Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 644 Porcelain
Li Jing smiled and said: "We are still at war with Spain, don't say we can't trade with Spain at this time, even if there is still trade, we will not sell weapons to them, isn't that an enemy? As for France, we don’t have any trade with France yet. In Europe, we only have the Netherlands as a trading partner now, do you think we have other options?”

De Bauer was overjoyed when he heard the words: "So the Prime Minister agrees? Then our two countries will sign an agreement immediately."

Li Jing shook his head and smiled, "It's better not to sign this kind of agreement, and I suggest that you don't sell weapons to France and Spain through the government, but in the name of merchants."

After hearing the words, De Bauer thought for a while and suddenly realized: "Your Excellency has the best opinion, it is true that weapons cannot be sold in the name of the government."

Li Jing smiled: "It's really a pleasure talking to Mr. De Bauer."

"It's really a pleasure to talk to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is very knowledgeable. It is a blessing for us in the Netherlands to be able to get the Prime Minister's advice. I am now appointed by the king as the Dutch envoy to Daming, and I will be stationed in Daming in the future. Give me some pointers." De Bauer hurriedly said.Li Jing smiled and waved his hands: "Mr. De Bauer, this is just my personal opinion, and you have to decide for yourself in the end. In addition, I don't want to participate in your war."

"Yes, I understand, I understand." De Bauer said hurriedly.

Li Jing smiled and continued: "Okay, Mr. De Bauer, let's talk about your five ships and your captured soldiers.

First of all, I want to make it clear that when we met in Fujian last year, I fulfilled all my promises to you. You must have seen your family when you passed by Fuzhou this time, and their lives are quite good. "

"Yes! Yes! Under the care of the Prime Minister, my family's life has not been affected." De Bauer hurriedly said.

"I'm telling you this to tell you that I am very sincere in doing business with you in the Netherlands, so I hope you can also show sincerity." Li Jing continued.

De Bauer hurriedly said: "We did come here with sincerity, and I don't hide from the Prime Minister. Since our country participated in the war against the Holy Roman Empire, the national strength will inevitably be affected. If according to what the Prime Minister said price, then we won’t be able to buy much supplies this trip.”

Li Jing smiled: "If you don't have money, you still need to buy 500 guns and 300 million bullets? That's [-] million taels of silver."

De Bauer smiled awkwardly: "My lord, the money was raised by the East India Company." "

Li Jing waved his hands and said with a smile: "I mean what I say. In this way, we were talking about five ships and soldiers for a total of 130 million taels of silver, right? Let me make a round number for you, just 100 million taels of silver. What do you think?" how?"

"Thank you, Prime Minister." De Bauer said hurriedly.

Li Jing smiled and said: "You are not in a hurry to thank me, I have something to say first, I can return the soldiers to you, but whether they are willing to return to the country with you, I have no control over that."

"Ah! What is the meaning of this, Mr. Prime Minister?" De Bourr asked anxiously.

Li Jing smiled and said: "Hehe, I can't keep your soldiers for nothing for the past half a year, can I? Count the money with you, and you have to bargain with me. In the end, I'm afraid I won't be able to get the food money. So, I asked people to arrange for them to work. I went, of course I was paid for the work, and the salary was not low.

Now many of these people are used to the current life, so they may not be willing to go back to China with you. "

"Then why should we redeem them?" De Bourr asked anxiously.

Li Jing shook his head and said with a smile: "Those who should be redeemed will still be redeemed. At least those officers should be willing to return to the country with you. As for the soldiers, if you don't redeem them, I'm afraid it will be very difficult for you to recruit soldiers in the future."

De Bourr couldn't help but smile wryly when he heard the words, this Li Jing is really too shrewd, if only the officer returns to the country, it means that only the officer's ransom will be saved.

But the word has been said for this sake, and De Bauer can no longer bargain.

Seeing De Bauer's unwilling expression, Li Jing said with a smile: "Mr. De Bourr, I saved you 30 taels of silver, now you should have a lot of money, plus the more than 200 million for the purchase of arms Two silver coins, I think we still have a lot of business to do."

De Bauer smiled wryly and said: "Your Excellency is very shrewd in calculating the accounts. I will never be able to send the silver back to the country. How about this? I want to buy some porcelain, tea and silk. In addition, I also bring a ship of supplies from my country. I hope A merchant who can sell it to Daming."

Li Jing said with a smile: "No problem, but I won't ask about these commercial matters. This is a matter between businessmen."

De Bauer was overjoyed when he heard the words, and hurriedly said, "How dare you bother the Prime Minister with these trivial matters."

Li Jing shook his head and smiled, "Although I don't care about business matters, I can introduce you to a few merchants."

De Bauer was startled when he heard the words, and thought: The merchants you introduced naturally uphold your will, even if they did not uphold your will, the people you introduced are probably very shrewd, if they are all like you, then my business I'm afraid there won't be much profit.

But Li Jing proposed, how could De Bauer refuse, so he could only smile wryly: "Then thank you, Prime Minister."

