A Man of Science and Engineering in Troubled Times Wandering in the Late Qing Dynasty

Chapter 275 Business Discussion
Xu Shichang was not in the mood to listen to the play, so he dragged Li Yu to a quiet corner.

"Emperor Master, I still have some small requests." Xu Shichang said.

Li Yudao: "Zuo Cheng, but it doesn't matter if you talk about it."

Xu Shichang said: "We have established the Ministry of Commerce, but now it is only in charge of railway and mining affairs. The few enterprises in the Beijing-Tianjin area are mostly government-supervised and privately run, and there are very few purely private enterprises. I heard that Dishi established in the United States. Company, I wonder if Dishi can also set up factories in Beijing and Tianjin as an example?"

Tang Wenzhi also mentioned: "We have asked the imperial court to pass the law on the establishment of companies as soon as possible. This matter has been approved by the Minister, and I think the imperial court will officially issue it as soon as possible."

The Qing court will promulgate the "Company Law" in early 1904, which can be regarded as the first of modern company legislation.

Although it was too late compared to the great powers, some practical decrees were passed after all.

This "Company Law" is relatively rough in some provisions, and the most important thing is that the very core concept of "legal person" has not been established, which is relatively limited.

It was not until ten years later that the Beiyang government re-issued a more comprehensive "Company Regulations" during the Republic of China, which made the company law more reliable.

So it is not yet a company under the strict concept of the rule of law, but with the support of Xu Shichang and others, Li Yu does not have to worry too much.

Li Yu said: "My LY company in the United States currently mainly produces key auto parts, various system units, and more technical radio equipment. Set up a company in the country."

Originally, this was what Li Yu would do in the future.

Xu Shichang said: "The emperor's teacher produces all the profound things of foreigners. Is there anything more down-to-earth?"

Li Yu thought of the miserable people today, so he said: "I will try to start some food companies and help the folks."

Xu Shichang's eyes lit up: "Good idea!"

What Li Yu thought of was simple: instant noodles and monosodium glutamate.

Even if it is used as military rations, instant noodles are also very useful, and they will not worry about selling them.

In fact, similar things were used in Han Xin's army during the Han Dynasty, but they were not fried.

It's just that at the beginning of the [-]th century, instant noodles were almost a luxury, but for the army, it was more convenient.

If you make money, you can use simpler dried noodles to help the victims.

MSG is more able to enter the homes of ordinary people.

It is said that MSG has experienced a history of being discredited since then, but it is actually harmless. It was originally invented by Americans because of discrimination against Chinese, and it was almost in the 70s and [-]s.

I don’t know why it was introduced into China at the beginning of the 21st century, but many people believed it to be true, driving many MSG manufacturers to death...

The ingredients of MSG are very simple, nothing more than monosodium glutamate, nothing special.

Although excessive sodium intake will indeed cause edema and other phenomena, but in the era of poverty, there are not many fat people. How can it be possible to have money to eat so much salt, and even ordinary people still lack sodium.

In addition, these two things are very easy to open up the market in Japan, and can make a lot of money for the Japanese.

Xu Shichang immediately said: "I will complete the formalities for Mr. Di Shi as soon as possible. After the "Company Law" is promulgated, it is not impossible for the first established company to award it to your company!"

Tang Wenzhi also said: "Don't worry about the land used for setting up factories. There are many lands in the suburbs that can be used."

Li Yu smiled and said, "Thank you both, I will complete the product development as soon as possible."

Xu Shichang wondered: "Food still needs to be studied?"

Li Yu said: "That's right, a little knowledge of chemistry is required to some extent, but fortunately it's not particularly difficult, as long as you can get monosodium glutamate crystals."

"What? Crystallization?" Xu Shichang was even more puzzled.

Tang Wenzhi said to him: "Mr. Juren, Mr. Academician naturally has his more scientific methods. We don't have to worry about it. It is enough to help him handle the land lease, factory construction, and job recruitment."

Xu Shichang thought it made sense, and now he was in the Ministry of Commerce, so he "talked about business in business" and told Li Yu some guarantees they could provide.

After all, Li Yu has a lot of connections with Beiyang, not to mention that everyone can see that he is very capable.Although the current Yuan Shikai and his subordinate Beiyang are inevitably greedy, at least they are still doing things.

Of course they knew that Li Yu was someone who could accomplish great things, and they naturally spared no effort where they could provide help.

Li Yu cupped his fists and said, "Thank you both!"

