Nanyang 1931: From piglets to giants

Chapter 311 The Difference Between Donation and Trade
Penang, the Nanyang Hotel, opened by the Wang family, is currently the most upscale hotel in Nanyang.

Li Xiaoshi had a serious face and frowned as he looked at his biological son, who seemed both familiar and unfamiliar to him.

But I saw that Li Jilong, after just a few years, had grown into a handsome man, as if he had received formal military training. His back had become straighter, and his mental state had obviously become tougher. He was wearing a yellow suit, which seemed to be made of coarse cloth. He seemed to have lost a lot of weight compared to when he left Nanyang a few years ago.

"You've lost weight and look more energetic. Why didn't you go see your mother first after you came back? Ever since you left, your mother has been missing you so much. She's been worried all day that you don't have enough to eat or wear, and that you won't be able to endure the hardships over there. Sigh~"

Li Jilong replied, "I've brought quite a few people with me this time. I'm on a very important mission. The food, drink, and toileting of so many people is a huge drain on foreign exchange. Time is naturally precious, so how dare I sacrifice public interest for personal gain?"

Li Xiaoshi frowned. "You're talking nonsense! Food, drink, and toilet only cost a few dollars. Besides, since you're guests invited by the Southern Alliance, the accommodation expenses are of course provided by us. Even if we take a step back, we have a stake in this hotel. It's our own business, so it's just a matter of transferring it from one hand to the other."

Li Jilong smiled and said, "After all, it's just official business. Furthermore, when we came here, our leader specifically instructed us to only accept the necessary basic hospitality, just to take care of our food and lodging. Nothing else is allowed. Even though our country is poor, we don't want to go out and beg for food."

Li Xiaoshi: "I told you to say this. You've come home, and there's no such thing as going home to beg for food."

Li Jilong said with a playful smile: "Isn't it that I brought so many people with me? Of course I don't mind. It's not like I can't afford to spend my own money. But I just started working, so I can't be too unsociable, right? Let's put business first and then personal matters. Let's finish the business first, send these people off, and I can go back a few days later and stay at home for a while. That's no problem. The superiors still care about this kind of courtesy."

"Hey~"

Li Xiaoshi sighed when he heard this, took out two cigars from his pocket and threw one to Li Jilong.

"I don't know whether it was right or wrong to send you back home. When your uncle brought it up, your mother disagreed. I had to pressure her into letting you go. To be honest, even I feel a little regretful now."

After Li Jilong took the cigar, he didn't hesitate and lit it after roasting it for a while. After all, this thing is quite rare in China, or even does not exist at all.

"I think my uncle's arrangement is pretty good. Although life back home is a bit hard and the material conditions are a bit poor, I'm still very happy every day. I feel motivated to do things and I can learn a lot. Besides, I understand what my uncle means. This can be considered a way out for our family."

Upon hearing this, Li Xiaoshi patted his son's thigh with a distressed look and asked, "I heard that during the land reform in our hometown, we encountered some problems and some mistakes. Our land, as well as your uncle's land, were all expropriated. During the process, someone in your uncle's family died. These things didn't affect you, did they?"

Li Jilong shook his head. "With you and my uncle here, who would embarrass me? I've heard about my uncle's family, too. I can only say... well, the land reform in Fujian and Guangdong was the most difficult in the country, and the results were constantly inconsistent. Naturally, the provinces that did the worst had more twists and turns and more chaos."

Li Xiaoshi: "This matter... Hey, here in Nanyang, many people have strong opinions. Your uncle is even more disrespectful. He often makes abusive remarks. According to this statement, you are also the child of a big capitalist and a big landlord. I am worried that you will be wronged in China."

Li Jilong, on the other hand, was more open-minded than Li Xiaoshi. He said, "I understand this clearly. This isn't just a matter of ideology or idealism. Think about it, Dad. Throughout history, which dynasty that achieved long-term stability didn't carry out large-scale land distribution at the beginning of its founding?"

“Any dynasty that failed to redistribute land at the beginning of its founding, or did a poor job of land redistribution, almost without exception, was short-lived or encountered extremely serious problems during its operation.”

"It's just a little bit of land. What does it mean to our family? My uncle is a short-sighted person. Dad, you should spend less time with him in the future. You might let him take you away again."

"Go to hell! How can you say that about your own uncle? I don't even dare to say that about my uncle."

After a moment's thought, he said, "Your uncle agrees. He says this doesn't really have much to do with ideology, and there's no need to tie everything to ideology. There was a theory in The Wealth of Nations that in any country, ordinary people can only get what's left over from the powerful."

"Therefore, production factors will inevitably become increasingly concentrated. Regardless of ideology, concentration is inevitable. This is actually a question of whether to prioritize equal opportunity or equal outcomes. Whenever we start over, we should prioritize equal outcomes over equal opportunity."

Li Jilong thought about it after hearing this, then scratched his head and said, "I'm finding it increasingly difficult to understand what my uncle is saying."

After a pause, Li Jilong took the lead and said, "Father, let's get down to business. Cotton clothes, instant lime, and sugar are all supplies we urgently need. We want as many as we can get. Since this is a trade, how should we settle the bill?"

Li Xiaoshi curled his lips when he heard this and said, "Talking business with your own father, and you are still so strict."

Li Jilong: "After all, I represent the public."

Li Xiaoshi: "Whatever you want, you can give whatever you want. We're accepting RMB anyway, and it's all printed."

To put it bluntly, Li Xiaoshi has always been skeptical about the purchasing power of the RMB. Not to mention that no one recognizes it internationally, the international credit of the currency cannot be said to be bad, it can only be said that it does not exist at all.

