Chapter 364: Self-Guided Tour

When Master Bo saw the shopping guide bring out another lighter and some other gifts and place them on the counter, he instantly flew into a rage. Pointing at the countertop with one hand, he roared, "You wretched scoundrels! What is the meaning of this?"

These two dogs actually dared to take it upon themselves to spend their master's silver... Although the three-person quota wasn't used up, this old master had already bought enough! What are you two crafty servants scheming? Trying to steal right under your master's nose?

"Replying to the Old Master." Chang Sui Bo Gui unhurriedly and respectfully brought his legs together and bowed at the waist. "This is the Madam's private savings. Before we departed, she instructed us to buy some things to bring back as gifts."

Immediately after, Servant Bo Mo also brought his legs together. "Old Master, the Young Master and the Young Miss entrusted us to bring back some trinkets for them."

"Ah! So it was my wife's private funds!" Master Bo had never expected this answer. In the next moment, the fury filling his chest instantly vanished into nothing. The years of fear — being cursed at, beaten, and having his face clawed by his old wife — swiftly flooded his entire body once more. Master Bo had always been henpecked; all his acquaintances knew it.

"Wretched! This old master must have a flint-and-steel lighter!" Years of experience in shifting ground saved him. Master Bo used a move of Shifting Stars to resolve the main contradiction: "Don't you know this old master can't stand Dunhill? Swap all the lighters for Marlboros!"

"Aye!" The two Household Staff felt no ripple of emotion in their hearts and nodded in assent.

During the remaining time, the group thoroughly combed through every shop along Chikan Street. Just like all the traveling merchants who came here to shop, the Visiting Delegation ultimately returned laden with goods.

Master Bo and Fang Tangjing truly bought quite a lot of various large bundles of Commodities, forcing Chang Sui Bo Gui to have no choice but to rent a pushcart on the spot. Just delivering goods back to the Hotel took several round trips.

Besides gifts, there were exquisite complete sets of Glass tea ware, complete sets of Glass jewelry, complete sets of vanity mirrors, complete sets of women's cosmetics, perfume, cigarettes, high-grade Deerskin luggage and Leather Shoes, bamboo rat fur robes, nearsighted and reading glasses, hall-brand iron-ribbed umbrellas, thermoses and thermos cups, Kerosene Lamps and kerosene stoves...

Humanity lacks the Capability to resist fine objects; this is a kind of nature, a hidden worship of intelligence.

In the late 1970s, the Friendship Store, which only served Foreigners, diplomats, and Government officials, opened. At that time, what was sold inside were things like peanut butter and Hershey's chocolate, as well as American refrigerators and washing machines.

Because they only accepted Foreign Exchange Certificates as currency, "guards would stop anyone who looked Chinese from entering the store." Even so, every day many people would peer in through the doors, searching for a chance to go inside and look around.

Later, in the 1980s, Japanese household appliances entering the Domestic market began to be queued for overnight. Even later, as consumption upgraded, people started chasing after brick phones, luxury cars, iPhones, Canada Goose...

These vivid examples tell us that Commodities with high added value, unless physically cut off, will certainly be sought after by the populations of relatively underdeveloped regions. This trend cannot be stopped by ideology or hostile sentiment.

As poor as General Kim is, every year he still has to Import several hundred million dollars' worth of luxury goods from the Enemy to distribute to the Labor Party's upper echelons. The original hardship and plain living was because they hadn't seen the world; once they truly have, try not handing them out and see what happens.

I've digressed; the story returns to the Seventeenth Century's Master Bo.

Although Master Bo was equally reactionary in terms of ideology and deeply hostile toward the Cao Clan group, this did not hinder the Old Man from sending all the Silver he had brought this time into the shops opened by the "Cao Family." Relying on the official visa processed upon entry, the Visiting Delegation went on a mad spending spree along Chikan Street, making some merchants who were both short on money and lacked shopping permits so envious that their mouths watered.

In the evening, back at the Hotel, Master Bo and his two servants settled accounts facing a room full of Commodities... Well now. Including the Silver the Old Master himself brought, the public funds advanced for the business trip, and the private shopping money the Madam and the Young Miss entrusted to the Household Staff, the total sum of over two thousand seven hundred taels of Silver had been largely spent in a single afternoon. It was truly a case of the wind blowing the eggshell — the wealth gone, the man at ease.

"Tomorrow, have someone from the counter come over to handle that... hmm, Shunfeng Express." The matter having come to this, Master Bo could only have the Servant rub his feet while he smiled wryly and instructed his Chang Sui. He now had absolute faith in that travel guide. Since it said shipping goods was safe and reliable, with fragile items even getting extra reed-fluff packaging as a Freebie, then of course the Old Man would not bother to carry his own luggage.

At the same time, Fang Tangjing in the opposite room was also taking inventory of his goods. He had come to Taiwan on this inspection and research trip bearing a purchasing mission to begin with, so his buying power was even more vigorous than Master Bo's. In the Late Ming, aside from warlords, it was the gentry who had the most money. A few thousand taels of Silver could be easily produced by a single middling Scholar-Official household.

Fang Tangjing and his servant had bought the full Quota of every Commodity today. Including the coarse goods like thick canvas, denim, and khaki that Master Bo looked down upon, Fang, who hailed from the cotton-producing region of Jiangnan, bought two of everything, planning to take them back for research.

Inspecting and recording the loot, eating, Bathing, and drinking Coffee — Master Bo pleasantly passed his shopping night.

The next morning, after contacting Shunfeng Express, the cargo carriage soon Docked At the Hotel entrance. Master Bo watched as his family's goods were packaged by their people, then filled in his address in Xinghua Prefecture on the triplicate form.

