1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 974 Productivity Gap

After the carriage drove into the city, Fan Dimen noticed that the street market here was not as lively as Sanya's urban area, and there were not many pedestrians on the street, but it kept the unique street cleanliness under Haihan's rule.From time to time, a team of five black-clothed security police can be seen on the street. This posture of being ready may have something to do with the visit of the big man Ning Qi.

"It seems that there are not many residents in the city." Fan Dimen said casually.

Ning Qi replied: "Now most of the people living in Yacheng are local officials, there are business representatives who operate projects here, and our personnel stationed in Yacheng. As for the immigrants working in the plantations outside the city, they They are all concentrated in resettlement villages outside the city, and they generally only enter the city when they need to go to official institutions for work.”

Fan Dimen thought that this situation is quite similar to Batavia. The local social structure is that the rich and powerful live in the city, while fishermen, farmers and other craftsmen mostly live outside the city.

The residence of Ning Qi and Fan Dimen in Yacheng is the yard of the office in Yacheng. However, due to the perfect function of the organization, the staffing scale of the Office in Yacheng has been expanded a lot, not only the small courtyard that was bought at the beginning, Later, a large piece of land was bought next to it, and a new office compound and residential area were built.The small courtyard where the first generation of staff of the Cliff Office lived is now only used as a storage warehouse and an archive center.

The Cliff Office has specially prepared two upper rooms, which are only provided for the chief executives who come here for inspection.Although these two upper rooms may not be used once a year, this special treatment is not an economic issue, but a political issue, so it has been retained.As a "VIP" invited by the executive committee, Fan Diemen also enjoyed this special treatment.

The ceramic bathroom, hot water supply, bedding, and furniture decoration used in this room are all custom-made products that cannot be bought on the market. There is even a socket connected to the battery in the room so that the chief executive Conveniently use the laptop they carry.

Although Van Diemen didn't quite understand Haihan's pursuit of material comfort, he could still see the quality of these things. It is estimated that 150 to [-] healthy slaves can be exchanged for the auction in the market.What he personally likes most is the uninterrupted hot water supply in this room, and he can go into the bathtub for a comfortable bath at any time, which is quite a treat in the humid and hot Southeast Asia.

There were several special desserts on the coffee table in the room. Fan Diemen picked and picked for a while, and finally chose a nougat.However, this kind of sweets didn't seem to be suitable for him. Before he finished eating, he felt a dull pain in his two molars.Fan Diemen quickly poured a cup of tea, and rushed the nougat that had not completely melted in his mouth directly into his stomach, which made him feel better.

Fan Dimen rested in the room for a while, and Ning Qi came to invite him to the banquet.During this visit to Hainan Island, Fan Dimen has seen the banquet culture of the Haihan people. In addition to breakfast, every day at noon and evening, banquets of different grades and sizes are arranged. The military, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Shipping, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the Executive Committee The General Office of the Association and other units came forward to invite him one after another. Rao Fan Dimen thought he was in good health, but he also drank too much at the banquet in the past few days and was a bit overwhelmed.He originally thought that he could avoid these occasions when he came out to do a round-the-island inspection, but he didn't expect that there was another banquet waiting for him as soon as he arrived at Yacheng, the first stop.

"Mr. Ning, isn't the arrangement of these banquets a little too frequent?" Fan Dimen smiled wryly, "I have only been here for a few days, and the number of banquets I have attended is already more than in the past year!"

Ning Qi said solemnly: "The reception banquet was arranged by the staff of the Cliff Office, and I didn't know it beforehand. If we refuse to attend, it will easily make the people below worry, so it's better to attend as a routine."

Fan Dimen himself is also a powerful figure, so he can naturally understand this kind of relationship in the workplace, so he can only smile wryly at the moment: "You can go, but you can't drink too much."

