1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 318 IPO
According to the arrangement of the Executive Committee and relevant units, there will be several product promotion meetings with different contents on this day.In addition to the quarterly arrangements, in addition to the high-profile product promotion meetings jointly organized by various production departments and commercial authorities, this time there is also an additional promotion meeting for school-age children's education courses organized by the education department for trade targets, and The arms product exhibition held by the newly established "Haihan Military Industry" - of course, this is only a special promotion meeting for individual customers, and not everyone can go.In addition, there is the most eye-catching, but set up a barrier to entry "Qiong Lianfa" development project briefing.

When "Qiong Lianfa" was preparing to be established in Guangzhou, it had already caused quite a stir in the local business circle.There has never been such a precedent for organizing so many wealthy businessmen together to establish a large commercial firm with a business scope that spans across provinces.Of course, many outsiders do not know that the investment direction of "Qiong Lianfa" is not in the two provinces of Fuzhou and Guangxi in the mainland, but in Qiongzhou Island, which is isolated overseas.Moreover, the level of investment will be unprecedented in history.

In the specially arranged meeting room, the twelve shareholders of "Qiong Lianfa" sat around the strip conference table, watching the two huge maps that Tao Donglai and Schneider had just hung on the wall.

The map of Qiongzhou Island on the left is easy to recognize. It clearly marks the main towns on Qiongzhou Island, including Shengli Port, where everyone is now.The map on the right is relatively unfamiliar to many people. On this map covering almost the entire Southeast Asia region, Qiongzhou Island is just a small piece of land in the center of the map, from Songjiang Prefecture in the north to The Philippine Islands, south to Java Island, west to the Indian subcontinent, the area depicted by this map has exceeded the cognition of these people present - the farthest place they have been to, that is, the place on Java Island. Davia (now Jakarta).As for the places west of the Strait of Malacca, for those present, it is just bits and pieces of information obtained from various rumors.

Although the great eunuch Zheng He made seven voyages to the West during the Yongle period, he had already been to places farther than this map. , that is already an unreachable world.

"Everyone, you have seen some of the local infrastructure facilities in the past two days, and I believe you have a preliminary understanding of Shengli Port. But I think maybe many people don't quite understand why we want to put the "Jiong Lianfa" investment zone It is set on Qiongzhou Island, rather than the more developed mainland." Tao Donglai pointed to the map behind him: "I believe everyone is familiar with these two maps. Today I want to combine the maps to give you a general overview. Let me explain the future development ideas of 'Qiong Lianfa'."

"All of you here are sea merchants who have traveled overseas for many years. First of all, I would like to remind everyone of a question. Where is the largest trade volume with Daming by sea now?" Without waiting for everyone to answer, Tao Donglai announced the answer himself: " They are from countries from the western continent of Europe. They traveled thousands of miles and took risks to come to Daming to buy back the special products of Ming Dynasty and ship them back to their home countries to make huge profits. From the perspective of making money, in fact, Western maritime merchants have no fundamental relationship with all of you here. The difference is that everyone has worked so hard for money."

"Everyone can see from this map that there are two shipping lanes for western maritime merchants to reach Daming from the Straits of Malacca. One is to go to Guangzhou through the Annan Kingdom and Qiongzhou Island, and the other is to go through Borneo, Palawan Island and Manila are detoured like this. It can be said that no matter which channel it is, it is full of dangers and hardships for maritime merchants. If we can now move the trading center from Guangzhou to Qiongzhou, or I put it more directly White, move to Port Victory, then we can see what changes."

Tao Donglai said while marking the routes and voyages of each section on the map with a pen: "Everyone can do the math, if we can turn Shengli Port into a trading center between Daming and Western countries, then the Western maritime merchants will never lose their money. After coming out of the Strait of Malacca, the voyage can be shortened by at least one-third! If it is a merchant ship that needs to go around Manila and then go to Guangzhou or Fujian, the voyage will be almost doubled! What does this mean? Even if it is only the Qiongzhou Island to Guangzhou For a short voyage, it will take about ten days to go back and forth. You all have business at sea, you can imagine if there is such a trading port nearby that can meet all trading needs, are you willing to risk the sea? risk going further afield to buy goods of the same quality but more expensive?"

Tao Donglai's last sentence naturally refers to the current zero-tariff policy implemented by Shengli Port.With the guarantee of this policy, the selling price of goods in Ming Dynasty can indeed be kept at a lower level than foreign trade ports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and it will naturally be more attractive to Western businessmen.But so far, Shengli Port has not opened its doors to Western maritime merchants. Most of the traders who come here to trade are Daming maritime merchants, who bring in various raw materials or primary processed products, and then buy various locally produced industrial products.

If Western maritime merchants also start to enter the Victory Port, then the Daming maritime merchants will most likely abandon the distant Batavia and Manila, and directly transport the goods to the Victory Port to trade with Western merchants—after all, it doesn’t matter whether they are shipped to Manila or Bada Via, it is also unavoidable that the local government will levy commercial taxes, and Victory Port does not have this drawback that merchants hate the most.