After This, the client didn't need to worry about anything else. Because Xinghua Prefecture city was a second-tier city second only to Fuzhou, Shunfeng had a local branch there and would deliver to the door. The same was true for Fang Tangjing. The goods were sent directly to Hangzhou, and he even took the opportunity to send a letter home along with them.

Having accomplished the great task of purchasing, Master Bo finally breathed a sigh of relief. Of the three major objectives for this trip to Taiwan — military procurement, shopping, and Wind Observation — only the most relaxed and free one Remaining now.

So Master Bo once again pulled the travel guide from his sleeve. After studying it a bit, the Delegation Leader made a prompt decision: the group would first walk to the Pier District to visit the shipyard, and after lunch, hire a carriage to take a turn through the fields.

The boss had spoken; naturally, the others had no objections. So after seeing off the express delivery, the group strolled leisurely along the Pier District beside the Taijiang River, heading all the way to the shipyard.

At the shipyard, besides the forest of hoisting frames and the ant-like workers, Master Bo and the others also saw a Giant Ship of war.

This Western-style warship, over 70 Meters in length and possessing two gun decks, had already had its main outline completed. Workers were currently installing the top deck and masts. The Visitors standing on the dock could now clearly see the towering hull, as well as the orange-painted steel Crane that stood out like a crane among chickens.

"This is what the Cao Clan relies on to dominate the seas," Master Bo said calmly, stroking his beard as he looked at the incomparably lofty embryonic form of the Giant Ship.

Fang Tangjing's attention, however, was on the steel-frame Crane. Watching the iron frame that seemed put together like a toy, and then seeing its slender long arm nimbly Hoisting bundled ship planks to a High Altitude of several zhang, he sighed with equal sincerity, "That Iron Derrick is no ordinary object either. Their hundred arts of craftsmanship crown the world. Given time, I fear no one will be able to control them."

"Hmph!" Master Bo snorted heavily. "Right now, no one can control them already! If the court does not wake up, great calamity will be upon us in an instant!"

Fang Tangjing only then realized he had carelessly stirred up the old angry patriot's fervor again. He hurriedly steered the topic aside — he knew the old angry patriot had been plotting something all along, but he didn't want the old man to stir up trouble before the inspection ended and implicate him.

After visiting the shipyard, seeing that it was already noon, Master Bo, whose mood was not very good, found a Mess Hall right there on the dock. After lunch, the Old Master took out the guide again to look it over, then led the group to the carriage rental shop to rent a carriage.

During this process, in front of a Warehouse door at the dock, they also saw a group of Westerners participating in an auction getting into a brawl, and incidentally saw a man who looked like a coachman get his head smashed by a flying hammer... After Master Bo cursed a few times about the utter disgrace to refinement, he hurried off to the carriage rental shop.

The carriage rental shop in Dayuan had no Sedan Chairs; it was all horse-drawn carriages here, only divided into passenger and cargo models. After Master Bo produced his paper money and visa, he easily chartered a sightseeing four-wheeled carriage.

The sightseeing carriage was open-topped and polished to a gleam all over. The Blue body, the yellow decorative trim, and the wheels wrapped in silver-colored iron sheeting made the carriage look very pretty. However, looks depended on what you compared them to. Besides lacking rubber Tires, the two short Dian Horses pulling the carriage also robbed it of any British flair, lowering its prestige considerably.

Fortunately, Master Bo had never seen the carriages of Later Generations, so when he sat on the soft cushion, he still felt quite satisfied. The smooth road surface and the spring suspension system made the Old Master's rear end very comfortable. To be honest, he had truly never ridden in such a stable and pleasant carriage in the Great Ming.

Since the carriage could only seat four people, the Old Master left Chang Sui Bo Gui behind to move about freely. This suited Bo Gui perfectly; going to the main street to look at girls was certainly better than going to the fields to look at rice.

The carriage soon turned onto the road heading to the eastern farms. Although the two Dian Horses could not run fast, their pace was steady, which was just right for passenger transport.

The coachman was called Lao Hai, a dark-skinned, sturdily built middle-aged man. Like all taxi drivers under Heaven, Lao Hai was very talkative, so Fang Tangjing, who was intent on investigation, very naturally struck up a conversation with him.

One doesn't know until one talks, and once they talked, it was a shock: it turned out this Lao Hai was already among the first batch of people to successfully start a business locally.

This Lao Hai was originally the owner of a general goods shop in Taizhou city. Two generations of business meant the family had some assets. Unexpectedly, last year, calamity flew in from nowhere: the government office wanted to "Buying Agent" a batch of goods worth the huge sum of five hundred taels, and designated Lao Hai to handle it.

This trick, tantamount to outright robbery, was called "Harmonious Purchase" in the Tang Dynasty and Song Dynasty. In short, it was all a vile method for the government to extort merchants.

Upon hearing this disastrous news, Lao Hai did not simply sit and wait for death. He first had someone inquire into the inside story of the matter. Finding it irreversible, he decided to go all out and secretly sold his valuable goods at a discount to his own relatives that very night.

Next, Lao Hai arranged for his wife and daughter to secretly leave the city and wait for him to join them. Before leaving, Lao Hai did one last thing: he pawned his title deed at half price in a dead pawn to a pawnshop run by a powerful local family.

In the end, the government office only got a few worthless goods. Lao Hai fled, the title deed went to the powerful family, and the bailiffs dared not go to their door to demand it.

The reason that caused Lao Hai to act so drastically was precisely the Crossing Faction. Lao Hai had previously taken a ship to Dayuan to buy general goods, so he knew he would be welcomed here.