But the most important thing is to prepare funds for the upcoming raw silk season. [No pop-up novel website]
In fact, the raw silk business has nothing to do with the business of the China Merchants Bureau. Zhao Yingong is taking advantage of the boom in trade with Japan to make money - the raw silk business is extremely costly, and he cannot do it alone with the little capital he has.
Now that the Ministry of Colonization and Trade has opened up the main trade routes to Japan and Southeast Asia, the conditions for Lingao's trading companies to export raw silk on a large scale are ripe. Si Kaide sent telegrams many times to inquire about Zhao Yingong's raw silk stocking situation: They have a contract with the Dutch. Although Guangdong also produces silk, the quality and output cannot be compared with Jiangsu and Zhejiang, so the supply must be replenished from Hangzhou.
In the past, they purchased raw silk from Jiangsu and Zhejiang mainly from Jiangnan through agents in Guangdong. Since it is inevitable to peel off a layer of skin if you want to go through an agent, Skade is now eager to get its own people involved in this channel.
Raw silk was China's largest export commodity from the 17th century to the early 20th century. The industrialization process promoted by the Senate was getting faster and faster, the scale of investment continued to expand, and the reliance on imported funds and raw materials also deepened. These gaps largely depend on raw silk exports to make up for it.
However, Zhao Yingong was very cautious about directly intervening in the raw silk trade. Raw silk is a large industrial chain in Jiangnan, and countless people in the upstream and downstream rely on it to make a living and make a fortune. If it affects the whole body, it might be the second Leizhou Sugar War.
The gentry in the south of the Yangtze River was extremely powerful, and there were Jin gentry everywhere with their hands and eyes reaching the sky. Although he has established certain connections with Zhang Pu through the Catholic system and the Fushe Group, but once his raw silk business touches their interests. It will inevitably cause a strong backlash. This is not Leizhou where the special reconnaissance team arrives at noon. Once the hostile forces counterattack, Zhao Yingong, a small Guangdong scholar, will die without a burial place anytime and anywhere.
Now is not the time for a showdown with Jiangnan Jinsheng. At present, there are things to deal with on all sides of Lingao, especially Guangdong penetration. Therefore, he could only operate in a relatively low-key manner in Jiangnan.
Zhao Yingong could only intervene in the raw silk business according to the idea of persimmon inspection and soft pinching, starting with silk reeling.
Most of the sericulture families in Jiangsu and Zhejiang combine production and marketing. Most of them raise silkworms and make silk at home. The procedures for making silk using native methods are extremely cumbersome. Zhao Yingong once asked Wang Si's mother and daughter to show him the actual operation. It starts with boiling cocoons, then reeling, and then "twisting" and "beating". It also has to be sent to a special workshop for refining and dyeing, and the weft threads are twisted into warp threads. There are also terms such as "warp dropping", "warp pulling", etc., and finally "joining". At this point, it becomes raw silk that can be woven into silk.
Not only is the procedure cumbersome. Each link consumes a lot of labor. The efficiency is woefully low and the quality of the finished product is not high. There is no advantage at all compared to semi-mechanized and mechanized silk reeling factories.
If semi-mechanized silk reeling is used, the cocoons go in from one end of the machine and the silk comes out from the other end. It’s just usable raw silk. There is no need for "beating the silk" or "pulling the sutra". All workshops in this line of work have to close down, and the craftsmen, needless to say, are all out of work. What is even more serious is that in rural areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, almost every household has a spinning wheel for reeling silk. Women, regardless of age, mostly rely on this as a side job to supplement their household income. If this spinning wheel becomes useless, there will really be a scene of "silk eating people". All the consequences that follow. Zhao Yingong could also imagine: it was really a flood of mourners.
However, most of the employees in the silk reeling industry come from poor families. Although there are many people, they cannot make a strong voice, and touching their interests is the least risky thing to do. Even if there are some disturbances, the Jinshen Group, which only cares about immediate interests, will not care, and the pressure he faces will be relatively small. After these people lost their jobs, they naturally became reserve workers for the new silk reeling and textile enterprises he planned to open.
He is now raising business shares for China Merchants Group, and he also intends to expand common interest groups. After all, once a large-scale "civil uprising" occurs, it will not be easy to suppress it. If there is no gentry as a protective umbrella, it can easily be exploited. Make a fuss.
In the confidential folder on his desk was the approval from the Finance Directorate and the Planning Institute that he had just received yesterday: the share quota plan he proposed for China Merchants Group had been approved.
The total share capital of the planned China Merchants Group is set at 200,000 taels, with Zhao Yingong himself as the nominal investor, holding 51% of the shares. Among the other 98,000 taels of equity, Shen Tingyang's family planned to invest 48,000 taels at the price of ten sand ships, accounting for 24%. The remaining 25% of the shares were priced at 50,000 taels and raised from the gentry.
Zhao Yingong’s so-called 51% investment is actually virtual money and a real contract. The only funds he can use right now are the 20,000 taels of silver that Delong recently transferred to him. Although the profits from this trade with Japan were considerable, he had no right to use them on his own. He was satisfied that the Finance Directorate could allocate him 20,000 taels.
