1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 303 Business Talk
The executive committee is willing to give "Furuifeng" relatively large discounts and concessions in the cooperation agreement of "Qiong Lianfa". In addition to taking into account the previous friendship, it also considers the future operation of the organization "Golden Shield Security" .

Schneider and others urged Li's father and son to set up the "Golden Shield Security", an armed escort organization, not just for the purpose of transporting illegal contraband through legal channels.On the one hand, He Xi's intelligence agency needs to rely on the information channel established by "Golden Shield Security" to expand outwards. On the other hand, the Military and Police Department also has plans to use this layer of information to deploy small-scale armed forces near Guangzhou.

With the increase in business projects of the Guangzhou Office, it is foreseeable that the scale of the entire Guangzhou Office will expand. After the purchase of land within the year and the expansion is completed, the staffing of the Guangzhou Office will definitely increase a lot, and due to various With the development of trade and financial business, the cash flow of the Guangzhou Office will become very large, and the security issue must be mentioned on the agenda of the Guangzhou Office.

Although the Guangzhou Office now has a platoon of guards, in the eyes of the Military and Police Department, the more armed forces, the better.In an important region like Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong and Guangxi, the military and police departments wish they could set up a military base by the Pearl River—of course, this is just an unlikely wish at present.

Deploying armed forces directly in Guangzhou is bound to arouse Ming's vigilance. After all, Jin Yiwei, who has been famous for hundreds of years, is not a vegetarian. If he moves too much, he will be targeted by these "court hawks" soon.However, "Golden Shield Security" can take a curved line to save the country, and put a layer of legality on the plans of the Military and Police Department.The Military and Police Department has long planned to control the Pearl River Estuary, and intends to do something about the Wanshan Islands in the Pearl River Estuary. In terms of distance, Guangzhou, which is close at hand, is undoubtedly a better logistics base than Shengli Port. After the layout of Guangzhou is completed, the military and police department can safely and boldly plan to establish a military stronghold at the Pearl River Estuary, so as to realize the strategic intention of monitoring Guangzhou's sea lanes.

It has been more than half a year since the Guangzhou Office opened, and it is the first time that it has received so many guests at the same time.Near noon, the more than 20 banquet tables set up in the courtyard were basically full, and the people watching the excitement outside finally gradually dispersed. After all, ordinary people will not be able to participate in the subsequent games.

Schneider delivered a warm toast on behalf of Guangzhou Office, highly affirming the strength of "Golden Shield Security", and said that in the future, "Haihan Development Bank" and other industries under the name of Haihan will cooperate with "Golden Shield Security" In-depth cooperation, the escort work of Haihan's various products in the mainland will be completed by "Golden Shield Security".At the same time, Schneider also said that as long as they are long-term regular customers of "Haihan Development Bank", they can enjoy the escort service of "Golden Shield Security" at a [-]% discount.

Schneider's statement is actually an endorsement for the newly established "Golden Shield Security" in the Guangzhou business district.The economic strength of the Haihan people has been well known in the Guangzhou business district in the past six months. With the statement made by the Guangzhou Office, the "Golden Shield Security" can't even get a deal from outside, and it can't starve to death just relying on Haihan to eat up.Moreover, the merchants present here can also detect another relatively cryptic message from Schneider's words-the Haihan people should be preparing to use "Golden Shield Security" to establish their own sales channels and networks.

Regarding this intention of Haihan people, many people have already guessed a little bit when they learned that Haihan people cooperated with "Furuifeng" to establish the "Golden Shield Security" organization, and the evaluations of various businesses are naturally mixed.Some people think that by doing this, the Haihan people are vying for the market with the distributors of Daming. If the Haihan people have established their own sales network, then the merchants in Daming will not even have the slightest competitive advantage.But there is also another opinion that the Haihan people did not do this to drive out the distributors, because the Haihan people have never shown the bad habit of eating alone in business——those who hold this kind of opinion are basically obtained by "Joan "Lianfa" is a big merchant invited to become a shareholder.

These merchants have relatively close trade relations with Haihan, and they are also familiar with the behavior style of Haihan people. After learning the information of the two organizations "Golden Shield Security" and "Jiong Lianfa", some of them are more intelligent. People guessed the intentions of the Haihan people—the Haihan people probably hoped that the merchants of Ming Dynasty would shift part of their attention from Haihan's fancy products to bigger business.

As long as the business owners who have been individually interviewed by the Guangdong Office for the content of "Qiong Lianfa" are all shocked by the concept of Haihan people. Those projects in the "Qiong Lianfa" plan, if you pick any one at random, it is a big guy that ordinary businesses can't control, and the Haihan people seem not satisfied with keeping these ideas on paper, and plan to carry out multi-line operations , to run several projects at the same time.

How big are the "money scenes" of these projects? Some are relatively obvious, such as mining and iron making, planting sugarcane fields on a large scale, building large ships for shipping, etc. There are also some projects that people don't understand, such as track Transportation, infrastructure construction, etc.But no matter what kind of project it is, Haihan people have shown full confidence in its profitability, and even some of the projects Haihan people have given a guarantee of profitability.

