Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 359 Trip to Foshan ([-])

Watching Sao Ye leave, Li Luoyou calculated that in Dengzhou he had a thousand catties of red ginseng and hundreds of catties of deer antlers recently shipped from Liaodong, which would be worth more than 1 taels of silver. It is not a problem for Yang Run to eat all of Yang Run's strength.It's just that there are so many red ginseng listed in Foshan at once, I'm afraid it will cause trouble.

Suddenly he remembered something, pulled out a key from his waist, and opened the lock on a cabinet door.Find a "ledger" from inside.On the woolen cloth cover of this ledger, there are only three words "Foshan Town", and below it is the year name: Revised in the first year of Chongzhen.

This is a "personal account", which lists in detail the public and private figures in Foshan Town who need to socialize.Including family members, addresses, personal preferences and other details, some particularly important people, even the death dates of their deceased elders are clearly recorded.There is also a record of every gift that has been given in the past.He turned to the entry of "Lin Ming".Lin Ming's whole family was listed on it one by one, and everyone's birthday was marked on the bottom.Mrs. Lin's birthday is just three days away.

This local Lin Baihu from the Jinyiwei Baihu Office is very talkative and has contacts on weekdays. As long as he pretends not to know, no one in Foshan will talk about it.

"It's time." Li Luoyou nodded and closed the account book.

With the relationship between Lin Ming and him, it can't be said that they were very familiar with each other. Apart from the usual three gifts, the sudden gift was too revealing.Mrs. Lin's birthday is a good opportunity to give extra gifts.

The gift must be expensive and please Mrs. Lin's favor, or else just send a few hundred taels of silver.Although the money is good, it means nothing to Mrs. Lin. Once a woman feels that she is not valued, blowing the pillow wind on the bed is very powerful, not to mention that Mrs. Lin is said to be very favored and more lethal.So gift giving is a lot of work.

He opened a large cabinet in the study and locked it. Inside, there were various boxes stacked on top of each other: brocade, mother-of-pearl, red-tipped...and so on, all of which were expensive gifts, specially used for entertainment. Important characters.

Right now, what women like most and want most is nothing more than an Australian goose egg mirror in Guangzhou Zizhenzhai.

He went to Zizhen Zhai once, and when he entered the door, he was startled by the entire giant glass mirror inside.Li Luoyou had already seen glass mirrors in Macau.But such a huge and clean mirror, even the Portuguese in Macau were amazed when they saw it, saying that it is impossible to make such a huge glass.

Not only mirrors, Zizhenzhai sells things that are novelty-oriented, and many of them have never been seen in the local area—it’s fine if you haven’t seen it in the local area. Li Luoyou often travels to Macau like this, and he is quite similar to the red-haired man. I haven't seen any familiar businessmen.

For the convenience of gifting, Li Luoyou bought many novelties in Zizhenzhai, and stored them in several places for easy access at any time.

Immediately, I took a goose egg mirror from Zizhenzhai; a box of distilled flower and herbal perfume in twelve-color glass bottles; It is the real "Eastern Pearl" - the pearls in Liaodong are famous for their large and round shape, far better than the "Hepu Pearl" in Guangdong, which is nearly exhausted.is also a commodity he often trafficked in;

It was much easier to prepare for Lin Baihu. I prepared a recently issued Delong Bank 200 tael money order cashed at sight.This thing is really convenient to use, at least you don't have to openly use the box to give gifts and bribes.

Of course, Li Luoyou knew that this was not Delong's invention. There was "flying money" in the Tang Dynasty. He also saw Brahmin and Portuguese merchants using money orders in Macau.It's just that he never thought of introducing this system into Daming.I didn't expect that Delong would actually be introduced, and it would be done in this area.Of course, this is inseparable from the strong support of Guo Yi, the big shopkeeper of Zizhenzhai, and the Gao family in Guangzhou-he doubts that the so-called Delong is the behind-the-scenes boss of these two companies.

After dinner, Li Luoyou invited two foreigners to a secret meeting in his study.

"Come on, let's have a drink and talk while drinking." He took out three wine glasses and a black wine bottle from the cabinet.This is wine shipped all the way from Europe.Li Luoyou doesn't like the sour taste of wine, and he doesn't like to drink it dry without appetizers, it's purely for embellishment to entertain foreign guests.

"Thank you, you always have unexpected good things here." Quark smiled broadly.This British businessman was rich and poor from time to time. When he was down and down, he often ate at Li Luoyou's mansion in Macau.

"Thank you." Ma Yangchun's eyes lit up when he saw Youjiu.He has been in Macau for more than three years, he already speaks Mandarin very well, and he is also familiar with Li Luoyou.However, he was a respected figure in the Jesuit Society of Macau at the beginning-this man always exudes a beast-like stench, which even his colleagues can't stand. Intemperance.It made the president very troubled.

