In Tangjiazha on the edge of the Yangtze River in Nantong, a large number of factories have been built. In the official building of Dasheng Cotton Mill, Zhang Jian encountered a dilemma as soon as he returned to Nantong.
Jiang Xikun, the banker in charge of the yarn factory's finances, approached Zhang Jian with the factory's accounts, "Mr. Si, just cleaning up the rust of those old machines and purchasing spare parts and repairs, plus the monthly expenses for building the factory, the total is
More than 87,000 taels of silver, including previous expenses, the 150,000 taels of silver for building the factory and raising shares have been almost spent, and now we don’t even have money to buy cotton for testing."
Zhang Jian frowned. He didn't expect that the cotton mill that he had worked hard for more than two years to set up was still not operational. If the cotton mill wanted to operate normally, it would need at least hundreds of thousands of silver. But where could he get such a large amount of money?
What? He thought for a while and then said: "Gui Songqing, the general office of Jiangning Commerce Bureau, promised to give us six to seventy thousand taels of silver, and Sheng Xuanhuai also promised to lend us 150,000 taels of silver when he was in charge of the branch office. Tomorrow
I will go find them!"
Zhang Jian started the Dasheng Cotton Mill with the intention of turning it into a complete commercial enterprise. In December 1895, he submitted to the Governor of Liangjiang and the Qing government the regulations for establishing the industry. It was clearly stated: Pan Huamao from Guangdong, Guo Xun from Fujian, Fan from Zhejiang
Fen, Liu Guixin from Tongzhou, Shen Xiejun from Haimen, and Chen Weiyong pooled shares to set up the factory. Later, when the shareholding failed to go smoothly, Gui Songqing, the governor of Jiangning, entrusted the trustees to discuss with the Tongzhou directors and decided to use the previous Zhang Zhidong as the basis for the establishment of the factory.
The 40,800 spindles ordered by the Hubei Yarn Bureau and placed on the Yangshupu River in Shanghai were bought into the factory at a discount of 500,000 taels as official shares, and an additional 500,000 taels of investment shares were added. The "Dasheng" was changed to a joint venture between the government and businessmen. Pan Huamao and Guo Xun were worried about the official
The stockholders interfered in factory affairs, but soon turned against them.
Gui Songqing was eager to sell these machines, and also agreed to raise another 60,000 to 70,000 taels of silver for Dasheng Spinners. Later, Shanghai's bureaucratic comprador Sheng Xuanhuai, in order to take half of the official shares, made spinning yarn worth 250,000 taels of silver.
He took the opportunity to set up a new factory by himself and agreed to help Zhang Jian raise a total of 150,000 taels of new shares.
However, in the winter of the 23rd year of Guangxu's reign, when the construction of the Dasheng Cotton Mill began, Zhang Jian repeatedly urged Gui Songqing to raise the share capital he had promised to raise, but was afraid of receiving no response.
Zhang Jian arrived in Nanjing first, but Gui Songqing avoided seeing him after hearing the news of his arrival. He could not find anyone, so he had to return to Shanghai to find Sheng Xuanhuai.
Zhang Jian met Sheng Xuanhuai in the rain in Shengjia Garden. Sheng Xuanhuai said that I signed an agreement to help you raise shares, but businessmen in Shanghai are not optimistic about opening a yarn factory. It is not easy to raise shares. What can I do if I can't find anyone to invest?
?
"Then why did your own cotton mill become a stock company?" Zhang Jian was so angry that he stood up and asked Sheng Xuanhuai.
"Those businessmen believe in me and insist on investing their money in my factory. What can I do?" Sheng Xuanhuai spread his hands, who made your backstage master Weng fall? Your life is not good, who is to blame?
I'm not afraid of you now.
Zhang Jian left the Sheng family in anger. When he returned to the inn, he found that it was difficult to even take a boat back to Tongzhou with the remaining travel money. He was hungry, so he had to go to the roadside and ask for a bowl of Yangchun noodles. He ate it, thinking that he was a champion scholar.
, in order to raise funds to set up a factory, I was reduced to such a situation, and I couldn't help but feel pain in my heart.
Back at the inn, Zhang Jian flipped through the leather bag he brought with him. There were only two silver coins and dozens of copper plates left in it. He felt troubled in his heart and didn't know what he could do when he returned to the factory. In the midst of his worries, he saw two silver coins and slipped them out of his bag.
A piece of paper fell out, I took it into my hand, looked at it, and threw it aside.
Suddenly I remembered that this was the address left by the young man named Lin Shuo whom I met on the boat. My eyes lit up. The young man's attire showed that he came from a wealthy family. Moreover, he also told me that he was doing business in Shanghai. Maybe he
Can persuade the elders in his family to invest in the factory.
Zhang Jian quickly picked up the piece of paper from the ground carefully, read the address on it carefully, put the note in his bag and packed it, then got up and went out, following the address on the piece of paper, he found the address in the French Concession.
The Lin Family Garden on Feng Road.
