Late Ming sea owl

Chapter 290 Iron and Coal

The next morning, Lin Hai ordered someone to call Xu Xinlan over and prepared to send him to visit He Rubin, the general of Guangdong.

This was naturally because Li Kuiqi was wreaking havoc in Guangdong. After summoning military advisor Jiang who came to ask for help yesterday, Lin Hai immediately thought of using this opportunity to arrange for the brothers Yang Lu and Yang Ce to serve as officials in Guangdong in order to extend the company's business tentacles in Guangdong Province.

But after thinking about it carefully, Guangdong is still relatively important to the company, and a stronger team must be sent there, so the final decision was to leave Yang Lu in Penghu, and let Xu Xinlan and Yang Ce, one civil and one military, go to Guangdong to form a more comprehensive team.

After all, Qiongzhou's iron ore, Leizhou's sugarcane, and Foshan's craftsmen are all important resources for the company. Moreover, Guangdong is not only a bridgehead for diplomacy with the Portuguese, but also a transit point for communication with the mouth of the Mekong River, and its geographical location is also critical.

Many aspects are involved here, the most important of which is undoubtedly to get through the Guangdong government. The two rough brothers of the Yang family may be difficult to deal with, so Xu Xinlan must be sent over to be able to succeed.

After listening to Lin Hai's intention, Xu Xinlan pondered for a moment and said, "What the general manager means is that the company will send troops to help General He in Guangdong to eliminate Li Kuiqi, on the condition that he sends Xu and Yang Qiyun to Guangdong to serve as officials?"

"Yes, that's the condition, but you can't be so sure... The waters of the Pearl River Estuary are quite wide, and there are not many waterways that can accommodate large ships. If Li Kuiqi is a coward, it will not be easy for us to completely wipe him out. You can just say that the company can send troops to help fight Li Kuiqi."

Lin Hai added: "Besides, keeping Li Kuiqi is not necessarily a bad thing. As long as he is still at the mouth of the Pearl River, Guangdong can only rely on Yang Qi to suppress him. No matter who the imperial court replaces to govern Guangdong, the company's interests in Guangdong can be maintained."

"It's a good idea to support the enemy and protect yourself, General Manager!" Xu Xinlan flattered him and continued, "Since the General Manager doesn't want to wipe out Li Kuiqi, we can lower our conditions and just give Yang Qiyun a Guangdong military attaché. I don't need it."

Lin Hai asked, "Why? Master Xu doesn't want to go to Guangdong?"

"How dare I disobey the order of the General?" Xu Xinlan said, "But I am not interested in being an official of the imperial court. It would be better for me to go to Guangdong as Yang Qi's staff. It would be more convenient for me to move around without an official position."

Xu Xinlan was showing his loyalty to Lin Hai. He was not interested in a position in the imperial court, which meant that he would hang himself on the tree of the company. He had no official title, and the positions he could apply for were either military officers, or ninth-rank or lower-rank civil officials, which Xu himself really did not want.

Lin Hai understood the meaning of the music and smiled, "That's good. Master Xu is very talented. If there are other important positions in the company in the future, it will be easier to transfer without a court official position."

Xu Xinlan was very satisfied with Lin Hai's statement, and then asked: "May I ask where you plan to send Yang Qi to serve as an official?"

"The Chief Seal Officer of Yazhou Qianhu Division." Lin Hai said without hesitation, "This position is necessary, nothing else will do."

"Where is Yazhou?" Xu Xinlan was confused when she heard this. "Why does it have to be this official?"

"It's in the south of Qiongzhou Island, it's a bit remote, and the conditions might be a bit difficult..." Lin Hai gave Xu Xinlan a heads-up in advance, and then said, "As for why we have to go to Yazhou? The reason is very simple, because there are iron mines there, and they are two very large iron mines."

At noon that day, Lin Hai invited Xu Xinlan to have a meal at his home, and then Master Xu went back to prepare and set off for Guangdong early the next morning.

Lin Hai took a short rest after dinner, and then he and Zhu Niang summoned Lun Diyi and Fang Xiu'e to listen to the work report of the preparatory group of the Economic Development Department.

Lun Diyi was the leader of the preparatory group. He brought with him a thick stack of information, which was the draft of various systems for industrial and commercial management, land transfer, commercial tax collection, etc., all bound with cotton thread.

Lin Hai said that he would review and approve these written systems in writing, so Lun Di only gave a brief introduction and then focused on the steps for decentralization of government-owned businesses and the candidates who were interested in acquiring government-owned businesses.

He took a sip of tea to moisten his throat, and then continued, "First, the flower boat business. Most people are interested in it, and the preparatory team also believes that this business does not need to be directly operated by the company..."

Lin Hai interrupted: "What does the Finance Department think about this?"

Lun Diyi said, "The main person in charge of the Finance Department has no objection. Director Chen also said that the Finance Department has too many things to do now and there are not enough people. It would be a good idea to sell the flower boat business."

The flower boat business has always been relatively profitable, but the Finance Department has not been very enthusiastic about doing this. After all, no matter how much money is earned, it belongs to the company, and it is just one more job for them. Moreover, this job is not very outstanding and does not help much in career advancement.

