Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 29 Great Exploitation: Trade

On March 3, a merchant ship from Denmark docked, which was the second ship to call at the port since the end of the war.

In addition to hundreds of tons of various materials in the cabin of this Galen ship, there are 179 immigrants from Holstein and Norway.Mr. Captain chose to buy 20 sets of Trinity-style full body armor and 100 sabers, which are famous in the Baltic Sea area. Therefore, the travelers only need to pay an additional payment of 4700 yuan.

These immigrants will be resettled into the 3rd and 4th production teams that are being built in the Dingyuanbao Reclamation Area.

And this is just the beginning.

3月25日，穿越众的另一位老朋友，来自哥德堡的斯文森船长带着两艘大船停泊在了港内。这次他带来了整整484名来自芬兰、波西米亚和利窝尼亚的移民；100多吨铜、铅和生铁；石墨、水银、火药、火绳、枪支；100多只（头）各类牲畜幼崽、种子、果树苗和一些生活物资。

The heroic Captain Svensson has recently made a fortune, so he chose to barter.It's just that the 100-year-style full-body armor he's fancy is limited to production, and there are currently only [-] sets in stock. Captain Swenson, who refused to take a trip, put his idea on the [-]-year-style command knife and steel cannon. Things are in short supply in Europe today.

Let's just talk about the restless neighbor in Sweden - the rude Russian.The Russians have been working hard to modernize their military in recent years. Not only have they established several new infantry and cavalry regiments imitating the Western European system, they have also hired a large number of foreign officers with rich war experience to train and command the Russian army.

When introducing advanced military talents and military systems, the introduction of advanced military weapons is of course also indispensable.However, limited by Russia's own backward military manufacturing industry and the lack of high-quality iron ore, Russia began to purchase large quantities of weapons from foreign countries.Just last year, Russia purchased 19000 muskets and 5000 sabers from Western European countries.

Moreover, the ambitious Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich has always been obsessed with regaining Smolensk occupied by the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. For this reason, he will not hesitate to expand his army and prepare for war.In this way, Russia has become another big gold mine for arms export besides the belligerent countries in the 30-year war. The Swedish businessmen who are close to Russia are naturally the first to get the moon.

Of course, as a qualified businessman, Captain Svensson has no sense of guilt about selling advanced weapons and equipment to Russia, Sweden's traditional mortal enemy. All he cares about is profit.

Russia has always had a great desire for high-quality sabers. Whether it is infantry or cavalry, the total shortage of sabers is estimated to be more than 15000 at this stage.The 102-year-style command knife has a total length of 2.5 centimeters and is made of high-quality steel forged by hydraulic machinery.The straight blade is slightly curved, extremely sharp and tough, and has both practicality and artistic appreciation value. Compared with the sabers made in Western European countries, it is not at the same level at all.The sales guide price of the 800-style command knife set by the Arsenal was [-] yuan each, and Captain Svensson ordered [-] at once, which almost wiped out the inventory of the crossing crowd.

In addition, due to the use of high-quality steel casting and unique barrel self-tightening technology, the steel guns of Chuanzhong can withstand high chamber pressure.Therefore, the cannon casting workshop of the arsenal made the barrel diameter larger during casting. The effect is that the cannon has a longer range and stronger power, and its life is much longer than that of ordinary cannons, generally more than 5000 rounds.In addition, the weight of the whole cannon is only half of the cast iron cannon of the same caliber, and it is also much lighter than the copper cannon.Except that the heat dissipation is not as fast as that of copper cannons, it is simply a perfect epoch-making artillery.

对于是否出售大口径火炮执委会尚有疑虑，不过对于12磅以下的陆军用轻型炮，则没有任何问题。目前兵工厂铸炮车间有库存4磅炮22门、6磅炮10门、8磅炮18门，可以直接卖给瑞典人。其中4磅炮的销售指导价为每门10元，6磅炮为每门18元，8磅炮为每门35元。

Captain Svensson didn't counter-offer, and took everything as ordered. The total price of 100 sets of full body armor, 800 sabers, and 50 light artillery pieces of various types was 9030 yuan. After deducting the purchase price, the crossing crowd paid an additional 5850 yuan to Captain Svensson.

By the end of March, the cross-travelers had made 3 arms deals, selling a total of 3 sets of 220-year-style full body armor, 1150 50-year-style command knives, and 17105 large and small artillery pieces. The total sales amounted to 60 yuan, and it can be said that More than [-]% are profits.

The arms business is really profitable!Realizing this, the executive committee knows what to do no matter how stupid it is at this time.

The 30-year war is in full swing, Russia is sharpening its sword against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Netherlands and Portugal are fighting to the death on the Amazon River...

In the eyes of the executive committee, these wars are treasure houses. With the high-quality weapons at hand, even if they can't monopolize the market, they can still get a big share of the pie.For the base of traversers who are full of waste, the meaning is not strict and self-evident.