"Who are you looking for?" Several strong men in the concierge were sitting around. When they saw Zhang Jian coming, a big man with two scars on his face and a ferocious look came over and asked.
Zhang Jian was startled. He didn't expect that the young master of the Lin family spoke politely, but the doorkeepers at home all looked like menacing men. He wondered if he had gone to the wrong place, "Is this the mansion of Master Lin Anhua?"
"Ah, you are looking for the young master, but unfortunately the young master is traveling far away and has not been at home recently."
Zhang Jian felt very disappointed and asked, "Is your master here? Could you please let me know." He saw that there was a pen and inkstone in the concierge, so he wrote a greeting note and asked the concierge to pass it in.
"My master? Oh, the old lady has lived in Xiamen for a long time, and my young master is the only one here." The porter took the note written by Zhang Jian, "In the honor of the Lin family, this is Nantong Zhang..."
"Jian, the word is pronounced as Jian." Zhang Jian said quickly.
"Oh, it's just the inspection of the captain." A person next to him also interjected.
Zhang Jian was a little dumbfounded. He didn't expect that his name could be connected with the inspection captain. He was also surprised that the Lin family's concierge knew a little bit about writing. He couldn't help but feel curious. He saw one of them take the greeting card he wrote and enter it into the inner courtyard.
, so he asked: "I didn't expect that several of them can read and write. Zhang admires them!"
When those people heard Zhang Jian's praise, they felt comfortable all over and immediately puffed up their chests: "Of course, the young master said that we soldiers must also read and write, otherwise we will not know what loyalty is, let alone why we fight. When we get to the battlefield
The last time I saw an enemy, I naturally wanted that lookout... that..."
"Invincible!" someone next to him interrupted.
It turns out that they are all soldiers. Why do they look like bandits? Zhang Jian couldn't help but secretly nodded. He wanted his soldiers to read and write. The master of the Lin family is naturally very knowledgeable. "I'm afraid it will be very hard for you to learn to read?"
"Of course, you bastard, it's better to ask us to run laps around the school grounds with a stone lock every day!" When he first entered the door, the scarred man seemed to have met a close friend, and he was finally able to relax and feel stuffy in his chest.
"But military law is ruthless. If you can't read ten words every day, the young master will ask someone to push him down to the ground and beat him..." Another big man said smoothly with a grimace, consciously making a mistake, and immediately stopped, with a very funny look on his face.
Zhang Jian smiled unconsciously, and suddenly realized that these fierce-looking soldiers looked very simple and amiable, a hundred times, a thousand times more lovable than the cunning businessmen who were full of rumors and dishonest. He felt much happier in his heart, but when he saw
A bearded man hurriedly walked out of the inner courtyard, came to him and bowed deeply, "It turns out to be Mr. Zhang Jizhi of Nantong. I don't know that Mr. Zhang is coming, so please don't be surprised if you can't come far to greet him! Xiao Ke's real name is Li, and he is the housekeeper of the Lin Mansion. Unfortunately, his family
The master is not here, please speak inside the room."
"Your master is not here either?" Zhang Jian asked.
The big man surnamed Li was stunned, and then he said: "My old master has passed away a long time ago. My mistress has lived in Xiamen for a long time. The young master has always been in charge of the family business. If you have anything important to do, sir, please allow me to convey it to you."
Zhang Jian didn't expect that Lin Shuo was in charge of Lin Jianuo's big family business. Why did he always feel that this son had extraordinary momentum when he talked? It turned out that it was naturally revealed by someone who had been in a position of power for a long time. He thought about it, and now he did
Some were desperate, so they wrote a letter to inform them of their current predicament and see if Lin Shuo could lend a helping hand.
After leaving Lin's house with a little disappointment, Zhang Jian found that it was difficult for him to live and travel, so he had to find his friend Wang Kangnian in "Shenbao" and asked him to place an advertisement in the newspaper: Nantong champion Zhang Jizhi set up a stall on Sima Road for three days.
This is a rare opportunity, don't miss it!
He set up a stall on the roadside for three days, and fortunately relied on his reputation as the Number One Scholar to earn a hundred and ten taels of silver. Then he collected the travel expenses and returned to Nantong. Only he knew the hardships and hardships.
Lin Shuo is currently in Caishiji within the territory of Tu.
As soon as Liu Kun, the governor of Liangjiang, gave the Lin family permission to purchase land and cultivate land in Liangjiang, Lin Shuo volunteered to take on the responsibility of relocating volunteers from Taiwan. Who would have thought that he had brought this on himself.
Lin Shuo first purchased lakeside beach land in Yixing, Changxing and other places on the west coast of Taihu Lake to reclaim land from the lake. Later, he turned his attention to southern Anhui. The Ning-Wu metallogenic belt is rich in iron, copper and other metal minerals. This was a junior high school textbook in later generations.
The basic knowledge that everyone should know when studying national geography here, but before the end of the Qing Dynasty, due to the lack of arable land, it was a poor area in the south of the Yangtze River, and most of the mountains and forests were in a state of neglect. Lin Shuo found that most of the barren mountains here only cost 200 to 300.
