Yuan Shao, the father of Fanghua in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 485
Mi Fang led Yuan Xi all the way past, but Yuan Xi saw several seagoing ships berthing at the pier to unload their cargo. From time to time, people were pushing cargo off the boat, and the waterline was gradually higher than the water surface.

Yuan Xi saw a ship below the waterline with dense white spots, so he couldn't help but walked in and took a closer look. Isn't this a barnacle?

He went over to touch the rows of barnacles and said with a smile, "This looks delicious."

Mi Fang listened and said with a smile: "Shi Jun really understands things at sea, but this thing has caused a lot of damage to the plank of the ship. If it is not disposed of, the plank of the ship will only become weaker, but even if it is cleaned, the plank of the ship will be far away. Not as solid as before.”

"Only one long voyage, the deck of this ship has been damaged a lot, I'm afraid it will only go offshore in the future."

Yuan Xi suddenly realized, "The Mi family caravan also has distant sea trade routes?"

Mi Fang explained: "It's just one or two ships. My little girl had a whim at the time, saying that the Zhen family's caravan built ocean-going merchant ships must have seen some great business opportunities. Why don't the Mi family give it a try."

"I was reluctant at the beginning. Ocean trade is not easy to pay back, and the danger is great, but she insisted on her own opinion and supplemented her own private house. I really had no choice, so I sent two seagoing ships to the sea one after another. One went to Java. , go to Siam."

"At first, I didn't take it seriously. After all, it takes nearly half a year to go back and forth to the place of distant sea trade. There are many winds and waves. Most of the ships going south often fail to return. There are also some."

"But this time I'm lucky. The boats to Java and Siam came back one after another. The Siamese one just arrived yesterday."

After hearing this, Yuan Xi thought that Siam is Thailand. This place is rich in spices, and it is indeed the favorite of the gentry in the Central Plains. If there are other things, there may be tea and rare animals, right?

He said, "Can I have a look at the special products I brought back?"

Mi Fang guessed that Yuan Xi was very interested in overseas products, otherwise she wouldn't have sent Zhen's family ships out to sea again and again, so she immediately said, "I'll show you the envoy."

Everyone went all the way to the wharf warehouse. Mi Fang asked people to open the door, and there was a lot of goods inside. Yuan Xi found that most of the goods were very similar to those brought by the Zhen family's merchant ship. There were spices, tea, and even precious decorations such as coral trees and tortoise shells. , but they just don’t have the crops they want.

Think about it too, compared to spices and accessories with extremely high profits, who would bring crops that can't be preserved or sold at a price?
Seeing Yuan Xi standing silently in front of the cargo box, Mi Fang asked tentatively, "Your envoy seems to be very interested in ocean trade routes?"

"Shu Fang bluntly said that overseas is a place where barbarians have been turned away, and the land is full of miasma. Although the goods are valuable, they don't seem to make much money in terms of time and loss."

Yuan Xi raised his head and sighed: "The eunuch has hit a point."

"In terms of profit and loss alone, most of the ocean-going business routes are losing money, and there are still a lot of losses."

An extremely unacceptable fact is that before Europe discovered America, the profits of ocean-going voyage trade were not high, and losing money was the norm, far less stable than local production. Adventurers who go to sea need to find gold. Only with the support of the Lord can we get together the money for ocean voyages, but a large part of this money is lost.

Because ocean-going trade has a long time cycle, high risks, high crew mortality rates, and extremely fluctuating profits, Western navigators have not been able to find a channel for large-scale profits for a long time.

Europe found that Africa was unable to develop local commodity industries for a long time, and the slave trade became the most profitable option.

It wasn't until the discovery of America, the establishment of a stable shipping route, and the acquisition of precious metals, gold and silver that could be exchanged for commodities from other origins, that the black triangle trade with stable and large profits was formed among Europe, Africa, and America.

Europe loaded wine, salt, cloth, etc. from its own country, went to Africa along the central air route to exchange for black slaves, and then unloaded the slaves in America, exchanged them for gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, and then returned to Europe.

After the formation of this stable trade route, Europe began to slowly accumulate a large amount of original capital, and then had more spare money to invest in the development of trade routes to China.

Before that, the trade route from Europe to China could only have one-way profits, because they needed China's porcelain and tea silk, but China didn't need anything from them.

It wasn't until Europe used the silver obtained from the Americas that it slowly opened the door to China's trade, but it was a long time later.

The ocean trade routes that Mi Fang refers to are the trade routes between Xuzhou and Yangzhou to the south of Jiaozhi. These trade routes have not yet formed a fixed route, not to mention the high risk. The currency cannot be unified either.

Facing numerous obstacles, it may take several years, decades, or even hundreds of years of continuous investment before Huaxia can establish profitable and cyclically stable trade routes with Southeast Asian countries.

The more stable and prosperous the world is, the more luxuries such as spices and accessories from Nanyang countries can be sold, and more profits can be made, thus forming a virtuous circle. It's too advanced. This is a long ice age in which the gentry will starve to death. In the face of famine, luxury goods are useless.

Yuan Xi had to admit that from the perspective of this world, Mi Fang's words were undoubtedly very correct.