Besides, now that the Second Young Master Chen has married the tigress Shan Lai Di, he probably won't have many opportunities to visit brothels. It won't affect him much if the Finance Department stops caring about brothels.

And this guy is really busy now. He has to shoulder the full-time jobs of both the Finance Department and Sihai Bank. He has approached Lin Hai several times to express that he cannot handle both.

It was just that because these two positions were too critical, Lin Hai had no suitable and trustworthy people at the moment, so he could only let Chen Yaozu take over reluctantly. Lin Hai then asked, "Who is willing to acquire the flower boat business?"

Lun Diyi mentioned a few names, all of whom were old brothers from the early days. They made a fortune through dividends, but now they do not have any important positions in the company.

He went on to say, "These people are willing to withdraw from the company. Some of them don't even want their shares anymore. They want the company to buy them back so that they can have more capital to expand the scale of Huachuan's operations or acquire some other official businesses."

The company's employees are not allowed to work part-time in other industries, nor can they hold shares in other industries. This was stipulated in the company's recent revision of its articles of association. The purpose is to prevent people from abusing their power for personal gain.

However, Lin Hai allows those who start their own business to continue to hold shares in the company in order to motivate employees who hold shares to start their own business. After all, the company's annual dividends are quite generous, and it can be regarded as a stable job that makes money without doing anything.

Despite this, there are still people who want the company to buy back its shares in order to expand their business. It seems that as long as there are policies, there will be no shortage of aggressive adventurers in any era.

Lin Hai was very happy. He patted the armrest of the chair and said, "Very good! The company can buy back the shares. I will ask the Finance Department to study it and announce a buyback price... Go on."

Lun Diyi continued, "Then there are the various businesses under the Construction Department's Engineering Bureau, such as lime mines and brick kilns. The preparatory team believes that there is no need for the company to directly operate them, and there are many candidates willing to acquire such businesses. However, the Construction Department has a lot of objections to the decentralization of government-owned businesses..."

Lin Hai said: "Speak clearly, who has the objection?"

"It's mainly because of Deputy Director Chen." Lun Diyi added, "Of course, he's also worried about chaos because the people below him have too many objections."

The flower boat business was just a small one, and the Construction Bureau was the highlight of the decentralization of government-owned businesses. Lin Hai had long foreseen that there would be resistance to this matter. After all, the decentralization of government-owned businesses meant that a large number of people would lose their iron rice bowls.

Lin Hai asked again: "Then what are you going to do?"

Lun Yi said, "The preparatory group has discussed this matter and reported it to the president. We think laid-off employees do need to be compensated. The main reason is that there are too many people under the Engineering Bureau. If there is a commotion, the impact will not be good. There are many ways to compensate, and most people prefer to divide the land..."

When the Huiyou Company recruited immigrants, they allocated land to each household, with each household receiving 100 mu of land, regardless of the population size. This was done to create more surplus labor to join the army or engage in other work.

Upon hearing this, Lin Hai said to Zhu Niang, "Do you agree with this, too?"

Zhu Niang nodded and said, "Yes, the land in Jinhe can be bought and sold freely. Dividing the land is the same as dividing the money. In order to reduce the company's cash expenditure, I think it is better to divide the land. Anyway, there is still a lot of wasteland."

Lin Hai said: "But have you ever thought about this? Once the land is divided, a large number of them may not be willing to continue working. What will the bosses who took over the official business do?"

Zhu Niang said, "We have also considered this. We can let them go to Ming to recruit workers on their own. This way, the immigration process will be faster and it won't cost much. In addition, they can also buy slave labor from overseas. Jinhe does not allow the use of Tang people as slaves, but overseas slave labor is allowed."

Lin Hai shook his head. "It's not appropriate. We can't do that for now. Whether it's recruiting immigrants or buying slaves, the population import will still be controlled by the company. This includes overseas trade. All imports and exports will be handled by the company. We can't let the Ming court know our strengths and weaknesses. This will be the case for at least a few years."

Everyone fell silent when they heard this. They indeed did not consider the issue from this level. If it were someone from the Ministry of the Navy or the Ministry of the Army, they might be more sensitive to this.

Lin Hai went on to say, "Reform is inevitable without damaging the interests of some people. The land distribution policy was agreed upon when we immigrated. Each household will have 100 mu of land, regardless of the size of the population. For laid-off workers, I think one month's salary is enough."

Everyone remained silent. Lun Diyi and Fang Xiu'e looked at each other. Finally, Zhu Niang said, "Isn't one month's salary a little too little? There are several thousand people in the Engineering Bureau. If something goes wrong, it will cause a lot of trouble."

"What are you afraid of? What does the Security Department do?" Lin Hai continued, "Of course, I won't force layoffs. You can stay in the Construction Department, but the working conditions will be much more difficult than before..."

Lun Diyi reacted quickly: "Boss, are you planning to open a gold mine?"

“It’s not a gold mine…” Lin Hai picked up the tea bowl and took a sip, then continued, “It’s the Keelung Coal Mine!”

(End of this chapter)