Regardless of the fact that the Senate gave naturalized people and indigenous people the greatest impression of being "rich", in fact the Senate's funds were very tight. If it weren't for the Senate's efficiency in the use and dispatch of funds that far surpassed this era, the funding chain would have been broken long ago.
Although Zhao Yingong is the person in charge of the Jiangnan region, the seemingly majestic ace of the branch group actually has limited resources from Lingao. Not only can he not get too many resources, but he also has to provide blood transfusions to his family as soon as possible.
In this way, the raised 50,000 taels of equity capital will be crucial to the operation of the new enterprise. Especially if he wants to acquire Cocoon next, he will need a large amount of capital injection.
These days, Mao Sansheng and other shopkeepers are running around on his behalf, and he himself has personally visited some gentry and wealthy households in Hangzhou. The stock offering went very smoothly. This Japanese trade trip made many big investors jealous. Shen Tingyang even sent a letter to Shen Tingyang, asking him to retain a certain share. There were many people who secretly asked him to buy shares.
Raising shares was much easier than he expected. Not only had the first phase of 50,000 taels of silver been roughly raised, but another 50,000 taels was also within reach.
But things are not that simple. As a modern silk reeling factory, only silkworm cocoons are needed. Silkworm farmers have worked hard to raise silkworms, but most of them are unwilling to sell the cocoons - the profit is too low. In medieval agricultural societies, the value of labor was very low, and it was a common phenomenon to exchange a large amount of labor for negligible cash returns. Sericulture households in Jiangsu and Zhejiang generally make their own silk for sale, forming a large-scale rural sideline labor.
If most silkworm farmers are unwilling to sell silkworm cocoons, the silk reeling factory currently under construction by Zhao Yingong will be in a dilemma of having no rice to cook. This is also what worries him the most.
In addition, he has a second concern. He also has no direct access to the small amount of cocoons that are sold directly - he does not have a "ministry license" from the silk cocoon shop, so he cannot purchase cocoons directly from farmers. He can only buy them from the silk cocoon shop, which has a monopoly. The sex trade guild has a style of buying dead people and selling dead people. Considering maximizing his own profits, it is impossible for an outsider like him to buy enough cocoons from them without being exploited by them - just exploiting, considering that the operating cost of the silk reeling factory is very low, slightly higher Some prices are also acceptable. But once the silk reeling factory is started, any individual will understand the importance of a continuous supply of cocoons. Given the style of businessmen at that time, it was impossible not to take advantage of the situation and take advantage of it.
How to ensure the safety of the supply of silkworm cocoons has always been the focus of Zhao Yingong's consideration. In the old time and space,
The most direct solution is, of course, to directly purchase a cocoon shop or find connections to get a "ministerial note" from the Ministry of Household Affairs and open the door to buy cocoons yourself.
However, in this case, they are bound to be restricted by the trade guilds. From the information they have obtained, the silk cocoon trade guilds have unified prices for the purchase and wholesale prices of cocoons and raw silk, which will have a great impact on their own business activities. hindrance. If you ignore this, you may not be able to exist in this guild at all. Zhao Yingong fully studied all the things that Leizhou Sugar Factory encountered in Leizhou.
After careful consideration, Zhao Yingong decided to start from scratch. Control the production of silkworm cocoons directly from the place of origin. To be precise, it is a small producer cooperative model similar to Leizhou Rural Cooperative.
Like sugarcane production, silkworm cocoon production also requires credit. Except for a few wealthy households, ordinary silkworm farmers generally need credit in the process of raising silkworms: purchasing silkworm seeds and mulberry leaves are huge investments. Borrowing principal and interest is an essential and extremely heavy expense for sericulture farmers. And the risk is very high: Once a large-scale silkworm disease occurs, the silkworm farmers who borrowed money to raise silkworms will lose their money. Wang Si's family is an example.
Zhao Yingong felt that as long as he could provide small loans with low interest rates, he could attract a considerable number of silkworm farmers. As long as there are debts, there is no fear of losing control of the silkworm farmers' production and products. When the time comes, it will be a matter of course to implement technological improvements and industrialized breeding.
Once the cooperative succeeds, his "Phoenix Mountain Silk Industry Union" will be a one-stop complex of production and marketing, with all channels from raw materials to sales. In the long run, it is bound to form a demonstration effect. Attract more farmers to join cooperatives.
In this way, the role of financial institutions such as banks becomes prominent. This kind of small loan business still needs to be operated by professional institutions. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but think of the situation of Hangzhou's silver industry that Mao Sansheng reported to him a few days ago. Among them, it was mentioned that the silk cocoon industry went to rural areas for acquisitions and often relied on loans from the banking industry - otherwise it would not be enough to pay for the acquisition in cash. In the old days, Hu Xueyan was very successful in controlling the raw silk export trade, which had a lot to do with the fact that he owned a bank at the time and had flexible capital allocation. (To be continued...)
