On the way here, and even at the moment when they received the invitation, most of the people present, almost everyone, believed that Chen Kai was short of money, so he had to persuade them to donate money and materials.

In this regard, everyone and even the officials and the people are different, especially Chen Kai's current status in Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Although these merchants are working as outsiders in front of ordinary people, they seem to have such a high status, but

When they really faced Guan'er, they were still just a bunch of fat sheep.

Not daring to offend, and naturally not daring to waste time, for fear of causing dissatisfaction with the government, they rushed to Hong Kong without missing a beat. For them, bleeding seemed to be inevitable.

Whether the cooperation with the Ming army in these years has yielded some gains, or even only slightly caused a smaller loss.

This kind of anxiety continued until this moment, until Chen Kai said these words, everyone heard it, as if thunder exploded in their ears, and they were stunned on the spot.

"make money!"

It is a fact that merchants seek wealth, but to say it so blatantly, especially to a high-ranking civil servant, a frontier official who speaks so bluntly and without scruples, they have never seen such an unusual person. You must know,

There are no honest officials like Hai Rui these days. Even the most honest ones are bound to receive some gray income as agreed upon by customs. However, even if everyone seeks profit, no one has ever seen a civil servant blatantly do so in front of so many people.

Said this.

At this moment, all the echoes that had been prepared were choked in the throat without exception. A businessman sitting in the back originally planned to preempt others when he echoed, so as to please others, but who knew he would hear it?

But it was such an opening statement, and the echoes were stuck in his throat, and from time to time he made a sound of "uh-huh". Some people thought that the hen he found somewhere was laying eggs in the businessman's clothes.

In an instant of astonishment, Cai Cheng stood up first and applauded with his hands. With a leader who was also Chen Kai's confidant, everyone immediately seemed to have been relieved of the trap and hurriedly stood up and applauded, so that the moment could be resolved.

The embarrassment is covered up.

The applause gradually dissipated under the downward movement of Chen Kai's hands, but the tone here has been set. Returning to what these businessmen are best at and attaches most importance to, in the following time, the words that echoed in the lobby from the very beginning

It was all based on Chen Kai's speech and everyone's echo. Gradually, everyone here spoke more and more unconsciously, and later, it was completely reversed.

The meeting started in the morning, and the originally planned lunch break was canceled by these increasingly excited businessmen. As a result, they continued to talk hungry until nightfall. Dragging their tired bodies, the businessmen present were reluctant to leave.

This day's discussion ended with a happy ending.

In the two days before and after, the meeting first imagined the future, and then formulated rules and regulations based on ensuring the collective interests of members. The meeting was not completely concluded until everything was over.

However, whether he was imagining the future or formulating systems, Chen Kai found without exception that the rules and regulations he had already customized were not more realistic than those set by these businessmen, and they always seemed a bit too 21st century. So.

As a matter of fact, later on, he simply let it go and let these merchants discuss it on their own.

According to the regulations of the meeting, the merchants present elected a special committee to judge disputes between members within the Guangdong Business Alliance. But the chairman of this committee, they did not dare to work hard Chen Kai, who had to deal with all kinds of things, so they simply

Cai Chenglai was elected unanimously.

When the meeting officially came to an end, Chen Kai held a banquet at the Honghua Pavilion, and the participants happily attended the banquet to celebrate this meeting that was about to change them and their respective families. Only after the meeting ended, Nie, who had been watching with cold eyes for the past two days,

Yi Niang confessed her thoughts to Chen Kai.

"Fujun, if you do this, will you be tabooed by Mr. Guo? After all, this matter of sea trade..."

"I have a tacit understanding with Guoxing on this matter. Marquis Jianping is responsible for the maritime trade. There is no conflict between what he and I want to do."

The headquarters of the Guangdong Business Alliance is set up on Hong Kong Island. It will temporarily use Honghua Pavilion and adjust it after the construction is completed. However, members need to return to their hometowns first for initial layout and operations. Even members of the committee will not

In this way, the members set off one after another in the next two days. Chen Kai took the time to summon a group of maritime merchants and ship owners who had come to visit earlier, and listened to their opinions on the current Guangdong Sea trade environment.

He quickly set off back to Guangzhou City.

