1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 2286
This answer was a little out of Zhang Jinbao's expectation, but it sounded reasonable.After all, with the scale of Freedom's operations, it is quite normal to have several warehouses in the port area here.Install a big signboard on the roof of your own warehouse, of course you can use it as you want.

However, this gave Zhang Jinbao an idea. He took a closer look at the Furuifeng advertising sign above the warehouse. Although it was quite large, it only occupied part of the roof of the warehouse, and there was still a considerable area It is empty and can accommodate another advertising signboard.

Now Jonesy Academy is cooperating with Fu Ruifeng on the establishment of Guangzhou Branch. Zhang Jinbao thinks it is worth a try whether it is possible to include outdoor advertising signs as a means of publicity in the content of the cooperation between the two parties.If Li Nai could be persuaded to use the location on the roof of the warehouse here to make a big signboard for Jonesy Academy, then perhaps most of the money could be saved.

Li Nai didn't know that his partner was racking his brains to plan to prostitute Fu Ruifeng's business resources for free. He looked at the accounts of the local business store while listening to his subordinates' business reports.

Since the development of Hong Kong Island in Haihan, Furuifeng has been stationed here at the first time, building facilities such as commercial warehouses and dock warehouses, and has made plans for long-term operation.Over the past few years, Furuifeng's operation in Hong Kong Island has involved various fields, such as commercial firms engaged in entrepot trade, shipping companies engaged in transportation, intermediaries in the service industry, restaurants, inns, etc. There are Furuifeng subordinates in all walks of life industry.While earning huge profits, it also drives the local economic development. Therefore, every time Li Nai visits Hong Kong Island, You Yihan personally receives him.

Although Furuifeng has a first-mover advantage because it entered Hong Kong Island early, as more and more merchants begin to realize the commercial value of Hong Kong Island and increase their operating investment here, the market of Furuifeng The share is actually being eroded a little bit.

Especially the businessmen from the north, many of them have the background of the Xu family in Fujian or the colonial area of ​​Zhoushan. These businessmen not only have sufficient funds, but also have strong backgrounds. It is not an easy task to compete with them.The operating conditions of Fu Ruifeng in the waters north of the Pearl River Estuary do not have much competitive advantage for these peers, so the decline in performance is naturally inevitable.

Li Nai, as the young owner of Furuifeng, of course understands the current situation very well, but he can't let this trend continue to develop, at least let his subordinates realize that the decline in performance on Hong Kong Island will affect them personal future destiny.

"I've finished reading the accounts. The performance so far this year is at least [-]% worse than the same period last year." Li Nai said unhurriedly, his eyes swept over the faces of his subordinates one by one: "Everyone It may be said that you have tried your best, and you can only achieve this level, but if it is just like this, I don’t think you are qualified to receive generous remuneration from Furuifeng every year, and enjoy the various preferential treatments that Furuifeng provides to you. There are almost three months left in this year, I hope you can seize this little time and do some decent things, otherwise, when the accounts are closed at the end of the year, you will go to Guangzhou to report to my father by yourself!"

In front of Li Nai with their heads hanging down, the faces of this row of people are not very good-looking. They are all the managers of Furuifeng's local industries, and they are usually well-known figures outside, but in this shrewd In front of the third young master, they dare not play tricks.In the past, someone tried to deceive Li Nai who came to inspect by modifying performance, but after being exposed by Li Nai, he packed up and left on the spot.

According to the rules of Fu Ruifeng, the shopkeepers stationed in other places do not need to return to Guangzhou to report work at the end of the year. Those who are asked to do so, if they are about to be promoted, will be entrusted with important tasks by the big boss Li Jifeng face to face. Either the performance is not good, go back to Guangzhou to hand over the accounts and the affairs at hand, and then leave.

Judging from the current operating conditions of the industry on Hong Kong Island, if he is notified to return to Guangzhou to report on his work at the end of the year, the situation that will happen next will obviously not be the former.This means that some of them may have to disappear from their current positions if there is still no improvement in the last few months of the year.

