Intimidation and inducement, familiar roads.
In the past ten years, or to be more precise, in the past six months, Gao Pragmatic seems to have been doing this kind of thing. I dare not say that he has reached the pinnacle, but he should be called a master.
Now that Annan's military power has been controlled, and the rights and obligations between Jinghua Group and Annan's Metropolitan Division have been basically divided, the next thing to do is to work on government affairs.
In fact, government affairs are really no less important than military affairs. And its top priority can be summed up in just four words: colonization.
In Gao Pragmatic's eyes, the Jinghua Group, especially when dealing with the outside world, is similar to the so-called "East India Company" of Europeans. Of course it wants to make a profit, but in the final analysis, it is a pioneer of colonial development.
Historically, British India was established by the "British East India Company". Before the company's demise, there were no less than 200,000 "Company Army" in India, mainly composed of Indians.
It would be foolish not to learn from such a good experience.
On June 23, 1757, in a village called Plassey on the bank of the Bhagirathi River at the source of the Ganges, the British and the prince of Bengal, Siraj Ud Dera, started a battle. The British commander Robert Clive led a force of more than 3,000 men, including 900 Europeans and 2,200 Indians, while his opponent Siraj invested 35,000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry.
In the end, only more than 20 British soldiers were injured or killed, while the Bangladeshi army lost more than 1,000 soldiers.
In terms of scale, this "Battle of Plassey" can hardly be called a big battle, but its historical significance is extremely important. After this battle, the British influence began to penetrate into all levels of Indian government and became the actual ruler of India. More importantly, this war represented that the East India Company officially became the "agent" of the British Empire's colonial rule in India.
Strictly speaking, as a historical term, "East India Company" does not specifically refer to the British East India Company. In the 17th century, the "East India Company" was a company model established by most countries in Western Europe to develop colonial trade. Its trade targets were mainly India, Malaysia and other Asian countries located in the western Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. The reason why it was called "East Indies" was to distinguish it from America, which was called "West Indies" in the West at that time.
At the beginning, among the East India companies established by Western countries, the most advanced and powerful one was actually the Dutch United East India Company. They adopted the model of a joint-stock company and operated with the goal of long-term management, so they were regarded by later generations as the pioneers of the "joint-stock system". At its most powerful, the Dutch East India Company monopolized the entire spice trade in East India and completely suppressed the business of East India companies in other countries.
However, Gao Pragmatic has no interest in the "Dutch Advanced Company System" because the system he implemented in Jinghua itself is also a joint-stock system, but... it has too Chinese characteristics.
This feature is called political shareholding, and in more popular terms, it means that the powerful take control of the shares.
Gao Pragmatic has never made it clear what the "Jinghua Group" refers to in the Ming Dynasty, but in fact everyone will definitely acquiesce in this: Any industry controlled by Gao Pragmatic and whose sign begins with the word "Jinghua" belongs to "Jinghua" group".
This group is fully controlled by Gao Qingjing, and there is no equity in it. But when it comes to specific industries, there are two other systems that are implemented at the same time, namely, dry stock dividends and performance dividends.
There are two major categories of dividends from dry stocks: one is shares held by powerful people. This needs no explanation at all. The profit dividends received by powerful people such as Zhu Yingzhen, Zhang Yuangong, and Li Zongcheng or their children from various industries under Jinghua are dry stocks.
You don't pay any money for shares, you enjoy profit dividends, but you don't have any decision-making rights - what is called voting rights in later generations.
The other category is technical stocks, and the Liu family's Baibao Xuanmingsan falls into this category. However, a more important technology stock leader is Zhu Zaiyu.
Zhu Zaiyu made some improvements to some production equipment, such as coking and smelting tools, sail shapes, pulleys, etc., and Gao Zaiyu also arranged for him to receive dividends after the products were produced.
However, because Zhu Zaiyu had no concept of money, the dividend ratio given by Gao Pragmatic was also surprisingly low. However, because he had quite a lot of "patents", the sum of money in the end was quite considerable.
Performance bonuses are given to daily managers in various industries, such as Gao Rui, Gao Mengnan, Shuai Jiamo, and Gao Sitang. In addition to formal salary, they all have performance rewards.
However, as a performance reward for Gao Pragmatic, it is easier to get the "ministry guarantee", but it is difficult to get the subsequent higher levels. In order to divide the performance rewards, Gao Mo's Internal Affairs Department and Gao Guoyan's Finance Department worked together for several months to roughly set a performance level. Of course, there is no need to go into detail one by one.
But one thing to mention by the way is: "Generals" such as Gao Jue, Gao Zhang, and Gao Jing who lead troops on expeditions also receive performance rewards. However, these types of rewards are arbitrary by Gao Pragmatic himself, and they only go to Beijing. account.
Therefore, the current joint-stock system of Gaowu Real Estate is a joint-stock system with "Chinese characteristics". It has both an advanced side, which is equivalent to the "equity incentive" practice of later generations, and a "rotten" side... which is equivalent to power-for-money transactions.