After all, the SAARC is part of the Western world, and the Western world does not recognize this money at all.

Zheng Yi asked him to decide on the amount, so he naturally let them decide on the amount to give. In his opinion, this was also a semi-donation.

In fact, if it wasn't for the purpose of shutting up the Americans, or at least to be able to explain himself, he wouldn't have to take the money.

Li Jilong nodded and said, "I guessed it. The higher-ups are saying that since you, the de facto Americans, are willing to take risks to support us, we must not let you suffer any loss. This price must not be lowered."

Li Xiaoshi couldn't help but laugh when he heard this. Li Jilong said, "I know that in your eyes, whether this money is more or less is not important, but our superiors have also said that they will never take advantage of you in trade. My uncle also emphasized before that this money must be enough to buy things. This is a business, not a donation."

Li Xiaoshi: "Of course I know this is a sale, not a donation, but the question is, what are we going to buy? To put it bluntly, what this money is used for doesn't really depend on what we want to buy, but on what you have. Coincidentally, most of what you have is what we don't need."

"To be honest, in the field of international trade, if we really export to Southeast Asia, the products with the greatest advantages are pork and tea. Even for traditional silk, if my information is correct, the silk produced in the country last year was only about 3000 tons. Basically, it all went to us Chinese in Southeast Asia. You can't produce more, right?

As for pork and tea, we can actually buy them from Japan. These are our own industries in SAARC. We have invested in Japan and we also have several large pig farms in Japan. If we buy them, we can't bear to let you compete with Japan in terms of price and lower the price.

After all, the population in Southeast Asia is not large. Although the Chinese population has increased in recent years, the gap between domestic production and Japanese production is not that big. Moreover, India can actually provide these two things. "

Seeing a hint of embarrassment in Li Jilong's eyes, Li Xiaoshi naturally didn't want to embarrass his own child, so he said, "How about this? You guys send the pork and tea here, and we'll sell them in Southeast Asia. We'll follow the Japanese price. As for how much you want to sell it to me in RMB per pound, you decide, and the number you decide will be the exchange rate."

"The problem is, I'm afraid with just these two items, the quantity won't be too much. You know your uncle well, and to be honest, the supplies we've prepared this time are at least a hundred thousand tons."

As he spoke, Li Xiaoshi took out a folder from his bag and handed it to Li Jilong.

"what is this?"

"The blueprint your uncle drew shows the locations of two large oil fields, one in Daqing and the other in Caofeidian near Tianjin. The accompanying refining equipment is also drawn. If you have Soviet experts to help you, you can follow the blueprint and build it. The oil from these two oil fields and the by-products of oil refining should be enough for domestic use. He said that this should be a gift to the motherland. He has only one request: never tell anyone that these oil fields and factories have any connection with him. He must insist that they were built with Soviet aid."

"Really? There's oil in the country, and it's a large oil field?"

"It needs exploration anyway."

"The picture my uncle drew can't be wrong. Everyone in the world knows that my uncle can turn stones into gold."

Having said that, Li Jilong carefully put the drawings away.

But the more he thought about it, the more he couldn't figure out what RMB could buy in the country.

It’s actually not Li Xiaoshi’s fault that he has no interest in the pricing issue. Even if the domestic market is open to allowing people to buy freely, the things they can buy are actually very limited.

He works for China Resources, so he is naturally familiar with the current domestic export business. Apart from pork and tea, there is still a certain amount of coal, coking coal, and timber, which are basically not used in Nanyang, or the amount used is very small.

For example, the usage of metallic tungsten and metallic antimony is not that large. In fact, Zheng Yi had done tungsten ore business with them as early as twenty years ago, and that little tungsten has not been used up yet.

The only thing that is still worth showing off is the ceramics from Jingdezhen.

But the problem is that this business deal is too big, at least worth billions of RMB.

With so much RMB, the Southern Alliance can't just buy porcelain, right? Even antiques...

Li Jilong was suddenly stunned and said, "Dad, do you and uncle want antiques or ancient jade?"

Li Xiaoshi: "Antiques? Doesn't the country explicitly prohibit the export of cultural relics? Only a small amount of Qing Dynasty folk kiln porcelain is allowed to be exported to earn foreign exchange. To be honest, the items from Qing Dynasty folk kilns are not available in Nanyang..."

To put it bluntly, they are not that rare. Over the years, more than one million Chinese antiques have been brought back from the Japanese in Southeast Asia. These things are not very valuable, so it is difficult to estimate how high their price is.

"What if it's from before the Qing Dynasty, or from an imperial kiln? And jade, I know our family has a mine in Burma. What if it's from Yunnan?"

Li Xiaoshi was stunned and immediately sat up. "Can it be done? If it can be done, it would be great indeed. Antiques and jade are priceless. The price is what we say. This way, we can shut the Americans up."

"Those antiques from Japan are in your uncle's hands. We just need to hide them and keep them from circulation on the market. Then, we don't have to worry about the prices of these antiques plummeting. They might even go up in price."

To put it bluntly, Li Xiaoshi still didn't think this transaction was a business deal, but a donation. However, if he could use the RMB he earned to buy antiques, it would at least be much easier to handle on the accounts.

"But, isn't this really illegal?"

Li Jilong said, "Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. No matter how precious the cultural relics are, they are not as precious as the lives of the soldiers on the front lines. Moreover, one cannot write two Chinese characters with one stroke. The Nanyang Chinese are also Chinese. To put it bluntly, even I understand. If these antiques can really be sold in Penang and Singapore, buying them is equivalent to being patriotic. If these things remain in the hands of the Nanyang Chinese, they will not be considered as being in foreign hands. I will consult with the superiors, and it should not be a big problem."

(End of this chapter)