Regardless of the fact that the executive committee still has nearly 18 yuan in cash on hand, but if you are not in charge of a family, you don’t know how expensive it is. Now the executive committee’s expenses are not small.Let’s just talk about the Army. With a current size of 236 people, the monthly salary of the personnel is more than 300 yuan.

This is not counting training, and the cost of training is even more astonishing.Based on the training of five rounds of live ammunition per person three times a week, a soldier will consume about 500 grams of gunpowder, 160 grams of matchlock and 40 kilograms of lead bullets a week. These materials are worth about 2~3 yuan based on the CIF import price 236 cents, 60 people will consume about 32 yuan.This is still in peacetime. If it was in wartime, it would consume a huge amount.This is not counting the naval coastal defense artillery, the [-] cannons are even more gold-eating behemoths, and the weekly training costs more than [-] yuan.

Calculated in this way, plus some miscellaneous expenses, the monthly maintenance costs of the navy and army in peacetime will cost 1250 to 1300 yuan, which is staggering.In addition, including the wages and subsidies for some free citizens, the executive committee conservatively estimates that the monthly financial expenditure will exceed 1600 yuan.Given the executive committee's thirst for various production and living materials, as well as the current increasing frequency of transactions and immigration, this fund really won't last long.Although there are more than 600 sets of porcelain in the warehouse, which are very valuable, but these are all brought from the old time and space, which are non-renewable resources.Relying on selling porcelain to eat is no different from sitting and eating.

Therefore, one can imagine how eager the executive committee is to open up new sources of income.Arms business is a long-term way. With the steel smelting technology that is 200 years ahead of this era, coupled with advanced gun barrel manufacturing technology, it can already rely on the resources of this time and space for production to grab high profits. .

Must scale up!This is the unanimous opinion of the Executive Committee.

Therefore, the executive committee organized personnel to start an in-depth investigation of several workshops in the arsenal.

The first is the cannon foundry.Now the cannon casting workshop has been supplemented several times, and has more than 30 craftsmen at all levels, more than 40 skilled apprentices, and more than 60 new apprentices.Due to the invention of the water cooling method for casting the barrel, the speed and yield of the cannon were greatly improved.In fact, it can be said that the production capacity of the cannon casting workshop has not been released at all, and the only bottleneck restricting their production capacity is the supply of molten steel.

The situation in the protective gear and cold weapon manufacturing workshop (former weapons workshop) is similar.Due to the extensive use of hydraulic machinery and hydraulic forging hammers, the production efficiency has been greatly improved.Now it is also suffering from insufficient steel supply, and production capacity has not been able to be effectively released.

After investigations and investigations, in the end, the spearheads all pointed at the steel plant.

In this regard, the person in charge of the steel plant and the industry committee member Vest are also very helpless.Ma Jia said that at present, steel plants use graphite crucibles to make steel. Even if large crucibles are used, they can only smelt molten steel of more than 1 ton and less than 2 tons at a time. These poor yields are only enough to cast a 24-pound ship at a time. gun.

"If you want to increase production, that's fine! Either build more melting furnaces and more crucibles for me; or transform the existing melting furnaces, start the open hearth furnace project, and make steel!" The vest said: "The technology of this project It is completely feasible to use it, and I am clear about the technical details. I have thought about it for a long time, how about it, everyone consider my suggestion?"

However, the executive committee still has concerns about the upper open hearth furnace project. The biggest obstacle is the lack of coal.

At this stage, all the raw materials used for steelmaking in the time travel are all brought from the old time and space during time travel, that is, more than 1000 tons of scrap steel and 5000 tons of electric coal.At this stage, the crucible steelmaking is nothing but small troubles. Although the coal consumption per ton of steel is astonishingly high, the scale is also small. Generally speaking, the coal consumed by steelmaking will never exceed 200 tons.However, if the open-hearth steelmaking project is involved, the scale will increase, and the amount of coal that Chuanzhong has is not enough to consume for a long time.

Moreover, there are many places where coal is used nowadays. Wheel kilns, cement kilns, lime kilns, wood drying kilns, wood distillation kilns, etc. are all large coal users.Especially now that we are in a period of accelerated immigration and various building materials are in short supply. The executive committee is planning to build two new rotary kilns and a cement kiln to ease the shortage of building materials, which will consume more coal.

It has consumed nearly 1000 tons of coal in the past year and a half, and the rate of consumption will definitely be faster in the future. It is really hard to say how long the remaining 4000 tons of coal will last.

After discussions and discussions, a compromise proposal was finally reached, that is, continue to build a melting furnace that can hold 20 crucibles, expand steelmaking production, and temporarily put the open hearth furnace steelmaking project on hold.At the same time, the coal issue has also been taken seriously by the executive committee, and has risen to a strategic height.

PS: Thank you Lin Enhai for your tip.

(End of this chapter)