In the history of Guan Ning's army's logistics supply, there was a phenomenon that once attracted Zhao Yingong's attention, and that was Guan Ning's obsession with cash.
As an armed group with more than 100,000 soldiers and civilians, food is a priority in supply. However, in terms of specific transportation and supplies, it is not uncommon for food to be transported in different colors, and there is a phenomenon of attaching more importance to silver than food.
The biggest advantage of transporting less grain and more silver is to reduce transportation costs. Transporting silver is much cheaper than transporting grain of the same value. After the silver is transported, purchasing grain locally will invigorate the local area from a modern perspective. market, stimulating local economic development.
But when it comes to Guan Ningjun, this is simply a bad idea.
The Guanning Army was located in the bitterly cold Liaodong. After the Ming Dynasty lost Shenyang, what it actually retained was a series of camp corridors from Jinzhou to Shanhaiguan. Although military households continued to farm, the frost-free period in Liaodong lasted only less than two months. Under the harsh climate environment, its own food self-sufficiency rate is very low. It relies on the food supply within the customs.
Under such circumstances, transporting a large amount of silver for local transfer is tantamount to artificially creating inflation. Since it is impossible for Liaodong to supply enough grain, it can only rely on grain shipped from merchants in the pass as a supplement. The grain in the pass After traveling thousands of miles, traveling across mountains and rivers, and being exploited all the way to Liaodong, high freight costs and losses were added to the price of the grain.
Originally, the local currency stock was too much, and the grain imported at a large cost could not meet the needs. Therefore, Guanning Town fell into a kind of inflation, and the price of each stone was as high as more than ten taels. Or even more than twenty taels.
Such a high price is an extremely heavy price for local ordinary soldiers, military households and people. Although on the surface every regular soldier has a monthly salary of three to four taels of silver, in fact except for a few elite servants, Outside of soldiers, most people rarely receive their pay on time and in the right amount. Even if all the money they get is used to buy food, they can hardly make ends meet and can only barely survive.
But this kind of red expansion is the best environment for the generals who control the distribution of resources to make a fortune. By embezzling military pay and grain sales, Guan Ning's generals accumulated wealth that their predecessors could not imagine.
Zhao Yingong believes that to solve the problem, we must make a fuss about food.
"In my opinion, we still have to transport rice. The price of grain in Liaodong is extremely high, so we have to transport 50,000 shi of rice. Even if we can buy it for three liang and one shi, we can at least double the profit by selling it! After delivery, It’s more than enough to drop the fees.”
Shen Tingyang's eyes lit up. Then he shook his head: "How can there be room for such calmness! Not to mention that it takes a lot of effort to raise 50,000 shi of grain. To transport it to Liaodong, it is not easy to find someone to buy the 50,000 shi of grain. Easy thing——"
Even based on the price of six taels of silver per stone, the total price of this batch of grain was three hundred thousand taels. Shen Tingyang really couldn't imagine that anyone could afford such a huge sum of money to buy it.
If they are sold piecemeal in batches, it will be very serious if the shipping date is delayed. Although this time is a trial, the deadline is very loose, but the time is too long, and there is no guarantee that General Guan Ning will use this as an excuse. Deliberately making things difficult to extort additional benefits.
"This is not difficult. I guarantee that someone can afford the money to buy it." Zhao Yingong was very sure.
Shen Tingyang looked at him with suspicion. Although everyone knew that Zhao Yingong had a mysterious background. Not only did he have a strong sense of being a "thief", but he might also have a powerful official in Guangdong behind him. But he could actually regard everyone as The business situation in Liaodong, which is afraid of the road, is so sure that it makes people suspicious.
But Zhao Yingong is so confident, and he is not a big talker - after experiencing the last trade with Japan, Zhao Yingong's credibility in the Jiangnan business circle is very good, so he will not use big words to deceive him.
Shen Tingyang thought for a while and said immediately: "In this case, Brother Lao Xian must be involved. Brother Lao Xian means that the China Merchants Bureau will come forward to handle this transportation matter."
Zhao Yingong immediately understood what he meant: Shen Tingyang's family owns a large ship, and they don't need many sand ships to go to Liaodong. There is no need to let the joint venture investment promotion bureau do it. Shen Tingyang was testing him - if Zhao Yingong was saying He must be telling lies, and he would never dare to take risks with China Merchants Group, his "own daughter". If he dares to take it, it means that he is confident enough in this method.
Zhao Yingong looked "surprised" and hurriedly expressed that this was inappropriate.
"There is absolutely no such truth," Zhao Yingong shook his head repeatedly, "This is Brother Shen's career."
"If anything, China Merchants Group also has shares in Brother Yu."
"In this case, I will obey your order." Zhao Yingong no longer refused, because he wanted to get involved in this transaction.
When Shen Tingyang saw that he didn't refuse, knowing that he was definitely not bragging, he couldn't help but feel relieved: "It's just that we have to raise 50,000 shi of food. It won't be easy for a while."
