As for the government, the principle is the same. [No pop-up novel website] Since the Senate actually controls most of the salt fields in Guangdong, the supply of official salt still depends on the Senate. As long as the Senate cuts off the supply of salt, the government will have to submit. Since they are unable to defend the salt fields, they can only accept the conditions of the Senate.
"In this case, how about we directly contract all the official salt sales in Guangdong and become the tax collector?" Guo Yi suggested, "In this way, all the salt affairs will be controlled in our hands. We ourselves are the official salt."
"Now is not the time," Skade shook his head. "We are not enough to cover the sky with one hand in Guangdong. Daming's salt monopoly already has a large vested interest group. We cover taxes, or we have to bear everything that the interest groups here want. The good thing is to kick them away completely."
The former costs too much; the latter will only attract too many enemies to itself without sufficient control. At present, the Senate's basic policy towards Guangdong is still based on stability.
Skade has already identified a person to act as an agent for their new deal. This person was the first salt merchant in Xuwen to do business with the Senate: Liu Gang.
Liu Gang has been selling sī salt in Leizhou for a long time. He is only a middle-class household among the local sī salt traders. They have always had contact with Yanchang Village, and this channel was not cut off until the Gou family occupied Yanchang Village. Since the Yanchang Village was returned to the Australians, he had established a relationship with the elders. By selling the excellent quality "Lingao Salt", Liu Gang made a fortune and became an important salt dealer in Leizhou area.
Although he made a fortune relying on the Senate, his relationship with the Senate was relatively distant. The Senate has never cultivated him as a key customer in the past, and the two parties only had a simple buyer-seller relationship. It is no different from the many merchants who come to Lingao to sell goods.
The reason why Liu Gang was not "trained" was not because of the deliberate alienation of the Ministry of Colonial Trade. It was mainly due to the fact that sī salt trafficking was a very complicated matter that required an extremely complex network of relationships. Salt trafficking has long been a black and white, ambiguous and gray social phenomenon in Chinese history. The entangled and complex relationship between the government, salt merchants, and sī salt traders is far beyond what can be understood in research monographs and papers.
In order to avoid the trouble of reintegration, the Ministry of Colonization and Trade adopted a marketing strategy of only supplying goods, regardless of channels.
However, it is obviously difficult to increase profits under this model. Liu Gang's own strength is not enough and he cannot expand into a broad enough space under the complex salt selling network.
Skade was also about to create new sources of income from the salt industry, and the two parties hit it off. Decided to cooperate to expand the sales network to the entire Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian.
The only person who expressed dissent was the Ma Niao Salt Industry Association, which said that with the current labor situation, it would be difficult for them to "increase production to serve the country" in such a large way. Unless more support is given: from manpower to equipment, rather than taking over more salt fields. For the salt industry consortium, they already have enough salt fields, so many that they cannot produce them efficiently.
Even with low-efficiency production and even with the suspension of the new salt field development plan in Yinggehai, the various salt industry warehouses and salt fields along the Qiongzhou Strait under the control of the Planning Institute still have an inventory of sea salt that is almost enough for 12 months: for chemical industry and food included. Skade is making a fuss about this and believes that the inventory can be reduced to within six months.
For this reason, Liu Gang has moved his family, his clerks, and all the wealth he gained from the salt industry to Guangzhou to prepare for a big fight.
Although Liu Gang has not had in-depth cooperation with the Senate in the past, he is in Xuwen and has a clear understanding of the strength of the Australians. We also know that the Australians have great intentions. Seeing their power growing stronger. Being able to become a partner of Australians now will have immeasurable "money prospects" in the future. Therefore, he was very motivated. In fact, Skade's Ministry of Colonial Trade did not invest a penny, and all the initial infrastructure investment was made by Liu Gang.
Guo Yi listened to his introduction silently. Obviously, this Liu Gang was one of the business compradors he would command in the future. Perhaps it can be called the comprador of the new era. If the "compradors" of foreign businessmen like Gao Ji and Li Luoyou are more independent, then compradors like Sun Kecheng and Liu Gang are purely dependent. Their industries are nominally independent, but in fact every move is under the control of the Senate.
"This is Boss Liu's personal information." Si Kaide opened his password briefcase and took out a document bag.
Guo Yi looked at this person's information. A strong man in his thirties: The face in the photo is full of murderous looks. It is obvious that it is not easy to be a salt seller. At home, he has an old mother who only knows how to eat fast and pray to Buddha. His wife is Zheng, and he has a son Liu Xiaoguan. There is also a list and brief introduction of his slaves and assistants at the back.
"Now his mother and son are in Xuwen and are under our direct control." Si Kaide said, "We did not ask him to move his son and mother to Lingao. Anyway, Xuwen is almost our world now.
