Song Alin is a very old-fashioned name, because his father is an illiterate farmer. Not only his father, but also the three generations of his ancestors are illiterate farmers.
In fact, he never had a famous name. When Wang Shi entered Guangdong, he went to join the army. The recruiter asked him what his name was, and he just used the nickname Alin that his parents had called him since he was a child. The person in charge of recruiting soldiers obviously He didn't bother to worry about it, so he just filled in Song Alin.
After this registration, Song Alin became his official name.
He served in the army for several years, and retired with the rank of sergeant in the ninth year of Chengshun. While in the army, he studied hard, passed the higher primary school examination, and obtained a high school diploma.
Originally based on his military rank when he retired, and the preferential treatment given to retired soldiers in the early years, of course, this was also because in the early days of the empire, there was a large lack of grassroots officials with a certain basic culture and a high sense of identification with the empire.
Therefore, if he chose to change his job at that time, he could be assigned to a public position in his hometown. I dare not say it was too high, but he would definitely be a patrol officer, so he would not have to worry about it in this life.
But Song Alin was a thoughtful person. He did not choose to accept the arrangement, but started his own entrepreneurial journey with a higher retirement settlement payment, plus the military pay and trophies he had accumulated over the years of service.
This situation is actually very common. Many small and medium-sized businessmen in the empire are actually retired soldiers who started their businesses with retirement settlement funds and years of accumulation.
After all, both before and now, all parts of the empire were in full swing. In the early years, people could make a lot of money just by doing anything.
You can even make a fortune by setting up a stall selling breakfast in a big city.
Not to mention that they don’t accept changing jobs and getting resettlement funds to start a business. Even many low-level officials in remote areas have little hope for official careers, and the locals are poor. These low-level officials’ salaries are also low, and they hear about it every day. So and so made a fortune out there, so many people couldn't help but quit their public jobs and start their own businesses!
This trend has become very popular in the last ten years.
This is mainly because the Chu Empire started to industrialize, and there were really many opportunities to make a fortune.
Not to mention direct investment in the industry itself, even if it is due to the urbanization brought about by industrialization itself, these rapidly developing cities have suddenly increased their urban population, and the consumption power of these urban populations is also quite good.
Around these new urban populations, the local real estate industry, food industry, general service industry, etc. will develop, and these industries can accommodate more employed people.
This chain of links has led to the healthy development of industrial cities one after another.
There are too many opportunities to make a fortune.
Song Alin went to Guangzhou first and seized the opportunities of Guangzhou's early industrialization and urbanization!
The industry he was engaged in at the beginning was not complicated, he just opened a non-staple food store, focusing on various non-staple food and various dry goods such as Xianggu fungus.
He has a close comrade who has been engaged in the non-staple food industry with the support of his family since he retired. He was able to bring Song Alin into the industry.
Riding on the wave of early industrialization and urbanization in Guangzhou, Song Alin's non-staple food business is doing very well. After all, the population in the city is increasing, and what these people need to eat is not only the normal rice, noodles, vegetables and meat, but also natural food. Cheap and affordable non-staple food items are also indispensable.
Later, his non-staple food business grew bigger and bigger, employing many people, opening many branches, and gradually moved upstream and started to be a wholesaler of various non-staple food products.
After making a lot of money, he found an opportunity to directly acquire several non-staple food processing plants and began to transform into food processing.
The year before last, he integrated his factories, channels, retail and other businesses and established Donglin Food Company.
At this time, Donglin Food was already considered a medium-sized food processing enterprise. It also had certain channel business and retail business, and its annual turnover could reach 500,000 to 600,000 yuan.
This scale is not small in the food processing industry.
However, Song Alin will not stop at the current scale. He has been working hard to expand his business. In addition to expanding the production and sales scale of the existing product lines, he also wants to find new products.
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And tea processing is a major category that he values.
Although tea is not considered a food, selling tea is actually his main business. In his non-staple food wholesale business, tea is a major product category.
However, there are no large-scale and high-quality industrial production areas in Guangdong. Most of the tea is purchased from Fujian and Zhejiang.
It just happened that at this time, I had contacted him in business before. To be precise, an elder who he had requested came through someone and said that there was a place in northern Guangdong that was very suitable for growing tea and that there was also support for the development of the tea processing industry. Determined, ask him if he would be interested in taking a look.
It was said that he was asking if he was interested, but the elder said...Song Alin had to go regardless of whether he was interested or not.
Before setting off, I was mentally prepared. No matter whether the situation was good or bad, I had to invest a little bit, otherwise I would not be able to save my face.
