money player

Hong Kong, To Kwa Wan Road.

After returning to Hong Kong from Taiwan, Jin Jingyan purchased a tenement building.

The building is unremarkable, quietly hidden among a row of shops. It is surrounded by cloth shops, raw material stalls for gold and silk thread, workshops for gold and silver tools, grain and oil shops, herbal tea shops, and cooked food stalls. The bustling atmosphere of the business world makes this small building seem inconspicuous.

A huge lightbox hangs on the exterior wall, with the Chinese characters "万寿纺" (Wanshou Textiles) printed on one side and the English characters "Mandarin Textiles" on the other.

Above the entrance to the ground floor shop is a sign that reads "Guangchusi Embroidery Workshop" in gold powder.

Upon entering the shop, the first thing that catches the eye is a framed photograph hanging in mid-air, with an imperial edict from the Xuantong Emperor placed inside. The edict essentially orders the Xuantong Emperor to have Jin Jingyan's father establish a separate Guangchu Division in Hong Kong to prevent the succession from being interrupted.

This imperial edict was issued only three days earlier than the "Edict of Abdication of Emperor Xuantong," and can be considered the last imperial edict of the Qing Dynasty that possessed the dignity of the royal family.

Of course, despite the exquisite craftsmanship of the imperial edict, it cannot change the fact that it was a fake.

However, Tang Yiying and Jin Jingyan wrote letters to some people who were qualified to use the surname Aisin Gioro, inviting them to help perpetuate the lie. They insisted that the imperial edict was true and that they would receive a considerable dividend every year.

In this way, the title of "Imperial Made" was effectively borrowed.

Hong Kong has never lacked embroidery artisans. There are Cantonese embroidery and Chaozhou embroidery, which are from Guangdong; Gu embroidery, which inherits the style of Suzhou embroidery; and the unique Hakka cross-stitch embroidery. In the past two years, a large number of skilled masters have gone south to Hong Kong to make a living.

In addition, Jin Jingyan specially invited a master of Beijing embroidery to oversee the project, and then recruited skilled embroiderers from various places to assemble a complete and mature embroidery team.

The embroidery workshop is located on the second, third, and fourth floors of the building. The workshop is not particularly spacious, but it is arranged in a neat and orderly manner. Each embroiderer has a comfortable and spacious workstation, without any feeling of crowding or oppression.

Rows of white fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling beams, and each workbench is equipped with its own desk lamp. The two layers of light sources illuminate the embroidery frames, silk threads, and patterns clearly.

Before any orders were placed for the embroidery, the 32 embroiderers were busy experimenting with new patterns. In the past, they mainly embroidered on cheongsams, but in the future, they will embroider on women's loungewear, dresses, shirts, as well as men's bathrobes and pajamas.

Moreover, the first customers for the embroidery have been American soldiers. They are expanding their reach from Okinawa and the Philippines to Europe. Once they have a stable customer base and their production capacity has been expanded, their next target will be American department stores.

The fifth floor is the office. Jin Jingyan sat in the executive chair, holding a white jade dragon-shaped jewel in her hand, and closed the file bag.

Earlier, Sin Yiu-man gave one million Hong Kong dollars to Jin Jingyan to prepare for the preparation of gold and jade carvings and filigree works. At that time, she did not explain the relationship between the two to Sin Yiu-man in detail on the spot, but only slightly adjusted the framework according to his original intention, and further broadened the business layout:

Firstly, the Hall of Mental Cultivation established the Gold and Jade Workshop, which oversaw five major workshops: filigree, gilding, engraving, inlay, and ivory, specializing in crafting high-end jewelry and decorative items made of gold, silver, ivory, and rhinoceros horn.

Secondly, Guangchusi Embroidery Workshop was established, Wanshou Textile, which operated an embroidery business, was merged, and a new brand, Dynasty Salon, was registered.

To Kwa Wan is not far from Kai Tak Airport, and a large area of ​​it lies below the low-altitude flight path that planes must take when landing. As long as Kai Tak Airport is not relocated, the building height in To Kwa Wan will always be restricted.

The noise pollution from planes taking off and landing is self-evident, making life in To Kwa Wan quite unbearable. Furthermore, the land surrounding the airport has been designated as an expansion buffer zone, meaning the Hong Kong government can reclaim it at any time at the original purchase price.

Therefore, land in To Kwa Wan is not only cheap, but also has extremely poor liquidity; once purchased, there is a risk of being stuck with unsold property. In the past two years, few people have invested in To Kwa Wan land unless it is for the urgent need to build factories.

The best plots of land in To Kwa Wan are the existing mature land facing To Kwa Wan Road. If you buy a plot of land, you can build tenement buildings and integrate them into the street commercial complex. The buildings are generally easy to rent out.

Therefore, the land price is slightly higher, at HK$1.2-2 per square foot.

The less desirable areas are the well-established inner-street plots, such as those on Chong'an Street, Rongguang Street, and the Fifth Street. These areas are not near main roads, but have a mature road network, making them suitable for building small-scale workshops and residential buildings, or clusters of small embroidery and hardware factories.

