Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2365 Sanya Commercial Station

The last stop of Xu Yanliang's trip to Sanya was the commercial station of the Southeast Asian company. There are very few ships of the Southeast Asian company that use Sanya as their home port.There is almost no business in winter, so only a dozen staff members stay behind to guard the warehouses, ships and offices.Business activities have basically come to a standstill.Most of the clerks were temporarily transferred to the docks in other places.

The expenditure management of this Southeast Asian company is quite strict.Xu Yanliang thought to himself.

The person in charge who stayed at the business station was named Tang Zheng.He is neither the captain nor the shareholder, but a genuine "cadre" appointed by the Senate.Xu Yanliang knew that the naturalized civilian cadres working in such companies were not just "his own people", they might also be hidden cadres of the Political Security Bureau.He can be completely trusted.

After briefly asking about the company's operations, he asked seemingly casually, "Where is your hometown?"

"My hometown is Gaozhou Prefecture, Guangdong." Tang Zheng said, "That year when I went to Nanyang to do business, I encountered pirates in the Qiongzhou Strait. Fortunately, I was rescued by the Senate. But I lost my capital and couldn't do business anymore. left behind."

"No wonder you came here to work. It turned out that you were also a businessman who went to Nanyang."

"The chief laughed at me. A businessman like me can only bring a few packs of goods. It can't be a small business. Going to Nanyang is a small profit. As long as there is no accident, the whole family can eat for a year. But If there is a natural or man-made disaster, the family will be ruined immediately. That’s how I stayed in Lingao.” Tang Zheng was quite emotional. He was robbed by pirates before he left the Qiongzhou Strait when he went to Nanyang with the Hai family’s ship. A small life was saved, but the cargo was flooded and seriously damaged.

"So that's the case." Xu Yan nodded, "How many times have you been to Nanyang? What kind of goods do you sell? Silk?"

"Five or six times before and after. Silk goods are too heavy to eat, and all I sell are food and daily necessities. There is a shortage of everything there, and one penny can sell for twenty or thirty."

Tang Zheng is a small businessman, so the places he went to were not the big ports in Southeast Asia such as Manila and Batavia that Xu Yanliang often heard about, but some ports that he was very unfamiliar with.Compared with the large ports where merchants gather, the more remote small and medium-sized ports do better business and make more profits.The disadvantage is that it is less secure.

He is a businessman, very talkative.Xu Yanliang originally knew little about maritime trade, and basically got information from reading books and materials. Now listening to him talk about practices and examples, it is lively and interesting.I didn't realize we talked for a long time.He also talked about the current operation of Southeast Asian companies.

Xu Yanliang knew that the operation of the Southeast Asian company was similar to the taxi company in the old time and space.The company does not manage specific operations, but is only responsible for management, taxation, personnel and logistics. The specific operations are all in the charge of the captain.And the captain is either employed by the shareholders, or he is a shareholder himself.

He asked how the operating conditions and operating costs of the Southeast Asian company's ships were cost-effective.Tang Zheng said that the airline license system adopted by Southeast Asian companies is now.If the ships under the company are engaged in trade and not acting as carriers, they need to apply for a license from the company.

"Is it the command flag from the past?"

"Yes, that's what it is called—it's indeed a flag." Tang Zheng said that there are two calculation methods for this kind of license: yearly subscription and voyage.Annual subscription is expensive, but unlimited voyages are suitable for routes that run all year round; individual voyages are cheap and suitable for routes that are not frequently run.

"I remember that most of the merchant ships going to Nanyang can only make one round trip a year, how many more times can they go?"

"That's the old imperial calendar." Tang Zheng said, "Nowadays there is a special navigation chart, the captain only needs to run according to the navigation chart, and run different routes according to the wind direction and current in each season. You don't have to wait on the pier for the first half of the year. Let’s set sail. Besides, this sail has also been improved, and it can sail against the wind, but at a slower speed. The problem now is that there are not enough competent navigators, and most captains cannot learn new navigation techniques..."

It turned out to be like this, Xu Yanliang thought to himself, the new technology brought by the Senate has greatly promoted the traditional nautical trade. He has been in the office for a long time, and he has no idea about these advancements—he is still mixed in the Grand Nautical Club...

Thinking of this, I couldn't help but feel a slight fever on my face.Ask again:
"What about the price of this flag? It's a yearly subscription."

"It turned out that the large ship to Nanyang was 2000 taels of silver, the medium ship was [-] taels, and the small boat was [-] taels. After changing the silver coins, it will be calculated in yuan."

"That's a lot of money!" Xu Yanliang was a little surprised.According to the data provided by Wang You, there are currently 43 trading merchant ships running the Nanyang route.Even if all calculations are based on the median, the annual income from the "license fee" alone is 3000 yuan.In fact, there are very few small ships running Nanyang trade, and most of them are large ships.For this alone, Southeast Asian companies can earn almost 7 to [-] yuan.

