But the most important thing is to prepare funds for the upcoming raw silk season.
In fact, the raw silk business has nothing to do with the business of the China Merchants Bureau. Zhao Yingong is taking advantage of the boom in trade with Japan to make money - the raw silk business is extremely costly, and he cannot do it alone with the little capital he has.
Now that the Ministry of Colonization and Trade has opened up the main trade routes to Japan and Southeast Asia, the conditions for Lingao's trading company to export raw silk on a large scale are ripe. Skade sent telegrams many times asking Zhao Yingong about the raw silk stocking situation: They and the Dutch
There is a contract. Although Guangdong also produces silk, the quality and output cannot be compared with Jiangsu and Zhejiang. The supply must be replenished from Hangzhou.
In the past, they mainly purchased raw silk from Jiangsu and Zhejiang from Jiangnan through agents in Guangdong. Since going through agents inevitably requires peeling off a layer of skin, Si Kaide is now eager to have his own people join this channel.
Raw silk was China's largest export commodity from the 17th century to the early 20th century. The industrialization process promoted by the Senate was getting faster and faster, the scale of investment continued to expand, and the dependence on imported funds and raw materials also deepened. These gaps are to a large extent
We have to rely on raw silk exports to make up for it.
However, Zhao Yingong is very cautious about directly intervening in the raw silk business. Raw silk is a large industrial chain in Jiangnan, and countless people in the upstream and downstream rely on it to make a living. If it affects the whole body, it may be the second Leizhou Sugar War.
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The gentry in the south of the Yangtze River was extremely powerful, and there were Jin gentry everywhere. Although he had established certain connections with them through the Catholic system and the Fushe Group that had wooed Zhang Pu, once his raw silk business touched their interests, it would inevitably cause problems.
Strong backlash. This is not Leizhou where the special reconnaissance team arrives at noon. Once hostile forces counterattack, Zhao Yingong, a small Guangdong scholar, will die without a burial place anytime and anywhere.
Now is not the time for a showdown with Jiangnan Jinsheng. There are things to deal with on all sides of Lingao, especially Guangdong penetration. Therefore, he can only operate in a relatively low-key manner in Jiangnan.
Zhao Yingong could only intervene in the raw silk business according to the idea of checking the softness of persimmons, starting with the silk reeling.
Most of the sericulture families in Jiangsu and Zhejiang combine production and sales. Most of them raise silkworms at home and make silk at home. The procedures for making silk by native methods are extremely cumbersome. Zhao Yingong once asked Wang Si’s mother and daughter to show him the actual operation. From cooking
The cocoon begins, then reeling, and then "twisting" and "beating". It is also sent to a special workshop for refining and dyeing, and the weft is twisted into warp. There are also "dropping" and "pulling".
There are names such as "warp" and "joint" at the end. At this point, it becomes raw silk that can be woven into silk.
Not only are the procedures cumbersome, each link consumes a lot of labor. The efficiency is pitifully low, and the quality of the finished products is not high. It has no advantages compared to semi-mechanized or mechanized silk reeling factories.
If a semi-mechanized silk reeling operation is adopted, the cocoons go in from one end of the machine and the silk comes out from the other end. It is directly usable raw silk, and there is no need for "beating the silk" or "pulling the warp". All workshops in this industry will have to close down.
, needless to say, all craftsmen will be unemployed. What is even more serious is that in rural areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, almost every household has a spinning wheel for reeling silk, and women regardless of age. Most of them rely on this as a side job to supplement their family income. If this spinning wheel once becomes waste
, there will really be a scene of "silk eating people". Zhao Yingong can also imagine the consequences that will follow: it will really be a tragedy.
However, because most of the employees in the silk reeling industry are from poor families, although there are many people, they cannot make a strong voice. Touching their interests is the least risky thing. Even if there are some trends, the gentry group only cares about immediate profits. He doesn't care, and the pressure he faces is relatively small. After these people lose their jobs, they will naturally become reserve workers for the new silk reeling and textile enterprise he plans to open.
He is now raising business shares for China Merchants Group, and he also has the intention of expanding common interest groups. After all, once a large-scale "civil uprising" occurs, it is not so easy to suppress it. If there is no gentry as a protective umbrella, it can easily be exploited. Make a fuss.
In the confidential folder on his desk was the approval from the Finance Directorate and the Planning Institute that he had just received yesterday: the share quota plan he proposed for China Merchants Group had been approved.
The total share capital of the planned China Merchants Group is set at 200,000 taels, with Zhao Yingong himself as the nominal investor, holding 51% of the shares. Of the other 98,000 taels of share capital, the Shen Tingyang family plans to sell ten sand ships for 40,000 taels. Eight thousand taels of shares were invested, accounting for 24%, and the remaining 25% of the shares were priced at 50,000 taels and raised from the gentry.
Zhao Yingong's so-called 51% investment is actually fictitious money. The only funds he can use now are the 20,000 taels of silver that Delong recently transferred to him. The profits from this trade with Japan are indeed considerable, but he has no right to use them on his own. He was very satisfied if the Finance Director's Department could allocate him 20,000 taels.
