After receiving the support of the Ming and Qingliu, led by Liu Daxia, Malin was finally proud and planned to go south to purchase. But before heading south, Malin specially asked Kong Tai to contact the guild halls in various places in the capital.
The so-called guild hall is a place where scholars from various provinces come to Beijing for the exam or merchants from all over the country settle down after they enter Beijing. This kind of place is generally built by wealthy merchants, but it is open to the same scholars, and even offers food and accommodation discounts. As for why this is done? Of course, it is a favor investment! The guild who came to Beijing for the exam is at least a juren, and he is a preparatory official. Once he passes the Jinshi, the lowest starting point is the seventh-rank county magistrate. Therefore, building a guild hall (also called a test hall) is a very good favor investment transaction.
Of course, in addition to preferential treatment for fellow villagers and making favorable investments, the guild hall itself is also a contact center for businessmen from all over the country in the capital.
If you can come to the Beijing Guild Hall to do business, the business will definitely be bigger and the place cannot accommodate it, so you can come to Beijing, the "dragon pond and tiger den" to try it out...
In addition, not everyone in every place can hold meeting halls in the capital. Generally speaking, there are rich places, or specialties that have to be sold to the capital, before they can hold meeting halls in the capital. However, in poor places, no businessmen have the capital to hold meeting halls in the capital.
To give a simple example, Jingdezhen wants to sell porcelain to the capital, and Huzhou wants to sell silk to the capital. These two places must have guild halls in the capital. In addition, some wealthy prefectures in Jiangsu and Zhejiang will also open guild halls in the capital.
Anyway, as long as you find the guild hall in the corresponding area, you will definitely be able to contact the merchants who come to Beijing in this area, and they are all big merchants...
Moreover, most of these guild halls are gathered outside the first three gates (Zhengyang Gate, Xuanwu Gate and Chongwen Gate), and most of them are outside Xuanwu Gate, which is easier to find.
Marin wants to go south to purchase supplies, but it is not possible without an acquaintance. Otherwise, he will bump into like a headless fly and waste time.
Therefore, if you want to buy special products from all over the country, it is best to find a local person to cooperate with. Where to find a local person? Of course, it is the corresponding guild hall... So, Kong Tai was sent by Marin to contact merchants stationed in Beijing from all over the country...
Before going south, the first group of merchants Kong Tai went to practice were not the merchants from the south that Marin was going to go, but the merchants from the north entrance of Zhangjiakou...
Why look for merchants in Zhangjiakou? Because they have the goods that Marin needs very much - osteoporosis...
Oral alkali is called sodium carbonate. Because most of the alkali in the Ming Dynasty were sold to Zhangjiakou by Mongolian merchants, and then sold to the mainland by Zhangjiakou merchants, it is also called Oral alkali.
The Ming Dynasty's alkaline is very cheap, and the alkaline is only 10 cents per kilogram. Why is it so cheap? Because these alkalis are picked up by Mongolian herders from the edge of the salt lake without any cost...
Speaking of which, there are also many salt lakes on the Mongolian Plateau, but the tragic thing is that most of the salt lakes on the plateau are not salt lakes that mainly produce salt, but either produce alkali or Glauber's salt (sodium sulfate). Therefore, ancient Mongolian herders were also very tired - there was a salt lake, but they did not produce salt... Only a small number of salt lakes produced salt, and then became the targets of the tribes' life-and-death struggle...
As for the salt lake that produces alkali, it was despised by various Mongolian tribes. Fortunately, the northerners in the Ming Dynasty mainly used pasta, and they needed to use alkaline for noodles, and the demand was quite large. Therefore, Mongolian herders then picked it up on the edge of the salt lake that produces alkaline, or scraped alkaline cream on the ice in winter (sodium ash is prone to frost), and then the merchants on the grassland took it to Zhangjiakou to sell it to Han merchants. If it weren't for the high land transportation cost, I'm afraid that the alkaline alkaline would not be sold for 5 cents per kilogram. In fact, when merchants purchased mineral alkaline from Mongolian herders, the price would be less than 5 cents per kilogram...
Soda ash has so many functions. Whether it is glass, paper, or soda, it requires a large amount of soda ash.
Although Marin can now acquire natural soda ash from Egypt, which is produced in alkaline Wadi near Cairo, the Egyptians want is very expensive, at least several times the price of the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, Marin has always been worried that Egypt will be captured by the Turks. At that time, the supply will definitely be cut off. Therefore, Marin thought of a way to open up ways to import soda ash from the Ming Dynasty to avoid being stuck by the Egyptians, or prevent Egypt from being cut off due to war...