After all, this favor must be repaid!
Besides, he finally got in touch with the senior management of Western Trading Company and sent various non-staple foods of his own into the purchasing system of Western Trading Company. He couldn't just ask for help and then kick them away. .
Otherwise, don’t expect to be able to enter the Western Trading Company’s procurement and supply system in the future.
As one of the only two armed trading companies in the Chu Empire, the Western Trading Company has monopoly trade rights over the Indian region. It is the platform through which various commodities from the Chu Empire enter the Indian, Western, North African and even European markets. The only channel provider.
Whether it is ordinary goods or weapons, they must be processed through the Western Trading Company.
This is the monopoly authority granted to the Western Trading Company by the Great Chu Empire. Without this monopoly authority, the Western Trading Company would not be able to maintain such huge colonial expenditures!
In order to compete with Western colonial companies, fight with local indigenous people to seize various colonies, strongholds, and open up the trade market, in addition to conventional merchant ships and armed merchant ships, the Western Trading Company also has hundreds of professional warships, most of which are inland rivers. There are offshore gunboats, but there are also more than twenty warships that can conduct ocean operations, and there are even six thousand-ton cruisers, and the rest are professional warships of several hundred tons in size.
The Western Trading Company fleet is quite powerful.
In addition to warships and a large number of armed merchant ships and ordinary merchant ships, the Western Trading Company also has about 8,000 ground combat troops stationed in various colonies in Bangladesh and India.
The Western Trading Company also owned property rights to much of the land in the colonies.
However, administrative and taxation powers do not belong to them.
Administrative power reflects sovereignty and naturally falls under the unified jurisdiction of the empire. As for taxation, let alone taxation, which is the exclusive domain of the taxation department.
The Taxation Department has always been very powerful in terms of taxation. Let alone the Western Trading Company, even if the bosses of other institutions in Gyeonggi want to get involved in taxation, they will have to face strong tax backlash.
People's backlash is not just some random shouting, but people will be arrested directly!
And the most disgusting thing is that they usually don’t arrest them casually, but with real evidence. After all, tax evasion and tax evasion are too frequent. Usually, because of the cost of tax inspections, the tax department actually thinks about many tax evasion and tax evasion behaviors. We have to investigate and deal with it, but we can only use limited manpower and resources to catch big fish.
As long as they don't bump into small fish or something, they don't bother to care.
After all, there are too many people who evade taxes on a small scale and it is impossible to control them.
But...if the tax agency is really targeting you and you have committed tax evasion, they can basically find out.
Don't underestimate the ability of the tax patrol police to handle cases. They dare to bring artillery to handle cases...
In fact, many officials have corruption problems. It is estimated that no official is stupid enough to file a tax return on corruption income these days... But for the tax department, they have nothing to do with corruption, but your corruption income If you don’t file taxes, you’ll have a big problem!
The Tax Law of the Dachu Empire clearly stipulates that all income needs to be declared tax, and naturally all income includes illegal income!
In short, the tax department doesn't care where the money comes from. They only collect taxes. If you don't pay taxes on your corrupt income, you are violating the tax law. If you arrest people directly, there will be no problem at all.
The empire's top officials dare not say 100%, but most of them have or have had illegal income, and there is a high probability that no one will honestly file tax returns on these illegal incomes...
Therefore, if anyone dares to take advantage of the core power of the tax department, that is, the power of taxation, the tax department will immediately check the taxes of these people... Once the check is accurate, they will be arrested directly, even if they are second-rank ministers. Get it right.
The tax superintendent in the tax department is much more powerful in arresting officials than the anti-corruption bureau in the inspectorate.
This also led to the fact that Western trading companies that were rampant in India still had to pay taxes when doing business in Indian colonies...
Most of these colonies were conquered by themselves!
However, the Western Trading Company does not care much about this, because after many integrations and share recycling, the Western Trading Company has become 100% controlled by official capital and is directly under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Cabinet. The supervision of the Western Trading Company is from a second-grade senior official. .
So the money goes in with the left hand and goes out with the right hand, so it doesn’t have much impact.
Such Western trading companies, because of their monopoly position, require domestic products to enter their procurement and supply system before entering the Indian market.
Otherwise, don't expect to sell goods to India.
Song Alin has always wanted to enter the procurement and supply system of Western Trading Company. After several years of hard work, on the one hand, he improved product quality and cost-effectiveness, and on the other hand, he also actively communicated with Western Trading Company to facilitate communication.