Regardless of the fact that the Senate’s biggest feeling for naturalized people and indigenous people is that they are “rich”, in fact the Senate’s funds are very tight. If it weren’t for the Senate’s efficiency in fund use and scheduling that far surpasses this era, the capital chain would be It has long since broken.
Although Zhao Yingong is the person in charge of the Jiangnan region, the seemingly majestic ACE sub-group actually has limited resources from Lingao. Not only can they not get many resources, but they also have to provide blood transfusions to the family as soon as possible.
In this way, the 50,000 taels of equity capital raised will be crucial to the operation of the new enterprise. Especially if he wants to acquire Cocoon next, he will need a large amount of capital injection.
These days, Mao Sansheng and other shopkeepers are out running for him. He himself also personally visited some gentry and big investors in Hangzhou. The stock offering went very smoothly. This Japanese trade trip made many big investors jealous. Shen Tingyang also Special letters were sent to him, asking him to retain a certain share - there were many people secretly asking him to buy shares.
Raising shares was much easier than he expected. Not only had the first phase of 50,000 taels of silver been roughly raised, but it was also easy to raise another 50,000 taels.
But things are not that simple. As a modern silk reeling factory, only silkworm cocoons are needed. Silkworm farmers have worked hard to raise silkworms, but most of them are unwilling to sell the cocoons - this profit is too low. In medieval agriculture In society, the value of labor is very low, and it is a common phenomenon to use a large amount of labor in exchange for negligible cash returns. Sericulture households in Jiangsu and Zhejiang generally make their own silk and sell it, forming a large-scale rural sideline labor.
If most silkworm farmers are unwilling to sell silkworm cocoons, Zhao Yingong's silk reeling factory, which is currently under construction in full swing, will fall into the dilemma of having no rice to cook. This is also what he is most worried about.
In addition, he has a second worry. He cannot directly get his hands on the small amount of directly sold cocoons - he does not have a "ministry license" from the silk cocoon trade, so he cannot purchase cocoons directly from farmers.
You can only buy from the silk cocoon shop, and the silk cocoon shop is a monopoly trade guild, with a style of buying and selling dead people. Completely considering maximizing his own profit, he, an outsider, wanted to buy enough cocoons from them.
It is impossible not to be exploited by them - it is nothing more than exploitation. Considering that the operating cost of the silk reeling factory is very low, a slightly higher price is acceptable. But once the silk reeling factory is started, as long as an individual can understand that it will continue
The importance of sexual supply of cocoons. Considering the style of businessmen at that time, it was impossible not to take the opportunity to blackmail.
How to ensure the safety of the supply of silkworm cocoons has always been the focus of Zhao Yingong's consideration. In the old time and space,
The most direct solution is, of course, to directly purchase a cocoon shop or find connections to get a "ministerial note" from the Ministry of Household Affairs and open the door to buy cocoons yourself.
However, in this case, they are bound to be constrained by the trade guilds. Judging from the information they have obtained, the silk cocoon trade guilds have unified prices for the purchase and wholesale prices of cocoons and raw silk, which will have a great impact on their own business activities.
If this is ignored, I am afraid that it will not exist in this guild at all. Zhao Yingong has fully studied all the things that the Leizhou Sugar Factory encountered in Leizhou.
After careful consideration, Zhao Yingong decided to start from scratch and control the production of silkworm cocoons directly from the place of production. To be precise, it was a small producer cooperative model similar to Leizhou Rural Cooperative.
Like sugarcane production, silkworm cocoon production also requires credit. Except for a few wealthy households, ordinary silkworm farmers generally need credit in the process of raising silkworms: purchasing silkworm seeds and mulberry leaves are large investments. The cost and interest of borrowing are good
For sericulture farmers, it is an essential and extremely heavy expense. It is also very risky: once a large-scale silkworm disease occurs, the sericulture farmers who borrow money to raise sericulture will lose their money. Wang Si's family is an example.
Zhao Yingong feels that as long as he can provide small loans with low interest rates, he can attract a considerable number of silkworm farmers. As long as he has debts, he will not be afraid of losing control of the silkworm farmers' production and products. At that time, technological improvements and industrialized breeding will be implemented.
It's a matter of course.
Once the cooperative succeeds, his "Phoenix Mountain Silk Industry Union" will be a one-stop complex of production and marketing, with all channels from raw materials to sales. In the long run, it will definitely form a demonstration effect and attract more farmers to join the cooperative.
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In this way, the role of financial institutions such as banks has become more prominent. This kind of small loan business still needs to be operated by professional institutions. Thinking of this, he couldn't help but think of the Hangzhou banking industry that Mao Sansheng reported to him a few days ago.
Situation. Among them, it is mentioned that the silk cocoon industry went to the countryside to acquire, and often relied on loans from the banking industry - otherwise it was not enough to pay for the acquisition cash. In the old time and space, Hu Xueyan once controlled the raw silk export trade very successfully, and he owned a bank at that time and mobilized funds