1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2277
Although the sailors on the ship were polite, Zhang Jinbao also had a sense of propriety. He couldn't treat himself like a restaurant just because the other party had good food and drink.When Li Nai comes back later, if he smells drunk and goes to say hello, it may not be too disrespectful to the other party.

According to what Li Nai said yesterday, he will rush to the port as soon as possible after socializing in the city.However, more than an hour after Zhang Jinbao and the others finished their lunch, Li Nai arrived at the port in a carriage to board the ship.

"I'm sorry to keep Yuan Zhang waiting for a long time. I'll let people let go and raise the sails to prepare for departure." After seeing Zhang Jinbao, Li Nai explained why he showed up later than the agreed time: "Then the little prince Annan The matter I discussed with me today is very important, and I have to discuss it first before leaving Sanya, so I was delayed in the city for a while."

"Third young master has important business, so it's okay to delay for a while." Zhang Jinbao was originally on a ride, and the other party covered the expenses of the trip, so how could he complain about such a trivial matter.

Before Li Nai came back, the sailors on the ship were already ready to set off, so they left the port soon after he gave the order.However, this does not mean that Li Nai has started to go on vacation. In fact, on the way to Danzhou, he still needs to hurry up and deal with various official duties at hand.

After more than ten years of rapid development, Furuifeng has grown into a large-scale international trade organization that is rarely seen in Ming Dynasty in this era. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a new format.

In terms of the scale of overseas operations, Fu Ruifeng is likely to be the number one business organization in Ming Dynasty.And more than [-]% of its overseas industries are located on Hainan Island under the rule of Haihan.

Li Nai frequently traveled between Guangzhou and Sanya in his early years, not only to satisfy his personal thirst for knowledge, but also to arrange various investment projects in Hainan Island for Freedom.

Freedom’s early operations in Hainan Island were mainly agriculture and commerce. For example, long-term projects with stable returns such as plantations and commercial warehouses are the objects that Freeform is willing to invest in.So far, there are as many as [-] or [-] plantations and farms operated by Furuifeng on Hainan Island, large and small, and the commercial warehouses they belong to are all over every county on the island.

Under the guidance of Haihan officials, Fu Ruifeng also began to invest in some relatively unfamiliar industries, such as deep processing of agricultural products, shipping shipbuilding, mining smelting, and infrastructure facilities.The benefits brought to Freedom by these industries are not much worse than those of the traditional industries in the past, and they can even generate more lucrative profits.

However, with the rapid expansion of Freedom's business scale, they will inevitably encounter the same problem that Haihan encountered during the expansion process, that is, there are not enough management personnel available.Professional ability can no longer be used as a criterion for selecting and appointing management personnel. Fu Ruifeng can only send people with high loyalty to these positions as much as possible. The actual operators of many projects are even just guys transferred from Guangzhou, who may not even be able to settle accounts. Calculate clearly.

Even if Fu Ruifeng is willing to pay high salaries to recruit people from other places, it still cannot keep up with the growth rate of employment demand.Therefore, before this problem can be effectively resolved, Li Nai still needs to travel frequently between Guangzhou and Sanya, and let him supervise and guide the business projects under Haihan's management.

If there is enough time, Li Nai will even conduct short-term intensive training for these managers when they come to Hainan Island, so that they can master the various skills required for daily operations and the various operating mechanisms within Freeform.

When he came to Sanya this time, Li Nai's schedule was as busy as usual, and because he needed to attend martial arts competitions and various related entertainments, he basically couldn't spare time to communicate with the local shopkeepers, managers, and foremen in Sanya. These subordinates conduct talks, not to mention skills training.As for the various financial statements, business reports, and project plans submitted by these managers, he can only have time to review them slowly after leaving Sanya by boat.

If things are done in this era, Li Nai should of course stay in Sanya and deal with these matters before leaving. Otherwise, after he returns to Guangzhou, he will come up with suggestions based on the information provided in these documents, and then write to Sanya. The time required will delay a lot of things.