For these people, it's more than just losing a job.Most of them started from the bottom of the boys, and it took several years to climb to where they are today, which can be said to be hard-won.

And the superior living conditions that they can enjoy in their houses, family members, and servants in Guangzhou and other places must be maintained by the income from this job. Once they lose their jobs, their living conditions will definitely change drastically. Change is definitely something they don't want to accept.

Several people exchanged glances with each other, and finally one of the shopkeepers with the most senior experience said: "Please tell the third young master, what should we do to change the current situation?"

The reason for the decline in business on Hong Kong Island is clear to everyone, but it is clear that these responsible persons do not have a clear plan on how to deal with this unfavorable situation.They can only hope that Li Nai, who is known for his shrewdness, can come up with a feasible solution, otherwise, just saying a few harsh words to them will not be able to change the current situation.

Li Nai said: "What are the advantages of our peers and what are our advantages? Have you figured it out? Everyone may wish to think about it first, and how to make our advantageous industries get more benefits."

The biggest operating advantage of Furuifeng is of course the degree of control over various local resources in Guangdong, which is difficult for foreign businesses to compete.In the same way, Freedom's advantages will no longer exist outside of Guangdong, so the business competition in the area north of the Pearl River Estuary is no better than that of its northern counterparts.

Such geographical restrictions cannot be completely overcome even if it is as strong as Fu Ruifeng.Li Nai also didn't want to use some unconventional means to fight against his counterparts in the north, so the part of the income lost in the business related to the north may only be recovered from his own industry with obvious advantages.

This may not be a perfect solution for Freedom, but it may only be used as an emergency solution if it is to restore the declining profits of the Hong Kong Island industry in the short term.

Of course, Li Nai's ability is more than that, but the problem is that he also knows that the qualifications of these people are limited, and it may be difficult to execute an overly complicated business plan.

These persons in charge were all cultivated by Fu Ruifeng himself, and some of them were even distant relatives of the Li family, so their loyalty was safe.However, due to the rapid expansion of Furuifeng in recent years, the number of experienced managers is far from meeting the job requirements. Li Jifeng can only make do with the promotion of a group of people with fair abilities and send them to various places to be in charge of operating projects.

These people can cope with business activities under normal conditions, but when they face the complex environment of external competition, their shortcomings of lack of experience and ability will be exposed immediately.Although Li Nai still had some methods, considering the execution ability of these people, he still chose to be more cautious, and only set tasks within his ability, so as not to cause more trouble if the goal was not achieved.

As for whether such a deployment can improve Freedom's operating conditions on Hong Kong Island, Li Nai is actually not fully sure.But trying is better than doing nothing. If the performance continues to decline, it may only try to transfer people from Guangzhou to take over the business affairs here.

It is precisely because of this situation that Li Nai became interested in Zhang Jinbao's proposal for cooperation in running schools.During his investigation in Danzhou, he also paid attention to the relevant majors of Jonesy Academy. Although they taught some relatively superficial business knowledge, most of what they learned were actual cases in various industries, and Zhang Jinbao often used his own Inviting business people to the academy to give lectures to these students through his personal relationship, the training effect is naturally much better than that of Ye Luzi.

Li Nai believes that in order to solve the problem of the shortage of professional management personnel in Furuifeng, it is not enough to rely on internal training or poaching people from the outside, which can at most meet the personnel replacement needs of the traditional business model, but now Furuifeng is In the period of rapid development, a few smart people are promoted from the buddies every year, which is far from keeping up with the needs of employers. However, the training model of Jonesy Academy may make the problem of Fu Ruifeng begin to be solved in a foreseeable period in the future. Effective relief.

Today, after reviewing the local business situation, Li Nai is even more determined.Even if the plan to cooperate with Zhang Jinbao to open the Guangzhou branch cannot be implemented soon, he still plans to select some personnel and send them to Danzhou to receive relevant professional training, so as to quickly improve the professional level of these managers.

The next day, Li Nai and others boarded the ship again and set off from Hong Kong Island.Originally, You Yihan planned to let them have lunch before leaving, but both Zheng Zuo and Zhang Jinbao were eager to go to Guangzhou to complete their plans, and they did not want to stay on Hong Kong Island any longer. Farewell and set off.

