Shao Shuyi was so pleased with this friendship that he immediately called Cao Tong over and asked him to drive the carriage back to the porcelain shop to find Yu Yuan. He then asked Cao Tong to select two pieces of each of the various custom-made items, load them onto the carriage, and transport them to the dock.
Without the slightest hesitation, Cao Tong immediately agreed, then turned his car around and sped towards the Qingqi Shop.
An hour later, two carriages arrived one after the other.
Yu Yuan, Liang Tai, Cao Tong, and Liu Jiu got off the car first. Seeing Shao Shuyi waving from a boat not far away, they found a boatman and carried the porcelain they had brought onto the boat, then unloaded it near the large ship.
Two people also alighted from the second carriage; they were none other than Zheng Sheng and Zheng Guozhang.
After gazing quietly at the towering "Frankincense Road," the former exchanged a glance with Zheng Guozhang.
"Does Shao Shuyi want to become the next Sun Chuan?" Zheng Sheng asked hesitantly.
Zheng Guozhang stared at Shao Shuyi, who was chatting and laughing with the foreigners on the deck, and said, "Perhaps so. This business makes money too quickly. The brokerage fee is 300 out of 100. If you sell 10,000 ingots, you can get 300 ingots of brokerage fee. If you sell 100,000 ingots, you can get 3,000 ingots. Although you still have to pay taxes and tributes to the officials of the Maritime Trade Office, the amount you actually get is still amazing."
Zheng Sheng was a little envious upon hearing this. This money was too easy to earn! Almost nothing had to be done; just by maintaining relationships, one could easily reap a large sum of money.
Over the course of a year, he easily amassed several thousand ingots. With this, Sun Chuan acquired vast estates and houses in Zhenjiang, Pingjiang, and Hangzhou, making him far superior to ordinary wealthy landowners.
He's starting to think about becoming a broker.
"Come on, let's get on the boat," Zheng Sheng said, tugging at Zheng Guozhang.
Inside the superstructure of the "Frankenstein's Road" ship, Shao Shuyi introduced Zheng Sheng and Zheng Guozhang to Ali.
Ali wasn't very interested and only gave a few perfunctory replies before studying the porcelain with his entourage.
"Xiao Hu, are the guests satisfied?" Zheng Sheng came to Shao Shuyi's side and asked in a low voice.
"Why don't you just ask him? Ali understands some Wu dialect," Shao Shuyi said, fiddling with a string of amber beads.
Zheng Sheng glanced at Ali and his group, wanting to say a few words, but worried about appearing unprepared and inexperienced, so he simply said, "Go ask them. Don't forget who you relied on to get to where you are today."
Zheng Guozhang probably felt that his words were a bit too much and wanted to remind him, but after seeing the amber beads in Shao Shuyi's hand, he swallowed his words and stood there like a wooden statue.
Shao Shuyi chuckled and said, "You just wait."
After saying that, he went to Ali's side, sat cross-legged, and asked in a low voice, "Besides porcelain, what else do you buy?"
Ali reluctantly put down a porcelain plate and said, "It's better quality than the ones from Quanzhou."
Two-thirds of the porcelain produced in Quanzhou (also known as Zayton City) is made in Fujian, while the remaining third comes from Zhejiang or Jiangxi.
The local porcelain kilns in Fujian mainly imitated the celadon wares of Chuzhou, and the quality and quantity were just so-so, not really good. Otherwise, do you think there would still be foreign merchants traveling north to Liujiagang to purchase them? Wouldn't Quanzhou and Guangzhou be closer to them?
In fact, Liangzhe was the economic, cultural, technological and handicraft center of the Yuan Dynasty. Its porcelain production was high and of good quality. For some foreign merchants who pursued quality, Liujiagang was the perfect place to purchase porcelain, rather than Quanzhou or Guangzhou.
Ali may have bought Quanzhou goods before, but later found that the imitations were ultimately inferior to genuine Longquan ware, so he started coming to Liujiagang regularly. Shao Shuyi already knew about this and wasn't particularly concerned at the moment, only asking, "You've come here just to buy porcelain?" Ali then came to his senses and said, "If you have any good silk, cotton cloth, bronzeware, ironware, lacquerware, tea, or medicine, I'll take them all." Shao Shuyi was somewhat surprised and asked, "Where will you sell them all?"
"We'll sell them along the way; someone will always want them," Ali said.
Shao Shuyi seemed to understand something.
He recalled something. In the late Ming Dynasty, the Dutch East India Company was very fond of smuggling copper coins from China and transporting them to Thang Long Prefecture (Hanoi) in Vietnam to exchange for local raw silk.
At the time, the Vietnamese were experiencing a money shortage and had a huge demand for Chinese copper coins, making it a highly profitable business.
The Dutch also transported copper coins and other Chinese goods to Japan in exchange for copper sheets processed and manufactured by the Japanese. These were used as ballast in the hulls of their ships and then transported back to Europe to be sold to the various parties involved in the Thirty Years' War. At that time, only England's iron cannons were of relatively good quality; other European countries generally preferred to cast cannons in bronze, as they were less prone to bursting.
The cotton cloth, tea, medicine, ironware, and the like that Ali buys may not necessarily be shipped back to his homeland. They may be sold directly in Southeast Asia or somewhere else, and the profit should be quite good. Some tribes are still in a state of ignorance and often do not know that they have good things. They are prone to doing things like the North American Indians exchanging valuable furs for glass beads.
"Do you need cotton cloth, tea, silk, and medicinal herbs?" Shao Shuyi thought for a moment and asked, "How much?"
Ali looked at Shao Shuyi carefully, smiled, and said, "Not too much."
Shao Shuyi understood. They mainly bought porcelain, and might buy a little more silk, but the other goods were just side items to exchange for better things with the local chieftains and tribes, just like the Dutch East India Company exchanged rice and Indian cotton for spices from the natives in the Spice Islands.
The natives don't want money; they only want food, cloth, and perhaps some daily necessities.
Transporting grain, a bulky and cumbersome commodity, had a very low profit margin, but it was an essential intermediate for obtaining excess profits. After all, the East India Company had few people, and the European whites who came over suffered from acclimatization problems and died in large numbers. They couldn't grow spices themselves and could only rely on the natives.
"I can find some goods for you, if you need them," Shao Shuyi said sincerely. "The quality is excellent, I guarantee you'll be satisfied."