Eagle-eyed and wolf-watching

Chapter 1718 Untitled
In his approval of Ma Runshan, Ye Mingsheng once asked Ma Runshan to build Taogang as the locomotive of Qilu's economic development.

When Ma Runshan first saw the words "locomotive," he didn't quite understand what they meant. However, he couldn't ask Ye Mingsheng. Fortunately, after making inquiries from various sources, he eventually learned what "locomotive" meant.

The train is an important means of transportation that the Ministry of Works is developing. His Majesty attaches great importance to it and has inspected the development of the train many times. A very important feature of the train is that it is powered by a locomotive.

After learning all this, Ma Runshan understood what Ye Mingsheng meant.

To this end, as the Provincial Governor of Shandong, he actively implemented Ye Mingsheng's guidance and built many roads around Taogang. The most important of these was the road from Licheng to Taogang, which was about 670 li long. Ma Runshan organized nearly 50,000 laborers and it took two full years to complete the construction.

So Ma Runshan also planned that when Ye Mingsheng went to Taogang for inspection, he would invite Ye Mingsheng to sit in the carriage and experience the road.

In addition, Ma Runshan also plans to build Tao Port into an important foreign trade hub, so he also plans to build a large number of commercial warehouses to store goods.

The second aspect is the shipbuilding industry in Shandong!
Since Ye Mingsheng took power, he has always emphasized the importance of the ocean. He has repeatedly stressed that although the Central Plains dynasties in history were all continental countries and did not pay enough attention to the ocean, times have changed now. In the future, whoever controls the ocean will control the world!

Based on this idea, Ye Mingsheng vigorously developed the navy while also strongly encouraging overseas trade.

The dynasties of the Central Plains have always valued the principle of "what the superiors do, the inferiors follow suit" and catering to their preferences!
Almost every employee tries to figure out what their boss wants in order to gain their appreciation!

So when Ye Mingsheng reveals his political inclinations without you having to guess, all you need to do for these party members, big and small, is to cater to his preferences and delve deeper and move forward in the direction Ye Mingsheng points out.

Based on this principle, and since Shandong is a coastal region, developing overseas trade became a top priority for Ma Runshan, the provincial governor.

Ma Runshan's initial idea was to support local Shandong businesses and encourage them to participate in overseas trade as much as possible. However, after conducting research, Ma Runshan discovered that the overseas trade of Daqian was basically monopolized by businesses from Jiangnan. These businesses had rich experience and mature sales channels, and occupied at least 80% of the market share.

Most importantly, although these Jiangnan merchants were constantly embroiled in internal strife, they remained relatively united in their external relations. This meant that if Ma Runshan wanted to support the Shandong merchants in participating in overseas trade, he would inevitably face competition from the Jiangnan merchants…

Ma Runshan remained cautious about competing with Shandong. Although Shandong had advantages in manpower, it lacked advantages in business experience, sales channels, and capital. Most importantly, competing with the merchants in Jiangnan would inevitably affect their profits and tax payments. Meanwhile, Murong Yuliang, the governor of Jianghuai, was determined to achieve remarkable results in the Jianghuai region to use as political capital in his bid for the position of Grand Secretary.

Although Murong Yuliang held a high position and wielded great power, Ma Runshan was not afraid of him. After all, his junior brother Gu Sansi was the Minister of Personnel. With his junior brother backing him up, Ma Runshan was very confident. However, Ma Runshan had a weakness that was affected by Murong Yuliang.

This doesn't mean that Ma Runshan had any leverage over Murong Yuliang, but rather that Murong Yuliang, as the governor of Jianghuai, had a crucial influence on the business activities of all merchants in the Jianghuai region.

For a region to develop, it needs two things: money and people!
Without money, development is impossible; without money, development is also impossible. The two complement each other and are indispensable!

Since Ye Mingsheng took office, he has always placed great importance on economic development, so party members in various places have been studying how to develop the economy.

