As for the government, the reasoning is the same. Since the Senate actually controls most of the salt fields in Guangdong, the supply of official salt still depends on the Senate. As long as the Senate cuts off the supply of salt, the government will also have to surrender since they are unable to defend the salt fields.
, we can only accept the conditions of the Senate.
"In this case, how about we directly contract all the official salt sales in Guangdong and become the tax collector?" Guo Yi suggested, "In this way, all the salt affairs will be controlled in our hands. We ourselves are the official salt."
"Now is not the time," Skade shook his head. "We are not strong enough to cover the sky with one hand in Guangdong. Daming's salt monopoly already has a large vested interest group. We cover taxes, or we have to bear everything that the interest groups here want.
The advantage is to kick them away completely."
The former costs too much; the latter will only attract too many enemies to itself without sufficient control. At present, the Senate's basic policy towards Guangdong is still based on stability.
Si Kaide has already identified a person to act as an agent for their new business. This person is Xuwen's salt merchant who was the first to do business with the Senate: Liu Gang.
Liu Gang has been selling Si salt in Leizhou for a long time. He is only a middle-class household among the local Si salt dealers. He has always had contacts with Yanchang Village until the Gou family occupied Yanchang Village. This channel was cut off. Since Yanchang Village was returned to the Australians
, he established a relationship with the elders, and by selling "Lingao Salt" with excellent quality, Liu Gang made a fortune and became a major salt dealer in Leizhou area.
Although he made a fortune relying on the Senate, the relationship between him and the Senate was relatively estranged. The Senate had never cultivated him as a key customer in the past, and the two parties only had a simple buying and selling relationship. He had a relationship with many people.
The merchants who come to Lingao to sell goods are no different.
The reason why Liu Gang was not "cultivated" was not because of the deliberate alienation of the Ministry of Colonial Trade. It was mainly due to the fact that si salt trafficking was a very complicated matter that required an extremely complex network of relationships. si salt trafficking had a significant role in Chinese history.
For a long time, it has been a gray social phenomenon that is intertwined with black and white. The entangled and complex relationship between the government, salt merchants, and salt dealers is far beyond the ability of research monographs and papers to understand.
In order to avoid the trouble of reintegration, the Ministry of Colonization and Trade adopted a marketing strategy of only supplying goods, regardless of channels.
However, it is obviously difficult to increase profits under this model. Liu Gang's own strength is not enough and he cannot expand into a broad enough space under the complex si salt sales network.
Skade was also about to create new sources of income from the salt industry, and the two parties hit it off immediately. They decided to cooperate to expand the sales network to the entire Guangdong, Guangxi and Fujian.
The only person who expressed dissent was the Ma Niao Salt Industry Association, which said that with the current labor situation, it would be difficult for them to "increase production to serve the country" in such a large way. Unless more support is given: from manpower to equipment, rather than adding more salt fields
Take it under its control. For the salt industry consortium, they already have enough salt fields, so many that they cannot produce efficiently.
Even with low-efficiency production and even with the suspension of the new salt field development plan in Yinggehai, there are almost enough sea salt stocks for 12 months in various salt warehouses and salt fields along the Qiongzhou Strait under the control of the Planning Institute: for chemical industry
This includes food and food. Skade is making a fuss about this and believes that the inventory can be reduced to within six months.
For this reason, Liu Gang has moved his family, his employees, and all the wealth he gained from the salt industry to Guangzhou to prepare for a big fight.
Although Liu Gang has not had in-depth cooperation with the Senate in the past, he is in Xuwen and has a clear understanding of the strength of the Australians. He also knows that the Australians have great intentions. Seeing that their power is getting stronger and stronger, he can now
Becoming a partner of the Australians will bring immeasurable future "money prospects". Therefore, he is very motivated. In fact, Skade's Colonial and Trade Department did not invest even a penny. All the initial infrastructure investment was made by Liu Gang.
.
Guo Yi listened to his introduction silently. Obviously, this Liu Gang was one of the commercial compradors he would command in the future. Perhaps it can be called a comprador in the new era. If we talk about exaltation, a foreign businessman like Li Luoyou would be a "comprador".
"The *xing is even stronger. Then compradors like Sun Kecheng and Liu Gang are purely dependent. Their industries are independent in name, but in fact every move is under the control of the Senate.
"This is the personal information of Boss Liu." Si Kaide opened his password briefcase and took out a document bag.
Guo Yi looked at this person's information. A strong man in his thirties: The face in the photo is obviously murderous. It is not easy to be a salt seller. There is an old mother in the family who only knows how to eat fast and chant Buddha. His wife, Mrs. Zheng,
His second son, Liu Xiaoguan. There is also a list and brief introduction of his servants and assistants at the back.
"Now his mother and son are in Xuwen and are under our direct control." Si Kaide said, "We did not ask him to move his son and mother to Lingao. Anyway, Xuwen is almost our world now.
