A Good Landlord in the Tang Dynasty: Emperor Yuan Cong

Chapter 941 If you are stupid, money will come quickly.
On the pure white sand beach of the Gold Coast, tables were set up under the coconut trees.
sunset, beach,
Pineapple rice, coconut chicken, sashimi, steamed crab, boiled prawns, seafood pancakes, and a glass of coconut juice,

Very comfortable.

Wu Huaiyu is something you can eat a hundred times without getting tired of it.

The seafood here is really delicious.
However, Zhao Cheng and other pioneers stationed in Jinshan Port are already tired of eating seafood. Anyone who eats this stuff every day will get tired of it.

Seafood is high in protein and low in fat, so you won’t be hungry when you eat it. Jinshan Port has just started, and the oil here has to be shipped from outside. Cooking methods such as frying are very luxurious here, and the seafood is mainly boiled.
What everyone wants to eat most is pork, fat pork, the fatter the better. What they miss is the satisfying feeling of having your mouth full of oil after one bite, and even oil rising into your throat.

This time Wu Huaiyu specially brought a batch of piglets, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, and cattle.

The natives also raise pigs, but their pigs are of average breed, mainly free-range, and small in size. It is troublesome to raise them and they will not grow up. The ones Wu Huaiyu sent are good varieties that the Wu family has improved over the years, including black pigs. White pigs and spotted pigs are the kind of pigs that can grow to three or four hundred pounds.

In addition to bringing a lot of cubs this time,
I also brought some fat pigs, all here to reward everyone.

I killed ten heads today.
Seven hundred people, ten pigs, the gross weight is about 3,000 kilograms, and the meat is 2,120 kilograms. Including the water, one person can get three or four kilograms.
Just enough for two or three delicious meals.

The soybeans we brought were ground into pulp and made into tofu, which was stewed with pig blood tofu. The pig heads and intestines were stewed, the pig trotters were stewed with soybeans, and the ribs were stewed with kelp.
Then the pork belly is made into braised pork...

However, the Wu family was able to quietly colonize Luzon. Of course, they had already secretly recruited craftsmen to privately manufacture weapons overseas. Anyway, the privately manufactured weapons were only supplied overseas and did not flow into the country, which was not bad.

What concept?
Anyway, when Jinshan Port purchases rice from the natives, the price of dry rice is one penny per dou, and only ten cents per stone of dry rice. A kitchen knife costs eighty shi of rice.

“What’s the most popular thing about our stuff here?”

Half of the 700 people in Jinshan Port in Luzon are the Wu family's escorts. These are the Wu family's private armed forces. They are equipped with various equipment and weapons. They are no worse than those of the Tang Dynasty officers and soldiers.

And if it is a gorgeously decorated iron sword, the price will be ten times higher.

On the contrary, tea is a commodity with a small sales volume in maritime trade, but the growth volume is large.

The Wu family has engaged in maritime trade in the past few years, directly organizing goods and organizing ships to sail to the Southeast Asia. The business has been very impressive, and the types of goods exported are also very rich, with hundreds of types in total.

Not to mention these weapons,
Even the kitchen knives, hatchets, and axes sold in Jinshan Port made them excited, but they were expensive.

Anyway, these natives like all the goods carried on the Tang boats. They can crush the tribal products, so they are all valuable.

It is destined that for a long period of time in the future, they can only be the original outsiders, and they will always be the minority ruling the majority.

"You can also buy some slaves from those tribes. I know that the tribes here will also enslave some people from other tribes. We can buy them with goods for farming, breeding, fishing, etc."

Mainly agricultural products and their processed products, the most valuable ones are naturally silk and porcelain, followed by cane sugar, copper coins, cloth, medicinal materials, books, wine, salt, oil, as well as lacquerware, paper, ironware, etc.

Books, medicinal materials, tea, and even silk are actually not the most popular here.

A kitchen knife costs 800 yuan.

Everything was produced overseas by the Wu family in the Tang Dynasty.

Of the 700 people, half of them must be guards. Otherwise, this lonely place overseas may be attacked and destroyed by the natives. The priority must be to ensure the ability to protect ourselves.

"Each tribe can sell some weapons to them in small quantities and on a limited basis, but the number of armors must be strictly limited. A tribe can only sell three or five sets to it at most, and never more than ten sets. The price must be high. As for crossbows, they will not be sold, regardless of whether they are high or low. !”

As for the horizontal knife, the cheapest one costs 1,800, the medium one costs 2,100, and the top one costs 2,500.

"I'm really tired of eating these things from the sea and rivers, and I just want to eat something oily. Jinshan Port has everything good, but it lacks meat, eggs and oil. It's so short, especially oil. You can't buy it with the indigenous people. Their diet "It's just a fool's errand. If you just cook it in a pot, you won't even see any oil stars."