If I didn't have the experience and knowledge of future generations, I wouldn't spend huge sums of money to let the fleet sail to unknown places to take risks.

However, the benefits of sailing are not only to obtain profits, but to obtain advanced experience from other regions, promote cultural integration, inclusiveness, and enhance the progress of Chinese civilization, which is the greatest significance given by sailing.

Although Yuan Xi understands some knowledge of later generations, these systems are not perfect. For example, many knowledge of modern industry cannot be applied in this era. If many things based on basic manufacturing industry are only superficial, they may not be as effective as the native methods of this era. .

For example, Yuan Xi tried to use concrete to make city walls, but after careful calculation, he found that it was far inferior to the glutinous rice mortar method that appeared in the late Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties in terms of cost and manufacturing difficulty.

"Tiangong Kaiwu" has detailed records on the composition, production method and performance of glutinous rice mortar: "One part of the ash is put into the river sand, and the other part of the loess is mixed with glutinous rice and carambola vine juice. After construction, it will never be broken. , called Sanhe soil."

This kind of compound soil added with glutinous rice juice is glutinous rice mortar, which has the advantages of high strength, good toughness, and good anti-seepage performance. The highest achievement of base adhesive.

There is a Qing Dynasty stone pagoda in Baohe Town, Rongchang, Chongqing, which has a history of more than 10 years. It is 45 meters high and has a slope of [-]°, but it has not collapsed so far. The toughness of this material is not much worse than that of modern cement.

At least in the early Western Han Dynasty, Huaxia had already used a lime mixture similar to the later called Sanhe soil (lime, loess and sand), which is also the most economical and effective method for making city walls today.

What Yuan Xi has to do now is to test and improve it into the glutinous rice mortar method on this basis to build a stronger city wall.

This idea is feasible, because the required pre-technology has been completed, and the new technology after that only needs an opportunity.

In contrast, concrete lacks certain key links in the chain, both in terms of economy and large-scale production, and it cannot be solved immediately.

Technological progress is gradual. Only by taking one step at a time can the required front-end technology be gradually illuminated. It is unrealistic to take a big step and take a dozen or even dozens of steps.

Just like it is absolutely impossible to change from a wooden sailboat directly into a steam ironclad ship, that kind of thing can only exist in an unrealistic fantasy.

Therefore, for Yuan Xi, the current high-sea voyage is still in the stage of exploration and experimentation, and it is not only for the purpose of developing trade, but to use it to promote the overall development of related industries.

Yuan Xi also couldn't explain to Mi Fang in detail that he was going out to sea for trade right now, just to find a few crops that are very useful to China, and these things will greatly enhance the ability to deal with natural disaster risks.

This process is long and arduous. It may take many years, and it may not be possible until Yuan Xi dies. However, Yuan Xi believes that since it will be started sooner or later, of course the sooner the better. Pointing the way is also good.

He turned around, patted the dust off his hands, and said with a smile, "I heard that in the Nanyang Islands, some crops are resistant to severe cold and can solve the food shortage in the world today. If the eunuch goes to sea again, people should pay attention."

"Of course, these things are not easy to find."

Mi Fang was skeptical, but didn't take it to heart, and just dealt with it perfunctorily.

He led the crowd to the Mi Mansion, where the host and guest were seated opposite each other. Although Mi Fang was not good at politics, she still had the ability to be active in business for many years. Under his guidance, the atmosphere on the court gradually became more relaxed.

While persuading her to drink, Mi Fang murmured in her heart, should the little girl come out to serve the wine?

After Liu Bei accepted Mi Zhen as his righteous sister, he wrote a letter to Youzhou, expressing the meaning of marriage, and Youzhou also implicitly expressed his agreement, but after that, it was delayed again because of the war between Youzhou and Donglai Sea. .

Mi Fang didn't know if Liu Bei was in a hurry, but he was.

Mi Zhen is not young anymore, the world has changed more and more in the past few years, Liu Bei's strength has not increased much, but Yuan Xi's strength has been greatly strengthened!
To say that Mi Zhen became Yuan Xi's official wife three years ago, the Mi family still had some ideas, but today, three years later, Mi Fang no longer dares to think about it.

Yuan Xi's strength expanded too fast. Who knows where he will go if this continues? Even after he gave birth to two sons, there were rumors among the gentry that Yuan Xi's son might be adopted back to Yuan Shao's branch !

This is an issue involving the heirs of the Yuan family. Although everyone does not say it publicly, they secretly feel that Yuan Xi will go back and inherit the Yuan family in the future?

Although this kind of thinking is absurd, but when Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were flying eagles and running dogs, who knew that they were the two who inherited the Yuan family and the Cao family respectively?

What's more, combined with Yuan Xi's recent performance, this possibility is getting bigger and bigger!
The Han Dynasty inherited the Qin system, Confucianism outside and Law inside, since Gaozu, there has been a tendency to establish virtuous people, and the debate between the gentry to find heirs to establish virtuous people and elders has never stopped.

So Mi Fang is anxious to send Mi Zhen out, if the other party becomes the head of the Yuan family, I'm afraid she won't bother to have a relationship with the Mi family anymore!

(End of this chapter)