The trade of iron tools is an important trade project between Marin and the princes this time, but not the most important. The most important thing is the trade in salt. After all, Marin occupied the territory of the North Sea and knew how to use coal balls and firewood to cook salt. With the support of coal in the Ruhr area, Marin's salt production is very sufficient.
In addition, Lüneburg, an important salt mine in Germany, was also annexed by Marin. Therefore, if the princes wanted to eat salt, they really had to rely on Marin.
Of course, it is not that Marin only produces salt, but other forces also provide salt to the princes. For example, the Principality of Lorraine is the salt provided by the French. After all, France is a country surrounded by the sea on three sides, and the salt production is also sufficient. However, the French do not know how to filter bitter brine and secondary cleaning of salt. Therefore, the French salt is a bit bitter, and the quality is incomparable to the salt of the North Sea.
In addition, the southern vassal states also purchase sea salt from Venice. Of course, it is not necessarily produced in Venice, but it is just resold by the Venetians. Just cross the Alps, you can transport the Venetian salt to Austria and then transport it to some vassal states. Because the land distance is closer than the coast from the North Sea and France, and the land freight and tolls are cheaper, there are many buyers. But the problem is still the same - there is no step to get bitter braised and washed salt, and the taste is bitter.
However, Europeans also have another way. The method is to use this bitter sea salt to marinate the salted fish first, and then sell the salted fish directly. After people in the inland buy salted fish, they can not only be used as food, but also supplement salt.
Although this inferior sea salt is more bitter, salted fish has a strong fishy smell. Use bitter sea salt, and the bitter and fishy smell are mixed together, which covers each other's taste and achieves each other's success, making it easier for people to accept it.
This is one of the important reasons why the European salted fish trade was so popular in the Middle Ages. The bitter salted fish and the fishy salted fish can really achieve and cover each other up. Another important reason is the religious issue. There are many seasons that avoid eating meat in this era, but salted fish is not considered meat and can be eaten during fasting. Under the two major reasons, the salted fish trade is very short.
But Beihai Country seems to be different, because Malin "invented" the technology of hatching chickens, ducks and geese in the kang house, which led to the development of the industry for raising poultry in Beihai Country. It should be pointed out that chicken and duck meat are not red meat, and can also be eaten during fasting. The taste is much better than salted fish. Therefore, the fasting date of Beihai Country, chicken, duck, goose meat, and eggs are very popular. If you have a choice, who will eat salted fish? Isn't it better to eat chicken?
The main reason is that the fishy smell of salted fish is difficult to remove. It requires expensive spices to remove the fishy smell. Or, it is directly fryed, but it also requires a lot of cooking oil, which is something that ordinary people cannot afford. Because the fishy smell is too heavy, the bitter and salty taste of sea salt greatly reduces or disperses the impact of the fishy smell.
Of course, this is the helpless choice of poor families. But the nobles are different. They are born to pursue a good quality of life. Therefore, they also like the salt of Beihai, which has a very low bitter taste.
Before Marin promoted the use of removing most of the brine and washing salt with clean water, the best-quality salt that European nobles ate was actually mineral salt. However, most of the mineral salts were actually bitter. Only a small number of high-quality salt ore produced were not bitter. These were also wrapped by nobles and were relatively expensive.
At that time, the Duchy of Lüneburg was the Duchy of Lüneburg. Although the salt mine of Lüneburg was only a small part of the salt, the total amount was also quite large. At least, it was enough to welcome the German aristocratic class. The majority of the bitter mineral salt was mainly sold to the Lübecks and used to pickle the bluefish caught from the Baltic Sea. In this way, because the bitter mineral salt was expensive, the Swedes invented the infamous canned herring. The reason why canned herring was smelly was that the Swedes put very little salt when cooking fish, which caused the odor to be suppressed. If there was enough salt, it would not be like this.
But the arrival of Marin, a time traveler, broke the original pattern. He relied on the means leading the times to reduce the bitterness of sea salt by most, resulting in the bitterness of sea salt being almost impossible to taste, which is comparable to high-end fine salt. However, at that time, Marin, a naughty man, sold this "high-end sea salt" with a very low bitterness, which was still very low, which was a little higher than bitter salt.