Finally, he was able to enter the procurement and supply system of the Western Trading Company and became one of the suppliers of multiple categories of non-staple food. Although he was only one of more than a dozen suppliers of similar products, even this qualification was not easy to obtain.
Among them, the help of official figures is indispensable.
Otherwise, there are so many domestic non-staple food manufacturers, and Donglin Company’s products have no obvious advantages. Why would people buy your non-staple food products and sell them in India?
Is it just you who has a big face?
Therefore, unless there are special circumstances, Song Alin is still unwilling to offend the boss above him. Even if the other party comes with a message and wants him to invest in a quiet place, he will not refuse.
However, even though he was mentally prepared, when he actually came to Heping County, he was still shocked by the harsh conditions there.
Damn, there are mountains everywhere!
How can I invest in this crappy place when it has nothing to offer?
After this investment, even the transportation of products to the outside world will have to rely heavily on Dongjiang water transportation.
At this moment, he really wanted to regret it!
Not only him, but in fact most of the dozen other investors who came together also retreated.
That's right, this group of people are actually investors recommended by Wang Tu's senior secretaries through matchmaking. There are no big businessmen, they are all small and medium-sized enterprises, and they came because of others' entrustment.
But it's one thing to come and inspect it, but it's another thing whether to invest or not.
Song Alin looked at the small pier in front of him. When the ship docked and disembarked, he felt depressed and found that there were already more than a dozen carriages and a dozen people in official uniforms waiting in front.
Seeing this scene, he felt a little better. At least the government here was quite enthusiastic. If he really wanted to invest, it would probably be easier to deal with the government.
The group was picked up and moved forward, finally arriving at the only inn in the county where they stayed.
That night, they were also invited to the county government office to attend the reception banquet, and Song Alin also saw the young and somewhat excessive Wang Tu.
After seeing this person and asking about his origins, he finally understood why a group of people like him came all the way to investigate.
Damn, I came from the Secretariat of the Hanlin Academy, so I have a lot of background.
But he couldn't understand why such a rising star with a promising career who knew it at first sight would come to work in such a useless place.
He didn't know much about official matters, but he felt Wang Tu's enthusiasm.
Not only Wang Tu, the county magistrate, but several other local officials are also very enthusiastic. From this look, it is clear that they want people to invest in their dreams!
Looking at the performance of local officials, at least Song Alin knew that it would be easier to deal with local officials if he invested here in the future.
Because they are eager for foreign investment!
However, Song Alin will not be confused by the performance of such officials. For his Donglin Company, if he wants to come here to invest in tea planting and processing industry, even if the investment is casual, it will cost tens of thousands of Chu Yuan to start. , if it is a large-scale investment, it will exceed 100,000.
You can never be too cautious.
Returning a favor to a big shot has a price!
After all, no one wants to lose money.
Therefore, he was very cautious in the subsequent inspection. Not only did he look at it himself, he also asked his attaché to find a large number of basic information provided by the local government.
After preliminary inspection, it was found that there are indeed several places in the local area suitable for growing tea. Once the tea leaves are available, tea processing is not a problem.
But again, there are many places in China suitable for large-scale tea cultivation, but not everyone will invest in them.
In addition to considering the natural environment, investment also takes into consideration transportation. Obviously, Heping has no advantage in transportation and is even at a disadvantage.
There are also local cultural conditions and the attitude of the government.
Song Alin knew that the local folk customs were quite tough, and they were always willing to fight with weapons. As a businessman from other places, he came to invest in this place. After investing a lot of money, if some unruly people came to make trouble, wouldn't he? Want to be caught blind?
In particular, tea planting will involve large-scale mountain and forest land, and land like this can easily cause many conflicts.
When a company as powerful as the Da Chu Empire Railway Company expropriates land to build a railway, it will encounter resistance from countless unscrupulous people, let alone an ordinary businessman.
So after a detailed investigation, he felt that it was not a good idea to personally intervene in tea planting. It would be easy to make no money and make a mess.
But if you are simply engaged in tea processing, then there is not much of a problem.
As long as the local area can provide a large amount of tea, he can process it locally and then transport it to Guangzhou via Dongjiang, thereby increasing Donglin Company's tea business.
The tea business is a business that he plans to focus on. Even if he does not get the source of tea here, he is also ready to look for sources of tea elsewhere.
Therefore, when Song Alin faced a lot of nonsense from local officials, he made it clear that he refused to invest in large-scale tea planting. However, he also said that he would not engage in tea planting, but tea processing could.
Aren't you worried that farmers in your area are unable to sell and make money after working so hard to grow tea?