When I could buy it for just two silver dollars, I immediately felt as excited as if I had found a treasure chest.
Most of the mountainous areas in Wuhu, Xuanzhou and Huizhou originally had tea gardens. However, since the Tongguang period, tea trees were planted in large quantities in India, Ceylon and other places. Tea exports, one of China's bulk export products, began to stagnate and decline. By the time of the Sino-Japanese War of 1884-1894
, China’s tea exports are already less than 60% of what they were ten years ago.
Exports dropped sharply and prices fell, which caused great damage to tea production. The bankruptcy of tea farmers also caused a large number of mountain tea gardens to be abandoned.
Over the past few years, Lin Shuo actually purchased tens of thousands of hectares of barren mountain forest land, reopened the previously abandoned tea gardens, mulberry gardens, etc., and began to artificially plant tung trees, camphor trees and other economic trees in most places, although they have not yet been produced.
What benefits are there, but in a few years, these trees will be ready for harvest.
Lin Shuo generally has an overall plan for his own development. Judging from the current situation, domestic trade is exploited by various exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, coupled with inconvenient transportation, transportation costs remain high. In addition, ordinary people have not yet solved the problem of food and clothing, and their purchasing power is very low.
It is limited, and doing business in this area requires taking great risks.
In the future, the focus will still be on import and export trade. The export products are mainly agricultural, forestry, animal husbandry and other primary agricultural and livestock products. Among them, raw silk, tea, tung oil and fur are the largest products. Raw silk trade has always been
It was only after the popularity of rayon in the 1920s that it began to gradually decline. Before that, it had been on an upward trend.
Tea was originally China's largest export commodity, accounting for more than 90% of the world's tea trade at its peak. In the 1880s, China's tea exports began to decline significantly. By the 1920s,
, China's tea exports already account for less than 15% of the world's tea trade volume. If we do not strictly manage product quality and introduce advanced foreign production methods, it will be difficult to reverse this trend.
Livestock products, one of the other bulk export commodities, are mainly produced in northern pastoral areas, so Lin Shuo has no plans in this regard for the time being.
Tobacco, as an important economic crop, is also within Lin Shuo's consideration.
Lin Shuo first started a tea shop. After all, the tea gardens he purchased were placed there. However, business in this area was indeed not easy. Fortunately, the Lin family had maintained business contacts with foreign companies and continued to engage in the camphor business in Fujian. Relying on this aspect of
Relationship, the teahouse run by Lin Shuo can generally still make a little profit.
The barren forest land purchased by Lin Shuo also includes a large number of mulberry orchards, but most of these mulberry orchards have been abandoned for a long time. It will take at least four or five years to sort them out. The annual silkworm cocoon output is very limited, but he has already started to make silk.
Silkworm business, but there are a lot of various taxes and fees involved, and sometimes you have to rely on Dongjun's relationship with the Yangtze River to inspect illegal salt smuggling and tax evasion to make more money. Generally speaking, making raw silk is relatively easy.
In fact, the fundamental foundation of business lies in controlling production costs. Only by truly controlling the channels of production and marketing can we obtain stable returns. For a country like China that mainly exports household products, only by truly increasing investment in agriculture and strengthening scientific
Only through the introduction of technology can we maintain our share in international trade.
It's a pity that few people in this era can truly realize this.
Lin Shuo is now expanding the planting of mulberry gardens on the one hand, and on the other hand training personnel to learn advanced sericulture and silk reeling industrial technologies to prepare for future development.
After returning to Shanghai from his inspection tour of Taihu Lake and Southern Anhui, Lin Shuo saw the letter left by Zhang Jian and immediately took a boat to Nantong. The initial development of Dasheng Cotton Mill in his memory was very amazing. Lin Shuo certainly did not want to miss this opportunity. On the other hand,
, Lin Shuo also wanted to use Zhang Jian’s personal connections to pave the way for his future development.
So he didn't even think much about it. Not many people will be grateful to you for the icing on the cake, but it's different for you to provide help in times of need.
When the banknote of 160,000 taels was placed in front of Zhang Jian, Zhang Jian, who was so anxious about the funds that he almost jumped into the river, was so moved that he shed two rows of tears.
Lin Shuo's request was very simple. He only wanted 40% of the shares of Dasheng Cotton Mill, and the remaining part would be regarded as a share of the shares given to Zhang Jian. His proposal was supported by the other shareholders of the mill.
Thanks to Lin Shuo's investment, Dasheng Cotton Mill began to officially ignite and debug the boiler in January 1899, and began trial operation before the New Year, which was more than two months earlier than in the history of another world.
The machine began to operate normally, and Zhang Jian finally breathed a sigh of relief. On the side, Lin Shuo looked at the steam engines that were steaming with white steam, but Bili was very disapproving. In this era, electric motors have begun to be used in the West, right?
And internal combustion engines have also been installed in cars, but we are still too far behind!