"Speaking of Leizhou, has the Tang Monk Plan been launched?" Guo Yi suddenly thought of this once very popular plan.
"It won't be officially implemented until next year." As a member of the executive committee, Skade has a clear grasp of the progress of this secret. He lowered his voice and said, "I heard that the people from the intelligence office are already being trained and are naturalized. civil."
"But I don't think it makes much sense..." Guo Yi's thoughts represent the attitude of many veterans who were once very enthusiastic about this. Now Leizhou is under the full radiation of Lingao, and Xuwen and Haikang counties are under constant influence. Gradually "Qiongzhouization". The Senate's control over the entire Leizhou Peninsula was increasing.
"That's right, but it's not a bad choice to directly control an official. Since we have already established a relationship with Fushe and have a relationship with the artillery expert, why should we just limit him to Leizhou? He can be transferred to other places." You may not know when it will be used," Skade said. "Even if it is not used, our investment will not be large."
Guo Yi expressed his "sincere admiration" for the executive committee's foresight. Skade smiled and said: "Stop flattering me. Let's talk about the food problem in Guangdong."
Guo Yi reported on the current situation of food collection in Guangdong.
Guangdong was still a grain exporting province in the late Ming Dynasty, and a considerable amount of commercial grain was exported to Fujian every year. Fujian has long been a food-deficient province. However, due to the widespread cultivation of cash crops, the food self-sufficiency rate has dropped a lot.
However, to raise food, Guangdong is still the most convenient source of goods for the Senate. The food collected from the Pearl River Delta and surrounding areas is transported to the Hong Kong base for processing, and there are convenient waterways that can be used.
The Planning Institute, the Ministry of Colonial Trade, the Council of Agriculture, and the Foreign Intelligence Service jointly set up a special grain working group in Guangdong, and the Guangzhou Station took the lead in implementing it. One of Guo Yi's recent main tasks is to work on grain.
Collecting grain is not purchased with cash. According to the demand for grain from the Chuan Chuan Group, it is impossible to collect such a large amount of money, and such a large-scale purchase of grain will also cause the price of grain in Guangdong to skyrocket.
The way the food working group collects food locally is to "collect food" or to collect "reasonable burdens".
After the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary, the reputation of the ambush army was already well-known in the Pearl River Delta, and every town it raided and passed through was extorted for "reasonable burdens." "Reasonable burden" is not a one-time extortion, but a long-term "tax" that Guo Yi's Guangzhou Station is responsible for collecting.
Although the ambush troops have retreated, it is a fact known to everyone that the warships of the Kun thieves are cruising in the waters of the Pearl River Estuary.
The Guangzhou branch of Dachang Rice Store is now the tax authority of the Senate in Guangzhou. After receiving the "notice" secretly sent by Lin Baiguang's intelligence officers, each township paid the approved "reasonable burden" in full to Mihang before the specified time.
Not only rice will be levied, but also miscellaneous grains, cash crops and raw silk. You can also pay money to Delong Guangzhou Branch to collect it.
It depends on local conditions.
In addition, in the small and large towns along the Pearl River that had been conquered and wiped out by the Japanese army, there was a rent store that collected rent from the land deeds and lease certificates of the gentry and landlords who were eliminated in the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary.
The so-called rent store is a rent collection agency. It was very developed in the Qing Dynasty and was also called "Tiandian". Ordinary small and medium-sized landowners or urban landowners have limited local influence and do not have much land. Tenants who are strong in collecting rent in rural areas often cannot collect rent or receive a discount on rent. As a result, an industry gradually emerged: powerful local people who had collusion with the government set up rental offices to specifically handle rent collection matters for landlords. A small handling fee is charged.
This approach is similar to the "collection of households" in paying taxes, except that it is targeted at tenants rather than the government.
The emergence of rented warehouses facilitated small and medium-sized landowners, and became increasingly popular after the mid-Qing Dynasty. Gradually, it became even more important to act as an agent for all land leases, taxes and even transactions. Instead, the landlords themselves could no longer intervene and could only collect land rent. As a result, the tenants only knew that their land belonged to a certain farm, but did not know the name of their landlord.
This time, the grain working group made the rental warehouse appear in the time and space of the Ming Dynasty in advance. After intensive preparations, several old "grain cadres" drawn from various counties in Hainan arrived one after another. With this batch of grain merchants as the backbone of the business, and with some other naturalized residents, a "Wan/Sheng/Hao" rental store was formed to comprehensively manage this batch of land.
The owners of all the land were changed to "Yuan Laoyuan", and the land was actually managed by the Planning Institute. The address is Bairen Village, Lingao, Qiongzhou Prefecture. It was exactly when Lingao built a separate administrative village for the people who crossed the border. ! .
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