Then came trade and settlement,
"I can't get you many more people now. You have to find a way first to teach the tribe to grow sugar cane, rice, sweet potatoes, corn, etc., and make an agreement with them to buy those crops from them with the goods they want. ,"

Fortunately, the land here is fertile and the rainfall is sufficient. Although there is danger from typhoons, the conditions for growing sweet potatoes, corn, and rice are very good. It is very good to grow these for breeding.

"Our weapons are what they want most, and our copper coins are also what they like,"

Slowly turning some indigenous people into their own citizens is something that the colony must face. Luzon is in a special situation and cannot follow the same path as Liuqiu. Therefore, it is destined to be impossible to say that a large number of immigrants from the Central Plains can be obtained in the short term. , it is impossible to allow the Han people to overwhelm the number of indigenous people and become the new dominant ethnic group.

Therefore, absorbing the indigenous people must be faced.

Still have to be self-sufficient.

"These purchased indigenous slaves can also slowly select some docile and obedient ones and give them some rewards, and even grant them tribes, free people status, etc.,"

"There are still too few people," Zhao Cheng said honestly. They have now established such a small stronghold. These hundreds of people are mainly for trade with the natives.

"Let's grow more sweet potatoes and corn in the future, so that we can feed more pigs and sheep. If you don't like eating shrimps, crabs, and snails, you can pick them up and feed them to chickens and ducks. This way, they can lay eggs and eat meat."

The most popular weapons are Tang Dao, Tang sword, and even crossbow armor.

While a kitchen knife that sells for 800 yuan in Luzon, the Wu family sells it for 20 yuan a piece in Guangzhou, which is forty times more. But the transactions here are mainly barter.
The natives trade gold sand, rice, betel nuts and other local products. The purchase price of these local products is actually very low. A kitchen knife can make Jinshan Port a hundred times.

In the eyes of these Northern Luzon indigenous tribes, the weapons and armor of the Jinshan Port Guards are really good. The eight-foot long rifle, the crossbow that can shoot hundreds of steps, the horizontal sword that can even cut through several layers of cowhide, and the defensive Extremely strong leather armor and iron armor, nothing will make the tribesmen drool.

"Bows can be sold, but they have to be expensive. As for swords and spears, they can be sold in unlimited quantities, but the prices must be controlled."

This is maritime trade. There are no middlemen to make the difference. The Wu family takes care of everything from production to transportation to sales.

It's not practical to bring it in from outside, and it's not easy to get there, let alone live pigs and fresh meat. At most, you can send some bacon and fat.

There are everything from horizontal swords, bows, crossbows, armor, spears, and horses. It is not difficult to produce these things, but no one produces them privately in the Tang Dynasty.
It is a crime to keep armor, crossbows, and spears privately, let alone produce them privately.

Wu Huaiyu ate his seafood,

You may even have to be careful about non-aggression in the early stage, or even only establish strongholds along the coast to focus on trade.

"The tribes here prefer our ironware, porcelain, pottery, and lacquerware, as well as our boats, silks, cloths, umbrellas, mats, etc.,"

Even Zhao Cheng, the general manager, was full of food and applauded repeatedly.

Self-sufficient, abundant in food and clothing.

Zhao Cheng and the others don't even bother to take a look at crabs, shells and other delicious things now. They don't even bother looking at meat. Even fish and shrimp are not of interest to them anymore.
But don't worry about pigs and sheep here. Chickens and ducks are also difficult. We can only often find ways to organize escort teams to go hunting.

Zhao Cheng said worriedly, "Do you really want to sell weapons to them?"

"What are you afraid of? If they buy the Hengdaobulongbow, they can defeat us?" Huaiyu thinks there is no problem in selling it appropriately.
Just sell it more expensively.
"An ordinary bow costs 8,000 yuan, and a hundred arrows also cost 8,000 yuan."

"As for A, a set of 40,000 yuan is enough."

Zhao Cheng was a little stunned by the price Wu Huaiyu offered. Although he had been accustomed to the astonishing price difference in this kind of trade for two years, to be honest, he was still shocked when Wu Huaiyu told the price.

He also knows some prices of weapons and equipment in the Central Plains.
Basically speaking, general weapons, although not cheap, are not too expensive. For example, the price of a horizontal sword and a bow is basically the same, which is roughly equivalent to two or three stones of grain. In recent years, grain prices have been stable and the price is not high. , money is expensive and things are cheap, a rice dou in Chang'an only costs about five yuan.

