How to win Yun Mu's quest to get 50K and 5 ships?

[Blessed]

I am having doubts about being able to complete this quest any time soon. This early in the game, all I got is the small starter ship, about 5 cargo spots and a weak gun. Maybe I can after some time get the 50K but I got to add 4 ships to that (probably those small sloops)

Right now in my game none of the nearby ports are booming or are having a depression. This makes trading a pain and will just bleed money. And with only a weak gun, I doubt I can win against a weak bounty.

What can I do to win this quest?

[Nepnep]

Various "methods", in no particular order except

STEP 1. There is a large island near Zhangzhou with 2 ports on it. Go to the bottom of it and dig for treasure for free 20k (need lookout). It should be enough money to get you started on a ship/high price items like silk. It's Southeast of Anping


1. Get 2-3 sloops, then a Shachuan for yourself (depending on your preference. Maybe build 2). INVEST IN WAREHOUSES. INCLUDING your crappy starter flagship's Mapping room. Invest in an Accounting room if you don't already have one at the start and put discount Zhuge Liang there, Seriously, just warehouse everything the first chance you get (within budget). Pretty sure one warehouse adds 2 slots and iirc your starter ship only has 3. That's almost twice the amount of loot!

Start by shipping stuff from Zhangzhou to the Black market island and back, or Japan once you get movement speed than Sloops.


2. Invest in sharpnel cannon (i think it was called. The one that kills sailors instead of ships) Preferable in a Shachuan
Solo battle Very easy/Easy bounties and sell off the mostly useless ship building materials (or keep it for later) like general mast. If you need help, try sailing slow/not sailing at all while you turn and shoot them from outside their range (early game enemies have miserable range and damage) or from behind.

3. while doing 1/2 eventually you will probably get prosperous somewhere.

4. Save scum with your jacob's cane. Then dig for treasure/find more sellable stuff. Iirc there should be treasure chest somewhere at one of the China rivers


Other treasure chest locations that are further away but still money.

E111, N20 Island left side of Macao

E122, N39 Northwest of Hanyang,near the
E130, N41 Above Pohang.

[Edwyndham]

Go to Hangzhou (slightly north of Zhangzhou) and buy silk, celadon and (once unlocked via permit) blue and white porcelain. These all trade pretty well to the nearby Nagasaki. You can buy Sake there and in the nearby Edo to complete a lot of Alcohol Restocking contracts for local contributions in other places. Just selling sake to non-Japan markets increases contribution anyway. It's an easy enough back-and-forth route between Hangzhou<->Nagasaki.

[Grahor]

Trading gold-background items (speciality) between cultures is profitable even without depressions and booming. In particular, Ming and Japan culture are hugely profitable. I'm usually trading Zhangzhou-Nagasaki.

OH! And don't forget, you may change the amount of cargo slots in your fleet! From Pier, preparations to sailing or something like this, change cargo - change balance between supply and cargo space. You need like 2-3 supply top this early (set command on needed, starting ship has ridiculously low needed crew and supply demand). 2-3 trips - and you can buy another couple of ships, double-triple your cargo space, and then in no time flat you are going to be rich.

[oroelf]

Lots of good answers here, and as with Nepnep's comments, don't forget to talk to the barmaids in Zhangzhou / Nagasaki. They will tell you where sunken ships are and you can get more gold that way.

[Blessed]

Hello thank you all for your comments. In my previous campaign, I did not explore Trading much. I stuck to the formula of buying from Depressed ports and selling to Prosperous ports.

That proved to be a lacking strategy when most of the nearby ports either were normal or were not prosperous. i learned some new pointers about trading, digging for treasure, etc. I decided against trying for bounties as I did not want to accidentally lose a ship. At 30K a ship, maybe that will set me back unnecessarily.

Looking over the comments here, I decided to sell those gold backed items from one region to another (eg. from China to Japan or from Korea to Japan) avoiding selling to Depressed ports. That generated reasonably reliable profits I was able to buy Shachuans whenever they were available in the shipyards. The starter ship was nearly at 70% aging by then, but it still counted as one ship towards the quest completion.

I ended up with 5 ships and about 100K. Thank you for all the suggestions.

[Frutz]

I just did this yesterday. There is a big advantage in that you're already in the best part of the world to make serious money. Celadon and Silk are huge money makers when you bring to Japan, even if the japanese port is not prospering. Bring Lacquerware or Katanas back if you can, if not enough fill up on sake or any other item 90% or lower. the Shachuan ships are what you should be shooting to buy at 30k each. They'll help you make money faster just make sure after you buy one that you will have enough money to fill it with cargo. It really isn't that difficult to do. Eventually You'll be rolling in money and you should start a guild in your home port and Hangzhou but that one isn't as much as a priority. Starting a guild will allow you to invest in different areas which will expand the stock of goods you can fill up with. Once you get those two ports rolling you can essentially use the huge cargo loads from them to sell in foreign ports to get you a lot of contribution. I'd recommend putting a point into shipbuilding on Shen Shi so that you can unlock modifying your hulls. You'll need your capital at 300 tech to buy the item necessary for it but that's what the guild was for. Once you do that then you can expand your 4 extra ships with more cargo holds allowing you to drop larger payloads at once. You'll eventually be rolling in it.

[Profile]

1. Silk, Celadon, Tea, Porcelain, & Musk(China) all sell very well on the Korean peninsula as well as Japan... no need to specifically aim for prosperous/depressed cities. Likewise, Katanas, laquerware, Tortoise Shells, Pearls, Sake(Japan) all sell very well in China.

2. Sakai in Japan has an equipment shop that has a +1 Shipbuilding item. Give that to Shen Shi to get him to level 3 shipbuilding. You can now modify your ship cabins at shipyards. Replace the map rooms in your extra ships with warehouses.
-Like someone else mentioned, replace the old bowgun with shrapnel canons so you can disable ships rather than sink them. You'll get ship parts & more items.
-As soon as you can, swap your flagship to one of the Sachuans(30k cost). You'll have 2 slots for a forward gun and more HP/cargo space.

3. When you are at the city pier and preparing to voyage. Reallocate your sailors to the needed bar instead of the completely full bar... unless you expect to go into combat. It greatly decreases supply consumption. LIkewise, reallocate your supply/goods ratio. I think 10 days worth of supplies is more than enough for the East China Sea area.

4. I recommend building your first guild in China's Zhangzhou or Korea's Hanyang. They both have shipyards. Zhangzhou's item shop will sell the cabin expansion once you've increased tech a bit(investments). Hanyang has the ship part shop which sells better grade ship parts when you want to start building your own ships. As your investments make the city grow, the shop will offer higher quantities of goods. making each trip more profitable. Start guilds in cities where you want to increase the number of specialties you can buy.

[FreedomFighter]

There are several treasure chests around East Asia and they are worth 20k each. Assign someone on the crownest and hugging the land, when you get near one, your crew will mention it. Slow down and turn on scouting mode. You can get a starting capital with it to buy a medium ship or two.

[Seraviel]

I literally have a walk through in the guides about this.

[BonBonCatZ]

Here's Yun Mu quick start for chapter 1 https://youtu.be/tkEl_vUiIf8

[Kain Yusanagi]

Originally posted by Nepnep:

... sell off the mostly useless ship building materials (or keep it for later) like general mast.

They are worth a lot, but they aren't useless in any way. You can put in the parts without a blueprint to random a ship, depending on your shipbuilding skill. Well worth doing.