Fortunately, Li Nai has learned to handle these matters in the Haihan way. He can send his handling opinions to Sanya by telegram in Danzhou or Guangzhou, and the local management personnel will implement them.In this way, you only need to pay some small expenses, but you can save a lot of precious time. For people of Li Nai's class, time is far more precious than money, and it is the most trouble-free to handle these tasks during the voyage Time-saving practice.

So after a brief conversation with Zhang Jinbao, Li Nai said that he still had business to deal with, and then he went back to his exclusive cabin and couldn't leave the door behind closed doors.Zhang Jinbao didn't doubt that he was there, after all, it was a great favor for him to let his teachers and students go back to Danzhou by boat, and it was impossible to have to socialize with him all the time on the way.Zhang Jinbao also specially greeted the students, telling them not to yell on the boat, so as not to affect Li Nai's work.

It was not until dinner time that Li Nai came out of the cabin and invited Zhang Jinbao and his party to have dinner together.During the meeting, Li Nai also inquired about the majors of these students seemingly inadvertently, and offered to express that if they are interested, they can work in Furuifeng in the future, and all conditions such as salary and treatment can be negotiated.

Zhang Jinbao quickly thanked Li Nai, he knew that Li Nai was not polite, in fact, in recent years, some graduates of Jonesy College have indeed joined Freedom to work, and the number has been increasing year by year.It is precisely because of such signs that Zhang Jinbao boldly sells his chain school plan to Li Nai in Sanya.

In Zhang Jinbao's view, Furuifeng's demand for employment is obvious, and currently there is no specialized agency that can provide Furuifeng with the required professionals in a long-term and stable manner. This is an excellent opportunity for Jonesy College entry point.

Nothing to say that night.When the ship arrived at Changhua Port the next day, Li Nai proposed to stay here for a day to handle some official business, and invited Zhang Jinbao to visit an iron workshop run by Fu Ruifeng here.

"I always thought that Changhua was a government-run smelting workshop before, but I didn't know that Furuifeng also had an industry here." On the carriage to the destination, Zhang Jinbao said to Li Nai.

Fu Ruifeng's business in Changhua should be quite large, because there is even a high-end box-type carriage waiting at the port to welcome Li Nai's arrival.When Zhang Jinbao got into the car, he paid special attention to the door, and sure enough, he saw the nameplate of Fu Ruifeng. It was obvious that this carriage was not hired temporarily in the local area, but was specially deployed here in case the important person came.

"Except for ours, the other workshops here are indeed government-run." Li Nai did not deny Zhang Jinbao's statement, because the establishment of Fu Ruifeng's workshop here was originally a project specially approved by the Executive Committee, and there is indeed no second one so far. family can enjoy such treatment.

Special materials such as salt and iron, which are related to the national economy and the people's livelihood, have been controlled by the government in all dynasties, and Haihan is no exception.Although private operators can also intervene in the industrial chain, they are at most acting as processing distributors, and in principle they are not allowed to directly intervene in the production process.

In fact, Fu Ruifeng's treatment in this regard is no exception. He has no right to participate in the mining and subsequent smelting of Shilu iron ore.It's just that Furuifeng has sufficient capital and official franchise, and its business scale is much larger than that of ordinary blacksmith shops.

The carriage passed through the towns near Changhua Port, all the way to the north, and traveled about three or four miles. It seemed that it was about to leave Changhua County, and finally arrived at the place Li Nai said.

Zhang Jinbao got out of the car and took a look. The workshop covered an area of ​​about ten acres. If measured by the standard of a blacksmith's shop, it was indeed astonishingly large.

There is a huge coal pile on the side of the road, which is as high as a two-story building. Zhang Jinbao estimates that there must be 10,000+ catties of coal in this pile.There are two heavy-duty carriages unloading. This kind of carriage is specially designed for carrying goods. It can carry more than 2000 kilograms of goods at most. It can be seen everywhere in Changhua.

Upon seeing this, Zhang Jinbao said: "It's a bit far to transport coal from the port."

