Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1782 Reversed upgrade

"It seems that this time it's for real!" Xuan Hao, who was standing by the pier of Shenmu Port, looked at the suddenly deserted market, and suddenly felt uncomfortable and even more uncomfortable. For the future of Jianning County, but also for himself and the future of the child.

Jianning County is a newly established county in the middle of last year. It is the 124th county-level administrative unit in the country. There are five settlements near the town, with a population of about 6000 (excluding non-national laborers). The economy is dominated by fishing, logging, and tropical plantation industries, and it belongs to the Hue area.

Along with it, Yanle County, the 125th county-level administrative unit in the country, was established.The county has four settlements under the jurisdiction of Yanle Township, Weisai Township, Yuyang Township, and Xingtang Township, with a total population of about 1. The economy is also dominated by fishing, logging and tropical plantation industries. Jianning County is not as good, probably because of its small coastal plain area, dense forests, and small suitable space.

All in all, the economic models of the three counties of Hue, Jianning, and Yen Le under the Hue region are similar, with fishing, logging, and tropical plantation industries as the main industries. Of course, according to the actual situation of each county, the emphasis is also different.Among them, Jianning County has a relatively developed fishing industry because there is a small fishing ground nearby; secondly, because there are some plains along the coast, some grain planting and plantation industries are also engaged in; Due to factors such as dense distribution, the forest industry is focused on the development of forest industry, that is, logging, wood processing, furniture, barrels, wooden utensils and even musical instrument manufacturing. The open space formed by the felling of trees is planted with plant dyes, tobacco, sugar, coffee and cocoa. Plants, the development of tropical plantation industry, but it seems that the scale is not large enough.

Compared with Jianning County and Yanle County, the two "little brothers" whose tropical plantation industry is still under development, Hue County is much stronger in this regard.This is undoubtedly due to the rich heritage left by the Portuguese. They have developed here for more than a hundred years and built countless manors mainly planting tobacco and sugar. At the same time, the small urban population is also based on the deep processing of the above two products. , refining and sales are the main business directions, and overall it is relatively prosperous.

After the people on the east coast took over the city, they took over the manors and plantations left by the Portuguese in one fell swoop, including labor tools and black slaves.Poor those black slaves who had hoped that the new East Coasters would free them, only to find out that they were the same as the Portuguese and wanted to enslave them as well.The only difference is probably that the people on the east coast will set a time limit for this enslavement, and promise to give them freedom after this time limit, and then find a way to send them to the free state in North America to live, and at the same time, they will give them about two dollars a month The salary around the money is not bad.

That is to say, the Portuguese laid a good foundation in Rio de Janeiro, and the people on the east coast have carried forward on this foundation, and have continued to invest huge sums of money in rebuilding the city for many years, establishing public facilities such as public bathrooms, toilets, sewage pipes, hospitals, etc. The facilities will renovate the city and provide the necessary foundation for the subsequent prosperity.

Later, even businessmen from Italy and the United Provinces were attracted by the better conditions in Rio de Janeiro, and began to invest huge sums of money in construction here, and hired many indentured slaves from Ireland, Germany, and Italy from the Old World as the starting point Plantation labor.Their investment was undoubtedly encouraged by the east coast government at that time, because they could open up a large area of ​​wasteland for the people on the east coast and save a lot of effort and money. Therefore, the 50-year land lease granted to them at that time Rents are very cheap.Even in the mid-term of Chairman Qi Wangping’s administration, because these people recruited labor from the old continent for free, the East Coast government also benefited from the Brazilian Rural Financial Cooperative’s loan to these foreign investors at low interest rates (subject to collateral ), to improve their capital turnover speed, the support is not insignificant.

Under such circumstances, the tropical plantation industry in Hue began to flourish slowly, and because it is close to the local area, it is more convenient to obtain capital, technology and talents. At the same time, if the target is the local market, the logistics and sales costs are relatively low (New Huaxia Island’s cane sugar is sold to the mainland and needs to pay tariffs), so the return on investment is still quite good, so many people are shouting that another tropical plantation industrial area in the East Coast Republic of China has begun to rise. It can be seen from the endless news about the heavy damage to the sugar industry in Xinhua Island in People's Daily.

It's a pity that the reelection of the executive committee ruined everything!The new members of the executive committee are all "old antiques", "dead brains", and "persecutors". They even took advantage of the continuous war in Europe and the large backlog of sales of tropical commodities such as sugar, coffee, and cocoa as an excuse to adopt a series of measures. The policies aimed at the tropical plantation industrial zones in Hue and Jiaohe, such as reducing loans, reducing the rationing of non-national laborers, reducing investment in infrastructure construction, and so on.

There is no doubt that these policies had a very direct impact.Taking Jianning County, where Xuan Hao is located, as an example, quite a number of state-owned plantations were the first to shut down. The government set a time limit ranging from three to five years for them to withdraw, and reduced the number of non-national laborers allocated. Basic resettlement of immigrants, gradually changing gardens into villages, and restoring normal agricultural order.

Considering the huge scale of the state-owned plantation, which has always been the benchmark and weathervane for other investors, both local and foreign investors have doubts in their hearts, and their investment has suddenly decreased.By the middle of this year, there were even small plantation owners asking if there was anyone to take over. These people seemed to be cowardly, confused, poorly able to withstand the wind, and destined not to make a lot of money. Xuan Hao always compared them despise.

