Lu Ming

Chapter 542 Become a Shareholder
The arrival of Zongben made Tang Xiaoqiao feel extremely comfortable.

The arrival of Zongben represents the support of the indigenous Ming people for the previous plan to travel across the South Seas.More importantly, this means that at least some of the indigenous elites have recognized the superior system of the Traversing Congregation, and are willing to spend real money to formally bet the future of the family on the warlord Cao Chuan.

The seventeenth century was the age of unlimited liability.According to the tradition for thousands of years, once they fail in this level of struggle, they can invest with their family assets and follow Cao Chuan with their entire family.

"Haha, Boss Zong, you are quite supportive of brother's work, you must be treated with dignity!"

While patting the Zong boss's arm vigorously, Tang Xiaoqiao let the visitor into the building: "Go ahead and have a cup of coffee, let's have a good chat today."

Drinking coffee is the second time, but doing formalities is the main thing.No matter what the investment situation is, you must first verify the capital before discussing the business, right?
So the next thing to do is capital verification first.

Due to the sudden incident, the head office was not prepared, so Tang Xiaoqiao urgently sent someone to the bank for help.Fortunately, the newly opened seventeenth-century version of the People's Bank of China, the National Reserve Bank, is not far from the company, and they are all on the same street, so when the coffee is ready, people come.

The following is the large-scale gold distribution activities that are very common in this era.

In the infield of the head office surrounded by small buildings, the staff moved tables and chairs, opened the three boxes brought by Zongben, and took out the precious metals inside, weighing and registering them one by one.

The composition of the money brought by Zongben is very complicated.Among them are not only gold and silver bars of various finenesses, but also a large number of silver ingots from the Ming Dynasty, as well as foreign gold and silver coins such as Spanish Pistor, Rial, and Dutch Guilders.

All these precious metals must first be classified according to the currency, and secondly, the fineness must be checked.

Master Zong was sitting on a chair, holding coffee in his hand, talking to Manager Tang while looking curiously at the strange measuring tools on the table.

He understands the scale, and there are things with the same shape in the Ming Dynasty, but they are much rougher.But he didn't recognize the metal hydrometer brought by the bank staff.

The hydrometer made according to the principle of Archimedes buoyancy has an electronic screen and a transparent water tank, which must be incomprehensible to ordinary people.

Soon, the hydrometer detected several pieces of fake silver.

Not to mention the simplicity of the ancients, fakes were as rampant as in the Ming Dynasty.

After the Wanli Year of the Ming Dynasty, the social economy gradually developed, and counterfeit silver emerged in an endless stream. The government repeatedly prohibited it, which caused great damage to commodity trade and folk life.Among them, there are not only treacherous people who counterfeit silver, but also merchants such as silk dealers, gold and silver pawnshops.

By the late Ming Dynasty, counterfeit silver had developed into an industrial chain. There were dozens of types of counterfeit silver, such as paper cover, tripod silver, hanging copper, lead filling, 筅白, burnt, shaking silk, double green, and Feibai. as much.

Not only that.In addition to fake silver, in the economically developed Suzhou and Hangzhou areas in the Ming Dynasty, wine was mixed with ash, chicken was stuffed with sand, geese and sheep were blown, fish was filled with water, red bayberry was painted with purple and black dye, old hens were inserted into long tails to pretend to be pheasants, and there were fake milk. Fake rat poison, fake antiques, fake books and so on and so forth.

The above are all self-recorded by Ming people, and there are many Ming people's poems and stories that mocked the fakes in Suzhou and Hangzhou at that time.Therefore, the counterfeit and shoddy products of later generations are actually the leftovers of the ancients.In addition to having fewer types of commodities, the ancients really did not lose to later generations in other aspects.

A group of employees from the National Reserve Bank quickly sorted the silver money brought by Mr. Zong, then appraised the quality, weighed it, and picked out a small pile of fake silver by the way.

As for the counterfeit silver, Master Zong could only admit that he was unlucky this time.When he does business and delivers silver taels on weekdays, he must check carefully.This time, the main reason is that the time is too tight to avoid long nights and dreams, and the amount of money is too large, so the proportion of fake money received is slightly higher.

After all the precious metals were weighed and converted according to the exchange table publicly given by the bank, the total value of the precious metals brought by Master Zong was [-] yuan.The yuan here is calculated according to the one-yuan banknote/Cao Datou issued by the cross-travel crowd.

After learning the total amount of money, Tang Xiaoqiao stood up, took Master Zong's hand, and led him to his office on the second floor.

On the concrete floor, in a simple office with whitewashed walls, on a rosewood desk, there is a shareholding agreement lying quietly.

Immediately, Master Zong enjoyed the treatment of the boss of Nanyang Company personally explaining the contract payment.During this process, he nodded frequently and did not raise any objections to the contract.

The reason is simple: no matter ancient or modern, the so-called contract will only be effective when the strength of both parties is equal.In the barbaric environment of the seventeenth century, Zongben did not have the support of the legal environment of later generations.He could think with his feet, whether the contract could be implemented, and to what extent it could be implemented, was all at the other party's thought, and he himself had no bargaining power.