Three stones of grain only cost one hundred and fifty yuan, which is exactly the price of a horizontal sword or a bow in Chang'an today.

A crossbow costs about three to five shi meters.
As for the relatively simple armors, leather armor costs about two cows, and iron armor costs three cows. Nowadays, one cattle is worth five pieces of silk, and the current price of silk is two hundred dollars per piece of silk. Cows are worth thousands of dollars.

A piece of leather armor is worth two thousand yuan, and a piece of iron armor is worth three thousand yuan.

The cavalry's vest is only about 10% more expensive than the infantry's armor, worth three thousand three thousand.

Those for officers are 30% to 50% more expensive, while those for generals are twice as expensive. In short, money is very valuable these days.

Now the Emperor of the Tang Dynasty is the Heavenly Khan respected by all Tibetan people. The Tang Dynasty has many war horse pastures and battlefield reserves. There are even many Tibetan countries that can provide sufficient war horses, so now the Tang Dynasty war horses are relatively cheap.

But this is what the Tang Dynasty only has.

At this time in Europe, their weapons production level was relatively weak. The knights' chainmail was equivalent to a war horse, a helmet alone was equivalent to half a war horse, and a pair of leg armor was equivalent to half a war horse. Knights A full set of armor is equivalent to two war horses.

At this time, one war horse was worth six bulls, and the knights' complete outfit was worth twelve bulls.

Nowadays, an ordinary cavalry vest in the Tang Dynasty is worth more than three thousand dollars, and a complete set of equipment only costs a few thousand dollars.

Of course, this is because money is valuable and prices are low in the Zhenguan Dynasty now.

But Wu Huaiyu wanted to sell it to the natives of Northern Luzon, but the price he offered was too high. A set of simple archer armor originally cost only three thousand dollars, but Wu Huaiyu dared to ask for forty thousand dollars, and the transaction was not directly with money. ,

The rice harvested by the natives in Jinshan Port only costs ten coins and one stone. This piece of iron armor can hold four thousand stones of rice? It’s worth sixty shi in China, but you’re selling it for 4,000 shi here?

Zhao Cheng, who is good at calculations, immediately concluded in his mind that this was nearly sixty-seven times.

"Mr. Sir, is the asking price too high? How about a lower price? One piece of archer's armor in exchange for thirty cows? Or twelve taels of gold sand from the natives?"

Wu Huaiyu thought about it. It was just an ordinary archer's armor. It was unreasonable to exchange it for four thousand stones of rice. After all, the price of rice set for the natives was too low.

Thirty oxen is actually quite expensive. In that damn place in Europe, a knight's outfit is only worth twelve oxen.
He thought for a while and said, "How about a piece of archer armor for fifteen big oxen? We can sell it for five times the price! It can be exchanged for fifteen thousand yuan, or six taels of gold sand."

In exchange for grain, it would cost 1,500 shi.

Leather armor is cheaper. A set of ten cows can be exchanged for 10,000 yuan, or four taels of gold sand, or a thousand shi of millet.

Zhao Cheng feels that the price of cattle and grain is unreasonable. A cow in the Central Plains is currently worth twenty shi of rice, but here a cow is worth a hundred shi of grain. Even if the grain and rice are discounted by 30%, this It is equivalent to seventy kilo meters per cow.

The price of grain is too low.

But Wu Huaiyu felt that the price of grain had to be lower. There was only so much of this stuff here. Why did Jinshan Port need so much grain? Did it have to be shipped back to Liuqiu or Lugang? Of course, the price had to be lower.

It is best to exchange it for gold. Even if the gold content of the gold sand is only 60 to 70%, if it is refined and processed, it will become more than 90% of red gold. Six taels of gold sand can be refined into four taels of red gold. In the Central Plains, it can be exchanged for more than 30,000 yuan, which is equivalent to changing hands. It has doubled again.

"Weapons should be exchanged for gold first. We have too much rice and we can't eat it all,"

"If the tribe doesn't have that much gold, they can go panning for it, or they can exchange it for slaves, or they can grow sugar cane or peanuts in exchange, and we can squeeze the sugar and oil to sell."

One tael of sand gold can be converted into two thousand and fifty cents. If the natives want to buy rare items such as weapons and equipment or iron pots and kitchen knives, the prices are converted into gold sand.
An iron armor costs six taels of gold dust, and a leather armor costs four taels of gold dust.
One tael of gold sand can be exchanged for a horizontal sword or a bow, and one tael of gold sand can be exchanged for a spear, a shield, or a hundred arrows.

Trading with Sands is the most cost-effective.