Compared with the huge profits from the distribution of Haihan products in the mainland, these big projects of Haihan people do not seem so attractive, but everyone has to admit that with more and more distributors of Haihan products in the mainland, sales profits It is no longer as lucrative as it was in the first few months. Even an established agent like "Furuifeng" has to face the emergence of more and more competitors in the same industry.If distributors want to ensure huge profits, they must spend more time and effort to transport Haihan products to areas far away from Guangzhou for sale. However, in this era of inconvenient transportation, it is not easy to sell bulk goods to other places thing.

Under such a market trend, for large businessmen, the "Qiong Lianfa" operation mode proposed by the Haihan people seems very attractive. Haihan people are responsible for the implementation of the whole process. Apart from providing the necessary human, material and financial resources, the shareholders basically do not need to worry about problems in the operation process, as long as they wait for the money to be distributed with peace of mind.In addition, there is an extremely important point, that is, Haihan promised that the income of shareholders can be cashed in cash or bank notes of "Haihan Development Bank", which means that this income can achieve complete tax avoidance , This is much simpler than doing sea trade.

Although they still have all kinds of doubts, these merchants who received the invitation of "Qiong Lianfa" to become a shareholder were all invited to come here to see what the Haihan people have to say at today's meeting. After all, no one wants to easily miss such an opportunity to obtain long-term and stable income.

Today's banquet still carried out the principle of "Cultural stage, economic opera". After Schneider's toast, Li Jifeng also said a few words, and then the temporary stage set up in the yard began to babble. sang.This is the "Guangfu Opera" performed by the Qionghua Guild Hall specially invited from Foshan by the Guangzhou Office, which is the prototype of Cantonese opera.

After singing a play, Schneider came to the stage in person to preside over the auction and lottery ceremony.Before the auction started, Schneider gave a brief explanation on the auction, saying that the proceeds from the auction of the [-] sets of commemorative stationery today will be donated to the Guangzhou Office regardless of the amount.Half of it will be used as Haihan Shantang's funds to help local refugees and orphans in Guangzhou, and will send those unattended street children to Shengli Port to receive unified education and management.The other half of the funds will be used to set up a special "Haihan Scholarship Foundation" to support poor scholars in Guangzhou. Anyone with a poor family can apply for a subsidy from the foundation, and this financial subsidy will It's free and doesn't come with any additional requirements.

Relief for refugees, donating culture, and promoting good deeds are the best means for businessmen in this era to gain a good social reputation after making a fortune. Schneider's statement also received a lot of applause.Of course, although this money is in the name of charity, it is not intended to be spent in vain.Most of the refugee orphans rescued by Yizhuang Shantang will be sent to Shengli Port to enter the naturalization system after being screened, which can be regarded as one of the channels for legally obtaining immigrants from Ming Dynasty.

As for the subsidy for poor and lower-class literati, in fact, the Guangzhou Office has been engaged in related work before that, but it has not been made public.In terms of the current population size of Victory Port, the literacy rate of ordinary people is far below the executive committee's expectations, and the existing teachers are too weak to be used for universal literacy education. The shortcut to solve this contradiction Probably only the introduction of intellectuals from the Ming Dynasty, and the gradual improvement of the literacy rate of the people through the popularization of basic education.

As of the end of February, the Guangzhou Office has recruited more than [-] down-and-out literati from the mainland, and most of them have been sent to Shengli Port to receive training from relevant departments. Institutions, and some positions in various units that require a basic level of education to be competent.This kind of recruitment will be more convenient after wearing the cloak of a "foundation", and the scale of recruitment will gradually increase.

The executive committee set a very low threshold for recruiting Ming intellectuals, as long as they can read through elementary books such as "Three Character Classics", "Hundred Family Surnames", "Thousand Character Classics", and "Children's Learning Qiong Lin", they are considered qualified. up.As for the knowledge content of the Four Books and Five Classics, and a subset of classics and history, there are no rigid requirements. Of course, it is better to have learned it.If you have a reputation of being a scholar or above, and you voluntarily move to Shengli Port to settle down, you will also receive a special settling allowance.

After the lot has been displayed, the auction will begin.The most active people in this kind of auction are not the top figures in the Guangzhou business district, but some middle-level merchants who have the strongest desire to buy.The reason for this is also very simple. The top big merchants almost have their own channels to order goods from Haihan people, so there is no need to compete for a limited number of auctions on such occasions.Moreover, the Haihan people also told them clearly at the beginning that these so-called collector's editions, limited editions, and commemorative editions are all just gimmicks to hype the products, and limiting their quantity is purely to increase market value.If you really want to collect it, you usually place an individual order and make it tailor-made. For example, Li Jifeng's home has several sets of unique custom-made glass stationery.

