Chapter 152: Points

Double rewards for shopping, points giveaway extravaganza. In Professor Luo's original plane, points were standard in every marketplace, and people carried far more points cards in their wallets than bank cards. Naturally, the Lin brothers' shopping trip in Dayuan ended with the unavoidable card-issuing process.

Later that evening, at the stilt house where the brothers were staying alone, Professor Luo came bearing gifts to visit his guests. Gifts in name, but in truth they were merely samples — to be looked at, not taken away. As he laid the samples out on the table, Professor Luo explained the points system to the two of them, and once the explanation was done, he took his leave.

By now the night was pitch black. The kerosene lamp, the Zippo lighter, and the glass mirror upon the table cast their light against one another in brilliant interplay, the bright glow illuminating the astonished faces of the Lin brothers.

These few display items were things the Transmigrators could not yet produce. The kerosene lamp and the lighter required petroleum, so there was no hope of them in the short term; glass products, on the other hand, faced no material restrictions — a glass kiln was currently under construction in the Kiln District, and by the Lin family's next trip to Dayuan, they could likely expect goods to be available.

Precisely because they could not be made, these fine items had become what Professor Luo called points-redemption goods — if the Lin brothers wished to purchase a kerosene lamp, they would have to ship more cargo to Dayuan, accumulate enough points, and only then could they redeem it. As for when they would accumulate enough points, that depended on when petroleum was dug up... The final right of interpretation of these points rules rested with Professor Luo.

"These Kun people are truly ingenious, coming up with so many fine playthings." After Professor Luo left, Lin Bao'an fondled the Zippo, unable to put it down. In the room, far brighter than usual, the crisp "ding" of the lighter sounded from time to time.

"These few items are probably not easy to make either — you can tell just by looking at that damned points system." Lin Baoquan was sprawled over the table at this moment, one hand entranced in adjusting the kerosene lamp's brightness, the other murmuring faintly.

"If you ask me, this iron casing ought to go, replaced with a gold and silver filigree shell... A glazed lamp, gold and silver cups, paired with this smokeless Kun fire oil — heavens, Fifth Brother, would the wealthy households in your Fuzhou City be willing to pay 500 taels for one lamp?" Seeing that Fifth Brother was fixated on the kerosene lamp, Lin Bao'an's eyes lit up, and off the top of his head he came up with a mooncake-style route of conquering the market through packaging.

Lin Baoquan did not answer. He sat up, crossed his legs, picked up the kerosene bottle and the glass mirror from the table, and began examining them one by one in fine detail.

A long while later, Lin Bao'an raised his head. In that moment, his eyes seemed to shine much brighter. He opened his mouth and asked, "Not counting the silver in the public accounts, how much ready silver do you have back in the Old Home?"

"Private silver?" Lin Bao'an did not react for a moment. Only after thinking it over did he reply, "That... probably not much, a little over a thousand taels. I'd have to go back and ask the wife."

"How can it be so little?" Lin Baoquan furrowed his brow when he heard the figure.

"It's all tied up in goods." Seeing his clansman's dark expression, Lin Bao'an answered somewhat hesitantly, "The wife took stock of a silk shop during the New Year season, bought some new Quanzhou Brocade, and also bought a servant... We never had much silver to begin with. Isn't the bulk of it all in the clan's common funds?"

Lin Baoquan could not help shaking his head at this. "This trip back, we're buying a ship. You figure out a way to scrape together the money."

"Buy a ship? The bulk of a ship purchase ought to come from the common accounts too..." Lin Bao'an trailed off here, suddenly stopping his mouth. After exchanging a glance with his clansman, Lin Bao'an understood.

"How much longer do we have to keep feeding that pack of useless trash?" Seeing that his clansman had caught on, Lin Baoquan no longer bothered to hide his own thinking. "The new ship — you and I will put up the silver to buy it, no shares from other families. With such good business before us, if we don't stake everything on this gamble now, when will we?"

By now Lin Bao'an fully grasped his clansman's intent. After thinking it over, a troubled look came over his face. "Fifth Brother, since you've made up your mind, I naturally have no second word to say. I'm only afraid the silver won't come together: the Xing'anping cost 2,000 taels of silver to buy back then, and to outfit it with a full cargo, we'd still need around ten thousand taels. We don't have that much!"

"Two thousand taels won't be enough!" Lin Baoquan rose to his full height at this and began pacing back and forth incessantly in the room. "The new ship is the capital upon which we brothers will establish ourselves and secure our livelihoods. If we're buying, it has to be a big 800-liao vessel. The timber must be good, the ship must be new — I fear three or four thousand taels of silver will barely suffice."

Ignoring his clansman, whose mouth was now gaping wide, Lin Baoquan grew more and more excited as he spoke. "Sell it, sell it all! Offload the silk shop, sell the servant to a brothel, take the wife's hairpins, jewelry, and finery and pawn every last piece! When we go back this trip, we live like paupers — we pawn our own heads if we must, but we will scrape together the money for the ship and the cargo!"

"Ah, a pity about that servant — handsome looks, my father was rather fond of him." Seeing that Fifth Brother's resolve was set, Lin Bao'an, who had always followed Lin Baoquan's lead without question, now had no further objection. Swiftly shifting his thinking, he had already begun considering how to sell the servant out from under his old man.

"Your father! Right — that coffin savings your damned old man buried away, dig that up too. Hmm, with that, plus my family's old nest egg... and raising a bit more from friends in the underworld, it'll be just about enough."

Lin Bao'an's expression had grown somewhat blank. "Wouldn't borrowing a little from the clan be cheaper?"

"Better to borrow as little silver as possible from that pack of trash." Lin Baoquan shot his clansman a "you know what I mean" look.