People in regions like Qilu (Shandong and Shandong) didn't lack resources; what they lacked was money. Since the imperial court couldn't provide sufficient support, Ma Runshan, as the Provincial Governor of Qilu, had to find ways to raise funds and make investments himself…
So where do we get the money to invest?
There is only one answer to this question: the wealthy Jianghuai region next to Qilu. In recent years, these Jianghuai merchants have invested more than 100,000 taels of silver in Qilu every year, making them the most important source of investment in Qilu and driving the development of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of people.

Murong Yuliang, as the governor of Jianghuai, played a positive role in this. Ma Runshan knew very well that Murong Yuliang was not doing this to give him face. Murong Yuliang always thought highly of himself and thought he was nothing. The reason he helped him was entirely to give face to his junior brother Gu Sansi.

However, if he encourages these merchants in Qilu to develop overseas trade and compete with these merchants in Jiangnan in a price war, affecting the profits of the Jiangnan merchants and Murong Yuliang's achievement project, will Murong Yuliang still give his junior brother face as he does now?
Based on Ma Runshan's understanding of Murong Yuliang, he felt that the answer to this question must be no. Murong Yuliang would definitely use his position as the governor of Jianghuai to make those Jiangnan merchants who had invested in Qilu stop investing, or even withdraw their previous investments. Anyone who dared not to do so would be tripped up by Murong Yuliang, or even go further and ruin their family.

Throughout history, it has been said that the people should not fight against the government. Therefore, although the merchants from Jiangnan might be reluctant to give up their investments in Qilu, under Murong Yuliang's threat, the only thing they could do was to obediently submit and withdraw their investments.

This was precisely Ma Runshan's Achilles' heel as the Provincial Governor of Shandong. It's important to understand that to mitigate the risks associated with the investment in and construction of these factories, orchards, and infrastructure, Shandong mobilized considerable resources to participate…
If Jiangnan is allowed to withdraw its investment now, many projects will come to a standstill, and much of the initial investment will likely go down the drain.

Therefore, Ma Runshan would then face a dilemma: whether or not to allow Jiangnan merchants to withdraw their investments. If he allowed them to withdraw, he would find it difficult to find enough funds to cover the shortfall, and the initial investment would be wasted, leading to the ruin of many families and a huge debt burden for the Qilu Provincial Administration. On the other hand, if he did not allow them to withdraw, it would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, severely damaging the business environment of Qilu and drawing criticism from Murong Yuliang.

Therefore, taking all these factors into consideration, Ma Runshan had no choice but to temporarily abandon the idea of ​​developing overseas trade and instead chose the shipbuilding industry, which is highly related to overseas trade.

The main reason for choosing the shipbuilding industry was that, under the background of Ye Mingsheng's encouragement of overseas trade, shipbuilding orders also surged. The original shipyards in Jiangnan were already too busy to handle the demand. Many orders were placed this year, and it would take until next year, the year after, or even longer to receive the ships. So, seeing how booming the shipbuilding industry was, Ma Runshan was very envious. He felt that this industry had a very promising future.

To this end, Ma Runshan also conducted research on the shipbuilding industry. He concluded that shipbuilding is a labor-intensive, capital-intensive, and technology-intensive industry…
There is absolutely no shortage of people in Shandong, and it is easy to recruit a large number of working-age people. Moreover, the price of human resources is more advantageous compared to that in the Jiangnan region.

As for funding, it can be found in Jiangnan. Jiangnan is already booming in shipbuilding, so many people want to expand their production capacity. However, due to labor costs and technical reasons, many people's ideas remain unrealized and they do not take action.

Therefore, they could be encouraged to invest in and build shipyards in Qilu. The ships built in Qilu would be sold to Jiangnan, alleviating the shortage of ships for merchants in Jiangnan. This would also help Jiangnan's overseas trade reach new heights. As the governor of Jianghuai, Murong Yuliang was happy to see this happen and actively promoted and guided it.

After solving the problems of manpower and funding, the only remaining important issue is technology.

