Chapter 45: Mountains and Seas
Both the Ming and Qing Dynasties knew that the source of power of the Zheng Group was the huge profits from maritime trade. [Read the latest chapter] One of the main measures to combat the Zheng Group is to work hard to block the export of goods from the mainland. Especially after Zheng Zhilong came to the Qing Dynasty and was killed, the Manchu Qing Dynasty implemented strong sea bans, implemented a trade blockade against Zheng Chenggong, and implemented a sea ban , "Nothing is allowed to enter the sea" and the export of goods is prohibited. However, Zheng Chenggong relied on Taiwan and Jinxia to continue to obtain a large amount of goods for overseas trade from the mainland. This all relies on the business-intelligence network established by the Zheng Group on the mainland, which is the so-called Shanhai Road, Five Business and Five Elements system.
The operation of this system is very successful. It not only provides the Zheng Group with a continuous supply of various commodities on the continent, but also provides intelligence and logistical support for Zheng Chenggong's military operations on the continent. In 1659, when the Zheng army attacked Zhenjiang, the merchants of the Zheng group stored a large amount of rice in the Jinshan Temple at the mouth of the river, so that when the Zheng army ships arrived, they could supply the army with food on the spot. Zheng Chenggong's ministry brought Huang Wu to the Manchu Qing Dynasty to expose this system. However, during the entire Shunzhi period, only twelve so-called Zheng spy cases were uncovered, and most of them were very unclear, and only five or six people were involved. . Apparently not much damage was done to the system.
Zheng Chenggong's system uses mountain roads for business operations and sea routes for material distribution. Each road has five trading houses responsible for it and are not in contact with each other.
The system that Jiang Shan, Si Kaide and others want to establish now is basically to imitate its operation.
Shanlu is responsible for cross-continent trade and purchasing materials across the group. The five merchants are code-named according to "metal, wood, water, fire, and earth". Wanyou takes the "gold" font size; the "wood" font size is left to the Runshitang system, and the rest is for later use.
Several purple-branded enterprises in Guangzhou and the South China Sugar Industry in Leizhou were considered by the Intelligence Bureau and the Department of Colonial Trade to be too important to the Crossing Group and it was best to leave them as they were for the time being.
The sea route was established in the Five Elements, which operated the transportation of goods and people, inns, and finance. Equivalent to the logistics and financial services industry. Codenamed "Benevolence, Righteousness, Properity, Wisdom and Trust". Among them, the "Ren" brand name is Qiwei Escort System, and the "Yi" brand name is Delong Bank System.
Shanhai Road, Five Businesses and Five Industries all adopt vertical management, and there is only business contact between them, not intelligence contact. Keep each other's actions confidential. Except for a few key figures, most of the clerks and shopkeepers employed in stores do not know their secret missions.
The Five Businesses and Five Elements mainly collect local public intelligence and are also responsible for support in logistics, transportation and communications.
In addition to the Shanhai two groups, there is the "Black Dragon Society" system directly under the Foreign Intelligence Service system. This system is entirely composed of intelligence personnel, who conduct reconnaissance in important locations in the form of a reconnaissance network. These people will use various identities to cover up, including landlords, hawkers, small businessmen, clerks, monks, Taoist priests, etc. When necessary, we can also use the model of occupying the mountain as king or forming a rural warrior to operate small-scale local armed forces as the future continental armed work team.
There is no horizontal connection between the Black Dragon Society and Shanhai Road. They mainly engage in dangerous illegal activities and perform undercover, infiltration and instigation work. Members of the Black Dragon Society are not allowed to work in Shanhai Road stores to avoid being exposed. When an arrest is implicated and the other party's cooperation or support is needed, a special token or coded letter instructions must be presented.
Establishing a large-scale business network on the mainland is a large-scale investment project. This project not only involved a large investment, but also involved a large number of people. It caused great controversy during the Third Senate, and a hearing was held for this purpose.
At the meeting, personnel from the finance, trade and industry departments each explained the current situation and problems faced.
