After receiving a satisfactory reply from Baiyutang, Baron Krivitz did not delay any longer here. After the ship was replenished and his subordinates also handed over the various materials and slaves he brought with the East Coast people, they took back a stack of checks from the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and then took over a business of transporting timber to Dongfang County, and then hurried down the river.

On February 28, after handing over the wood at Oriental Port, they transported a batch of military equipment, canned food, production tools and other items, and went south to Yancheng Port. These goods were ordered by merchants from Yancheng Port. The medicines, labor tools, mechanical parts, weapons and ammunition needed by the Kurrans will also be purchased in the state-owned department store here, and the price will be about half a century lower than on the market. After all, they are old customers and big customers, so it is normal to give some discounts. Moreover, New Kurran has been serving the interests of the East Coast Republic of China for so many years.

Baron Krivitz purchased a variety of goods for New Courland, involving almost all aspects of life, ranging from an iron nail to a hydraulic machine tool and a large caliber artillery. In addition to these necessities of daily necessities and means of production, as the trade in the New Courland colonies became more and more prosperous, local colonists were becoming more and more prosperous. Now these people's demand for many specialty products produced from the East Courland is increasing day by day, such as various clocks and watch factories produced in the Sea Eagle Watch Factory, such as perfumes produced from New China Island, such as some famous liquors, such as some beautiful brocade and silk.

Especially for this last item, the Kurians even informed some merchants on the East Coast last year that they had made a batch of special silk products through their deposits, with a total amount of more than 20,000 yuan, which shows the amazing purchasing power of these Kurians. This year, when Baron Krivitz led people to Yancheng Port, they not only brought back the silk products they ordered in previous years, but also placed a new order and told the merchants who were responsible for their business in detail. For example, some asked to embroider images of the Virgin Mary, some asked to embroider a certain scenery in their hometown, etc.

In addition, they also spent money to purchase some ordinary silk cloth, silk cloth, silk linen blended fabric, silk cotton blended fabric, etc., which were to be brought back to New Courland for sale. Because with the addition of a large number of "Protestant" handicraftsmen from Brazil, the number of tailors in New Courland was greatly supplemented. Therefore, many local middle-class people - such as officers, supervisors, small merchants, small civilian officials, senior technicians, noble servants, etc. - even ordinary wealthy white self-cultivated farmers can customize clothes through tailors, and the materials they chose were undoubtedly various silk fabrics produced on the East Coast, which directly reflects their wealth.

The economic prosperity of New Kurland, based on the trade of tropical goods, is still very attractive to many poor and helpless people in the Old Continent or those suffering from war. At least, many of the Livornians who lived increasingly difficult under the exploitation of Sweden and Poles have gone to New Kurland. After all, many of the people there are very similar to their own clan, language, wind speed, and habits, and they can quickly integrate into the environment when they go there. In addition, in recent years, Italy, where trade with New Kurland has become more and more frequent.

— especially in Naples and Sicily, where the overpopulation is severe, a few people also immigrated to New Courland, and in recent years it has shown an increasing trend. Last year (1667), six or seven hundred southern Italians immigrated to New Courland through various channels, but they lack professional skills and have no money in their pockets, so they mostly act as farmers or ordinary laborers, and even contract slaves. In short, it is the existence of the bottom of society. Of course, their status is much higher than that of blacks or mixed-race blacks.

Some people may ask, the silk weaving industry in Italy is also very famous and is still exporting large quantities to Spain, United Provinces, France and England. So why don’t the Courses buy from them? You should know that Italian merchants plant mulberry and silkworms in their local and southern France, and textile factories are also located there. The raw material cost is much cheaper than those in the East Coast who need to be imported from Persia and China (the Dutch East India Company is also exporting Hanoi raw silk to the east coast and Indian raw silk to the east coast). So why do these people still have to buy such textiles from the east coast?

This is actually not understandable, and there are two main reasons. One is political reasons. The existence of the New Kurland colony is entirely supported by trade with the East Coast. Although they have expanded the market and are no longer hanging on a tree on the East Coast, they still cannot get rid of their dependence on the East Coast people. Therefore, if you can buy things from the East Coast, you can buy them on the East Coast. This is also a disguised sincere loss, which smart people understand.

Another reason is naturally due to economic aspects. Do you really think that the finished silk products of the East Coast people are more expensive than those of the Italians? You should know that the freight rate is also an important factor that cannot be ignored when transporting silk fabrics from the Mediterranean Sea. Unless the Kurian merchant ships arrive from the local Balos Sea and turn to the Western Mediterranean in the middle of the journey, this freight alone is enough to keep a low profile Italians' large-scale cost advantage.

Secondly, the innovation of silk weaving technology in East Coast people has been going on in recent years. Taking Luoqia Textile Factory, the largest silk weaving company in China, as an example, the factory has improved the silk reeling equipment (equipment to untie silk cocoons, and sometimes imported silk cocoons on the east coast) through various technical transformation projects (invested 50,000 yuan or 60,000 yuan) in recent years, using the latest water vapor reeling technology and the latest wire guide travel technology, making the raw silk processed on the east coast excellent quality, and it is also very good when used for weaving; of course, the people on East Coast people also twist.

The wire equipment has been improved, of course, this change is mainly in materials. For example, the original wooden wheel part was changed to cast iron parts, the crude forged iron ingots were changed to vehicle steel ingots, and the bearings also used more advanced manganese iron bearings. Under the combined action of these improved technologies, the efficiency of the East Coast wire twister has been greatly improved. At present, its spindle speed has been improved from the initial 800 revolutions per minute to 3,000 revolutions per minute. This production efficiency alone is much better than the Italians and French men.

