“I really didn’t expect to be able to eat familiar food in the far East.”
Tasting the delicious salmon, Anthony Van Diemen was filled with emotions.
Since coming to the East, he has not tasted these seafood from cold water areas for a long time.
And these foods were something he was used to eating when he was in the Netherlands.
"It's a pity that Batavia is thousands of miles away. The journey is long and food transportation is inconvenient. Otherwise, if you need it, we can provide it here."
In this era, it is absolutely impossible to send seafood thousands of miles away.
"Thank you, Commander, for your kindness."
Anthony Van Diemen toasted Zuo Mengeng with a glass of wine, but his eyes were always fixed on the person playing the piano in the distance.
As the saying goes, there is no feast without fun.
To entertain the distinguished guests today, Zuo Mengeng not only prepared a sumptuous dinner, but also arranged a music performance.
In addition to traditional Chinese music, piano performance also appeared.
Anthony Van Diemen knew little about traditional Chinese music. He only thought the melody was melodious but did not understand its meaning.
But the music played on the piano completely fascinated him.
"Dear Mr. Commander-in-Chief, I have changed my mind. You do not need to pay the full payment for this transaction. Can you use this musical instrument as payment?"
Zuo Mengeng was not surprised at all when he learned that Anthony Van Diemen wanted to buy a piano.
The Governor of Macau had become a prisoner of the piano before, and it is nothing new for Anthony Van Diemen to realize the value of the piano.
As for being able to use the piano to pay for goods, Zuo Mengeng was the happiest person.
"I wonder how many pianos Mr. Diemen needs?"
Anthony Van Diemen walked over and kept circling around the piano. He stroked the body of the piano with his palms and was already deeply intoxicated.
"I wonder how much this instrument costs?"
"Five hundred taels of silver each."
Zuo Mengeng told the truth.
This price made Anthony Van Diemen frown.
But the extremely beautiful melody lingered in his ears, making him unable to extricate himself.
"I need five, no... fifty."
Anthony Van Diemen knew very well that as long as he brought such a good instrument back, he would have no problem selling it. At that time, each piano would cost seven hundred taels, and he could become rich overnight.
Everyone in Shandong was very happy that Anthony Van Diemen wanted to buy a piano with twenty-five thousand taels of silver.
How much does a piano cost?
It’s just over eighty taels of silver.
This is completely a high value-added product.
It can be used to make money, and no one would dislike it.
Especially since Shandong has to pay a huge sum of money to Anthony Van Diemen, it would be great to be able to use the piano to recover a little bit.
What product caused Shandong to hemorrhage?
Of course it is a war horse.
Since the establishment of trade relations with the Dutch, Shandong has expressed its willingness to purchase war horses.
If you want to buy a war horse in East Asia, it is almost a huge difficulty.
Everyone knows that war horses are valuable war resources, and anyone who owns a war horse has them firmly in their hands.
You can't get it without paying a huge price.
Even buying from Westerners is actually not easy.
The only exception is the Dutch.
The Dutch are most passionate about doing business.
As for whether selling war horses to Shandong will enhance Shandong's military strength, the Dutch don't care at all?
After all, they travel the world by boat.
No matter how powerful Shandong's cavalry is, can they still ride their horses into the sea?
So when Shandong asked the Dutch to buy war horses, the Dutch readily agreed because of the generous price.
Relying on their strength on the ocean, they quickly collected a large number of war horses.
At this time, Xu Erjue led a fleet to arrive in Batavia. The increasingly large-scale trade allowed the Dutch to follow the trend.
When he followed Xu Erjue back to Shandong, he brought the war horses over.
However, the war horses shipped by the Dutch were very expensive.
Each horse requires one hundred and fifty taels of silver.
This is not because the Dutch are asking for exorbitant prices, but this is the reality.
The Dutch spent a lot of effort to obtain these war horses. In addition, the transportation from Batavia to Shandong was thousands of miles away, and the sea environment was very harsh, which increased the cost even more.
Even though the Dutch were careful, one-third of their horses died on the way.
But these costs will inevitably be shared among other war horses.
The war horses brought by the Dutch made Zuo Mengeng very enthusiastic. He personally inspected them and fell in love with every horse.
"Look, this is the Marwari horse from Tianzhu. This kind of horse is tall, strong, extremely fast, and can withstand various environments. It is considered the best type of war horse in the world."
Zuo Mengeng was very familiar with war horses and could talk about them like a treasure.
"This is an Arabian horse, one of the most ancient and precious horse breeds in the world. The Mongols, who were invincible in the world at that time, suffered a big loss from this kind of war horse."
"This is a Scottish horse. It is the fastest horse in the world and can travel hundreds of miles a day."
After hearing this, many people's expressions changed.
What does walking a hundred miles a day mean to war?
Nowadays, in most cases, the daily march can only guarantee thirty to forty miles a day, which is already a very powerful army.
Even the new army can only cover fifty miles a day at most, and can only reach a hundred miles under extreme circumstances.
But this is certainly not the norm.
But this kind of Scottish horse can maintain a marching speed of about a hundred miles every day, which is really scary.
There were many types of war horses brought by the Dutch. Zuo Menggeng checked them one by one and found almost all the well-known types here.
The Dutch don't know what kind of war horses Shandong needs, but they have some of various types anyway.
There is always one that customers need.
The final result made Anthony Van Diemen extremely satisfied.
Because Zuo Mengeng wants all the war horses.
He understands better than anyone in this era the importance of the bloodline of war horses.
With so many excellent war horses combined, as long as they are carefully cultivated and continued to reproduce, they will definitely be able to establish a sufficiently outstanding war horse group.
The eight hundred war horses cost a total of 120,000 taels of Shandong silver. If it weren't for part of the deduction with the piano, it would really be a hemorrhage.
"Send these war horses to Jeju Island quickly for careful breeding. You can also use them to crossbreed with local war horses to improve the blood of the war horses."
The needs of war horses are different from the horse pedigree theory of later generations.
Later generations’ bloodline theory emphasizes that the purer the better, and the older the better. The taller, more handsome and graceful the horse is, the more valuable it is.
But as a war horse, the priority is the horse's endurance, speed, and character.
To put it bluntly, it is comprehensive quality.
Horses with truly pure and noble bloodlines are not suitable for cavalry.