What is the concept of a one-way trip in the wide Atlantic Ocean for two weeks? You should know that on land, if you don’t change horses, Marin and his subordinates will only march for more than 100 kilometers a day. In two weeks, it will only be more than 1,000 kilometers.
The Atlantic Ocean is more than 2,000 kilometers wide, so the shearing boats run faster than one person and two horses, and the cargo capacity is much larger. Of course, for food, the cargo ships are definitely not transported by flying scissors. The shearing items are usually expensive. For example, in the 19th century, shearing boats were generally used to transport high-value goods such as a piece of raven and tea. For example, the Katisak flying boats that bypassed the Cape of Good Hope from Guangzhou in 100 days was specially used to transport tea. Because the most popular black tea in the UK at that time had a shelf life of only about one year. If transported by an old ship, it would take 10 months alone. Even if the imported new tea was imported, it would be almost past the shelf life. Therefore, the shelf life of the flying scissors that could run one way in 100 days became the first choice for transporting black tea.
It is precisely because of the shelf life of black tea that Malin didn't make it even if he knew how to produce black tea. In the Ming Dynasty, black tea had to be produced until around 1568. The reason was that local tea farmers were frightened by a passing army and did not have time to dry the newly picked tea in time, which caused the tea to ferment and then dried and processed, and the black tea was born.
In fact, the one who Marin drank the most in later generations was green tea such as Longjing Biluochun. However, the shelf life of green tea and black tea was not much different, and it was even shorter. Therefore, from the perspective of economic interests, Marin finally chose a black tea brick that could be stored for more than ten years. Nothing else, it was for the super long shelf life.
Moreover, the "Earl Milk Tea" invented by Marin is not brewed, but is cooked with milk, sugar, etc. In this way, the problem of poor taste in black tea brewing can be covered, so it doesn't matter.
In addition, the honeycomb coal stove "invented" by Marin is so awesome that it can cook milk tea or provide hot water at any time. It has become the standard equipment for wealthy families in Europe. If anyone does not have a honeycomb coal stove to cook milk tea to entertain guests, he is embarrassed to say that his family is a wealthy family.
The profit of tea is also extremely amazing. At the beginning, in Western Europe, a 2 and a half pound black tea brick was purchased for fifty or sixty cents in the Ming Dynasty, but when shipped to Western Europe, it could be exchanged for a horse, that is, it is worth dozens of gold coins or dozens of taels of silver. This profit is more than a hundred times?
But later, as the import volume of tea bricks increased sharply, and the Portuguese began to enter the coast of Ming Dynasty, they could also secretly get some tea leaves and know the low price of tea. Marin had no choice but to reduce the price significantly. However, a tea brick was also worth 10 gold coins, which is 4 gold coins per kilogram of black tea. This price was a unified price after Marin negotiated with the Portuguese.
After all, Portugal will always get tea whether it is smuggling or other ways in the future. In order to avoid the price being suppressed too low due to vicious competition between the two sides, Marin took the initiative to negotiate with the Portuguese to set the price of black tea bricks at 10 gold coins per piece. Although the price is mostly cheaper than before, it can be sold in the future and the profit is still not low.
However, the Portuguese did not know that in the Anhua area, which was rich in black tea bricks, Marin had already asked Confucian merchants to make arrangements in advance and control the supply of goods. Even if the Portuguese wanted to get a piece of the pie, they had to have a source of goods. If they imported ordinary black and green tea, they would be able to return the speed of the Portuguese ships, even if the tea was transported back, it would be almost past its shelf life.
In addition, Malin had already asked Kong Tai to send someone to steal tea and plant it. Moreover, there was already an experimental tea garden on Cuba Island. At that time, Beihai Kingdom could drink its own tea without having to import it from the Ming Dynasty.
However, Malin had some doubts about the cost of tea produced in Cuba. Because, in this era, no other country had a lower labor cost than the Ming Dynasty. Tea production was very labor-intensive, which made Malin feel that the cost of tea produced by his own home would be much higher than that of the Ming Dynasty...
Marin remembers that in history, in the 17th century, the wholesale price of the British sugar production on Barbados was as high as 60 shillings per dan, which was about 137 cents per kilogram of sugar. When transported back to London, it could be sold for 100 shillings per dan.
However, during the same period, the price of sucrose in the Ming Dynasty was only 30 cents. This is still the price in the north, and the price of sucrose in the south was only 15 cents per kilogram.
The wholesale price of production sites is several times higher than that of the market price of Daming, which is the embarrassment for Europeans. Therefore, Malin planned to try to dig workers from China to make tea in the future to reduce costs.
Moreover, with the flying scissors, the Pacific route will be faster. At the speed of three times the speed of the flying scissors, it will be smooth sailing from Panama City to Keelung. It used to take 3 months, but now it only takes 1 month. Even if you have to go around from Keelung to Panama City, it will take three times faster, and it will be 2 months.
In this way, for some labor-intensive products, Malin is too lazy to produce them by herself, and just purchase cheap ones directly from the Ming Dynasty. Of course, it is limited to non-essential products. For example, high-end consumer goods such as tea and sugar, Malin will choose to import them from the Ming Dynasty. If it is strategic materials such as grain, sisal, it will definitely be safe to produce them by themselves.
...
However, those experienced shipbuilders were skeptical of Marin's proposed flying scissors that could run three times the speed. After all, the ships of Beihai Kingdom can run 10 knots now. Wouldn't they run 30 knots three times faster?
In fact, they also misunderstood. The triple speed mentioned by Marin does not refer to the maximum speed, but to the average speed. After using the upper edge inclined sail of the 20th century technology, even if the fly-scissor is headwind, its speed is about 50% lower than the tailwind speed, unlike traditional cross sailing ships, which are three or four times slower than the tailwind.
In other words, if a scissor ship using the upper edge inclined sail can run at a high speed of more than 10 knots even when facing the wind, it is faster than the current Garen ship's maximum speed. Only in windless or breeze environments can the ship's speed be lower than 10 knots. In this way, the average speed of the ship is terrifying. Unlike traditional cross sailing ships, tailwind and headwind are completely two different situations, with a huge difference.
In order to verify what Marin called "high speed", the master shipbuilders specially built small flying shears for testing. However, because they did not control the processing, the hull was made too thin and a bit like a canoe. Even if the shaking fin was used, it was a bit scary. Because the hull was too narrow...
When Marin saw the "canoe" they built, he suddenly had an idea - it seems that the earliest catamaran in the world was the Polynesian catamaran...
This catamaran canoe, because two small boats are connected, makes it very stable, not easy to overturn, and very stable like Cao Cao's serial boat in the Red Cliff.
So Marin simply asked the shipbuilders to experiment with the catamarans, connected the two test boats with cross-border and built a deck. Then, an extremely stable catamaran was born...
Chapter completed!