Priced at HK$0.6-1 per square foot, nearly half the price of those on the main roads, many Chaozhou and Cantonese embroidery workshops and filigree workshops have purchased these properties to build their own contracted workshops.

There are also three other very cheap types of land. The first type is the coastal mudflats and semi-reclaimed land along the To Kwa Wan typhoon shelter. Partial reclamation was just completed last year. The ground is mostly silt and gravel, with no proper drainage, and leveling is required at one's own expense. There are no formal streets, only simple dirt roads.

The price per square foot is only HK$0.15-0.4, which is more than 70% cheaper than on the main roads.

The second category consists of marginal farmland/wasteland near the back of the ridge and the foot of Songhuangtai Mountain. These areas are far from the road, and connecting to water and electricity would cost extra. The terrain is relatively high and there is no water accumulation, making them unsuitable for cultivation. After the war, many farmers sold off their land and left the area.

With an average price of HK$0.2 per square foot, acquiring a 10,000-square-foot plot of land only requires a mere HK$1,000 to HK$2,000.

The third type is government-owned land leased for short periods. It is leased but not sold, with a lease term of 3-10 years and extremely low rent. However, permanent buildings cannot be built on the land; only simple tin sheds can be erected.

After receiving HK$1 million, Jin Jingyan registered Wuzhu Fucha Company and spent HK$260,000 to purchase a five-story tenement building facing the street. In exchange for HK$140,000 in capital injection and sales channels, she acquired Wanshou Textile, holding a 60% stake.

The company registered subsidiaries, Kam Yuk Tsz and To Kwa Properties, and invested the remaining HK$600,000 into purchasing land. They acquired 1.2 million square feet of land at an average price of HK$0.5 per square foot, thus exhausting their HK$1 million holdings.

She approached Yang Zhaoying of Jincheng Bank and used Xian Yaowen's connections to secure a loan of HK$500,000. With this HK$500,000, she set up the framework for Jinyuzuo and began building the platform for the To Kwa Wan Industrial Park project.

In To Kwa Wan, there are many workshops that have only done business registration but not registered companies, such as embroidery and gold and silver workshops. Workshop owners in these two industries only need to stick their heads out of the window and shout for parts or to solicit work, and their neighbors will respond.

These workshops are currently scattered throughout the tenement buildings, providing landlords with long-term rental income and the confidence to raise rents. Once the workshops stop renewing their leases, and the landlords can't find new tenants, the tenement buildings that were once a goldmine immediately become a hot potato.

Is this possible?
This wouldn't normally happen, but if someone were to cause trouble, it's hard to say.

To Kwa Properties is a troublemaker, here to cause trouble and muddy the waters of To Kwa Wan.

The To Kwa Wan Industrial Park project includes an industrial incubation function, supporting workshops to transform from individual businesses into commercial conglomerates through upstream and downstream collaboration.

The factory buildings and workshops in the industrial park can be rented as a whole or in combination. Different supporting workshops in the same industry can jointly rent a workshop, which facilitates both process collaboration and order collaboration. They can jointly accept orders under the name of a "joint-stock company" and then break down each process to the workshops, with costs and profits calculated independently.

The large and long-term orders that the joint-stock company can receive must come from Wanshou Textile and Jinyu Workshop.

To put it bluntly, so-called industrial incubation is about incubating contract manufacturers for oneself, and these contract manufacturers can be either very cohesive or a disorganized mess.

Large OEM orders offer stable profits, and close collaboration between workshops is not difficult. However, once a workshop owner develops ambitions to build their own brand and compete with "big clients," most workshop owners who are stuck in their comfort zones will not take the risk and will only hold the workshop back.

In this way, Wanshou Textile and Jinyuzuo nipped most potential competitors in the bud, and also erected a competitive barrier for the employees of Dama Road – without Wuzhufucha, they could not get higher treatment in Hong Kong.

Tap tap tap, Jin Jingyan stamped one seal after another, locking the file bag in the safe. Then, she got up, walked out of the office, and went to the unit across the hallway.

Wan Shou Textile's factory is on Qingshan Road. There aren't many people working in the embroidery office yet, so she used one of the offices as her temporary bedroom for convenience.

She pulled a suitcase out from under the bed and opened the closet to pack a few outfits for her business trip.

Many raw materials are expensive to obtain in Hong Kong, and labor costs are a recurring issue. Wan Shou Textile and Jin Yu Zuo will also have to take the familiar route of OEM manufacturing in mainland China. She will be heading to Guangzhou soon to discuss OEM manufacturing matters with Suzhou.

To legally avoid taxes, Wuzhu Fucha Company was registered in Liechtenstein. To ensure Jin Jingyan's safety, Xian Yaowen had a lawyer help her go through the Liechtenstein "foreign businessman naturalization" route and settle in Maurin town.

People don't need to go there, nor do they need to serve immigration restrictions; they only need to pay money.

The next step is to try and get her a Swiss diplomatic position in mainland China through the Swiss embassy; that would virtually guarantee success. (End of Chapter)