After the fleet left Hong Kong Island, it sailed westward through the Ma Wan Strait and entered the Pearl River Estuary.The three of them were sitting on deck chairs on the deck, enjoying the sea breeze and drinking cold drinks, which was quite pleasant.

Li Nai raised his finger to the west and said: "Eighty miles to the west of this place is the port of Macau run by the Portuguese. Originally, the plan of the Portuguese should be similar to that of Haihan, wanting to take advantage of the geographical advantage of the Pearl River estuary to carry out trade activities, but After the opening of the Hong Kong port, the management level is obviously higher than that of the Macau port, so now many businessmen are more willing to come to the Hong Kong side, and the Macau port is gradually left out in the cold.”

"Wouldn't the Portuguese feel resentment for the emergence of Hong Kong? But they have always been afraid of Haihan, and they can only express their dissatisfaction verbally, and they can't do anything out of the ordinary." After hearing Li Nai's introduction, Zheng Zuo , I couldn't help but make my own speculation.

Li Nai nodded and said, "It's hard to say whether it was because of fear, but the Portuguese did not overreact. Some Portuguese businessmen would even take the initiative to go to Hong Kong to engage in trade activities. After all, there are much more business resources than Macau."

Zhang Jinbao said: "The Portuguese suffered a lot in Hoi An City in Annan, and they knew that they could not beat our Haihan army, so they chose to conclude an alliance with our country to avoid another military conflict. No matter how much they envy Hong Kong's prosperity You can only look at the scene and dare not reach out, otherwise you will be unable to eat and walk away."

The failure of the Portuguese in Hoi An was actually not too serious, but that fight has already made the Portuguese realize that the strength of the Haihan Army is not what their colonial forces in East Asia can compete with, and it is wise to cooperate with it lift.And this decision has indeed saved Portugal’s hard-won East Asia trade route. In the past decade or so, Portugal’s trade volume in East Asia has doubled several times. most important trading partner.

In addition, the Portuguese's active cooperation also gave it an advantage in the competition with its European counterparts. The Netherlands and Spain, which had also established maritime spheres of influence in East Asia, chose to cooperate with Haihan because of a mistake. Let's face it, everyone knows what happened afterwards.

When Zheng Zuo heard Zhang Jinbao's words, he couldn't help feeling a little bit embarrassed. When the Haihan army attacked Hoi An, Annan was still in the midst of a civil war. Portugal was just a trade partner of Annan at that time. allies around.

Although in name, Annan is still a territory of Daming, but now few people in Annan regard themselves and Daming as one.Zheng Zuo's name is Xiao Wangye, but he is actually the prince of An Nanguo. This was an unimaginable situation when his father and son decided to raise troops.

From the current point of view, it is very difficult for other forces to challenge the status of this military alliance in the South China Sea in the short term. Annan, who was caught in a civil war a few years ago, has now been able to free up his hands and feet and start to expand outward up.

In Zheng Zuo's plan, the organization opened in Guangzhou is a reference to the office Haihan set up in Guangzhou in the early years. Although it is in the name of trade, it will also secretly undertake certain diplomatic and intelligence functions.However, judging from the history of grievances and grievances between Annan and Daming, the two sides will certainly not establish diplomatic relations at this time, so the diplomatic object of this institution will definitely not be the Ming court.

Although the plan to carve up Guangdong and Guangxi was completely rejected by Haihan, Zheng Zuo believes that there is still a chance to try to encroach on the southern territory of Ming Dynasty in the future.Haihan does not agree to carve up Daming now, but who can say for sure how the situation will change in the future?
Zheng Zuo believes that when the fate of the Ming Dynasty is coming to an end, Haihan will not sit back and watch the chaos in the world, and will definitely compete in the Central Plains.However, Haihan's troops are limited, and military operations carried out overseas at this stage often require the assistance of Annan's army and other allies. In the future, if they want to fight on a larger battlefield, Annan will definitely be required to send troops, and there will be a chance at that time .

(End of this chapter)