At present, the scale of investment in Lingao's industry, civil affairs, and infrastructure continues to expand. The expansion of production capacity and increase in population have greatly stimulated imports. And Lingao's local self-sufficiency rate in raw materials is very low. The result is that Lingao's dependence on foreign trade continues to deepen. Lingao's financial department finally began to encounter a problem: lack of foreign exchange.
The so-called foreign exchange is of course the most widely used hard currency in this time and space: silver.
The ever-expanding industrial and mining enterprises, administrative agencies, military and police employed a large number of personnel. The huge administrative expenses and industrial investment caused the physical silver reserves of the Finance and Finance Committee to drop to a level close to the warning line by April 163o.
If we look at the book figures, Lingao's trade has always been at a low level, and the number of silver reserves is more than sufficient. However, most of the reserves are only in the accounts receivable of Guangzhou Station. Similarly, Guangzhou Station is under the payable column of imported materials. The number of liabilities is also quite large. If it weren't for the first collection date of the Dragon Boat Festival in May, and the silver reserve situation of the traverse group to the end of the summer would become ugly.
Leizhou, the largest source of silver for the Crossing Group, not only cannot contribute financial resources, but also requires a large amount of financial investment. Relying on the Leizhou Sugar Industry Association, South China Sugar Company is organizing a local "sugar industry combination", similar to Japan's "rural cooperative" system. A model of unified supply of seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides, unified planting guidance, and unified procurement is adopted. The most critical part of this system is to provide farmers with a large number of small, low-interest loans to protect them from the control of local rural loan sharks. This system is currently only implemented in Xuwen, but the capital investment required is at least 50,000 taels, and in the autumn, another 200,000 to 300,000 taels of silver will be invested to meet the acquisition demand. This makes the financial situation very serious in the second half of the year.
"Since the financial situation is so severe, why should we increase investment in the mainland?" Qian Shuixie, a member of the Standing Committee of the Senate, asked, "It is impossible to recover the principal of the funds invested now, let alone obtain sufficient profits, within that year. ”
"First of all, this system is a gradual construction process, not one step." Sitting on the lonely chair in the middle of the horseshoe-shaped table is Skade. Although this system is a dual system of business and intelligence, it mainly serves business. According to According to the principle of whoever benefits the most, he can only answer the question.
"This system mainly uses existing mature industrial and commercial enterprises, and we take the lead in guiding them to make expansion investments." Si Kaide pointed out that whether it is the soon-to-be-established "Wanyou" or Runshitang, which is preparing to launch the "Ming Watsons" Pharmacies are all private joint-stock companies, and the funds for external expansion are mainly borne by them.
"But we also have investment, don't we? And this investment is not a small amount."
"Of course. Although our nominal investment amount is large, the actual silver capital investment is limited..."
"Do you mean that our investment is just an accounting act?"
Skade was a little hesitant, and it took dozens of seconds before he returned: "If you are talking about the method of transferring funds, then yes." He then added, "But we also need to invest some physical silver. It's just the amount. It’s limited.”
"No matter what, as for the investment of Wanyou and Runshitang, the total investment will not be less than 50,000 taels, right? Just discount it in half according to your contracted investment amount. If you invest this money, how long will it take to recover the cost - I Let’s not talk about profits.”
"I think even Buffett can't say when he will definitely make profits." Skade said, "But the time to pay back the capital is very fast. For example, Wanyou's North-South goods business."
According to historical records, navy calculations and commercial department estimates: using traditional sand ships to traffic goods from the north to south from Shanghai to Tianjin, a round-trip transaction can be completed in about two months. The capital of 50,000 taels of silver, after excluding expenses, the net profit is about 3,000 to 6,000 taels, which is a very considerable profit.
"The profits cannot be withdrawn immediately to Lingao for use. Since we want to expand our operations, we need to accumulate capital."
"Yes, that's the case," Skade said, "but the investment is relatively large, and there will be no need for additional investment in the future - even if the additional investment is limited, the company can rely on its own profits to maintain operation and development. With our It’s quite cost-effective in terms of investment.”