This touched the interests and bottom line of the Duke of Lüneburg. Later, the reason why Lüneburg formed an Eight-Nation Alliance to besiege the Beihai Kingdom was actually to retaliate against this matter. Unfortunately, the Principality of Lüneburg was defeated and even annexed by Marin.
Before, Marin sold unhealthy sea salt and pretended to say that it was a high-quality fine salt mine produced in an overseas market. But now, after annexing the salt capital of Lüneburg, Marin was too lazy to use overseas salt mines as a cover. To cover up, "Lüneburg discovered a new fine salt mine" is enough to deal with it.
Therefore, when discussing salt trading business with the hostile princes this time, Marin posed a banner that "Lüneburg discovered a new large-scale salt mine. All princes are welcome to order, and the prices are discounted"...
Because Marin's confidentiality work was very good, he even placed the main salt-producing area on Cape Breton Island in the Americas, which caused the princes not to know that the so-called "fine salt" provided by the North Sea Kingdom was actually boiled from the sea water. So when they got the "Double Eleven special price" given by Marin, they didn't know that they had been slaughtered a long time ago...
There is no way, the cognitive gap between the two sides is too big!
According to the traditional experience of the past, the princes thought that non-bitter salt came from the essence of salt mines. Therefore, they naturally believed that non-bitter salt should be expensive.
How could they know that as long as they know a little chemistry, sea salt can be less bitter. The hundreds of years of knowledge and cognitive gap is not just a joke.
This chapter is not over, please click on the next page to continue reading! Even many princes were mocking Malin for selling "gold" at a bargain price. How could they know that this almost non-bitter salt is sea salt, and the cost is bargain price...
Thanks to the fact that Marin's salt production base has always been on remote islands, and the main production area was later transferred to the Americas. Therefore, the princes did not know the inside story, and their three views would not be subverted.
Marin was also a thief, but after learning about the consumers' ideas, he later decisively started cooking salt in Newcastle, England. Moreover, he used the most common technology, without bitter braising or washing salt. The quality of the salt produced was similar to that of ordinary salt in this era. Then, two kinds of salt were sold together, especially for sale to the outside world. In this way, it would be more rare to show that the "fine salt" was not bitter. The price was also higher. However, in the North Sea, whether it was a noble or a serf, they ate non-bite salt. Only when it was sold to the outside world, they would be sold together with bitter salt, so that the nobles of other countries felt that they were "higher". At the same time, it was convenient to have a high price...
In addition to salt and ironware, the trade volume of spirits is not small. The main reason is that Marin used aged wheat to brew a lot of rye Erguotou. After the white wine is brewed, it needs to be left for a year or two, and it tastes better and is very resistant to storage. As long as it is above 40 degrees, the white wine can be stored for many years. Therefore, Beihai Kingdom now stores a lot of 53 degrees rye Erguotou, all of which are placed in oak barrels. When it is about to be sold, the barrels will be opened and further blended. For example, blended into 40 degrees whiskey and 20 degrees royal salute. Then, bottled and sold.
Because the inventory is large, it can be sold to survive in the next three or four years. Three or four years later, the sweet potato planting in North America will be large-scale. At that time, sweet potato roast will replace rye Erguotou and become the main force in Beihai's foreign liquor sales.
As for grain sales, Marin's family did not agree this time. Because the Beihai Kingdom was about to welcome hundreds of thousands of Ross people and needed to reserve enough food to deal with it. But as compensation, Marin agreed to sell salted fish to the vassal states that needed food. Marin now owns the Newfoundland fishery and vigorously develops the Beihai fishery, so the fishery resources in his hands are very rich. The use of trawls has resulted in a large amount of fishing. Therefore, there is sufficient supply capacity to supply salted fish to the outside world. Moreover, the price can be very favorable.
In fact, the Beihai Army no longer eats salted fish with a strong smell, but chooses to fry the salted fish with a fishy smell, mix it into powder, and eat it in biscuits. In this way, you can get enough protein nutrition without any disturbances. You can only provide ordinary salted fish with a serf. The main reason is that Beihai Country now has not much soybean oil, so you can only give priority to the nobles and army. The serfs can only eat salted fish with a heavy smell. Of course, when cooking, the chefs of various manors in Beihai Country will add cheap and inferior beer to go.