As a coastal region, Shandong already has a certain shipbuilding industry, although it is not very large in scale. However, it has some technical reserves and some skilled shipbuilding workers. It is not a situation where it needs to start from scratch.

Therefore, under such circumstances, what Ma Runshan needs to do is leverage his political connections.

His junior apprentice was Gu Sansi, the Minister of Personnel. The Ministry of Personnel was the government office in charge of personnel matters. Gu Sansi, as the Minister of Personnel, played an important role in the promotion and transfer of most officials in the Daqian Dynasty. Therefore, everyone had to give Gu Sansi some face. So, there was no need for Gu Sansi to personally come forward. Ma Runshan wrote a letter to Su Junjie, the Minister of Works, asking him to arrange for some shipbuilding experts from the Ministry of Works to come to Qilu to help develop the shipbuilding industry.

Su Junjie readily agreed and arranged for thirty shipbuilding experts to come to Qilu.

With the issues of market, manpower, capital, technology, and government control resolved, Shandong's shipbuilding industry has developed rapidly. Currently, Shandong has one large shipyard, five medium and small-sized shipyards, and another large shipyard and two medium-sized shipyards under construction. It can build more than a dozen large ships like Fujian ships every year, creating jobs for thousands of workers.

However, because Ma Runshan provided some tax breaks, the government has only collected less than 30,000 taels of tax from these shipyards in recent years. But in the long run, these shipyards will surely become an important economic pillar of Shandong.

Therefore, Ma Runshan plans to invite Ye Mingsheng to visit these shipyards and showcase the current state of Shandong's shipbuilding industry after Ye Mingsheng arrives.

The third aspect is the public schools of Qilu.
Because Ye Mingsheng put forward the slogan of "education revitalizes the country," Party members in various regions also attached great importance to education, even elevating the issue of education to a political level.

Public schools sprang up one after another in various places. As the hometown of Confucius, Qilu was one of the regions in Daqian that attached great importance to education. After Ma Runshan was transferred to Qilu, he also put a lot of effort into the education issues in Qilu.

Firstly, there are the public schools in various places. Due to the shortage of funds, some public schools are struggling to survive, and some have even stopped operating. Ma Runshan attaches great importance to the funding issue. However, because the Shandong Provincial Administration Commission has launched many projects in recent years, the expenses are very high. The Commission's funds can only maintain the normal operation of the government offices, so Ma Runshan has no way to approve funds from the Commission to solve the problem.

However, the matter couldn't remain unresolved, so Ma Runshan sought out the local gentry of Shandong Province. He convened a large meeting where he emphasized the importance of education and conveyed Ye Mingsheng's grand ideal of eradicating illiteracy throughout the land...
After saying this, Ma Runshan began to flatter these Shandong gentry, praising them for their patriotism. Finally, he changed the subject and mentioned the financial difficulties of dozens of public schools in Shandong, and introduced the hardship of the students.

At this point, some sensible gentry, though reluctant, still generously donated tens or even hundreds of taels of silver out of respect for Ma Runshan, the provincial governor. Ma Runshan did not mind the amount and, on behalf of the students of the public school, expressed his gratitude to these gentry. He also planned to erect statues of the gentry who donated the most money inside the public school, or to name the buildings inside the public school after them.

Some tactless individuals began to feign poverty, but Ma Runshan did not force them. Instead, a few days later, he sent accountants or constables to check the accounts of these people's businesses or to clarify the land under the names of these stingy gentry. Under Ma Runshan's actions, these gentry reluctantly agreed to donate.

In this way, Ma Runshan calculated that he had initially raised enough funds to operate the public school. As a matter of course, Ma Runshan also made it a tradition to name such a conference the Charity Education Conference and hold it once a year.

Although these gentry were unwilling, Ma Runshan didn't ask for much—only one hundred taels of silver for the major gentry and several dozen taels for the minor ones. So, while it stung, it wasn't financially devastating, and besides, it would preserve their good reputation, so they endured it…