There was a commotion among the members of the Standing Committee, as if they were not satisfied with this answer.
Si Kaide continued: "As for funds, there is another channel that can be supplemented. Everyone knows where the deposits of Delong Bank in Guangzhou come from, right? It mainly relies on the deposits of local wealthy people absorbed by Zishi Enterprises. We After the continent's commercial network system is formed, the same method can be used to absorb funds."
"In addition, the Directorate General of Colonization and Trade requested Comrade Yu Eshui, a first-level historical researcher of the Historical Materials Research Group of the Grand Library, to serve as our witness."
"agree."
Yu Eshui submitted a testimony. According to historical records, next year, the fourth year of Chongzhen, the Ming army will blockade Guangzhou Bay and prohibit the Portuguese from entering and exiting trade. This abolished the long-standing practice of the Portuguese being able to come to Guangzhou twice a year to purchase goods.
"The Portuguese can no longer purchase Chinese goods directly. They will inevitably look for Chinese agents to purchase goods. Guangzhou Station can use this opportunity to sell a large amount of Chinese goods directly to the Portuguese, and we can obtain huge silver foreign exchange reserves. If we can By establishing a continental commercial network before next year, we can purchase goods cheaply through this network and then export them—whether it is sold directly to the Portuguese in Macau or shipped to Southeast Asia."
The main producing area of raw silk, the Portuguese's favorite commodity, is in Jiangnan. The first-level raw silk variety "lnijn" for export is produced in Jiangnan.
The proposal to establish a continental business network was finally passed by the Senate on the 3rd, but the Standing Committee added an additional condition to it, that is, additional funding for these enterprises must be approved by the Senate.
In addition, the Senate also approved the Department of Colonization and Trade to conduct one or two exploratory trade inspections to Southeast Asia and Liaodong to see if there is the possibility of setting up commercial offices or agencies there.
At the same time, the Senate also ordered the Manufacturing Directorate to launch more export products as soon as possible to ensure its leading position in the field of foreign trade. Increase foreign exchange reserves and ensure continued import of production raw materials and population.
The Office of Colonization and Trade received all the authority they wanted. But the manufacturing director's department seemed very unhappy - they didn't get any benefits from this hearing, but instead they were put under more pressure. Developing new export products is easy to say, but actually very difficult.
Most of the products of the various departments and companies under the Manufacturing Directorate cannot be exported - even if they are willing to export, Lingao itself is not enough. Orders for the machinery and equipment that account for most of the production capacity of the Manufacturing Directorate have been scheduled to 1633. These are all to be supplied to various industrial, mining and agricultural uses in Lingao and Sanya in the future; the production capacity of the garment factory is already as high as that of the indigenous people. The incredible figure of 5,000 sets of various clothing per month is still unable to cope with the increasing population. Sometimes, purified immigrants don't even get the standard of two sets of clothing per person, so they have to use clothing coupons to pay for them later. As for shoes, they have never really been able to meet the demand. The army relies on its own "high-end straw sandals" mixed with rag strips to barely keep soldiers from training barefoot - formal leather-soled cloth boots are only used during inspections, exercises and Only wear it when going out.
Even the production capacity of many light industrial products has been absorbed internally - for example, soap, its own production capacity is affected by insufficient oil and grease, and the large internal demand for soap has caused most of the soap to be consumed directly in Lingao, with only a few high-end soaps and transparent soaps Soap was exported as a luxury product.
"Mo Xiao'an, this matter is yours to consider." Zhan Wuya said, "As we all know, the only possibility for the heavy industry sector to export is arms and machinery. Now the Executive Committee does not agree with it, so the important task of exporting industrial products is It falls on your Ministry of Light Industry.”
He sighed: "I know it's difficult for you. The raw materials of many products are 'controlled' materials. Even if they can sell well in the market, you can't put them into mass production. But you should try your best."