Just like Zhang Jian's business is still inseparable from dealing with the officialdom, Li Yu knows that if he wants to develop an industry in China, he must have a good relationship with those in power.

Xu Shichang said: "I observe that Western countries now have many emerging industrial products. I hope that Mr. Can guide the bright road of our industry."

Li Yu said: "I can't tell about Minglu, but I will definitely do some practical things. Maybe it won't be long before we can not only export tea, porcelain or silk, but also reverse export industrial products to Europe, America and Japan."

Xu Shichang didn't dare to have this idea at all: "How is it possible!"

Li Yu said with a smile: "Westerners lack many things now, and even many daily necessities are still only available to a few people. For example, soap for bathing is a luxury."

Tang Wenzhi was stunned: "It turns out that foreigners who want to take a bath can't afford soap?"

"That's true," Li Yu said, "so if many things can be successfully developed and mass-produced under the premise of controlling costs, they will have a good market. Not only more people in our own country can use excellent industrial products products, and export is by no means impossible.”

Although products close to soap have existed since ancient times in both the East and the West, at the beginning of the [-]th century, even if it was as strong as the United States, it was still a luxury.

At the beginning, Napoleon bought a bar of turmeric soap for 2 francs, while the average monthly consumption of ordinary people was only about 6 francs.

European aristocrats have also always had a "stinky problem" that they don't like to take a bath, which even gave birth to the perfume industry to a certain extent in order to cover up the smell.

As for our country, almost in the Qin and Han Dynasties, people used saponins to wash clothes and hair, and of course plant ash, rice water, etc.

Then in the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was more common for rich people to use soap. For example, "Jin Ping Mei" mentioned that they used "jasmine soap" when washing their faces. "Dream of Red Mansions" also mentions the use of "soap" when washing in the morning.

It's just that this kind of soap is not the same as soap in the modern sense. People call it "pancreas", which means that pig pancreas is used in it.

The lard in the pancreas is partially decomposed into fatty acids by lipase, and then saponified by sodium carbonate into real fatty acid soap (the main component of modern soap), which can be said to be only one step away from modern soap.

But there are too few pig pancreas.

Soap produced by modern industry was introduced into China in the middle of the 19th century. The more reliable record is an advertisement issued by a British businessman in Shanghai in 1854, but these soaps were all for foreigners.

Then in 1860, some foreign firms in Shanghai began to purchase goods in batches and sold them to various places.

In 1894, the whole country imported soap worth 38 taels of silver, and the import volume increased to 268 million taels in the early years of the Republic of China.

It's all white money!Besides, it is not a difficult industry, it is better to cultivate a national industry.

In the eyes of modern people, soap may only be used for cleaning, and they don't pay much attention to it.

But don't underestimate the word "clean". Everyone takes it for granted that it is the result of the popularization of modern hygiene knowledge for nearly a century.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, the concept of "hygiene" was just established, whether in China or in Europe and the United States, and people's awareness of it was generally very low.

To put it bluntly, soap can greatly reduce the occurrence of diarrhea and improve the survival rate of children.

After all, the mortality rate of infants and young children in ancient times was extremely high.

Due to the long history, it is impossible to have too accurate figures, but it is conservative to say that the mortality rate of infants and young children in ancient times would be above 20%, or even higher.

Even the royal family is the same. Kangxi had 35 sons, but 11 died before reaching adulthood.This ratio has exceeded 30%.

Although there are many causes of death, it can intuitively reflect the high mortality rate of ancient children.

In ancient times, even in peacetime, the average age was not high, which was largely pulled down by the high mortality rate of children.

Because children are not yet fully developed, they are vulnerable to various diseases.

Ensuring their hygiene and diet can at least reduce the death rate to a certain extent.

Whether it is soap, monosodium glutamate, or instant noodles, they are all relatively accessible to ordinary people.

——You can’t just engage in high-tech industries such as automobiles and communications.

But Li Yu is not going to make money from the daily chemical and food industries at all, as long as he does not lose money, it is entirely used to cultivate related national industries as much as possible, and then use it to help the people.

Ever since the shooting in Harbin took human life, Li Yu's state of mind was somewhat turbulent.Even though it was a nasty little devil who was killed, Li Yu was not a professional soldier after all, and the psychological construction related to killing people was still a bit worse than that of Duan Qirui and others.

It is inconvenient for more people to know about this matter, so Li Yu can only adjust himself as slowly as possible.