Xuan Hao, who has become the owner's confidant butler, always believes that even if the government is now cooling down the tropical plantation industry and guiding more people to settle in the Pampa Plain, the domestic demand for sugar and other products will always exist.Especially when the standard of living has always been maintained at a relatively good level, the residents' love for sweets is obvious, and there is no reason to reduce the consumption of sucrose.Now it seems that due to the slump in demand in foreign markets, there is some excess production and some business owners are losing money. However, after a period of production capacity reduction, it may not be a good time to buy bottom at low prices.You know, Xuan Hao's proprietor has been coveting the lucrative sugar market for a long time. Before this business was in a big bull market, he didn't want to buy second-hand plantations at a premium, so he had been waiting and watching. Eating two adjacent small sugarcane plantations (planning to connect them in the future) has laid a good foundation for entering this industry.

The plantation that Proprietor Xuanhao took over at a low price this time is located in Shenmu Township. The houses, sugarcane fields, labor tools, and draft animals are complete, but there are some shortages of workers. It is said that because the boss has no intention of operating, many workers whose contracts are about to expire are not there. Renewing the contract (in fact, no one is willing to renew the contract), this will all go to the south to make a fortune, so this will generally be short of more than [-]%, which makes people scratch their heads.

But this matter is not without a solution, Xuan Hao has been ordered to deal with this matter recently.He first approached Mendez, Batino, and Goshkin, the three major labor economic companies, intending to pay for them to collect people from the old continent; Machinery and equipment, intending to start a sugar refinery.

It is worth mentioning that these sugar refining equipment are different from the old-fashioned machines derived from Portuguese equipment that have been used by many small refining workshops for a long time. They have higher efficiency, better stability, longer life, lower maintenance costs, and easy operation. It's not that complicated, and the price isn't that high. In general, it seems that the old semi-mechanized equipment used before the price-performance ratio has exploded.

And when it comes to this matter, we have to mention the various machinery manufacturers that have been invested and built in Hue County in the past year or so.These manufacturers aim at the tropical plantation industry which has been greatly affected by national policies, and began to provide them with a series of machinery and equipment aimed at improving labor efficiency and reducing production costs. At present, they have gradually begun to gain a certain market.

In fact, these things, when the profits of sucrose were high in the past, people did not have much motivation to develop new equipment and improve old processes, just like the capitalists of the British Empire in later generations because they could comfortably earn high profits. A story of no drive to improve technology and eventually being surpassed by the Germans who had no colonial cash machines.In the time and space of people on the east coast, during the sugar bull market, all kinds of people began to invest wildly in this business that was said to be able to make money lying down. There were mud and sand and undercurrents. At that time, few people were willing to improve technology. The market There is also a lack of various high-efficiency advanced equipment in the field, and the overall level of sugarcane refining is not much higher than that of the Portuguese, English, Dutch, and Spaniards.

However, after years of development, new technologies, new machines, and new equipment began to mature and were slowly put on the market. Just as the bull market ended due to the European war, the trough period began, and profit margins plummeted (some even started Losses) investors realized that they need to increase output, reduce costs, and can no longer operate as extensively as before, so these new equipment began to sell well, and gradually cultivated several manufacturers of different sizes in Shun Hua County settled down.

Similar to sugar refining equipment, various new machine tools, circular saws and other equipment for wood processing have also begun to sell well, but it is not as exaggerated as the sugar industry.Their industry is somewhat different from that of cane sugar. It is not that the market demand is small, but that they suffer from a shortage of labor, and have to use a large number of machinery and draft animals to reduce the demand for manpower.

Even, in order to increase labor output and prevent loss of orders due to delivery delays, many forest farms and wood processing factories have introduced a complete set of gas lamp systems from the East Coast Gas Company for night lighting.In order to allow the workers who have nothing to do after dark to return to work, the bosses have to promise a higher level of overtime wages, so that they can work during the night, and there is no one else.

In addition, in order to retain employees, the bosses have also increased the income of laborers, and the real wage industry, which was hated by many people, has disappeared. Instead, it is a fixed payday on the last day of the end of each month full of sincerity.For example, the shop at the forestry farm that Xuan Hao was in charge of was closed down, and the salary that was paid every few months (making the workers short of money and had to buy low-quality daily necessities in the store on credit) was forced to become a monthly payment. Otherwise, those non-national laborers would move their families to the south to hunt cattle or engage in construction work.

Of course, in addition to the above-mentioned measures to improve the profitability of the plantation, the Academy of Natural Sciences and the Academy of Engineering Technology have recently helped them conduct research on the utilization of some by-products, such as the sugar cane they will get from the Indians in the Caribbean The production method of shochu has been improved, and it is planned to prepare a spirit that can meet the preferences of the public and has a certain market.These people insisted that this kind of wine brewed from sugar by-products would have a good sales market on the East Coast because of its extremely low cost and special taste.

Xuan Hao has certain doubts about this, but he does not reject giving it a try.Anyway, those by-products such as molasses are worthless and can be seen everywhere. If it tastes good when used to make wine, it is really a hen that lays golden eggs.You know, the people on the east coast today are very fond of drinking. This can be seen from the fact that every county, every township, and even every village has a homemade spirits brewing workshop. What a huge market this is. And what amazing profits can be generated.

All of the above are basically the changes that have taken place in the Hue and Jiaohe areas in the past one or two years.Changes in national policies have caused severe turbulence in the local economic order, and at the same time accelerated the reshuffle of local industries, forcing technology upgrades, and gradually embarked on a path that is different from the previous era of extensive management.

For this kind of change, Xuan Hao is actually happy to see the results, and intends to keep observing to see where he will go in the end.In fact, he felt very early on that the swarming and chaotic business model in the past was not a long-term solution. Sooner or later, it would have to be rectified. Xuan Hao is also very aware of the new vocabulary learned in "Kommersant", and takes it very seriously.

(End of this chapter)