...
Originally, Marin planned to order large quantities of saltpeter. However, merchants said that because saltpeter is the main raw material for making gunpowder, commodity transactions need to be controlled by the official service. Without official permission, it is impossible to order large quantities of goods.
In desperation, Malin had to go to Zhengde and the ministers to seek ordering saltpeter. The Ming Dynasty had no objection to this. Anyway, saltpeter was really not a rare thing in the Ming Dynasty. And Malin is now his own person, so it is not a problem to sell saltpeter to Marlin.
But what Marin wants is too large, and he needs 1 million kilograms per year to start his mouth, which scared the Ming Dynasty's monarchs and ministers. It's not that the Ming Dynasty's annual output of saltpeter was not that much, but that the Ming Dynasty itself consumed a lot of saltpeter. Moreover, it was not because the army consumed a lot, but because it consumed too much fireworks and firecrackers...
Therefore, after discussing with the Ministry of War, the Ming Dynasty cabinet agreed to sell 400,000 kilograms to Malin every year, which is 200 tons, with a unit price of 25 cents per kilogram. Although there is a little difference between Marin's expectations, it is enough for Marin to use. Moreover, Marin will develop Chilean saltpeter in the future, and it may not necessarily need to buy too much saltpeter from the Ming Dynasty.
Moreover, in addition to the cheap price, buying saltpeter on a large scale from the Ming Dynasty also means covering up the development of saltpeter in Chile. When European countries saw that the North Sea country imported a large amount of saltpeter from the Ming Dynasty, it was difficult to notice the problem of the large amount of saltpeter produced in Chile...
...
After negotiating the supply of two bulk goods, saltpeter and stearic acid, Marin went south with peace of mind.
At this time, Kong Tai also discussed with merchants from all over the guild halls outside the front three gates, expressing his willingness to pay a large amount of money to purchase rare goods and medicinal materials from all over the country...
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! In addition to some special herbs in the north, Marin asked merchants from various guild halls to return to their hometowns to prepare a large amount of goods and deliver them to Wuchang, the center of China.
The reason why Wuchang was chosen as the central point for purchasing herbal medicines was not only that Wuchang is indeed located in the central core area of ​​China, but also that convenient water transportation conditions are also an important reason why Malin chose this place first.
In this acquisition, Malin needed a large amount of acquisition of Coptis chinensis, mainly produced in Shuzhong and Huguang (there was no Funan and Fubei in the Ming Dynasty. It was not until the Kangxi period that Huguang Province was divided into two provinces, Guizhou Province and southern Shaanxi Province.
The Coptis chinensis acquired from Shuzhong can be loaded on a ship, down the river, and arrived in Wuchang. The Coptis chinensis acquired in southern Shaanxi can be transported on the Han River and transported on Wuchang. Funan also has convenient water transportation conditions for the Xiangjiang River, which is very convenient to transport to Wuchang.
In this era, road transportation mainly relies on horse-drawn carriages, with small cargo volume and high cost. However, water transportation is large cargo volume and low cost, which is very consistent with Marin's requirements.
In addition, after the acquisition of Youyang Artemisia annua in Chongqing, it is also very convenient to transport to Wuchang by water. And Anhua Black Tea in Funan is also easier to transport to Dongting Lake through Zijiang, water transport to the Yangtze River, and then into the Yangtze River, and arrive in Wuchang along the water...
Therefore, it is really a good choice for Malin to place the herbs in Wuchang.
However, it seems that Panax notoginseng, which is produced in southern Yunnan, is the main medicine of Baiyao in southern Yunnan, and this thing is very inconvenient to transport water. Moreover, when purchasing Panax notoginseng in southern Yunnan, it seems that it needs to say hello to the local king Mu family.
Ma Lin thought about it and decided to postpone the acquisition of specialty medicinal materials such as Panax notoginseng and other southern Yunnan. He first hired a broker to go to southern Yunnan to say hello to the Mu family, and then cooperated with a local powerful medicinal material merchant to acquire Panax notoginseng. Then, he transported across the Pearl River through the Nanpan River tributary of the Pearl River, and arrived in Guangzhou. Then, Kong Tai sent a merchant ship from Keelung to Guangzhou to acquire...
Chapter completed!