In this era, the worldview is completely incomparable with what it will be 100 years later. Even ordinary people in Europe, America, Japan, etc., their lives are worthless, but there are more wealthy people in Europe, America, and Japan.

Those few Japanese died, I am afraid that in the eyes of the Japanese military, it was just a small wave, not a ripple: if you die, you die, anyway, there are still young people.

Both Xu Shichang and Tang Wenzhi had great confidence in Li Yu. At the banquet, several people continued to discuss business matters in depth, which was a bit out of tune with the cheering voices around them.

-

When Li Yu was on the train on the Trans-Siberian Railway, he had already written the outline of the prequels of Star Wars, and he gave it to Lu Bicheng to polish it as usual.

After Lu Bicheng saw the fiery sales in Europe, his enthusiasm was completely ignited, and he was very busy every day.Not only do I have to create poems and write manuscripts for Ta Kung Pao, but I also need to polish the prequels of Star Wars and translate Grimm's fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

It was even busier than Li Yu.

Li Yu gave her a set of pens and ink, and asked her to practice calligraphy with hard pens as well.

In terms of efficiency, it is indeed higher with hard pens.

However, Lu Bicheng didn't know how to hold a pen at all. Li Yu showed her a few times, but the writing was still crooked, mainly because the posture of holding the pen was easy to deform.

"You have to do this, hold it with your middle finger." Li Yu showed her his pen holding posture again.

But Lu Bicheng did it as usual, but his grip was still not very accurate.

Li Yu grabbed her finger, "Put your index finger here, pinch your thumb and index finger together, that's right, that's it!"

"So it's like this...you..." Lu Bicheng withdrew his hand, his ears blushing: "I learned it, you, if you have nothing to do, go back, I will continue to write the manuscript."

Li Yu had no choice but to walk out of the room, then rubbed his fingers, "It's quite slippery."

-

Xiyuan.

Qu Hongji, the minister of military aircraft and a bachelor, is reporting important military affairs to Cixi.

"Empress Dowager, Heilongjiang General reported that typhoid fever has occurred in Harbin. Hundreds of people have been infected, and six to 70 people have died."

Cixi blew a sip of tea: "Harbin? Isn't the Russians managing it now?"

General Heilongjiang's office is in Qiqihar, not in Harbin.

Qu Hongji said: "Although this is so, it is still the territory of our Qing Dynasty. When diseases occur, and most of the dead are Chinese people, we must report them."

Cixi snorted: "Foreigners are really useless! You can't manage them well, and the court still has to bear the burden of dirty things."

Qu Hongji asked: "Empress Dowager, General Heilongjiang asked if he could send a doctor there, but they couldn't handle it, we..."

"No!" Cixi said decisively, "Send what kind of doctor? Why do you want to wipe the ass of foreigners? You have to let them know that we can't manage the country of the Qing Dynasty. It's better to spread. They themselves contracted typhoid fever and died. Then get out of trouble!"

"But the queen mother..." Qu Hongji couldn't bear it, "after all, she is a citizen of my Qing Dynasty."

If ordinary people contradict Cixi like this, they will definitely be scolded, but Qu Hongji is still very cared by Cixi.

The reason is quite interesting, because Qu Hongji looks very similar to Cixi's deceased son, Emperor Tongzhi.

After Qu Hongji was selected as a Jinshi, he entered the palace to thank him. Cixi saw at a glance that he was very similar to the Tongzhi Emperor who had just passed away.Since then, Qu Hongji's official career has been very smooth, and he has been working as an examiner, academician and other fat jobs.

This person is quite clean and honest, and he is highly praised by the government and the public. With the support of the two sides, Qu Hongji finally became a minister of military affairs and a bachelor, ranking among the top officials.

Cixi glanced at Qu Hongji and sighed: "You, you still need to learn a lot from Prince Qing."

Although Qu Hongji devoted himself to serving the country, he was not good at managing the officialdom. After all, the officialdom in the late Qing Dynasty was extremely rotten, and it was really difficult for him to integrate into an upright official like him.

He also didn't understand Yuan Shikai's tactful ways, and he didn't know how to have both sides. At this moment, he didn't hear Cixi's meaning, but said again: "Queen Mother, the Northeast is a land of dragon prosperity, and we can't let it go."

Cixi's eyebrows frowned: "You talk a little too much today, go back to the military plane to deal with your affairs."

No matter how stupid Qu Hongji was, he could hear Cixi's displeasure and dared not disobey his order, so he could only thank him and leave.

(End of this chapter)