We can definitely sign a purchase agreement with those tea growers. As long as you grow the tea and the quality meets the requirements, then we will purchase it in accordance with the contract, eliminating the worries of the growers.
In addition, during Song Alin's inspection, although the focus was on the tea industry, he found that their camellia oleifera was also good, and their yuba was also good.
He immediately said that their Donglin company is a comprehensive food processing industry, and the edible oil business is also one of their major businesses. Although Camellia oleifera is not a mainstream edible oil, as a niche high-end edible oil, it still has a certain Market, I can also build a camellia processing plant here when the time comes.
The same is true for yuba. The channel wholesale subsidiary of Donglin Company already has yuba business, but their yuba comes from Jiangxi and is shipped by sea. Because of the long shipping time, it is difficult to guarantee the quality. .
If we can establish a yuba processing and sales industry in Guangdong, there will be great potential.
After Song Alin's preliminary inspection, he had no idea about developing any planting industry in the local area, but he was still interested in developing some food processing industry using local specialties.
Anyway, the total investment is not expected to be large. Just invest 50,000 to 60,000 yuan and build two or three factories.
This will not only avoid trouble, but also allow you to explain it to the boss above.
Song Alin's decision made the local officials very satisfied. This was the first foreign investor in so many years, and the investment was tens of thousands of dollars.
This is actually quite significant for the local area.
Except for Song Alin, half of the other investors who came to inspect made it clear that investment was impossible. However, considering the backwardness of local infrastructure and other conditions, they could make an appropriate donation to help the local area build bridges, lay roads, etc. However, it was also Just a donation of one or two thousand yuan from Chu Yuan.
Obviously, they wanted to spend a little money and went there.
In this way, the favor can be returned, and there is no need to go to such a hilly place to invest and lose a lot of money.
The remaining half of the people, like Song Alin, have some interest in some industries. For example, a ceramics merchant named Li took a fancy to the local high-quality ceramic clay and saw that there were some coal resources here, so he planned to start a business here. A relatively large mechanized ceramics factory.
Song Alin and Li's ceramic merchants are the investors with the largest investment among their group.
Some of the remaining people also have investment intentions, but the investment amount will not be large.
But this still made Wang Tu very satisfied. This group of people who came to inspect estimated that the total investment should exceed 100,000 Chu Yuan.
This amount of money is nothing if it is spent in big cities or even some ordinary state capitals, but for a remote place like Heping with a small population, it is already very good.
This exceeds the total amount of local industrial investment since the founding of the Kingdom.
After getting off to a good start, Wang Tu personally went into battle to prepare a local industrial park to facilitate the establishment of these newly invested factories.
At the same time, plans are also being made to dredge a section of the river to facilitate future cargo transportation.
Not only to facilitate the outward transportation of these industrial goods in the future, but also to facilitate the water transportation of the population and daily goods in ordinary times.
Nowadays, the local population in Heping relies heavily on Dongjiang transportation for goods and materials.
As for the railway, Wang Tu has heard the news that the superiors are planning to build a railway from Hukou, Jiangxi to Guangzhou, and there is a high probability that peace will pass through them.
However, railway construction takes time, especially railways in mountainous areas in northern Guangdong that are so difficult to build. I am afraid that they will not be completed every three to five years.
By the time the Heping Railway was opened, he would have been transferred long ago.
His time is limited, and it is unlikely that he will stay in the valley of Heping for too long. Two or three years is basically the limit.
Therefore, river transportation remains an indispensable means of transportation in a short period of time.
Even after the railway is opened in the future, the low cost of water transportation will still play an irreplaceable role in the transportation of bulk goods.
Therefore, it is also necessary to dredge waterways and develop river transportation.
For this reason, he also contacted the Liuhe Shipping Company, the only company that currently operates regular steamship flights in the Dongjiang Basin, and asked them to increase the number of peaceful regular steamer flights.
The local area will provide other conveniences, especially dredging of waterways to ensure unimpeded passage of ships.
Liuhe Trading Company has already agreed and plans to increase some sailings, but the increase will be for small steamships from Heping to Heyuan Prefecture.
If you go to Guangzhou, you have to transfer to Heyuan Prefecture, because the large ships that go directly to Guangzhou currently only sail to Heyuan Prefecture City.
If a large ship goes directly to Heping County, on the one hand, the waterway cannot support navigation, and on the other hand, Heping's local economy and personnel logistics and transportation needs cannot support it. It is not necessary.
Wang Tu is also quite satisfied with this. At least there is relatively convenient external river transportation, which can greatly promote future development.