With so much money, the net profit is only 1 yuan, and more than [-] yuan is distributed to shareholders.This planning institute is really quite good.

"The money does not belong to the company." Seeing his surprise, Tang Zheng explained that the income from the shipping license must be turned over to the finance and taxation department, "...our company can withdraw [-]% of it."

"So that's how it is." Xu Yanliang thought it was almost the same!Otherwise, the heart is too dark!"What about other income?" he asked.

"That's too much, it's all bits and pieces." Tang Zheng knows everything, besides all kinds of odds and ends, another important income is the shipping certificate fee for the captain as a carrier.This is much cheaper, calculated on an annual basis.It also includes the "vehicle tax" collected on behalf of others.It costs about tens of thousands of yuan a year.The company's commission is 50%.

Xu Yanliang added and subtracted in his heart, knowing that the net profit on the Southeast Asian company's report was considered normal, so he didn't lay much ambushes.He felt a little disappointed in his heart - he originally planned to fight with the finance and taxation department to see if he could save more money.Now it seems that this is impossible.

"That's all the income, is there any channel to tap the potential?" Xu Yanliang asked.

Tang Zheng smiled and said: "Sir, if you talk about tapping the potential, you can still dig it out. Those ship owners, who made a trip to Nanyang's business, didn't they earn tens of thousands or tens of thousands. I really want to make more money and find some ingenious ones. That’s all for the charging items. But the former director of the department said that the company was originally used by “Huairou Yuanren”. In terms of operation, as long as it doesn’t lose money, it’s fine. Don’t be stingy and make everything cost money—they earn more , Let the Finance and Taxation Bureau go to them to collect income tax."

"The director is right." Xu Yanliang didn't know whether to laugh or cry.I thought it was easy for you to say that!Indeed, the Finance and Taxation Bureau has [-] ways to "adjust income", and he has no doubt that the Senate can obtain a large amount of tax revenue from these people every year.The problem is that the money cannot reach the pockets of Southeast Asian companies.

However, this also reminded him that there is not much potential to be tapped on the Senate's Nanyang route.It is very difficult to rely on the traditional China-Nanyang trade to make the newly established Nanyang company rich, so we have to find another way.Not just routes, but also commodities.

He thought of bone china, which has been proposed for export since it was developed.However, export kilns in Fujian and other places have sufficient supply of goods. Neither the foreign trade company nor China Merchants, which was established later, lacked sufficient interest in this new product.After all, the production cost of bone china is much higher, and the output is not high enough.Except for a small amount of export as high-grade porcelain, it does not account for a large export share.

But recently, Engineer Qi has developed a new technology for bone china, which should be able to greatly increase production and reduce costs.Nanyang Company can make this product as the main product in the future.

Another commodity that comes to mind is "ice cubes."This business is not considered ingenious, but an old business in old time and space.In the [-]th century, merchant ships from Europe and the United States came to East Asia for trade because they had little cargo to transport, so they were often stuffed with sawdust to keep warm. They transported European and American ice to India, East Asia, and Southeast Asia for sale, and benefited a lot.

In May 180, the American businessman Tudor sent the "Tuscany" with [-] tons of ice from Boston to Calcutta, crossing the equator twice along the way. The ice on board would not melt for four months.Sure enough, the Tuscany arrived at its destination. The people there saw natural ice as a rarity and delicious food, so the first ship made a huge profit from the ice, which also made Tudor famous, and the relationship between Boston and the Far East The business of transporting ice also developed rapidly.Based on experience gained in the Caribbean, Tudor built an icehouse in Calcutta and encouraged the local Anglo-Indian people to buy household refrigerators, coolers and the like; he took out the well-refrigerated apples, butter, cheese on board Come to share with everyone, in order to influence their eating habits.

Soon, Boston's ice was everywhere and everywhere. In [-], Boston exported [-] tons of ice; It is sold in more than [-] places in the United States, the Caribbean, South America and India, China, the Philippines and Australia in the East.Ice became an important commodity and a staple of New England's world market.

Guangzhou, China's foreign port at that time, was also an important sales place for European and American ice cubes.Now the business in Guangdong cannot be done by Nanyang Company, but in places like India and Southeast Asia, the ice business is still completely blank.

Thinking of this, he suddenly seemed to have discovered a new continent, and asked, "Is there a cold storage here?"

"Yes. How many are there?" Tang Zheng was stunned for a moment, and wanted to ask the head what the cold storage is for. This is only used by fishery cooperatives and food processing factories. They only buy some ice in summer to cool down. "The head wants ice. Then send someone to buy..."

"No, you just need to send someone to each icehouse to ask what their maximum output is and what the local demand is."

(End of this chapter)