The key here is to find a large grain merchant who can supply such a huge amount of grain. The quality of the grain does not have to be good, because the exchange is silver, and the grain is sold on the market. Now in Liaodong, as long as it is grain, Don’t worry about selling
It is difficult to find a grain merchant who can provide 50,000 shi of grain. The scope of grain circulation in this era is very small. Although some grain distribution markets have been formed, the scope of radiation is limited.
Moreover, there were disasters of different sizes in various places in Nanzhi last year, and grain production was greatly reduced. After the grain was delivered by water, the remaining grain stocks in the local area were limited. To raise 50,000 shi of grain, we had to find many grain stores.
With such frequent and large purchases of grain, prices will inevitably rise sharply - the current market is already going up. Moreover, it is difficult to buy all the grain in one place and requires a long period of transportation. Shen Tingyang estimated, Even if I purchase grain from grain merchants all over the South China Sea through commercial networks, the average cost of shipping each stone of grain when I finally arrive in Shanghai will probably exceed three taels.
"It's not that busy." Zhao Yingong said calmly, "I'm here to help find a solution for the food. But I still have to get the silver as soon as possible. I have to ask Brother Ji Ming to run around for this matter."
This kind of silver is not so easy to come by. Every procedure involves expenses. Zhao Yingong still understands this truth very well - even in the old time of democracy and rule of law, in business cooperation, Party B's checkout to Party A was indispensable with embellishments, not to mention This is an era where bad rules are brought to the fore.
"This is what it's meant to be."
Zhao Yingong immediately got busy. There were ready-made merchants in Liaodong: Li Luoyou's Liaohai Bank had both strength and sales network. It would not be a problem for his firm to buy the 50,000 shi of grain.
Although the price sold to Li Luoyou cannot be too high, the price of one stone and six taels is still no problem. He does not have to pay the full amount of 300,000 taels in cash. He only needs to pay 100,000 taels to deliver it to Guanning Town. ——The Foreign Intelligence Bureau learned from the intelligence that the working capital used by Li Luoyou's Liaohai Bank in Liaodong is three to four hundred thousand taels all year round, so it is not a problem to pay one hundred thousand taels in cash. The rest of the money, according to their and Li Luoyou's Due to the exchange agreement between them, the money order can be used to offset the withdrawal at various branches within the customs or directly purchase goods.
In Liaodong, grain is the most sought-after and most profitable commodity. Whether it is sold to the Guan Ning Army, the Dongjiang Army or the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it can be sold at a high price. This depends on the choice of the Liaohai Bank's Liaodong shopkeeper. It's about Zhao Yingong.
There is another consideration of Zhao Yiggong to let Liaohai Bank be a large-scale merchant. Neither the Senate nor Shen Tingyang have much to do with it on the ground in Liaodong. If 50,000 shi of grain is directly transported to Liaodong and sold recklessly, other It is said that there are several merchants in Liaodong who have such strength. If all the food is stolen by the officers and soldiers, they will not be able to get a single penny of silver. There are many merchants in Denglai who are engaged in Liaodong business and go bankrupt because of this.
Li Luoyou has been operating in Liaodong for many years and has a deep foundation. He has deep collusion with local generals and officials. Naturally, the Liaohai Bank under his name has no such concerns - to be honest, only a powerful person like him dares to do so. You can still make a lot of money by doing business on the ground.
What remains is the key question, where does the brown rice come from? The food in Jiangnan is in the stage of scarcity. Large households that have grain in their hands must be reluctant to sell it and wait for a high price. The price of grain will fall back only after the summer grain comes on the market. - Shen Tingyang obviously couldn't wait any longer.
Zhao Yingong's confidence was not as strong as when he promised Shen Tingyang. He originally planned to ship Siamese brown rice from Lingao, and Lingao's Siamese brown rice had a sufficient price advantage. Even if it was shipped to Shanghai, every day The CIF price of stone will not exceed one tael. However, the arrival of Siamese rice is still limited by insufficient transportation capacity and the influx of a large number of immigrants. Until now, Lingao’s grain is still directly controlled by the Planning Institute. First-level control materials for export and distribution. If you want to transport 50,000 dan from Lingao in one go, even if you can earn several times the profit, the Planning Institute will not approve it. Although he has written a report to the Planning Institute, but he I also feel there is little hope.
As for Taiwan and Jeju, although agriculture has been developed to a certain extent, they still have to bear a large amount of refugee transfer work. In addition to Jeju Island barely being self-sufficient, Taiwan's food still needs to be transferred from Lingao, and it is impossible to expect them to transfer food. Moreover, a large amount of the grain reserves in these two places consist of relief rations and potatoes, which may be difficult to realize in Liaodong.
It seems that food has to be found from other places. Zhao Yingong considered several locations. The Li Dynasty of North Korea was a poor country. It would make the Li Dynasty complain with just a few thousand stones of food. It was unrealistic to buy food from them. Although Japan's grain output was considerable according to the standards of the time, what it could export was very limited - grain had never been their export product.
Zhao Yingong thought about it but couldn't come up with any clever ideas. (To be continued, please search Piaotian Literature for better and faster novels!