Generally speaking, Fan Shouji should be regarded as a natural ally of the Gao family, because they are typical rural party members.
In the Ming Dynasty, it was easy for those who had the friendship of fellow villagers to form political alliances, because at this time, no party with common interests and independent political ideas had yet been formed - at least starting from the Donglin Party, and even within the Donglin Party In the era of rise, there are also the so-called Qi Party, Chu Party, Zhejiang Party, etc. that compete with them, eventually forming party disputes. Most of these factions are spearheaded by political leaders in their regions.
The Gao family is a family of officials for several generations, and is one of the great sects of practical learning in the world. Gao Gong is the well-deserved chief minister of the Longqing Dynasty. Although he himself has no intention of becoming the leader of a local party, it does not prevent Henan officials from recruiting him. As the leader of the Henan Party, many officials from Henan who hoped to further their career also moved closer to Gao Gong or the Gao family, intentionally or unintentionally.
Although Gao Pragmatic is young, judging from Gao Gong's current attitude and approach, there is a high probability that he may be the "successor" of the Gao family in the future. To some extent, he is also the leader of the next generation of the Gao family—— This can be seen from the unprecedented fact that he served as the prince's accompaniment for nothing, but he rushed back to Xinzheng to prepare for the scientific examination.
Gao Gong has no children. If Gao Jingshi does not have lofty political ambitions, he can wait for Yin Guan. Judging from Gao Gong's current favor for him, as long as Gao Gong dies, Yin Guan will inevitably fall to Gao Jingshi. In terms of Gao Gong's status, Gao Yinguan, a pragmatic Yin official, would at least start out as a member of the Shushe family, and might go directly to Shangbao prison.
But where is the tradition of the Ming Dynasty, Enyin Guan's development prospects are very limited, and they are far inferior to the scientific examination. When Gao pragmatic returned to his hometown to take the scientific examination, he obviously looked down upon Guan Enyin. This shows that Gao Gong's expectations for him were not to rely on the favor of his fathers to get by.
In this way, it is normal for Fan Shouji to come in advance to meet Gao Pragmatic and become familiar with him.
As expected, Fan Shouji came here and seemed to be very cooperative with Gao Jingshi's desire to buy the Fan family's iron mine in Xuzhou. He not only brought some information about the Xu County iron mine, but also detailed the scale of his family's Xu County iron mine. , strength and known surrounding mineral veins and other information were introduced, and a slightly unexpected proposal was made.
The Fan family hopes to use the existing Xu County Iron Mine as capital to invest in the iron mine or even the iron factory that Gao Pragmatic is planning to build. At the same time, Fan Shouji made it clear that the specific division of shares can be discussed. As long as Gao pragmatically reports a proposed investment amount, Fanjia Iron Mine can join directly at a discount.
To be honest, Gao Pragmatic was a little surprised by this attitude. He didn't know whether the Fan family simply wanted to bundle the interests of the Gao and Fan families to deepen their relationship, or whether they had discovered that Gao Shidu had a little bit of trouble in his business. It turns into gold, so come early to get a piece of the pie.
But Gao Pragmatism does not reject such an approach, and even welcomes it.
Originally, Gao Pragmatic founded these industrial and mining industries, hoping to use himself as an example to prove to the world that buying land and property is not the only way to get rich, and then use some industrial and mining industries with core technologies to drive more The enlightened class of the Ming Dynasty gradually moved towards the road of capitalism.
He never believed that Ming Dynasty could move from an agricultural country to an industrial country just by relying on the industries he founded. In the end, the only thing you can do is lose your reputation and be killed - if you can't kill yourself by the means within the rules, someone will definitely kill you by breaking the rules.
It's even possible that the emperor took action.
Even though the emperor at that time was probably Zhu Yijun.
If Gao Pragmatic's financial resources are so strong and he doesn't have the power to protect himself, this is almost a certainty. Even if Zhu Yijun has been hanging out with him since he was a few years old, he will probably have to be killed by then.
The bourgeoisie must be a class, not just a single person who is high and pragmatic.
There is no room for two tigers in one mountain, and there is no room for two masters in one day. Only the emperor can be a single man in the world. As long as other people have this tendency, they will inevitably become hostile to the emperor. There is no doubt about it.
But the emperor, an independent man, also needs a foundation for rule. If Gao Pragmatic can form a bourgeois interest group with himself as the leader in the future, then even the emperor will have to weigh the impact of breaking up with him.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic welcomed the Fan family who took the initiative to approach him and approached him in terms of industrial development.
However, Gao Pragmatic still does not intend to let the Fan family enter the iron factory immediately.
Of course, profit exclusivity is one consideration, but it is not the whole story. The deeper reason is that iron and steelmaking is an important foundation for industrialization and a core competitive industry. Many things in the future will be driven by this industry. and guidance, so he can’t let go of this, or even allow others to intervene.
Therefore, Gao Jingshi only agreed to the Fan family's participation in the new iron plant. The specific shares could not be determined until Gao Jingshi determined the investment amount, and the investment amount also needed to send people to inspect the possible reserves of the Xu County iron ore first - this The location of Gaowu Realm can now be basically determined, probably near Wuzhuang in later generations.
According to the information brought by Fan Shouji, it can be determined that the scale of the iron ore in that place is okay, but it is also a typical Chinese poor iron ore, with an estimated maximum iron content of about 35%, which will only be barely developable in later generations. level.
However, in the Ming Dynasty, this iron content is actually worthy of development, because the ancient Chinese have long been accustomed to low-grade iron ore and high iron-making costs. Iron ore with 35% iron content can be mined and utilized.
What's more, the smelting technology mastered by Gao Xiangshi is obviously much more advanced than this era, and coking coal resources are far cheaper and plentiful than those of later generations.
At the same time, Gao Pragmatic also determined from the information brought by Fan Shouji that the Xu County iron ore should be mainly magnetite. This is good news, because if the magnetite has less impurities, it can be directly used for open-hearth steelmaking—— Well, this is normal. If it were another type of iron ore that was difficult to process, it is estimated that the Fan family would not have mined and used it at all because the cost was not cost-effective.
The only trouble is that the impurity content of Xuchang iron ore seems to be a bit high, which will seriously increase costs. After all, there are currently no magnetic separation and other methods of mineral processing in later generations. We can only use primitive crushing, grinding and other methods, which are inefficient.
But this problem cannot be solved pragmatically. He did not study this field. The magnetic separation and flotation in later generations all have professional equipment. He does not even understand the basic principles of those equipments, let alone manufacture them.
But in any case, the iron ore problem has been solved. Now we just need to determine the amount of investment.