Eating, drinking and drinking can be regarded as a characteristic of Haihan's officialdom. Driven by the people who travel through, the entire bureaucratic system from top to bottom is used to choosing banquets as a place for communication.Because there are many foreign-invested plantations here in Yacheng, the local office in Yacheng, as the local authority, also deals with a lot of people from all walks of life. Eating, drinking and drinking are common activities, and there is also a special public relations in the office budget. Costs of hosting.When a big leader like Ning Qi inspects the work at the local level, the necessary courteous treatment is also provided with a full set, and he can't just eat a working meal and settle down in practice.If these red tapes were omitted, even if Ning Qi would not blame them, the people in the Ya Office would not be at ease.

Of course, Fan Dimen's statement in advance did not succeed in saving himself from the relay of toasts at the banquet. Although the local Ming officials, representatives of commercial firms, and cadres of the Cliff Office did not dare to drink Ning Qi's wine, they were very concerned about this. The stupid Spanish barbarian has nothing to worry about.The seven or eight companions took turns to fight, and after a while Van Diemen began to lose his strength.If Ning Qi hadn't stepped forward to stop him after looking around, Fan Dimen would probably have been forced to the ground again.

And the direct consequence of this welcome banquet was that the local inspection schedule had to be postponed until the next day in order to restore Van Diemen to a sober state.Ning Qi did not rest, and seized the time during this period to listen to the recent work report of the office in Yacheng, and also met with two investor representatives, and finalized with them the development of two new oil plantations in the upper reaches of the Ningyuan River north of Yacheng. Planning of crop plantation.It will take about half a year for these two plantations to complete the initial reclamation and planting, and will also bring more than [-] jobs to the local people.

The next day, Ning Qi took Fan Dimen to visit several local commercial firms. To be precise, these commercial firms are just local offices of foreign investors. As a powerful non-governmental business organization, Qiong Lianfa can provide all the sources of goods that the Dutch want to obtain from Northeast Asia.

Van Diemen seized the opportunity to invite various companies to send caravans to Batavia for trade, and said that after the signing of the agreement on the South China Sea Trade Alliance, the trade activities of Haihan and Ming merchants in Batavia also Will enjoy a more favorable tariff policy.However, his publicity did not achieve very good results. Most of the shopkeepers just said a few polite words, or they said that they would ask their superiors for instructions. No one would agree to his invitation in front of Ning Qi.

The commercial firms that Qiong Lianfa belongs to have many years of cooperation experience with Haihan. They understand Haihan's operation methods and are very sensitive to policies. Regarding the operation method of the South China Sea Trade Alliance, the bosses of each company are also very concerned. I have already inquired about related news.One of the contents of the agreement between Haihan and the Dutch East India Company was that the Netherlands would give up commercial activities north of Ambuna Island, and Haihan would provide it with a procurement list and supply of goods.Haihan's measure is obviously to monopolize the trading rights of the Dutch in Northeast Asia. Under this premise, who would dare to go out and carry out trade activities with the Dutch?
The Haihan people want to monopolize this business, of course, in order to obtain higher profits, and Qiong Lianfa, as a non-governmental commercial organization attached to the Haihan trade system, naturally will not oppose the government.Anyway, when Haihan receives orders from the Dutch, there are still a lot of goods that need to be transferred to them for purchase. These commercial firms don't have to worry about not being able to get profits from it.And Ning Qi was confident, so of course he wouldn't care about Fan Dimen's futile propaganda activities.

Fan Diemen obviously didn't know much about the inside story, otherwise he wouldn't have done useless work on these shareholders of Qiong Lianfa.But he could also feel from the expressions of these shopkeepers that the efforts he had made had little effect. Van Diemen thought that this might be because Batavia was not attractive enough to these merchants. After all, Batavia was far away from Ming It was too far away, but Sanya, run by the Haihan people, was much closer. If there were not enough interests, it would be difficult to attract Ming businessmen to cross the entire South China Sea to Batavia for trade activities.