Li Jing said with a smile: "De Bauer, you don't need to be polite. You come to Daming, you are Daming's guest. As a landlord, I naturally have to try my best to satisfy you."

Smiling, Li Jing continued: "Our imperial family and aristocrats in Daming also need a large amount of fine porcelain, so His Majesty the Emperor built a porcelain factory himself, the Daming Royal Porcelain Factory, and now most of the porcelain in the palace is produced by the Royal Porcelain Factory Yes, the porcelain in my mansion is also from the Royal Porcelain Factory.

Aren't you going to buy porcelain?In my opinion, let's buy it from our Daming Royal Porcelain Factory. "

Hearing the words, De Bourgh hesitated and said, "The emperor's factory must not be wrong. It's just the porcelain used by the Ming royal family. I'm afraid they won't sell it to us?"

Li Jing smiled and waved to the little eunuch standing at the gate of the hall.The little eunuch turned and went out, and walked in after a while carrying two boxes.

Li Jing waved his hand and ordered the little eunuch to open the box, then took out a piece of porcelain from the box and handed it to De Bauer: "Mr. Paul, please look."

De Bauer took it and looked at it for a while, and couldn't help admiring: "It's really beautiful, this... I have never seen such exquisite porcelain!"

Li Jing smiled, and ordered the little eunuch to hand over the remaining pieces of porcelain in the box to De Bauer's companions to watch, and everyone passed it on to read it, and they all exclaimed in admiration.

Li Jing smiled, pointed to a few pieces of porcelain and said: "These porcelains are specially produced for members of the royal family, and they are a little worse than those used in the palace. If Mr. De Bauer thinks it's not bad, we can provide you with a batch of these. Porcelain for your king and members of your royal family. Of course, there will not be too many such porcelains, and we can only sell you a few hundred pieces. I think Mr. de Bower should understand the reason."

De Bauer nodded again and again: "Understood, such exquisite porcelain must have been selected from countless pieces of porcelain, and I dare not expect too much. Besides, ordinary people can't afford such porcelain, only the royal family and nobles can afford it." .”

Li Jing smiled and said: "However, we can provide thousands of pieces of porcelain that are slightly inferior to this kind of quality. As for ordinary tens of thousands of pieces, there is no problem. Of course, you can also go to Jingdezhen in Jiangxi to have a look. The so-called shopping around Are there three?"

De Bauer said with a smile: "Mr. Prime Minister, we have seen Jingdezhen porcelain before. There are not many exquisite ones like this, and there are not many inferior ones. Therefore, we all want this batch of porcelain. It's just about the price. Please take care of it, Your Excellency." one time."

Li Jing shook his head: "I can't control this, this is the emperor's factory, and everything is up to the emperor."

Seeing De Bauer looking at him, Zhu Youjian said with a smile: "I just set up the factory and collect money. I don't care about the specific matters. The people below will handle them, so you can see that I'm useless."

De Bauer hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, although you don't care about things, it's okay to say hello to the people below, right?"

Li Jing shook his head and said with a smile: "Your Majesty, then you should say hello to Cheng En and ask Cheng En to give Mr. De Bourner a little bit more money. After all, Mr. De Bourner is not far away, so we have to let people make money, right?"

Zhu Youjian nodded with a smile: "Okay, then I will say hello to Cheng En and ask Cheng En to give Mr. De Bauer a little bit cheaper."

Hearing this, De Bauer hurriedly said, "Thank you, Your Majesty, and thank you, Prime Minister."

Zhu Youjian smiled and waved his hands, speaking politely.But secretly funny in my heart.

Heart said: You do business with Li Jing, Li Jing sold you, I'm afraid you have to count the money to Li Jing.

Because others didn't know, Zhu Youjian knew in his heart that the porcelain that Li Jing asked to take out just now was not some special porcelain for the royal family, and there was no such thing as special porcelain for the royal family in Ming Dynasty.

A small part of the porcelain used by the royal family is rewarded by the emperor. These objects are treasures, and the quality is basically comparable to that used in the palace. However, the porcelain rewarded by the emperor is not often used by members of the royal family, because once it is broken, it is a sin. Most of the frequently used porcelain is custom-made by the royal family themselves in porcelain kilns.However, for fear of overstepping, the quality of the porcelain customized by the royal family would never dare to exceed that of the palace.

The porcelain that Li Jing brought out just now was not used in the palace, but was selected from the pile of remaining porcelain after the palace selected it, and it was just waiting to be sold to foreigners at a high price. Of course, these porcelains were considered high-quality goods.

But when Li Jing puts these porcelains in royal clothes, their value will rise sharply. It is conceivable that this batch of porcelains will definitely be sold at a very high price.At the same time, it can drive the price of those ordinary porcelain.

It's just that Zhu Youjian didn't understand why Li Jing sold only a few hundred pieces of porcelain like this. You must know that Zhu Youjian's porcelain factory has a backlog of thousands of pieces of porcelain, and almost tens of thousands of pieces. , Waiting for the Europeans to take advantage of it to buy it.Now that people come to buy it, Li Jing doesn't even sell it all to them.

(End of this chapter)