"I'll try my best to find a way." Mo Xiao'an said with a grimace, "Can you submit a report to the executive committee? Allow some grain exports? This way I can at least develop a large amount of sweet potato products."
"It's basically impossible. If it's not enough, I'll try again. You'd better pray for a bumper harvest of sweet potatoes this year. There will be so many sweet potatoes that they'll rot. Maybe it's still possible."
Mo Xiao'an thought that the problem was that the food factory's comprehensive utilization of sweet potatoes was too powerful, and there was almost no possibility of waste.
I went back to my office and thought about it for a long time, but I still couldn't think of anything that could expand the exit. It can now be used to export quite a lot of products, ranging from non-staple foods, snacks, medicines, cosmetics, bathroom ceramics, paper... all kinds of products, excluding those varieties with too low production capacity that can only be consumed locally and those in the Export Control Catalog of the Executive Committee. There are probably more than forty varieties.
Among them, the largest sales are MSG and pickles produced by Tianchu, as well as needles and paper products. These four account for half of Lingao's total bulk exports.
Runshitang's exports of Chinese patent medicines have increased very rapidly, but the production capacity of hand-made medicines is not high, and coupled with the large amount of local self-use in Lingao, the export output value is still relatively low. This situation will have to be changed after a new mechanized pharmaceutical factory is put into operation.
Because MSG requires sweet potatoes as raw materials, the production quantity is greatly limited; the production of pickles and the like can be expanded - the output of vegetables is always very considerable, especially in the climate conditions of Lingao, all vegetables can be Growth throughout the year.
It's a pity that my plan of dry rice noodles couldn't succeed - the rice noodles mixed with a lot of dried potato starch have been on the market in Lingao for a long time, and both the traveling people and the natives ate a lot of them. He has always hoped to sell this thing to the mainland, but the executive committee has always refused to export it.
Mo Xiao'an couldn't come up with a new product after much thought. There were a lot of creative ideas for new products, and the test sales results in Guangzhou were pretty good. But he needed new products that could be shipped in large quantities. Finally he found Xun Suji and Zhou Dongtian.
Xun Suji has not been paying much attention to work recently. Liu Youren had despaired of the possibility of him initiating a marriage, so he simply asked Liu Guangbiao to propose marriage to him: he was willing to marry his "grandniece" Liu Meilan to him. Not only was the Liu family willing to marry their daughter to him, they would also give Liu Meilan a heavy dowry. As for Kim Hee-sun, the "person in the house" next to him, Liu Guangbiao said that Liu Meilan was by no means a girl who could not tolerate others.
This sudden good news made Xun Suji dizzy. This tall girl actually had some ideas, but it was just an idea and he never thought about how to implement it.
However, the executive committee has not given a specific statement on marrying an indigenous woman. Now I have a maid and secretary. I suddenly proposed that I want to marry my wife. I wonder if she would agree?
Xun Suji approached Wu Nanhai, who expressed his approval:
"We should have integrated into the local indigenous people as soon as possible. If you marry Liu Youren's granddaughter, the Liu family will be on our boat, and they will become the basic masses from now on - Is this girl good-looking?"
"It's not bad, I have a good figure." Xun Suji said.
"Then seize the opportunity." Wu Nanhai said, "I will arrange more agricultural technology promotion activities for you."
But Mo Xiaoan said something else:
"Suji, it's fine for you to make an indigenous woman a maid or something like that. Isn't it a bit too much to ask a daughter of the Liu family to be your wife?" Mo Xiao'an said, "It seems that many people in the Senate have little regard for indigenous people and women. Personal collusion between elders is very taboo. If you get married to the Liu family, I'm afraid there will be many things unclear in the future."
Mo Xiao'an is not being alarmist. This is indeed the view of some elders - marrying local powerful indigenous people will inevitably create a new class of powerful people who are dependent on the elders. If this powerful class uses this kind of marriage relationship to commit crimes, it will be much more difficult to deal with the cross-border group than in the past: everyone has the selfish intention of taking care of their relatives, and sometimes it is purely out of face considerations. x! ~!