Only after seeing his clansman nod did he continue, "These Kun people have yet to secure their foothold — this is precisely the moment they'd spend a thousand gold to buy a horse's bones. This trip, with just one shipload of iron stock, we've already reaped this many benefits from the observation post. Clearly, this place urgently needs merchant ships coming and going."

Lin Baoquan walked over to the table at this point and lightly flicked with his finger the prominent pistil at the center of the iron-art flower on the platter. Then, with a smug air, he said, "On a ship we buy ourselves, what cargo we load is for you and me to decide. Even if the first few trips only carry iron stock, with that points scheme as a backstop, we won't lose out."

After a pause, he continued, "Right now, word of Dayuan opening its port hasn't spread yet. We came here by a stroke of fortune — in terms of information, we've gotten the advantage. This points system, the way I see it, disregards whether goods are fine or coarse and decides solely by volume. Crude cargo like iron stock actually comes out ahead. Once we've saved up the points, we'll be the first to get our hands on these gold-and-silver cups and crystal mirrors. Then we take them to Fuzhou or Hangzhou and offload them — heh heh, heh heh."

At this, Lin Baoquan exchanged a look with his clansman, and from within the room there promptly burst a signature cackle of villainy.

Early the next morning, the Lin brothers, brimming with Essence Refining, came knocking at the door, intending to discuss with Professor Luo the purchase of another set of surveying instruments — since they were going to buy a new ship, they could not make do with just one set. The sea routes were treacherous, and a fleet being scattered by a great storm was a common occurrence.

The Doraemon was all smiles as usual. After hearing the brothers' plan to buy a ship, he did not appear particularly surprised. Moreover, as if he had long been prepared, he reached into his magic pocket on the spot and pulled out a pearl... which was, in truth, a credit loan — spend-now-pay-later.

Professor Luo expressed that he greatly supported the worthy brothers in striking out on their own, and was therefore willing to use a low-interest loan to help them through the initial capital crunch.

Of course, the glittering pearl was not so easily taken. What followed next was a certain someone beginning to lay out conditions.

A map of Funing Prefecture's terrain — a sight the Lin brothers were more than familiar with — was brought out by Professor Luo. The map's scale was quite fine, and certain special locations had already been considerately marked in Chinese miles and traditional characters.

Professor Luo first pointed to a spot at the top of the map labeled "Yulin Silver Mine" and asked the two if they knew where this was.

How could the Lin brothers not know the silver mine?

Located in the Fuding Radon Spring Protected Area, on the land later generations would call Dieshi Township, this place was rich in mineral resources, with large quantities of lead-zinc ore accompanied by thirteen kinds of non-ferrous metals including silver, copper, chromium, sulfur, and iron.

This site had already been developed into the Yulin Silver Mine during the Song Dynasty, with extraction under government control. The Ming Dynasty was no different — the silver mine was state-operated.

Since the brothers knew the place, that made things convenient. Professor Luo promptly produced several photographs, all showing black and gray stones, and handed them to the brothers.

As the two worthies flipped the "picture drafts" over and back, studying them intently, Professor Luo told them: send a few men to the area near the silver mining district to search for this kind of stone. Once found, bring it to Dayuan. If it was indeed what this side needed, then the price would be 5 mace of silver per catty of stone, with this side guaranteeing the purchase.

Stones priced the same as pig iron... The Lin brothers, who had originally been full of questions, instantly shut their mouths at this moment and uttered not another word of nonsense.

Seeing that the brothers knew what was good for them, Professor Luo did not belabor the point. He merely exhorted them that the men sent to collect stone samples must carefully record the locations, and so on. Additionally, waste rock dug out from the various silver pits and ironworks should also have samples brought back.

The Transmigrators' objective was chromium ore.

Chromium ore in Fuding was not abundant in yield, its grade was low, and most of it occurred as associated ore. By the standards of later generations, it was not economical to mine. The Transmigrators had no choice but to resort to this last-ditch measure — get whatever they could, since the high-grade chromium ore of South Asia was currently out of reach.

With the matter of chromium ore concluded, the next subject was another kind of stone: pyrophyllite.

Pyrophyllite contains aluminum and is an important industrial raw material. The Transmigrators urgently needed aluminum right now to make the refractory bricks for the electric furnace lids, as well as the deoxidizer used in steelmaking.

Pyrophyllite would be a bit cheaper... 2 mace of silver per catty. This was because pyrophyllite was found all over Fujian — the map showed quite a few production areas near Fuding — and pyrophyllite, as the name suggests, had a fine, glossy appearance and could be used to carve seals, making it very easy to distinguish.

The brothers continued stuffing the stack of color photographs depicting the patterned stones into their bosoms...

Next came the final item: people.

Professor Luo told the two bluntly: Dayuan was currently short of people. If the two of them felt that the living conditions in the Chikan New District were passable, then they could spread the word and, along the way, bring over some impoverished folk from northern Fujian who could not survive there to settle here. When the time came, the Transmigrators would pay by the head, at a price benchmarked against the cost of the refugees at Moyun Temple.

In real history, Fujian would suffer a great drought this year. Zheng Zhilong, having obtained official rank, would, with the support of Xiong Wencan, put up a large sum of silver and "summon tens of thousands of famine victims" — the first large-scale migration from the mainland to the land across the sea in recorded history.

The Transmigrators were now likewise making preparations to bring migrants from across the sea, including having the Lin brothers spread word in northern Fujian that Dayuan had food and drink... and that everyone could train in martial arts — that sort of message.

That way, no matter what direction the situation of 1628 took, and whether the Crossing Faction could eliminate the Zheng Zhilong Gang on schedule and hook up with Xiong Wencan, Dayuan would be able to claim its share of the spoils from Fujian's great drought.

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