Chapter 227: Trade Discussions (Part 1)
"Selling to Later Jin probably won't work. Hong Taiji started as an anti-smoking activist, then became a tobacco trade protectionist. Selling this stuff to him really isn't easy."
Tobacco was introduced to Liaodong starting in the Tianqi reign. Supposedly it was a habit brought by soldiers transferred from Guangdong to Liaodong. Later, whether through trade, captured loot, or Korean plots—by the time Hong Taiji proclaimed himself emperor, people in Later Jin were also smoking tobacco. Not only were people smoking, but it was apparently quite widespread, to the point that Hong Taiji enjoyed the title of the world's first ruler to officially order a tobacco ban. According to Yu Eshui's historical sources, Later Jin should have already issued its first tobacco prohibition decree, because in a few years, he'd issue an edict rescinding the ban—though requiring subjects to grow and smoke their own rather than buying from Korea. Classic trade protectionism.
A few years later, the militarily weak Yi dynasty apparently planned to wage "unrestricted warfare" against Later Jin using tobacco, gifting large quantities to Manchu-Qing nobles and officials. According to the Yi Dynasty Veritable Records, at the time Korea's Crown Prince Sohyeon was being held hostage in Shenyang. Korean envoys had secretly brought 300 jin of tobacco as gifts. Hong Taiji considered this item "not a local product, wasteful of wealth," and ordered a major ban. Upon discovery, he again ordered strict prohibition.
"So selling tobacco to Later Jin is still difficult for us."
"It's only 1629 now—let's take this opportunity to make a killing first!"
"With Holy Ship brand cigarettes' quality, luxury goods indeed. You really think the wild boar skins are rich simpletons?" Yan Quezhi, who had tried the local tobacco, smirked. "The tobacco shreds keep falling out—a few puffs and your fingers get burned."
The transmigrators weren't impressed with the scarce, special-allocation transmigrator-brand cigarettes. Though the tobacco imported from Macau was top quality, it wasn't processed as the flue-cured tobacco modern people were used to. Combined with inferior cigarette paper and crude rolling techniques, smokers had to be very careful—otherwise, the loosely-packed tobacco shreds would suddenly fall out and burn holes in their clothes. This made cigarettes merely better than nothing.
Cigarette paper in the 20th century was a special type of paper—thin-leaf paper, specified at no more than 25g per square meter. The paper whiteness reached 82% or higher, with a dense, soft, fine texture. Opaque. It had high longitudinal tensile strength, certain breathability, and an appropriate burning rate. The main raw material was bleached hemp pulp, sometimes mixed with some bleached wood or grass pulp. To match tobacco's burning rate, small amounts of combustion aids were added. The paper surface was also roller-pressed with ribbed marks to increase breathability and improve appearance.
If making do, student exercise book paper was a fairly suitable substitute. Unfortunately, the transmigrators couldn't even produce paper at this level.
Though the paper-making workshop had been running for some time, product quality had never exceeded the era—the workshop was still making paper according to 17th-century papermaking techniques. This greatly affected paper quality and output. But the papermakers were helpless—they lacked two key papermaking materials: caustic soda and sulfuric acid.
Without caustic soda, the workshop could only use a very limited set of raw materials: various rags and tattered clothing recovered from immigrants' "purification" process, fishermen's discarded hemp nets and rope, waste cotton, and a few types of tree bark. This severely limited raw material sources. Without sulfuric acid, they couldn't bleach the pulp. So the paper produced was neither white nor smooth—besides solving the transmigrator collective's toilet paper and packaging paper needs, it served no purpose. The Education Department could only issue slate boards to students for writing and calculating with chalk.
"Not a major problem. Aim to start production within a month," Ji Situi patted his chest. With over a thousand laborers on the worksite, they could manually erect those large structural frames and various towers using primitive methods.
"Once we can produce the three acids and two alkalis, I'll be relieved," Ma Qianzhu said. "So many urgent matters are stuck on this right now!"
Wen Desi said: "These things don't matter much. As our industrialization progresses, overcoming technical difficulties is just a matter of time. Linggao, even all of Hainan Island, is too small to provide all the manpower and materials we need for industrialization. For construction and immigration, the transmigrator nation is destined to be a trading nation. Light industry planning should also be based on this."
Foreign Trade Company General Manager Lu Rong stood up: "I'd like to report on a comprehensive plan for future trade. This plan will need strong support from our industrial colleagues."
"We can reference the current state of international trade. We mainly import low-tech raw materials, semi-processed products, and light industrial goods: for example, raw cotton, ore, pig iron, non-ferrous metals, timber, livestock, and people. In the First Five-Year Plan, the transmigrator nation should have light industrial product exports at the highest level—about sixty percent. High-tech industrial products should be twenty to thirty percent. Ocean trade services and financial services about ten percent.
