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Chapter 538 Shipyard Town

As the saying goes, when you are full and warm, you will think about lust. Nanjing has the Qinhuai River, and Suzhou has Huajie and Liuxiang. In the prosperous Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, the entertainment industry is very developed. Although there are no literati in the shipyard, there are many young craftsmen who earn high wages but whose families are not around, and there are also black-clad troops who come from time to time on large ships.

Less than a year later, a more luxurious building was built opposite Guanhai Tower, called Wangfan Tower. As the name suggests, you can see the shadow of sails on the river from the third floor.

Not only does it have a beautiful meaning, whenever they see black sails flashing on the river, the girls in the building immediately clean up, put on their best dresses, put on their most exquisite jewelry, and lie down behind the railings and windows , waiting for those sailors with dark faces, dark clothes, and accents speaking in southern and northern accents to come out of the factory gate.

There is an unwritten business rule in the living quarters of the shipyard. If you want to know whether the customers' pockets are full of money, don't talk about poetry, don't ask about knowledge, don't ask where you are an official, just look at who His skin is dark and shiny, and he is very confident. If the other person is still wearing black clothes, it's a sure thing.

In just three or four years, the scale of Songjiang Shipyard has expanded four to five times. There are five dry slips capable of building large-scale ships of all materials. There are more than 4,000 craftsmen in the factory. Counting the Jinyi guards and naval officers and soldiers on duty, more than There were five thousand people.

But compared with the living area, the growth rate of the shipyard is nothing to mention. The original big shed is still there, but you can't see it if you don't look carefully. Instead, there are rows of carved buildings and painted buildings on both sides of the street, each one more beautifully decorated than the other, and each one more grand than the other.

If it weren't for the shipyard's regulations that no house could exceed four feet within one mile, some people would dare to build the street facade into a tower, hang up huge red lanterns as soon as it gets dark, light huge calf-thick wax, and even An expensive sesame oil, I just want one word, bright!

Although restaurants, teahouses, brothels and inns have different names, the business they do is basically the same. It provides one-stop services for eating, drinking and relaxing, but there are no casinos or pawn shops.

Someone once drove by secretly in private, but instead of guests, they were greeted by black-clad troops. The Jin Yiwei were already very bluffing, but the black army was even more ruthless than the Jin Yiwei. The arrested people did not even say hello to the local government, and they did not tell them where they had been arrested or whether they were dead or alive. If they wanted to ask, they went to the Navy Governor.

It’s not like no one has looked for him. The person who opened the casino was a member of a big local family. The place was raided by the black-clad army and he still didn’t believe it. He actually went to Tianjin Guard in a canoe. He knelt down at the gate of the Navy Governor’s Yamen with a writ of paper and shouted: Chongtianqu arose.

As a result, I actually met the Navy Governor Yuan Keli, but the life and death of his family members were still not revealed. Yuan Keli said that setting up a private casino within the naval jurisdiction violated military regulations. According to naval regulations, prisoners must serve hard labor until death. It is impossible to tell where exactly it is. It is all military secrets. Unless the emperor orders it, it will be the same to anyone who asks.

Eight years after arriving in Jingyang, another large-scale factory broke ground in Shanghai County, Songjiang Spinning Factory. The happiest people were not the shareholders of the spinning mill, nor the county magistrate of Shanghai County, but the merchants who opened shops in the living area of ​​Songjiang Shipyard.

Just one shipyard has given them a good return on their investment, and with the addition of a spinning mill not far away with a larger number of workers, the future must be infinitely brighter.

What we need to think about now is not when the spinning mill will be built, but how much money we have in our pockets, and how quickly we can go to the streets to find shop space to expand our business scale. Otherwise, when more businessmen come over smelling the smell, they won’t be able to eat fat meat. As a result, before the expansion project was completed, another piece of good news followed. With a stroke of his pen, the emperor cut off half of the canal water transport share and gave it all to the newly established Maritime Governor's Office. The shipping office is located at the mouth of the Huangpu River, and the shipping terminal and warehouse area are only separated from the Songjiang Shipyard by a small river.

Water transport! Since the excavation of the Grand Canal, in all dynasties, as long as these two words are on the side, it means great wealth. Even if you don’t read a single history book, is it possible that you still can’t see how places like Suzhou and Hangzhou became prosperous?
Putting aside all the ingenuity and outstanding people, if there is no Grand Canal and no water transportation, no matter how clever the hands are, no matter how smart the person is, can he carry a silk embroidered folding fan to the capital and sell it? So, for a place to be prosperous, the prerequisite is not people, but access, access to transportation.

Songjiang Mansion is one hundred and seventy miles away from the Grand Canal. It can't be said that it can't borrow money, but it can't eat hot food either. But the shipping terminal is different. It's really right at the doorstep of my home, and it couldn't be any closer.

Whether they can promote the development of the local handicraft industry is a matter for the government and the county magistrate. Whether they can make money by taking advantage of the first-come-first-serve advantage of being near the water is the responsibility of the local businessmen.

The businessmen of Songjiang Prefecture have proved with practical actions that their vision is no worse than that of businessmen anywhere. The dock and warehouse area have not yet been built, and the gravel road at the entrance of the shipyard has been extended. This time, the shipyard did not have to pay for the repairs. Instead, local businessmen raised money to repair it.

The meaning is very simple. Integrate the dock area and the shipyard into one, so that there is no need to invest again in the dock area. The original facilities in the living area of ​​the shipyard can be directly used to upgrade and transform, which can not only meet the new demand but also reduce the cost. Operating costs, no matter how you calculate the profit, it should be earned by both parties.

The county magistrate of Shanghai County is also a sensible person. Seeing that the small living area is getting bigger and bigger, if he doesn't intervene, he can make a lot of money. But if something goes wrong in the future, Yuan Keli will be able to pat his butt and turn around and refuse to admit it. , all the trouble will fall on his head.

Therefore, at the strong request of the county magistrate, the living area of ​​the shipyard was completely separated from the Shanghai County administration and became completely a part of the shipyard. From then on, everything in the living area was decided by the shipyard manager, and there was no need to pay the so-called land rental fee to Shanghai County.

Shipchang Town, the living area of ​​Songjiang Shipyard has now become a small town. Basically, all the people living in the town provide various life services for the shipyard, spinning mill, and shipping terminal.

Not only catering and entertainment, there are also many handicraft workshops and guilds that specialize in undertaking the business of shipyards and spinning mills, such as contracting the business of decorating ships, and regularly transporting vegetables and meat. There are seven or eight companies manufacturing cables alone, forming a one-stop industry from purchasing raw materials to producing finished products.

Now the total resident population of Shipchang Town exceeds 50,000. After eight years of construction on the formerly barren river beach, the government did not spend a penny. The shipyard only built a road and built a greenhouse. It was surprisingly built by businessmen. The thriving town, although still rough and messy, is full of vitality.

(End of this chapter)