Mi Fang led Yuan Xi all the way there, but Yuan Xi saw several ships docked at the pier to unload cargo. From time to time, people pushed cargo off the ship, and the water line gradually rose above the water.
Yuan Xi saw a ship below the waterline with dense white spots. He couldn't help but walked closer and took a closer look. Isn't this barnacle?
He went over and touched the rows of barnacles and said with a smile, "This thing looks delicious."
Mi Fang listened and said with a smile: "Your Majesty is really familiar with things at sea, but this thing has done a lot of damage to the ship's deck. If it is not dealt with, the ship's deck will only become weaker. But even if it is cleaned, the ship's deck will be far away."
Not as strong as before.”
"After just one long voyage, the ship's decking was damaged a lot. I'm afraid it will only go offshore in the future."
Yuan Xi suddenly realized, "The Mi family caravan also has long-sea trade routes?"
Mi Fang explained: "There are only one or two ships. It was my little sister's sudden idea that the Zhen family caravan must have seen some great business opportunities by building ocean-going merchant ships. Why don't the Mi family give it a try too."
"I was unwilling at first. Ocean trade is not easy to recover and the risks are great, but she insisted on her opinion and even subsidized her own private life. I really had no choice, so I sent two ships out to sea one after another, and once I went to Java
, once we go to Siam.”
"I didn't take it seriously at first. After all, it takes nearly half a year to go back and forth to a distant sea trade location. There are many winds and waves, and most of the ships heading south often fail to return. There are also cases."
"But I'm lucky this time. The boats to Java and Siam have come back one after another. The one from Siam just arrived yesterday."
After hearing this, Yuan Xi thought to himself that Siam is not Thailand. This place is rich in spices and is indeed the favorite of the Central Plains nobles today. To talk about other things, there may be tea and exotic animals, right?
He said: "Can I see the specialties you brought back?"
Mi Fang guessed that Yuan Xi was very interested in overseas products, otherwise he would not have sent the Zhen family's ships to sea repeatedly, and immediately said: "I will take the envoy to take a look."
Everyone arrived at the dock warehouse. Mi Fang asked someone to open the door. The floor was full of goods. Yuan Xi found that most of the goods were very similar to those brought by the Zhen family merchant ship. There were spices, tea, and even precious decorations such as coral trees and tortoiseshells.
, but there are just no crops that I want.
Think about it, compared to the highly profitable spices and accessories, who would bring crops that are difficult to preserve and cannot be sold at a high price?
Mi Fang saw Yuan Xi standing silently in front of the cargo box, and asked tentatively: "You seem to be very interested in ocean trade routes?"
"Shu Fang said bluntly, overseas is a land of barbarians and is full of malaria. Although the goods are valuable, it doesn't seem to be very profitable in terms of time and losses."
Yuan Xi raised his head and sighed: "The prefect is right to the point."
"In terms of profit and loss alone, most of the ocean trade routes are losing money, and they are losing a lot of money."
One fact that is extremely difficult to accept is that before Europe discovered the Americas, the profits from ocean voyage trade were not high. Losing money was the norm. It was far less stable than the profits from local production. Adventurers who went to sea needed to find money.
Only with the support of the Lord can I raise the money for the ocean voyage, but a large part of this money is lost.
Because ocean trade has a long time cycle, high risks, high crew mortality, and huge fluctuations in profits, Western navigators have been unable to find channels and methods to rely on 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 was not until the discovery of America, the establishment of stable sea routes, and the acquisition of precious metals, gold and silver, that could be exchanged for commodities from other origins, that the black triangle trade was formed between Europe, Africa, and the Americas to steadily obtain large profits.
Europe loaded wine, salt, cloth and other goods from its own country, followed the Central Sea Route to Africa and exchanged them for black slaves, then went to America to unload the slaves, exchanged them for gold, silver, sugar, tobacco, and then returned to Europe.
After forming this stable trade route, Europe slowly began to accumulate a large amount of original capital, and then had more spare money to invest in the development of trade routes to China.
Before this, the trade route from Europe to China could only have one-way profits, because they needed Chinese porcelain, tea and silk, but China did not need anything from them.
It was not until Europe used the silver obtained from the Americas that it slowly opened the door to China's trade, but this was already a long time later.
The ocean-going trade routes Mi Fang refers to are the trade routes between Xuzhou and the areas south of Yangzhou and Jiaozhi. These trade routes have not yet formed fixed routes. Not only are the risks high, the two sides do not have the habit of exchanging goods to meet fixed needs.
Currency cannot be unified either.
Faced with many obstacles, it may take several years, decades, or even hundreds of years of continuous investment before China can establish profitable and cyclically stable trade routes with the Southeast Asian countries.
The more stable and prosperous the world is, the more luxury goods such as spices and ornaments produced by Nanyang countries can be sold and more profits can be obtained, thus forming a virtuous circle. However, this is still a problem for the late Han Dynasty when the world is in chaos and cannot even eat enough.
It was too ahead of its time. This was a long ice age in which the nobles would all starve to death. Luxury goods were useless in the face of famine.