However, under the careful training of the Italians, this rude German priest has become much more civilized, at least he knows to take a bath and change clothes frequently.He used to have a big beard, but for the convenience of preaching, he had shaved off his beard and looked much younger.

"Li, is there a 'Princess of the Tang Dynasty' here?"

"No, this is Zichengji's export product, I don't have it here." Li Luoyou smiled, the bitter taste of rhubarb from Princess Datang was really unbearable.

"Come on, have a drink first."

The three drank the wine in the glass.Li Luoyou poured them again.This is where we get to the point.

This time he brought two foreigners to Foshan for two reasons.The first is to see if a missionary base can be established in Foshan. Li Luoyou is a Catholic—his father was baptized when he went to Macau to do business in his early years.Before Li Luoyou became an adult, he lived with his father in Xiangshanao. When he was young, he studied with the priest in the church. He was not very interested in dogma and teachings, but he was interested in European natural science and mathematics, algebra, plane and solid geometry are well learned. In this time and space, he is one of the very few talents who have mastered western mathematics.

As one of the few Catholics in Ming Dynasty, Li Luoyou was duty-bound to spread the Gospel. He traveled between Macau and Guangzhou many times, picked up and sent missionaries in and out, transported religious books, and recruited believers among his servants many times.Of course his activism was not all motivated by religious zeal, the Jesuits also played a vital role in his business.

Secondly, it is planning to open a foundry in Foshan to manufacture Western cannons and muskets.After the great victory of Ning Jin, the imperial court's interest in Western firearms increased sharply.In the first month of this year, the imperial court accepted Xu Guangqi's suggestion and ordered Li Fengjie, the governor of Guangdong, and Wang Zunde, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, to entrust Portuguese merchants to purchase Western cannons.The Portuguese immediately offered ten cannon and a number of matchlocks.And several gunners led by Portuguese officers and a missionary escorted them with the guns.This is the second large-scale purchase and delivery of Western artillery to Beijing after Zhang Tao and Sun Xueshi transported artillery to Beijing during the reign of Emperor Tianqi.

Li Luoyou read Xu Guangqi's memorial from the manuscript in his residence - he and Xu Guangqi did not know each other, but they were both Catholics, and they also had a strong interest in Western military science and technology.He agreed with Xu Guangqi's policy of imitating Western cannons and "training elite soldiers to make sharp weapons" in his memorial. It is clear what the status of the "frontier army" of the Great Wall is.This weak, undertrained, and demoralized army is no match for the Houjin soldiers at all.

The imperial court's demand for western firearms increased, which was a great business opportunity for Li Luoyou - in addition to business opportunities, he also held the idea of ​​serving the country loyally and serving the country by renewing weapons for the imperial army and enhancing their combat power.Nowadays, many people in the officialdom regard gunpowder and firearms as a stepping stone to their official career, and articles, articles, and memorials on various gunpowder formulas, firearms, and artillery techniques are flying all over the sky.For Li Luoyou, who doesn't know much about firearms, but has a little knowledge of Western technology, the number of mistakes in it makes him heartbroken-this is to harm the country.He decided: instead of letting ignorant people randomly use firearms as their promotion talismans, it is better to handle them by themselves.

Li Luoyou estimated that the imperial court would not purchase too many cannons from Macau, and they would soon enter the imitation stage.He was clear: the Portuguese foundries in Macau had limited capacity and a serious shortage of skilled foundry craftsmen.He also knew that the Macau Municipal Council passed a resolution to lure Chinese foundry craftsmen to work in Macau to cast iron cannons.The thirty so-called Hongyi cannons purchased during the reign of Tianqi were basically naval cannons dismantled from the stranded British East India Company ship-this matter, the court is not clear about it, but it does not mean that Li Luoyou is not clear about it.

In terms of cost, it is naturally cheaper to make it in the country, and the imperial court also feels that it is more reliable to entrust the people of the imperial court to make this "military weapon" than those foreigners with high noses and deep eyes.

There are not many factories in Foshan that cast cannons for the imperial court.But none of them understand the main gun technology of Western cannons.Li Luoyu didn't understand either, but he had the backing of the Jesuits, so it was not a problem to recruit specialized craftsmen from Macau or Goa.Furthermore, he still has the Englishman Quark Poor available, and he can be asked to find the channel of the East India Company when necessary.

"Of course I agree with the proposal to open a foundry in Foshan." Ma Yangchun said. If the needs of the emperor and officials are met, we will spread the gospel more smoothly."

"Father is right." Li Luoyou said, "This is how Father Lu and Father Tang got into the capital."

(End of this chapter)