There is also a "flexible mechanism", that is, Gao Pragmatic can use "face" to find powerful people to raise funds, but this skill is a spare skill, and Gao Pragmatic has not used it yet - his "cash flow" has been sufficient so far. of.
I just don’t know if this abundance can be maintained as the construction of Golden Port City is fully launched and the construction of pure warships begins. Maybe he will consider diluting a small part of his equity or exchanging face for money. We will see when the time comes.
Since there is no need to learn the institutional systems of the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company, then the only things that need to be learned are business methods.
The Yongle Dynasty failed to control Annan because it was unable to make ends meet and suffered too serious losses; European colonial rule was able to spread around the world largely because their colonial policies were profitable.
Another big reason why the colonies were profitable was the agent model similar to the East India Company.
The East India Company's first consideration is profit, and then it will consider continuing to develop colonies. The purpose of developing more colonies is to make more profits - only such "compounding profits" can be maintained.
So many commercial clauses in the "Jinghua Sixteen Articles" are designed for this purpose. Even some clauses with strong political implications are essentially designed to protect these profits.
But Gao pragmatically knew that whether it was the British or the Dutch East India Company, there was one thing that he could not learn at will, at least in Annan.
This is called a predatory colonial policy.
For example, the British East India Company maintained the privilege of zero tariffs for the Mughal Empire in India for a long time. This was a point that was not learned by high pragmatists. Although the "Jinghua Sixteen Articles" were completely based on Gao's pragmatic decision, he left Annan with some comfort - Jinghua also had to pay a full one percent tax.
In history, after the British East India Company took control of the political and military power in India, it soon replaced trade with plunder and became its main means of profit. Gao Pragmatic believed that this was the beginning of their downfall.
At that time, the East India Company had control of the government and could not wait to use it to achieve maximum plunder. Every time the company conquered a land, it plundered the treasury and extorted princes and nobles.
In 1757, after the East India Company captured Murshidabad, the capital of Bengal, it stole treasure worth 3.7 million pounds from the treasury of Siraj, the prince of Bengal. Subsequently, the East India Company established Mir Jafar as the puppet ruler of Bengal. Mir Jafar paid another £1 million in "reparations" and £500,000 to the British businessmen in Calcutta. This wealth exceeded even the total trade of the East India Company in an entire year.
The original peaceful business policy was abandoned and replaced by war, territorial expansion, increased taxes, etc. The East India Company seemed to have more profits, but it was also dying step by step.
Waging wars, colonizing, plundering, and selling opium... The East India Company was engaged in high-profit transactions. At the same time, due to the disappearance of competition, internal strife was also increasing.
Since Clive became the Governor of Bengal in 1764, “the company’s once courteous employees have now become extremely violent and greedy; the shareholders colluded with each other and bribed for election campaigns; the board of directors has completely become without leadership ability and cannot achieve effective governance.” ’s strife-ridden institution.”
At that time, every employee of the East India Company began to line their own pockets and accumulate wealth privately. According to a report by the British Parliament, between 1757 and 1766, East India Company employees received gifts of up to 2.17 million pounds. In the mid-to-late 18th century, the generous "remuneration" for service in India made its company's stocks not only regarded as a conventional investment, but also capital that allowed oneself or relatives to go to India to make a fortune.
If Gao Pragmatic evaluates these situations, it is "the transformation from a commercial company to a political dynasty."
If we want to make some inappropriate analogies, this is like the combat effectiveness of the Tatars before entering the customs and their combat effectiveness after entering the customs. In just ten or twenty years, they can fall from the peak to the bottom; it is also like the Jintian Uprising, Yong'an Uprising, etc. The Taiping Army when he was crowned king and the Taiping Army after Tianjing was established as the capital did not take more than ten years to degenerate beyond recognition.
Therefore, Gao Pragmatic does not intend to let Jinghua Group follow the old path of the British East India Company. What he wants to learn mainly is the "first half of life" of the East India Company.
So what were the characteristics of the East India Company's behavior in the "first half of its life"?
It is to maintain business competition and maintain business reputation, while at the same time insisting on giving priority to profits and not falling into endless crazy plunder.
All of the above combined can be described in five words that Gao is very familiar with: sustainable development. If there must be two more words, it would be: insist on sustainable development.
Killing chickens to obtain eggs and depleting the lake for fishing is definitely not a wise rule. Only conscientiously planting leeks for the purpose of harvesting leeks is.
Therefore, while Gao Pragmatic held the military and political power in Annan, he also established two ports in the north and south for Annan. At the same time, he also allowed Mo Maoqia to cooperate with Jinghua Group in business. All of this was "growing leeks for the sake of harvesting leeks."
Not only that, Gao Pragmatic was also afraid that the Jinghua Group would lack competition and vitality, so he built Jinport as a free trade port. The new port located at the mouth of the Gang River in the north is not this kind of pure free port, because in the northern part, he wants to ensure that Mo's and Mo's Related old Annan forces could be profitable.
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This can be regarded as gradually writing the "deep water area of reform". The more I write, the slower it is...