In the city of Guangzhou, the jungles have been very lively in recent days. Men, women and children going to offer incense are crowded together. The flow of people is almost constant. So, if it were not for the curfew policy in the city, those Buddhist temples and Taoist temples,

Nunneries and mosques must consider whether they can serve believers all night long.

It’s not that everyone in the city is happy, it’s just that the two counties of Panyu and Nanhai issued announcements, further confirming the policy of land distribution, and announcing Chen Kai’s compensation policy for the delay in land distribution——

In this world, the people have always listened to what the government says, and even if they are dissatisfied, they can at most just complain secretly.

The nominal actions of the people against the government, such as resistance to donations and taxes, are actually backed by gentry, local tyrants and even officials. But now, there is no need for anyone to express dissatisfaction, and there is no need for any powerful people to secretly collude and instigate.

, Chen Kai was the first to propose compensation for losses. For such a person who is always known for his word, this is obviously what he will do, even if the date of compensation is not mentioned, but with Chen Kai

The local people are still very relieved about the word Kai.

With such good news at the end, news soon came from nowhere that Chen Kai's wife and a pair of children were coming from Chaozhou to Guangzhou to reunite with Chen Kai.

The word "Buddha of all families" is often exaggerated, but in the eyes of the people of Guangzhou, this is the most appropriate way to describe Chen Kai in their minds. Thanks to Chen Kai's kindness, the local people of Guangzhou rushed to

Going to various jungles to offer incense and pray for the children of Zheng Xiyuan and Chen Kai has even become a trend, driving merchants who go to Guangzhou to do business, and many ship owners also follow suit.

The governor's wife, the young master, and the young lady were still on the way, but the meeting in Hong Kong ended first. In fact, the Guangzhou merchants who were able to attend the meeting were basically rescued by Chen Kai from Guangzhou city. They are Chen Kai's staunchest supporters. Now

The Guangdong Business Alliance is actually a deeper bundle of interests. However, it is not just them who are bundled.

Returning to Guangzhou City, the Guangzhou branch of the Guangdong Business Alliance was in place within two days. According to the regulations set in the past few days, the merchants organized meetings on their own to discuss the direction of development. In Guangdong, more of them were

This first step must be taken by relying on already existing competitive industries and specialty products.

The discussion actually started on the ship back, and they even had their initial plans during the break in the meeting. At this point, after weighing the pros and cons based on their respective news channels, they put aside what they were still doing.

Apart from the ongoing business, everyone went to various places.

Shunde County is located in the area south of Guangzhou Prefecture and north of Xiangshan County. It is famous for its mulberry farming, silkworm rearing and silk weaving. As early as the Song Dynasty, it was already an extremely important silk and silk producing area in Guangdong.

Entering the Ming Dynasty, during the Yongle period, the annual transaction volume of earthen silk in Longjiang and Longxu markets alone was as high as two tons. During the Jiajing period, due to the Japanese pirates' rebellion, the Ming court closed the two ports of Quanzhou in Fujian and Ningbo in Zhejiang.

Guangzhou's status as a foreign trade center has become more prominent. Influenced and stimulated by this, Shunde's sericulture and silk industries have flourished. In just forty years, the famous silk fabrics "Jade Steps", "Willow Leaves" and "Thread Silk" in Longjiang, Shunde County

" was listed as a tribute one after another, which shows that the quality of Shunde silk is superior.

However, since the fall of the Ming Dynasty, chaos has continued in Guangdong. Li Chengdong swept across Guangdong and Guangxi, and the three loyalists in Lingnan rebelled against the Qing Dynasty. Anyway, Li Chengdong and the two Shang Geng vassals went south, all of which caused varying degrees of damage to the local sericulture and silk industries.

A group of businessmen who decided to come to Shunde to inspect the sericulture and silk industry set out from Guangzhou and soon arrived in Longjiang, Shunde County. This is one of the most important producing areas of Shunde silk. There are mulberry trees all over the mountains and there are many machine shops and machine houses.

They can be found everywhere. Thanks to hundreds of years of development, the policy stimulation during the Jiajing period, and the booming development of sea trade, it is possible to reach this scale.

However, when these merchants arrived here, they saw a completely different scene. Many of the mulberry forests outside the town were cut down, burned, and gnawed by wolf-toothed dogs, even though they were lush and green in the summer.