On the contrary, those medium-strength merchants, because they can't get the first-hand source of Haihan products, attach great importance to this kind of Haihan products that flow out of abnormal channels.Twenty sets of limited collector's editions were finally sold for more than 3000 taels of silver. Schneider, who presided over the auction on stage, never closed his mouth from beginning to end.A fraction of this money has already earned back the cost of these things together with the cost of today's big reception. It is so easy to earn money from the pockets of the Ming merchants in Guangzhou.

Afterwards, there were various lottery activities, basically copying all the methods used in the annual meeting of the later generations of companies, but the businessmen of Ming Dynasty obviously liked this method, and they yelled and had fun during the lottery draw. Excited.About [-]% of the participants won different levels of rewards, and for those who were unlucky and didn’t even get a hair, the Guangzhou Office also thoughtfully prepared a consolation prize—two pieces of the newly produced Haihan soap .

After eating, drinking, and having fun, a large group of voters left the Guangzhou Office satisfied with their spoils.Of course, some people quietly detoured to the "Haihan Development Bank" on the other side of the yard after leaving the gate, and went through the account opening procedures-it is uncertain when they will use the escort business of "Golden Shield Security", so let's get a discount first Let's talk about qualifications.

A few scheming people noticed that some big local businessmen did not leave immediately after the banquet, but outsiders could not imagine the scale of the business these people were discussing at this time.To put it a little bit exaggerated, the net worth of the group of people who are now staying in the Guangzhou Office can buy almost half of the city of Guangzhou.

The influence of this group of people on the entire Guangzhou business district and even the local society has been carefully evaluated and screened by the Guangzhou Office, and some people who have not been in the right direction with Haihan, or whose business philosophy is not in tune with each other, have been eliminated. At least those left behind are relatively neutral in their political attitudes, and have not shown any obvious hostility or rejection towards Hai Han.In this way, when they learn about some of Haihan's methods that harm Daming's interests in the future, they will not react too violently.

The participants who stayed here today have all had individual interviews with the Guangzhou Office, and have a certain degree of understanding of the business content and direction of "Qiong Lianfa".As the last symposium before the listing of "Joan Lianfa", Schneider specially prepared a speech for this purpose to encourage the investment enthusiasm of these businessmen.

"Bosses, since ancient times, scholars, farmers, businessmen, and businessmen have always been ranked at the bottom of the four peoples. No matter how much money a merchant can earn, it is difficult to obtain the corresponding social status. The court and the government have always only regarded merchants as As a cash cow, shake it when necessary. If the tree is too big to shake, you can simply cut it down. Even if Shen Wansan is as rich as Shen Wansan, the court can make him bankrupt and exile to the frontier. I think All the bosses are now hiring the best teachers for their children, that is, so that the children can get a job and get rid of the social status of the bottom of the four peoples. But what I want to tell you today is that there is actually another way , can get rid of this status quo that makes everyone feel unwilling and cannot be changed.”

Schneidera lowered a curtain on the wall, revealing a five-foot-square map of the South China Sea centered on Hainan Island.

"Bosses, I believe everyone is familiar with Qiongzhou Island. Nine out of ten of you here have been to Qiongzhou Island, and almost half of them have visited Shengli Port. I believe anyone who has been to Shengli Port will be able to I can feel the difference between there and Daming. You can think back, why did Shengli Port attract everyone together, and the goods have to be transported to Shengli Port for delivery after thousands of miles?"

"Because of tax exemption!" Someone answered.Of course, the attraction of Shengli Port is not only the local tax-free policy. The good port conditions of Shengli Port, complete armed defense methods, and the current money deposit and withdrawal business with Guangzhou are all very popular among merchants. An irresistible temptation.

Schneider nodded, and then said: "That's right. Some people may say that this is a violation of the 'Daming Law', but what I want to tell you is that the fiscal situation of the Yazhou area has not been badly affected by the tax exemption policy of the Victory Port. On the contrary, under our operation, Yazhou has turned over more tax revenue to Qiongzhou government than before. This is a fact that can be found in the Yazhou government office. Yazhou used to All kinds of problems, refugees, pirates, prisoners, high unemployment, high prices, are now being gradually solved by us. I can boldly tell you that the various policies we implemented in Victory Port have all been achieved. The tacit support of the Yazhou government. If you don’t believe me, the next time you visit Shengli Port, I can take you there to see how many of the people serving labor in Shengli Port are prisoners who should be detained in the Yazhou Prison!”

"As long as we can create more wealth for the local government, so that the parents and officials can increase the number of taxes compared with the previous year, and make their performance during their reign better, who else can become our golden light?" What about the stumbling block on the road? What we have done in Shengli Port and Yazhou can be replicated in other places on Qiongzhou Island. You don’t have to worry about being weak, and your hard-earned money has become the government’s business Chinese food, as long as we unite under the signboard of "Qiong Lianfa", I will definitely let everyone see the real power of capital! Look at how those officials who are either arrogant or greedy bow their heads in front of capital !"

(End of this chapter)