At noon that day, several shopkeepers jointly hosted a banquet for Ning Qi and Fan Dimen. This time, Fan Dimen firmly held his position and refused to drink if he was beaten to death.Ning Qi looked at it from the side and secretly amused him. I am afraid that Fan Dimen will be allergic to the banquet for a long time after he returns.After the meal, the shopkeepers led the way, and everyone went out of the city to visit the plantation together.

The impression on the carriage is obviously different from the feeling of actually walking into the field. It is not difficult for Van Diemen to notice that there is no vicious foreman holding a whip in the plantation here, and the working atmosphere is quite harmonious.One of the storekeepers introduced to them: "The labor price here is slightly higher than that in Daming, but there is no extra trouble. All the operation of the plantation has to sign a special contract with the yamen in charge of Haihan. There are clear regulations, and there is no need to buy land, so the cost of plantation operation is actually lower than that of Daming."

The "excess trouble" mentioned by the shopkeeper mainly refers to various management fees collected by the government outside the system, but there are not so many messy things under Haihan's rule.All the local labor employed by investors is provided by Haihan, and the daily management of these laborers is also taken care of by Haihan's civil affairs agency, so investors don't need to spend extra energy and money.

After listening to the explanation, Fan Diemen also secretly compared the plantations operated by the East India Company in Nanyang, but soon found that the two were not very comparable, because most of the indigenous residents in the areas under the East India Company were very lazy. They are unwilling to engage in manual labor for their livelihood, so most of the laborers in the local plantations are Chinese and slave labor trafficked from other places.In this way, some problems that cannot be ignored will inevitably arise. First, there are many barriers in communication caused by cultural differences. The Dutch have always been unable to handle the relationship with these foreign laborers; Laws and regulations are used to protect them, which makes the workers less motivated to work, and the bosses will not have a good word for these subordinates who can't do things well without beating or scolding.

From the perspective of the relationship between capital and labor alone, the labor efficiency of the plantations run by the Dutch certainly cannot reach the level of the Haihan plantation, and this gap in efficiency results in the difference in operating costs.Moreover, the Haihan people often deep-process the primary agricultural and forestry products produced in the plantations to produce high-end commodities such as cane sugar, cooking oil, and alcoholic beverages, and then sell them in the market for several times the price.In terms of the economic value created by the plantations, the gap between the two sides is indeed quite obvious.

Van Diemen then visited a local sugarcane pressing workshop. The steam pressing machine used here was a new type of equipment that he had never seen before. The sugar yield is nearly [-]% higher than that of traditional crafts.After watching the actual operation of the workers, Van Diemen is convinced that he has found the root cause of the unsalable sugar produced in Batavia in the past two years-based on Haihan's planting scale, labor costs and processing technology. Advantages, the price of sucrose can be controlled below the production cost line of the East India Company.As long as Haihan's output can meet the needs of the market, it would be hell if the East India Company's cane sugar could be sold.

"This is really... amazing production equipment!" Watching the rumble of the mill continuously devouring the sugar cane, Van Diemen's tone could not help but be full of jealousy.

Needless to say, this kind of eccentric iron guy will not be approved for sale. Fan Diemen has seen a lot of this kind of equipment called "steam engine" made by the Haihan people in the port of Sanya, and the kind of equipment in Sanya The large iron cars running on the railway tracks in Sanya seem to be driven by this kind of equipment.It is obvious that this exclusive invention of the Haihan people can promote productivity, but unfortunately, the principle of this thing is still a secret so far.Although the East India Company is also trying to find out the secrets of this kind of mechanical equipment recently, but so far there is no actual harvest. All the factories that manufacture this kind of equipment are located in Tiandu in the inland of Sanya, and there is no way for outsiders to go there. In the military controlled area, the risk of sending someone to inquire about the news is too great.

Fan Dimen didn't know that Sanya had just cracked a Spanish spy case. Although some of his subordinates were lurking in Sanya, their social status was far inferior to Du Wen, the main criminal of the Spanish spy case, and he had no way of accessing steam engine manufacturing technology. This level of secrecy.But he also knew that if left alone, this thing would widen the gap in strength between the two sides.

(End of this chapter)