"Tomorrow, we will visit the tribe that has more than a hundred kilograms of ambergris." Wu Huaiyu coveted the piece of ambergris.
The natives exchange one tael of ambergris for twelve taels of gold sand or gold cake, which weighs more than one hundred kilograms. That means tens of thousands of taels of gold sand, but as long as you can buy it, it is definitely worth it.

The next day Wu Huaiyu had people prepare two ships full of goods and set off.

That tribe is near the mouth of the Abulu River northwest of Jinshan Fort, which is not too far away. The Abulu River is also a big river in Northern Luzon.

That tribe is a large tribe in the lower reaches of the river, with about two thousand people.

This is a tribal alliance that mainly engages in fishing but also planting. It is also a tribe that gets along well with Jinshan Fort.

The two-pound piece of ambergris they sold before was replaced by many other products, and I was very satisfied.

Wu Huaiyu asked Zhao Cheng to come to the door in person this time. A mighty fleet arrived, with more than a dozen large and small ships very majestic.

The transliteration of this tribe's name is the Abulu tribe, and they were quite warm and polite to their arrival.

"Dear leader of the Abulu tribe, I am the owner of Jinshan Fort. I came here to visit you. This is my gratitude."

Wu Huaiyu said and asked people to give gifts.

A gorgeous Mingguang Shanwen armor, a war horse, and a set of bow, knife, spear and shield.

One jar each of tea, wine, sugar, and salt, two pieces each of silk and cloth, a set of porcelain, a set of ironware, a set of lacquerware, and a set of bronzeware.

The chief was stunned.

Such a bold and generous gesture made the dark-skinned old man swallow his saliva.

"Dear Chief Abulu, we Tang people have always paid attention to good neighborliness and friendship." Wu Huaiyu asked the translator to convey the goodwill of his friend, and then proposed that he would like to make a deal, using two entire ships of goods, including the two sea ships, in exchange for the Abulu tribe. That piece of more than 100 kilograms of Zhen clan ambergris.

"My two big boats are full of good things, including silk, porcelain, cloth, iron, tea, sugar, salt and wine, pots and pans, and two boats."

"I also give you ten sets of iron armor, ten sets of leather armor, and one hundred pairs of swords, spears, bows and shields."

"So many things, just exchange for the piece of ambergris from your tribe,"

The old man thought he had heard wrongly. He glared at Huaiyu, "The goods of the two big ships, plus these two ships, and so many armors and weapons, just exchange for that piece of ambergris?"

Translation simultaneous translation,

Wu Huaiyu nodded to him, "The chief can get on the ship first and take a look at the goods on the ship, or I can have people move the goods off the ship for display."

After hearing the translation, the old man immediately stood up excitedly. With a greeting, a group of tribal old men followed him to the seaside and hurriedly inspected the goods on the ship.

Soon they disembarked and came back,
"We do,"

"Deal, deal,"

That piece of ambergris was said to have been passed down in their tribe for hundreds of years. It was of little use except for the wizard to prepare some medicine when someone in the tribe was sick, and to burn it during major tribal ceremonies.

Last time they got a piece and exchanged it for a lot of good things, and they were very satisfied. Unexpectedly, this time these people actually took out two full ships of goods, even two more ships, and many weapons in exchange for this pumice stone. .

The transaction went surprisingly smoothly,
The Ablu people liked the goods, the two ships even more, and they also drooled over the weapons and equipment. They couldn't refuse these good things delivered to their doorsteps.
Ambergris can be exchanged for gold sand on the island, but other tribes only exchange one or two small pieces occasionally, and they can't exchange for many good things.

Now that I have the opportunity to exchange for so many good things, it's like pie in the sky. Who cares that this thing is a family treasure.

Wu Huaiyu finally got the huge piece of ambergris. After careful inspection on the spot, it was indeed the same as the two kilogram piece he got.
Weighed on site, this piece of white ambergris still weighed more than 180 kilograms. According to the old leader of Abulu, the ambergris they first obtained from the belly of the whale was at least two pieces in size. It has been weighed for so many years. Half of it is used.

Wu Huaiyu was very sorry to hear this.
This one is two big, so isn’t it nearly four hundred pounds?

In the Central Plains, one tael is worth hundreds of thousands, more than 180 kilograms, 3,000 taels, or 300 million yuan. It can be worth 300 million yuan in retail.

This can be called a national treasure of the town.

The sea-going ships that the tribal elders like so much actually cost less than a thousand guan each. The goods on the ship only cost one or two thousand guan per ship. The ship and cargo of three or four thousand guan can be exchanged for 300,000 guan. ambergris,

Of course Wu Huaiyu made a lot of money.

There is no better deal in the world than this!

Luzon, people are stupid and have a lot of money, so come quickly!

(End of this chapter)