"Speaking of Leizhou, has the Tang Monk Plan been launched?" Guo Yi suddenly thought of this once very popular plan.
"It won't be officially implemented until next year." As a member of the executive committee, Skade has a clear grasp of the progress of this secret. He lowered his voice and said, "I heard that the people from the intelligence office are already being trained and are naturalized.
civil."
"But I don't think it makes much sense..." Guo Yi's thoughts represent the attitude of many veterans who were once very enthusiastic about this. Now Leizhou is under the full radiation of Lingao. Xuwen and Haikang counties are under constant influence.
Gradually "Qiongzhouization". The Senate's control over the entire Leizhou Peninsula is increasing.
"That's right, but it's not a bad choice to directly control an official. Since we have already established a relationship with Fushe and have a relationship with the artillery expert, why should we just limit him to Leizhou? He can be transferred to other places."
You may not know when it will be used," Skade said. "Even if it is not used, our investment will not be large."
Guo Yi expressed his "sincere admiration" for the executive committee's far-sightedness. Skade smiled and said: "Don't flatter me. Let's talk about the food problem in Guangdong."
Guo Yi reported on the current situation of food collection in Guangdong.
Guangdong was still a grain-exporting province in the late Ming Dynasty, and a considerable amount of commercial grain was exported to Fujian every year. Fujian has long been a food-deficient province. However, due to the widespread planting of cash crops, the grain self-sufficiency rate has dropped a lot.
However, to raise food, Guangdong is still the most convenient source of goods for the Senate. The food collected from the Pearl River Delta and surrounding areas is transported to the Hong Kong base for processing, and there are convenient waterways that can be used.
The Planning Institute, the Ministry of Colonial Trade, the Council of Agriculture and the Foreign Intelligence Service jointly set up a special grain working group in Guangdong, and the Guangzhou Station took the lead in implementing it. One of Guo Yi's recent main tasks is to work on grain.
Collecting grain is not purchased with cash. According to the demand for grain from the Chuanchuan Group, it is impossible to collect such a large amount of money. Moreover, purchasing grain on such a scale will also cause the price of grain in Guangdong to skyrocket.
The way the food working group collects food locally is by "grain collection" or in other words: by collecting "reasonable burdens".
After the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary, the reputation of the Fubo Army was already well-known in the Pearl River Delta. During its raids, every town and town it passed through was extorted with a "reasonable burden." The "reasonable burden" was not a one-time extortion, but a long-term "taxation".
"The person responsible for the collection is Guo Yi's Guangzhou Station.
Although the ambush troops had retreated, it was a fact known to everyone that the warships of the Kun thieves were cruising in the waters of the Pearl River Estuary.
The Guangzhou branch of Dachang Rice Co., Ltd. is now the tax authority of the Senate in Guangzhou. After receiving the "notice" secretly sent by Lin Baiguang's intelligence officers, each township will pay the approved "reasonable burden" before the specified time.
"Pay the full amount to the rice bank."
Not only rice is collected, but also miscellaneous grains, cash crops and raw silk. You can also pay money to Delong Guangzhou Branch to collect it on your behalf.
It depends on local conditions.
In addition, in the small and large towns along the Pearl River that had been conquered and swept by the Fubo army, a rent store appeared to collect rent from the land deeds and lease titles of the gentry and landlords who were eliminated in the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary.
The so-called rent collection agency is a rent collection agency. It was very developed in the Qing Dynasty and was also called "Tian Dian". Generally speaking, small and medium-sized landowners or urban landowners have limited local power and not much land, so they encounter strong tenants in rural areas to collect rent.
, often failed to collect rent or received discounts on rent. As a result, an industry gradually emerged: powerful local people who had collusion with the government set up rental stores to specifically undertake rent collection matters for landlords, and collected a small amount of handling fees from them.
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This approach is similar to the "collection of households" in paying taxes, except that it is targeted at tenants rather than the government.
The emergence of renting houses facilitated small and medium-sized landowners, and it became increasingly popular after the mid-Qing Dynasty. Gradually, it even took over the role of agent for all land leasing, taxation and even buying and selling matters. On the contrary, the landlords themselves could no longer intervene and could only collect land rent.
As for the tenants, they only know that their land belongs to a certain farm, but they do not know the name of their landlord.
This time, the grain working group made the rental warehouse appear in the time and space of the Ming Dynasty in advance. After intensive preparations, a number of old "grain merchants" drawn from various counties in Hainan arrived one after another. With these grain merchants as the backbone of the business,
Together with some other naturalized residents, a "Wan/Sheng/Hao" rental company was formed to comprehensively manage this land.
The owner of the land was all changed to "Yuan Laoyuan", and it was actually managed by the Planning Institute. The address was Bairen Village, Lingao, Qiongzhou Prefecture. It was exactly when Lingao created an administrative village for the people who crossed the border.