Fishy smell. Sometimes, some ginger and vinegar will also be added. But ginger was spice in Europe in this era and was expensive. Vinegar was mainly apple cider vinegar and the price was not cheap. Therefore, the chefs in the manor mainly rely on beer to remove the fishy smell. If they were fryed with oil and added some green onions, the effect would be better. Even this is a secret, and people in other countries don’t know. Because there is no technology for making fish in Chinese food, Europeans are so sour and refreshing to eat salted fish in this era... Cook or roast directly, and the nobles can sprinkle some spices to cover up the fishy smell, so the common people will bear it...
In addition to the four major commodity trades in iron, salt, liquor and salted fish, Malin also strives to sell wool textiles to various countries in the future. However, the wool textile industry in Beihai has not yet developed, and is still meeting internal needs. It has not yet had the ability to export wool textiles on a large scale. Therefore, it can only reach an intention verbally with the vassal states, but does not actually export wool textiles.
The sales of sugar are currently in its infancy. In Cuba, many new sugar cane fields have been reclaimed, but the output has not yet exploded. Most of the previous sugar sugar production was sold locally and could only be sold in small quantities. After all, there are more than 2 million people in the local area. Moreover, it is necessary to supply a large amount of troops. It is said that eating sugar can make people happy and relieve the irritability and tension of the boring life in the military camp. Moreover, it can also provide a lot of energy. Therefore, later generations also listed sugar as a war preparation material. When serving in the Beihai Kingdom, eating sugar can be considered a very high welfare and is also the capital for soldiers to show off to their fellow villagers. As for large-scale sales of sugar to the outside world, it is estimated that it will take until the newly opened sugar cane fields will produce a large amount of sugar sugar.
In addition, Marin also began to sell canned fruits to the vassal states in small quantities, such as canned pineapple, canned oranges and canned yellow peaches (the seeds were brought back by Marin in the Ming Dynasty). However, the planting range of oranges and yellow peaches is still very small, mainly in the Savannah colony of North America. Therefore, the current yield is not high. Only the pineapple planting in Cuba has been put on a certain scale and can mass produce canned pineapples.
Of course, most of the canned fruits should be given priority in local supply. However, they can be sold in small quantities to the outside world. The price is naturally very high. At least, it should be hundreds of times the price of grain like the later Moutai. Well, a few hundred times the price of Finney per bottle. Anyway, you have no other source of goods, so you can only listen to my bid.
...
In addition to selling goods, Marin also placed orders and purchased from various vassal states. It mainly consists of beeswax, wooden barrels and flax, as well as some rare metal raw materials such as lead blocks and tin ingots.
The main reason for purchasing beeswax is that the Beihai country has a lot of canned food and the amount of sealed wax is also very large. Therefore, a large amount of beeswax is needed. The mountains in southern Germany are full of flowers, which is very suitable for beekeeping and can produce a lot of beeswax.
There is no need to mention wooden barrels. These days, most of the goods transported in Europe were barrels, with flour and salt. Although Marin invested in many oak barrel manufacturers in the Netherlands, and even purchased oak barrels in France. However, due to the developed trade and the transportation volume was large, wooden barrels were still in short supply. Therefore, Marin also began to purchase wooden barrels from the German vassal states.
As for linen, in addition to making clothes, it can also be made of ropes and sacks. Linen fiber is tougher and has much stronger tensile resistance than wool. Therefore, it can be used to make hemp ropes and sacks.
Although Marin is now seeking to use sisal ropes for ships in Beihai Country, the current production of sisal is limited, which can meet the needs of cables immersed in sea water at most. The ropes for sails on the surface of the ship are mainly hemp ropes. Therefore, the demand for linen is also quite large.
Needless to mention, lead blocks and tin ingots are indispensable, and are strategic materials. Of course, the princes of this era did not have this awareness and could buy them as long as they gave them money.
When Malin purchases supplies, he does not ask the other party to discount, but purchases according to market prices. Of course, if the other party is interested in some materials sold to the outside world in Beihai, he can barter. Malin also likes bartering the most because Beihai also lacks gold and silver. If you can exchange low-cost materials such as salt, liquor, iron and salted fish for urgently needed materials, it is excellent. Anyway, the cost of these materials is actually low. Even if you give discounts, Malin will make a lot of money.
Chapter completed!