Tao Donglai looked around the audience and said: "Some people may say that the conditions of Qiongzhou Island cannot be compared with that of the mainland, and that most of the things that Western merchants want to buy are not produced on Qiongzhou Island. This is true. The former Qiongzhou Island It is true that there is nothing produced, and Yazhou is just a place where prisoners are exiled. Qiongzhou Island is surrounded by the sea, but even salt is not enough to eat, and part of it has to be shipped from the mainland every year. This place can be said to have nothing, so there will be no people Run it as a trading port."

"But that was a thing in the past. After we came here, or after the operation of 'Joan Lianfa', this situation will soon be changed." Tao Donglai stopped here, Schneider also hung a list on the wall beside him.

"This is the main export of Ming Dynasty in the near future. You can confirm whether it is true or not." Tao Donglai pointed to the list and read: "Silk fabrics, porcelain, books, cotton cloth, sugar, medicinal materials..."

Everyone in the audience saw that there were more than a dozen common export commodities listed on the list, which were basically the fields that various shareholders were involved in, and it was not just random nonsense made by Haihan people.

Tao Donglai went on to say: "These commodities that Western businessmen are interested in can actually be produced on Qiongzhou Island, but no one has organized production before that. I believe that we Haihan are not the first to think of this method. But we must be the first to take this step! The various projects that 'Qiong Lianfa' will operate are to make Qiongzhou Island a maritime trade center between the East and the West, and make it a distribution center for goods from the East and the West You are all veterans of business for many years. I think you all know how much lucrative water will be in the process after the event is completed. You are willing to spend money to invest in shares, and I believe that you are also here for this bright prospect. .”

A merchant representative asked, "That's all there is to it. How can Qiongzhou Island produce silk fabrics, porcelain, and cotton cloth? Is Mr. Tao trying to trick me into not knowing the people of Qiongzhou?"

Tao Donglai replied: "It is true that there were none before, but in fact, except for cotton cloth, other things are available. Please turn to the fourth page for the materials you are holding in your hands now."

There is a bound project brochure in front of each representative. In order to take care of Ming people's reading habits, the business department specially recruited a few talents and spent several days transcribing it.Everyone opened it according to their words and turned to the fourth page. The content they saw was "Qiongzhou Island Sericulture Base and Silk Fabric Production Plan".This plan will take two to three years to build a sericulture breeding base on Qiongzhou Island, cultivate sericulture varieties suitable for the local climate, and strive to produce silk products within five years.

The plan detailed the implementation steps, how to collect silkworm and mulberry seeds suitable for Qiongzhou's climate from Fujian and other places, how to plant mulberry in the enclosure of Qiongzhou Island, how to screen silkworm eggs, and introduce skilled weavers and craftsmen, etc.

When everyone was reading carefully, they heard Tao Donglai say: "The eighth page is the production plan of porcelain, you can also take a look first."

Although Hainan was not famous for producing porcelain in history, in fact Hainan Island has excellent natural resources - Qionghai and Wanning on the east coast of Hainan Island all have kaolin mines.The so-called kaolin is a kind of clay mine named after Gaoling Village, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, which can basically be regarded as a synonym for china clay.With this thing, the local development of the porcelain industry will have the basic guarantee of raw materials, and the rest of the work is to build kilns and introduce technicians.In addition to making ceramics, kaolin can also be used in papermaking, refractory materials, coatings and cement raw materials, etc., and has a wide range of uses.

As for the production of kaolin is still outside the current control of the Crossing Group, the executive committee is not worried about this, it is nothing more than money to open the way - I took real money to buy the soil that is worthless in the local area, Could it be that the officials and people there will not cooperate?

As for other export products, it is even less difficult for the Transit Group to realize them.Both papermaking and printing have entered the stage of trial operation, and mass production of publications will probably be realized within this year. By then, "Haihan Bookstore" in Guangzhou will no longer need to purchase from other booksellers. The publicity department expects The long-standing newspaper media will also begin to be put into practical use.Sugar cane has been planted on a large scale in Yalong Bay, and there are further large-scale planting plans in the Yazhou boundary. Harvesting sucrose is also one of the goals that can be achieved in the near future.

As for the planting of medicinal materials, tea, etc., it is not a problem. The people from the Ministry of Agriculture have not been idle since they crossed. species.Although a large number of tea exports to the West was a trend that only emerged during the Qing Dynasty, both the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture believed that they could learn from many marketing techniques of later generations and gradually cultivate consumption habits in potential markets, just like the Guangdong market created in the past year. The same trend of glass products.As long as the means are in place, it is believed that it is not impossible to drive the trend of tea drinking in Western countries a century or two in advance.