Zhang Jinbao is no stranger to the situation in Changhua. He knows that the coal used here basically comes from the black soil port across the sea.And those government-run workshops are located closer to the port than here. Judging from the distance, the coal freight alone is estimated to be twice as bad.

Li Nai nodded and said: "That's true, so considering the long-term business needs, we will build a cargo terminal on the nearby coast and build a road leading to it, so that we can arrange coal ships from Heitu Port By unloading the goods nearby, the freight can be saved.”

After Zhang Jinbao heard this, he could only lament that Fu Ruifeng was rich and powerful, and that he could use such a simple and rude way to solve the problems encountered in the operation.

But in fact, Furuifeng has already done a detailed cost accounting for this. If you calculate the additional freight invested every year, then it is more cost-effective to build a dedicated freight terminal nearby for long-term operation, because the transportation here is not only It's just burning coal, and there are still a large number of iron products that need to be transported from here to other places.Calculated in and out, the annual freight savings can be extremely considerable.As for the time cost saved by this, it is difficult to calculate the value of money.

Of course, the rich capital owned by Fu Ruifeng is indeed one of the reasons why Li Nai chose this solution, which can solve the root of the problem in one step.If you were an ordinary operator, you might not have the courage to solve the problem by building dedicated freight terminals and roads.

After hearing the news, the big and small stewards of the workshop came to welcome Li Nai's inspection.Li Nai politely introduced Zhang Jinbao's identity to his subordinates, and invited him to enter the workshop to inspect the production situation.

"It turned out to be Dean Zhang. We also have people from your academy here, so they are not outsiders!" When the steward here heard Zhang Jinbao's identity, he immediately got close to him.After all, Zhang Jinbao came to inspect together with Li Nai, which may mean that there is some new cooperation with Jonesy College, and it is never wrong to establish a good relationship with him first.

Zhang Jinbao said a few words politely, and actually had a similar conjecture in his mind: Since Li Nai brought him to visit this workshop, it might be that he planned to recruit apprentices for this profession from Jonesy College in the future.

"Our raw materials here are all from nearby government-run smelters, and then we process them into various civilian ironware, such as farm tools, kitchen utensils, anchor chains, etc. These things were made by government-run workshops in the early years, but they were sold at cheap prices. Low, the labor cost of government-run workshops is high, and it is not cost-effective to do these things, so a part of them is gradually allocated to us to do."

While walking, Li Nai introduced the production situation here to Zhang Jinbao: "...More than half of the ironware we produce here are actually sold locally in Hainan Island, and the rest are shipped to Guangdong and Guangxi for sale."

Zhang Jinbao said: "As far as I know, the civilian ironware in our country is sold quite cheaply. I'm afraid the third young master won't make much money from this business?"

Li Nai smiled and said: "That's true, otherwise, how could the government give us this business? But it's okay, Fu Ruifeng didn't do this business to make a lot of money from civilian ironware, and to maintain a meager profit The business here is fine.”

If this business does not make money, it must have other benefits.But Li Nai didn't take the initiative to mention it, and Zhang Jinbao couldn't ask rashly, so he could only ponder in his heart.

Soon Zhang Jinbao was surprised to find that there were several steam engines used for processing ironware in this workshop. As far as he knew, this thing could only be used in government-run institutions at present. Jonesy Academy wanted to develop its own steam engine in the first two years Related projects were all urgently stopped by the government.Unexpectedly, Fu Ruifeng was able to install a steam engine in this iron workshop.

And it was also the first time for him to see how a steam engine cut a thumb-thick iron bar into sections at a fast speed, and then curled and connected them into a string of iron chains.A blacksmith may need to work for a whole day, but it only takes a moment to complete it on this production line with a steam engine, and the efficiency is probably more than a hundred times higher.

Zhang Jinbao suddenly remembered what Li Nai said just now that making ironware for civilian use is not very profitable, but at such a speed of production, it would be difficult not to make money.Immediately, I couldn't help asking: "Third young master, as far as I know, as long as the steam engine is used, the cost is much lower than that of manpower. Why did you just say that the business here is not very profitable?"

(End of this chapter)