Yuan Xi had to admit that from the perspective of this world, Mi Fang's words were undoubtedly very correct.
If I hadn't had the experience and knowledge of later generations, I wouldn't have spent huge sums of money to sail the fleet to unknown lands for adventure.
However, the benefits of navigation 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. This is the greatest significance given by navigation.
Although Yuan Xi understands some knowledge of later generations, these systems are not perfect. For example, many modern industrial knowledge cannot be applied at all in this era. If many things based on basic manufacturing industries are only superficial, they may not be as effective as the indigenous methods of this era.
.
For example, Yuan Xi tried to use concrete to build city walls, but after careful calculation, he found that both cost and manufacturing difficulty were far inferior to the glutinous rice mortar method that appeared in the late Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties.
"Tiangong Kaiwu" has detailed records on the composition, production method and performance of glutinous rice mortar: "The ash is divided into river sand and the loess is divided into two parts. Use glutinous rice and carambola vine juice to mix evenly. The building will be strong and will never be damaged.
, called Sanhe Tu.”
This kind of Sanhe soil with glutinous rice juice added is glutinous rice mortar, which has the advantages of high strength, good toughness, and good anti-seepage performance. Its appearance has made a qualitative leap in the adhesiveness of building cementitious materials, and represents the ancient limestone in my country. The crowning achievement of base adhesives.
Later, there was a Qing Dynasty stone tower in Baohe Town, Rongchang, Chongqing. It has a history of more than 300 years. It is 10 meters high and has an inclination of 45°, but it has not collapsed yet. The tower also used glutinous rice mortar as the bonding material, which shows that this
The toughness of this material is not much worse than modern cement.
At least in the early Western Han Dynasty, China had already used a lime mixed material similar to what was later called Sanhetu (lime, loess and sand). This is also the most economical and effective method used to build city walls today.
What Yuan Xi wants to do now is to test and improve the glutinous rice mortar method on this basis to build a stronger city wall.
This idea is feasible, because the required pre-technologies are already complete, and subsequent new technologies just need an opportunity.
In contrast, concrete lacks certain key links in the chain, both in terms of economy and mass production, and this cannot be solved immediately.
Technological progress is gradual, step by step, to gradually light up the required front-end technology. It is unrealistic to take a large step to take a dozen or even dozens of steps.
Just like it is impossible to transform a wooden sailing ship directly into a steam ironclad, that kind of thing can only exist in unrealistic fantasy.
Therefore, the current long-sea voyage is still in the exploratory and experimental stage for Yuan Xi, and its purpose is not only to develop trade, but to use it to promote the overall development of related industries.
Yuan Xi could not explain to Mi Fang in detail that he was currently going overseas to trade just to find a few crops that were very useful to China, and these things would 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 he has to start this process sooner or later, of course, the sooner the better, and he will be a good example to future generations.
It is also good to point out the direction.
He turned around, patted the dust on his hands, and said with a smile: "I heard that some crops in Nanyang Islands can withstand severe cold and can solve the world's food shortage. If the prefect goes to sea again, people can pay attention to them."
"Of course, these things are not easy to find."
Mi Fang was hesitant but didn't take it to heart and just dealt with it perfunctorily.
He led everyone to Mi's Mansion, where the guests and hosts sat opposite each other. Although Mi Fang was not good at politics, she had been doing business for many years and had the ability to liven up the scene. Under his influence, the atmosphere in the court gradually became more relaxed.
While Mi Fang was persuading people to drink, she was muttering to herself, should she let her little sister come out to serve the wine?
After Liu Bei accepted Mi Zhen as his adopted sister, he wrote to Youzhou to express his intention to marry. Youzhou also expressed its agreement in a vague way, but it was delayed again due to the war between Youzhou and Donglai Sea.
.
Mi Fang didn't know if Liu Bei was in a hurry, but he was very anxious.
Mi Zhen is not young anymore. The world has changed more and more in recent years. Liu Bei's strength has not increased much, but Yuan Xi's strength has been greatly strengthened!
The Mi family still had some thoughts about Mi Zhen becoming Yuan Xi's wife three years ago. Today, three years later, Mi Fang no longer dares to think about it.
Yuan Xi's strength has 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 nobles that Yuan Xi's son would most likely be adopted back to Yuan Shao's clan.
!
This is an issue involving the successor of the Yuan family. Although everyone does not say it openly, they secretly feel that Yuan Xi will go back to inherit the Yuan family in the future?
Although this idea is absurd, when Yuan Shao and Cao Cao were depressed and frustrated, who would have known that they would inherit the Yuan family and the Cao family respectively?
What's more, combined with Yuan Xi's recent performance, this possibility is becoming more and more likely!
The Han Dynasty inherited the system of the Qin Dynasty, with Confucianism on the outside and Legalism on the inside. Since the time of Emperor Gaozu, there has been a tendency to establish virtuous people. The debate among the gentry on finding successors to establish virtuous people and establish elders has never stopped.
So Mi Fang is in a hurry to send Mi Zhen away. If she waits until the other party becomes the head of the Yuan family, she may never bother to have a relationship with the Mi family again!