In this case, what is written in the contract is not important to him who has already bet everything, so let's study it slowly when he goes back.

Slowly stretching out his hand, Zong Ben took the writing brush on the table.At this moment, his expression finally became serious.Finally, after thinking about it, he sighed and signed his name on the contract.

"In this way, Zong will entrust his wealth to Mr. Tang and Mr. Cao. I hope you will take care of him in the future!"

According to the system, for a person like Zongben who appeared suddenly, the head office would definitely conduct a background check on him afterwards.But Tang Xiaoqiao didn't need a background check today, and he knew that the person who came here was betting his entire fortune: because Zongben hadn't appeared on the key invitation list of the China Merchants Association before.

So Tang Xiaoqiao was still a little touched at this moment: this dear man can come to him today, and I don't know how many resources were used behind it, and it must be a lot of pressure! .You know, this is 10 taels of silver, which can be taken out by idlers wherever they can.

"Treasurer Zong, please don't worry." Tang Xiaoqiao's face was serious at this time: "I can now promise you on behalf of Mr. Cao that no matter what happens in the future, your money will never be wasted!"

From the moment Tang Xiaoqiao finished speaking, Zongben became the first bright shareholder of the Nanyang Development Corporation.

And just at this time, someone came outside to report: Bai Shenming understands that Xiaolian has also come to the company to donate money to buy shares!

General manager Tang Xiaoqiao had double happiness today, and he couldn't help laughing again when he heard the words.

If it is said that Zong Ben has achieved the achievements of "revolutionary masses who are willing to get closer" in the time-traveling organization today, then Bai Juren was already an "old friend of the time-traveling people" before this, belonging to "a local backbone force that can be relied on, a revolutionary activist" ".

That's why Bai Juren came into the head office with big swagger today, bringing old shopkeeper Wu and money.

With Bai Juren's arrival, the scene became even more lively.After learning that this old master Zong was actually ahead of him, Bai Juren couldn't help but give Zong Ben a high look.After that, the two big speculators quickly chatted together. After all, everyone is now a grasshopper on the same line, sharing the same pursuit and taking the same risks.

Like Zongben, Master Bai's share capital is not too much, which happens to be 10 taels of silver.The 10 taels of cash also took Master Bai's life: he not only sold the farmland in the countryside, but also emptied almost all the cash in the commercial system under his banner, and even the gold buried in the house. Take some debt.

After Tang Xiaoqiao learned of these situations, he dealt with the matter decisively.When foreign businessmen come to invest in later generations, the local area also needs to provide some supporting funds plus bank loans.The same is true in the seventeenth century. Shareholders cannot be allowed to drink northwest wind after investing.

So Tang Xiaoqiao colluded with the bank on the spot and gave Master Bai a sum of money for emergency.Immediately afterwards, he contacted a batch of in-demand industrial products and approved them to two shareholders of Xinke, allowing them to use them to maintain their own sales network.

Master Bai is really grateful for this.He never expected that after taking 10 taels of silver from him, they not only returned part of it to him at a low interest rate, but also gave him a batch of goods.

You must know that this batch of goods includes the best-selling products such as heating pots and oil lamps.In the city of Guangzhou, where rich people gather nowadays, as long as Master Bai gets the goods, he doesn't need to go out of the warehouse at all, he can sell them at a high price, and make money while sitting at home.

After initially experiencing the benefits of being a shareholder of Nanyang Company, the next two masters went through a series of procedures.This includes not only the two of them, but also the subordinates they are going to take to Nanyang.These people are all selected capable people, and now they are all incorporated into the "security team" of Nanyang Company, which can be regarded as having a reputation.

After all the formalities were completed, the two masters finally got their official documents.

There are two types of certificates.One is a work card with a cowhide cover, which is no different from the later generations. There are also photo names and stamps on the inside page, but due to technical reasons, the photo on the card is black and white.

Knowing that this little pamphlet is a "declaration document", the gentlemen hastily put it away.

The second type of identification is the badge.

The hang tag made of glass, colored rope, thin iron sheet and identity paper is undoubtedly much heavier than the authentic ones of later generations, but the two masters put it away solemnly, without considering the importance of this weird "waist tag" at all. Hangs indecently around the neck, sort of like a dog tag.

Mr. Tang told them that in the future attack on Haojingao, only those with this "waist card" will be allowed to observe the battlefield and enter the post-war Macau as soon as possible.

Taking the day when the two masters bought shares as the starting point, from the second day onwards, there were people who came to buy shares one after another, and the East India Company founded by the crossing crowd was considered to be on the right track.

At the same time, the traversing group, who were well prepared in all aspects, also began to show their fangs gradually.

On April 1631, 4, a group of soldiers from the Ming army, surrounded by soft sedan chairs, entered through the gate of the lotus stem and rushed all the way to the gate of the Macao City Council.

(End of this chapter)