When it comes to technological advances in textiles, we must mention the invention of some improved jacquard machine. The reason why jacquard machine was improved and invented was mainly to be widely used in the silk weaving industry. This type of jacquard machine has more thimbles, hooks, combs (a series of combs connected together), porous rotors and other designs, which have many functions and improved a lot of efficiency. It has been widely available in Luoqia Textile Factory.

It is said that the Engineering and Technology Research Institute is still conducting further research on this jacquard machine, because they feel that this equipment seems to have a lot of room for improvement so that all work can be completed by machines. Although the current jacquard machine is much more advanced than the old continent, it still requires jacquard workers to operate the wire, which undoubtedly greatly affects the efficiency. Because of this, they want to technically reform the existing jacquard machine named "Luoqia-1667", hoping to come up with a more advanced equipment in the future.

Therefore, with the above-mentioned technology, even if the wages of domestic workers are two to three times that of Europe, the distance to Europe is far away, with freight, insurance, and loss costs, compared with European textiles - especially silk fabrics with higher added value - it still has some advantages in cost. It can be said that in the international textile market here, if there is no religious sentiment, mercantilist thoughts, and local protectionism (reflected in the form of prohibiting commodity entry or high tariffs), then the textiles of all European countries cannot compete with the goods of the East Coast people, their textile workers will go bankrupt on a large scale, and national industries will collapse, and eventually become economic colonies of the East Coast Republic of China.

Of course, this is just the most beautiful imagination of the East Coast business community, and in fact it is impossible to do it. They currently only have some advantages in the Mediterranean area. For example, the East Coast people sold large quantities of goods into the Ottoman Empire, the Kingdom of Spain and some Italian states through agents.

In addition, the goods of the East Coast people are in the Brandenburg-Prussian market that the Dutch "Keang" allowed to enter. In addition, the Livornia, which the East Coast people themselves have developed, the Russian market is still retained. As for the others, either look for Dutch agents (Dutch agents are much more greedy than agents in any country, they will take away most of the profits and make you a pure worker), otherwise it will be difficult to insert them except for sneaking smuggling.

However, although the East Coast people face many trade barriers in Europe and do not have even a slight market in other places, including India and China, there are still some ways to go in front of their own homes. Especially when the New Kurland colony still relies heavily on the East Coast, and our own products are indeed cheap and good. If the Kurlands don’t buy them, they will be too unavailable. Therefore, in recent years, more than 90% of the Kurland textiles have been purchased on the East Coast, including the linen or linen and cotton-blend clothing worn by slaves.

Baron Krivitz also purchased a lot of salt here, because the environment in New Courland is humid and hot, which is not conducive to salt production, and it is not economical - isn't this nonsense? The limited manpower naturally has to use it to build cash crops. Is there any problem with your brain? It's better to buy it from the East Coast people. There is an endless salt lake here, which is large and cheap.

Baron Krivitz finally spent three days preparing all the goods on the purchase list. At the same time, he also followed Prince Frederick's instructions to purchase some donkey, mules, cattle and sheep in Yancheng County, intending to go back and try to raise them. Although due to the intimidating climate in the Congo River Basin, the Kurians' efforts to raise livestock many times before failed - both diseases and parasites, they never gave up and wanted to try again.

However, Baron Krivitz did not have any confidence in this. He estimated that after these livestock were pulled back, donkeys and mules were not strong, but those cattle would not live long, parasites would immediately penetrate into their skin and destroy their health. Even if this cow died, their beef would be difficult to eat, because there was always a dry smell. This action would probably end in failure. Before the environment in New Courland was fully transformed, the beef and mutton and livestock needed for everyone to produce and live, should be imported from the South Africa region of the East Coast people. Anyway, their supply has always been sufficient, just like the supply of salted fish they caught and processed.

Necessities of daily necessities need to be imported from the east coast, production tools need to be imported from the east coast, livestock need to be imported from the east coast, food (meat, fish and grain) need to be imported from the east coast, medicine needs to be imported from the east coast... Baron Krivitz didn't think that, but now he has gone out twice, and he has found that the trade lifeline of New Courland is almost completely in the hands of the East Courland people. In fact, the eldest prince sent some young noble children to the East Courland to learn various management knowledge, which is impossible to say. The Baron privately felt that it would be better for Kureland to never turn against the East Courland people, otherwise, not only will the market be gone, but the goods are overcrowded. This is enough to cut off the supply of food and medicine alone to put more than 20,000 residents in New Courland into a catastrophe. This is not a joke, but an extremely harsh fact!

However, these are all things that the eldest prince, Prince Frederick, Governor Beverren and others are worried about. Anyway, Baron Krivitz himself has no intention of turning against the East Coast, and there are many people who hold the same view as him, although those people on the other side of the Atlantic are yellow-skinned pagans.

On March 10, 1668, after all ships were repaired and the supplies needed for navigation were purchased, Baron Krivitz gave the order, several Courland merchant ships built in Wendao Port set sail and slowly left Yancheng Port.

After the fleet left the port, it sailed south for a while, successfully caught the west wind near the mouth of the Chubut River, and then began a journey across the Atlantic Ocean and back to the west coast of Africa. It is no need to say the difficulties and dangers of this journey. Every man who has been running the sea for several years knows that sailing is a task with his head in his arms and a game for the brave.

On April 15, the Courland fleet, which took more than 35 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean, arrived heavily at the port of River Central, South Africa. After negotiating with the port department of the East Coast, they drove into the dock one by one to anchor and moor. The ships should be repaired and maintained, otherwise the remaining section of the sea route back to Jacob Port would be difficult to walk.
Chapter completed!