In addition to the goods that Daming exported to the West, the Transit Group also had a huge advantage - most of the goods that Daming imported from the West and Southeast Asia could also be produced locally.For example, all kinds of spices, precious wood, glass products, and even Western munitions that are in great demand in China can be produced in Victory Port, and there is also a supplier in North Vietnam that can provide some special products that are not available in Hainan Island.Some western commodities that could only be bought across the sea to Manila or even the distant Batavia can now be purchased directly in Victory Port.

Speaking of this, Tao Donglai has already demonstrated the advantages of "Qiong Lianfa" very clearly. Under the situation of occupying the innate geographical advantage, if various commodities needed by the East and the West can be produced locally, plus Given the relaxed environment of local trade policies and the strong guarantee of military defense, it is only a matter of time before Shengli Port and even Qiongzhou Island evolve into a commercial center in the South China Sea.In the process of regional functional evolution, "Qiong Lianfa" will play a great guiding role - at least on the bright side, "Qiong Lianfa" will be dominated by the investment direction and business projects of "Qiong Lianfa".As for the benefits that will be generated in this process, all the big merchants present can weigh it, but it is not something that can be measured by tens of thousands or 10 taels of silver.

Although the shareholders have participated in several symposiums before this, but after coming to Shengli Port this time, combined with the various facts they have seen with their own eyes, and after listening to Tao Donglai's explanation, everyone feels that "Joan "Lianfa" has more confidence in its development prospects.

Judging from what everyone has seen with their own eyes, at least in Yazhou in the south of Qiongzhou Island, there is no longer any force that can compete with the Haihan people. After "Qiong Lianfa" started operating the project locally, its influence is probably second only to the Haihan Executive Committee, and it should still be above the Yazhou government, which has basically become a decoration.What moved them the most was that the big pie drawn by the Haihan people was not just about reclaiming wasteland and setting up a few plantations, but aimed at specific goals, to build a local All kinds of industries that can make a lot of money.Such a large layout is something that these self-proclaimed top wealthy shareholders have never even thought about before.

After giving this group of people enough encouragement, the next step is to be hosted by Schneider, who begins to explain the specific operation process of the project to everyone, and initiates a public offering to raise funds for the operation of the project.

According to the shareholding ratio negotiated at the beginning, Haihanfang will be the largest shareholder and automatically hold [-]% of the shares of each project, while the remaining [-]% will be raised from [-] shareholders.Considering that some projects may not be favored by shareholders, Haihan will be responsible for making up for the lack of funds needed for the plan at the end of the IPO.In addition, in order to prevent shareholders from scrambling for some popular projects, the [-]% of the shares will be distributed equally according to the number of shareholders of the project. Take it out and distribute it to other shareholders who are willing to subscribe.

This time, the business department has prepared a total of seven IPO projects for "Qiong Lianfa", and the contents are all in the "Project Manual" in the hands of everyone.Among them are long-term investments such as the development of the sericulture industry in Qiongzhou Island, and ceramic industry plans that will yield faster results; there are very practical infrastructure projects such as the "Sanya Inland River Port Development Plan", and some shareholders think it is more mysterious. For example, "Shengli Port to Guangzhou Regular Passenger and Cargo Flight Plan".

Even the ceramics industry, which has the least planned project funds, has offered 5 taels of silver, of which 500 taels are contributed by Haihan Fang, and the remaining 500 taels are competed by twelve shareholders. The minimum entry threshold is also as high as 1000 taels.Although the cost is high, as a project with obvious benefits, twelve shareholders have expressed their willingness to contribute and participate, so it only took 2 minutes to complete the project's stock offering, and the average share is only a little over 2000 yuan per company. Not to mention any burden.

The project investment period indicated in the plan is half a year. During this period, "Qiong Lianfa" will organize the construction of porcelain kilns locally, hire technicians from the mainland, complete the production and development of porcelain, and find channels for export.

From the 16th to the 18th century, Western maritime merchants headed by the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch bought a large amount of porcelain from Ming Dynasty and shipped it to Europe. In 1603, the Dutch armed fleet intercepted a Portuguese merchant ship, the Santa Catarina, in the Strait of Malacca. There were more than 60 pieces of porcelain with a total weight of 17 tons on board.As the Netherlands replaced Portugal and Spain as maritime supremacy in the Far East in the 17th century, the amount of porcelain transported to Europe by the Dutch East India Company increased dramatically. At least 300 million pieces of porcelain were shipped to Europe by merchant ships, and more than 17 million pieces of Chinese porcelain were shipped to Europe throughout the 2000th century.

No matter whether you are a businessman in the East or the West, you will never ignore the very lucrative business of porcelain.Since the Haihan people can manage the porcelain industry in Qiongzhou Island, the shareholders will certainly not miss this opportunity to make money for nothing.If everything goes smoothly, the amount of money invested can be doubled back within a year.

Immediately after the completion of the project's IPO, someone sent an agreement for shareholders to sign and pledge.As for collecting money, there is no rush. Anyway, there are still many projects in the future, which can be collected together after the negotiation.This agreement needs to pay the receipt of the share capital to take effect, but there is no need to worry about anyone who can evade the fare.

(End of this chapter)