"Transmigrator agricultural and light industrial products might include: various alcohols, white sugar, sewing needles, silk, glass, ceramics, canned goods, paper, fertilizer, pepper, tea.
"Among these—spices, tea, silk, ceramics—we'll use entrepôt trade. We don't directly produce these products, but enter the trade as middlemen.
"Other products will be provided by the industrial sector. These are all products where we have unique technology or production capacity advantages.
"Higher-tech industrial products would be: pharmaceuticals, soap, MSG, optical instruments, precision instruments and tools—the last few items just need to be made somewhat better than European products of the time. Not only can we profit from back-exporting to Europe, but we can also use this opportunity to create European scientific systems' dependence on our products, eliminate their creative inventions, attract their excellent scientific talent, and ultimately achieve complete dissolution and elimination of the European scientific system—"
Dr. Zhong's eyes lit up when he heard this: "This way I can really screw over Huygens! Actually, I'll just recruit him as my assistant." His brow suddenly furrowed. "Damn, he was only born this year. It'll be at least another 20 years before he can be my assistant."
"Who's Huygens?"
"The inventor of the modern clock," Zhong Lishi said. "Strictly speaking, the inventor of the pendulum principle. Though I've decided to claim credit for these inventions myself."
Ma Qianzhu said: "Clocks are useful to us, but as trade goods they're only luxury items. I don't see ordinary Ming people having a need for precise timekeeping."
"Europeans should have significant demand. Their maritime trade is developed, and precise timekeeping is very important for navigators' positioning at sea."
"This way, we'll completely destroy the future European clock industry," Lu Rong was immersed in his "trade warfare" theory.
Ma Qianzhu nodded, gesturing for him to continue.
"Then there's shipbuilding and various printed materials, all very competitive."
Li Haiping said: "Hmm, actually I think at a certain point—say when the First Five-Year Plan is half done—things like instant noodle factories, canning factories, and rice noodle factories should encourage local gentry and merchants to invest. We provide cheap technology and machinery; they invest in setting up, operating, and selling. What do we need to own these things for? Civilian industry—as long as it's not core stuff, let private parties handle it. They understand better how to operate and make money. We just need to teach them modern industrial production organization and business management."
Wang Luobin said: "That's too far off. Right now, planned economy is more suitable—planned economy is advantageous for unified allocation of manpower and materials. Besides, we're cultivating a new generation of industrial workers. This won't show results in one or two years. If you privatize enterprises, capitalists' nature is profit-seeking. They have no interest in cultivating industrial workers. And Linggao may not have gentry-merchants with such capabilities anyway."
But Yu Eshui kept shaking his head: "Everyone, though our trade-nation foundation isn't problematic, have you considered one issue?"
Everyone's gaze swept toward him.
The imperial capital history otaku said unhurriedly: "Everyone, before you continue discussing, let me first read you a few passages. I've recently read several books about foreigners' experiences in late Qing China. I feel feudal small-peasant economy consumption habits are completely from a different dimension than modern commodity economics. Let me excerpt a few passages to throw some cold water:
"All Chinese housewives know how to maximize their fabric use... What can't be used in one place will certainly be used elsewhere. Even scraps must be fully utilized—used for sole-stitching... These items are always used to the fullest. Even final scraps are matched with other fabrics until completely exhausted.
"...Three sedan bearers carried him for 5 hours, traveling 23 miles, then walked back to Guangzhou to eat the breakfast provided for them. They walked 46 miles before breakfast, half of it carrying a load—all to save 5 cents."
"...Most Chinese wheelbarrows creak when pushed, due to lack of lubricating oil... Yet those with deadened nerves consider noise cheaper than oil, preferring to creak rather than apply a few drops.
"A Chinese mother saw her child covered in dust and used an old broom to sweep him off. A curious foreign woman said, 'Does your child bathe daily?' 'Daily?' the Chinese mother answered angrily. 'He hasn't bathed since he was born.' For ordinary Chinese, even if soap retailers put up signs saying 'cheaper than dirt,' it won't have any effect.
"...It's generally impossible to buy any ready-made tools, but you can buy some semi-finished products, then process and finish them yourself. Because doing it yourself is always cheaper than buying ready-made. Everyone wants cheap, so there's nothing ready-made.
"These descriptions may be biased or exaggerated, but at least they prove that small-peasant economy society's consumption views differ vastly from modern people's. From this we can summarize the general consumption view of ancient—at least Ming-Qing era—lower-class working people: time, effort, comfort, convenience are all 'free.' As long as you can save even one copper coin, you can freely squander these 'free' elements. In some elderly people today, remnants of this consumption habit can still be seen...
"Strictly speaking, we haven't truly entered mass consumer goods production yet. From this we can derive a research topic: in pursuing an economic path and trade-nation building in this timeline, how do we transform ancient people's consumption habits?"
(End of Chapter)