Traveling through history leaving a name

Chapter 354 My God!

"My God! So many boats!"

When the fleet arrived in Nagasaki and had not yet entered the port, countless people couldn't help but let out bursts of exclamation.

It's really because there are too many large and small ships entering and leaving Nagasaki Port.

In the open sea, I don't think that as soon as they arrive at Nagasaki Port, everyone will be shocked by the constant flow of large and small merchant ships.

Nagasaki Port is the center of Japan's foreign trade in this era. Overseas businessmen from all over the world gather here. Whether it is North Korea, Ming Dynasty, or businessmen from Southeast Asia and European countries, they all have close trade relations with Nagasaki.

Throughout East Asia, the places that can compete with Nagasaki Port are Malacca, Guangzhou, Quanzhou and other major ports.

Although the Ming Dynasty has been banned from opening the sea for decades, the main domestic transportation method is still Cao Yun, so Tianjin Port has not developed.

Therefore, many people who came to Nagasaki from Tianjin this time have never seen such a prosperous port, so it is no wonder that they are amazed again and again.

After a dozen ships led by Chen Guangping entered Nagasaki Port, they did not cause any disturbance at first. This was really because there were too many ships here. Although a dozen ships were a lot, they were not very popular.

However, when Chen Guangping took out the seal letter of Emperor Wanli, saying that he came to Japan to start trade with the caravan of Emperor Ming, it immediately alarmed many high-level officials in Japan.

Both Toyotomi Hideyori and the Tokugawa Hidetada came to Nagasaki Port to meet Chen Guangping.

Even Dekang Iakawa, who founded the Dekang Shogunate, came to meet Chen Guangping a month later.

In this era, the Ming Dynasty was the suzerain country and Japan was a vassal state. Chen Guangping was equivalent to a representative or envoy sent by the emperor of the suzerain country.

More than ten years ago, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's disastrous defeat in North Korea made the entire Japanese society aware of the strength of Ming Dynasty. Emperor Wanli sent only 7 people to defeat the Toyotomi family who had put all their strength into the country.

But Ming Dynasty has millions of troops. If Ming Dynasty sent 10 or 20 troops, it wouldn't even reach the main island of Japan.

For such a powerful representative of the Ming Emperor, no one dared to underestimate him.

The Toyotomi family didn't dare, and the Tokugawa family didn't even dare. If one side underestimated it and let Daming support the other side, it would be a devastating blow to one side.

Although Chen Guangping was only the leader of the trade fleet, he just borrowed the tiger skin of Emperor Wanli, but even so, after he came to Japan, he was highly valued by Japan.

Not only that, the cargo of more than 200 million taels of silver brought by Chen Guangping this time is also very popular among the princes and dignitaries in Japan.

For example, glass mirrors, soaps, glassware, etc. are all wildly sought after by Japanese aristocrats.

Especially the glass mirror, which sells for ten taels of silver in the capital. A palm-sized glass mirror can be sold for 100 taels of silver in Japan, which is ten times the profit. This makes everyone in the entire fleet ecstatic .

But to say that the most expensive mirror in the world at that time was the book-sized glass mirror that the King of Venice gave to the Queen of France in 1600, worth 16 gold francs.

At that time, one franc contained about 0.3 grams of gold, and 16 francs equaled 37 grams. According to the Ming Dynasty’s calculation that one tael was equal to 300 grams, it was equivalent to 3000 taels of gold and [-] taels of silver, which was a sky-high price.

There is also soap, which is also sought after by Japanese nobles, but because the secret recipe of soap is no longer a secret in Daming, many merchants have already sold soap to Japan, so the batch of soap that Chen Guangping brought in was only four times higher than the market price of Daming sell away.

As for glassware, European merchants also sell it to Japan, but the price is not low due to the long distance, which is almost five times the price in Beijing.

But even so, the 200 million taels of goods Chen Guangping brought from Tianjin was still too much.

In a short period of time, Japan as a whole did not have that much money to spend on purchasing these goods.

Therefore, Chen Guangping could only propose to trade by barter.

In addition to silver and gold, Chen Guangping also exchanged the goods he brought with him for sulfur, saltpeter, copper, rare metals and other commodities produced in Japan.

Because there were too many goods shipped this time, he had to buy a shop and warehouse in Nagasaki Port, named it "Da Ming Royal Trading Company", and planned to stay in Nagasaki Port to operate trade for a long time.

Chen Guangping secretly calculated, based on the popular titles of these goods, they can probably sell more than 600 million taels of silver in total.

However, at the current shipping speed, it will take almost half a year to finish shipping.

Among these goods, the most valuable ones are glass mirrors.

The more than 3000 pieces of glass mirrors of various sizes brought this time, more than 500 pieces were sold within a month, earning almost 60 taels of silver.

Glass mirrors are an extremely luxurious luxury product in the world. After more than 1000 glass mirrors were sold, the Japanese market has reached saturation.

Just when Chen Guangping thought that the mirrors would also need to be shipped out slowly, until this day, a Dutch businessman saw the glass mirrors sold in "Da Ming Royal Firm", and he was shocked to heaven.

In the end, the Dutch businessman spent 50 taels of silver in one go and bought all of Chen Guangping's glass mirrors that were larger than books.

It stands to reason that glass mirrors have been in the European market for more than 100 years, and they are no longer a rare thing. European businessmen should not buy them in the Far East.

However, many people don't know that although glass mirrors have a history of more than 100 years, Europeans have never developed a method of manufacturing large pieces of flat glass. At present, most of the glass mirrors in Europe are the size of duck eggs, more than palm The big ones can only be used by the rich and powerful.

And there are only a handful of mirrors that are larger than books, as you can see from the fact that a mirror the size of a book can sell for more than 3000 taels of silver.

But this time, all the glass mirrors that the Dutch businessman bought in one go were the size of a book, and some of them were several times larger than a book.

If such a large glass mirror is shipped back to Europe, it will definitely fetch a sky-high price.

After staying in Nagasaki for a while, Chen Guangping stayed in Nagasaki himself. He asked Wei Zhongxian to leave Japan with a fleet full of goods.

Before leaving, he told Wei Zhongxian that next time he came to Japan, he should bring more large glass mirrors. He believed that large glass mirrors could make a lot of money from European businessmen.

On Wei Zhongxian's side, Chen Guangping left 300 musketeers before leaving with [-] million taels of silver and more than [-] ships of goods.

That's right, there are more than [-] ships of goods.

Because these are the six big ships that Chen Guangping bought from a Dutch businessman during his stay in Nagasaki for more than a month.

And the Dutch bought all of Chen Guangping's large glass mirrors with the money from selling sea ships.

(End of this chapter)