It also looked very conspicuous in the mulberry forest. There were no people picking in groups in the mulberry forest. They were scattered and out of scale. When the car drove outside Longjiang Town, what matched the dense crowds no longer existed.

The houses in the town are dilapidated and there are ruins everywhere. Although people are always repairing them, the old appearance has long since disappeared.

"The wars in the past few years have affected this place a lot. Last year, hey."

Longjiang Town in Shunde County is located in the west of Shunde County. It faces Gaoming across the river to the west, Foshan to the north, and Jiangmen and Xinhui to the south. It is right at the place where the Ming and Qing armies frequently clashed after the siege of Xinhui. Even

When the Battle of Jiangmen ended and the Qing rule in Guangdong could be declared over, Shang Kexi and Zhu Mala fled back with the remnants of the Eight Banners Army, preparing to return to Guangzhou via Foshan. They also passed through here, and they went crazy along the way.

There were rumors of cannibalism by the Qing army, and the people spontaneously fled. They saw a lot of ruins, which were all caused by the anger of the Qing army at that time.

"Let's take a look at the machine shop first."

The leading merchant's family was a maritime merchant in his early years. Later, the Ming and Qing armies fought successively in Guangdong. When the world was not good, it was inevitable that the family would fall into decline. Especially after fleeing from Guangzhou, most of the family's property was

I left it here. In the past few years, I have been working very hard in Chaozhou, and my nephews and nephews are also working in the government, so life has been a little better. When I returned to Guangzhou this year, the belongings I left behind were naturally

It was nowhere to be found, but the real estate was taken back under Chen Kai's policies.

Revitalizing the family business is the wish of almost all Guangzhou people who can return to their hometown. Here, they came to Longjiang in order to open up the sericulture and silk industries. Fortunately, before they left Guangzhou, they

Merchants have relatively rich connections. Even if the times change, there are always some connections that can be used.

Rushing to the agreed machine shop, this one was originally not a big one in the town, just medium-sized. But now, it is the largest machine shop in the local area - it is not that he has achieved expansion beyond his peers, or even that he

Today's scale is still smaller than before. However, other larger machine shops than him have either gone bankrupt or lost their families due to the wars in recent years. However, he has inexplicably stood out.

The workshop of the machine shop cannot be said to be dilapidated, but there is always a smell of chaos. Several people entered the door under the guidance of the owner of the machine shop. They entered the workshop directly without looking at the raw material reserves.

Stepping into it, the spinning wheel was operating, and the loom was operating behind it, weaving the silk thread into smooth silk. Here, there were all female workers working there. The leader of the merchant looked at it, but turned his head and asked.

He knew this: "Why not use water to turn a big spinning wheel?"

As soon as he said this, everyone in the entourage turned their attention to the small hand-operated and pedal-operated spinning wheels again. Only the owner of the machine shop looked a little embarrassed.

In fact, as early as the Southern Song Dynasty, the hydraulic spinning wheel appeared in China, which was used to turn water into a large spinning wheel. This is a machine that uses water power as power. According to historical data and book records, it is about nine meters long and 2.7 meters high. It uses two skins to spin the wheel.

The rope drive operates 32 spindles, and each car can add 100 kilograms of yarn per day.

In terms of working efficiency, this kind of hydraulic machinery can definitely throw those hand-cranked and pedal-operated machines out of eight streets. However, you can't see them here at all. Instead, there are a lot of household-type spinning wheels that are popular here.

"Hey." Before he could say anything, he sighed first. The owner of the machine shop shook his head and led everyone to a warehouse. He opened the door, and the sun blew away the dust. What he saw was a lot of parts stacked there.

They have obviously been disassembled. If you look closely, you can see that some of them have burnt marks on them, while others don't. It's just that they were disassembled because there was no place to support them.

"It's not that I don't want to use this water to spin a big spinning wheel. It's because I can't buy the land near the river. Secondly, even if I buy the land and build factories, women workers, silk, and many other things are still problematic.

Moreover, these have been done by my family for many years and are owned by fellow villagers, so it’s hard to get rid of them all.”

These are all real problems, and the owner of the machine shop had a grimace on his face. But after hearing these words, the leading merchant burst into laughter: "If you say anything else, it may not be enough, but with Chen Fujun here,
Chapter completed!