Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1355 Raw Silk Business
But the most important thing is to prepare funds for the upcoming raw silk season.

The business of raw silk has nothing to do with China Merchants' business. Zhao Yingong is taking advantage of the trade with Japan to collect money—the raw silk business is very costly, and he can't do it alone with the little money he has.

Now that the Ministry of Colonization and Trade has opened up the main trade routes to Japan and Southeast Asia, the conditions are ripe for Lingao trading companies to export raw silk on a large scale.Scalde sent telegrams many times, asking Zhao Yingong about the stocking of raw silk: they have a contract with the Dutch. Although Guangdong also produces silk, the quality and output cannot compare with those in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and they must be replenished from Hangzhou.

In the past, they purchased raw silk from Jiangsu and Zhejiang mainly through agents in Guangdong from Jiangnan.Since it is inevitable to peel off a layer of skin when going through an agent, Skade is now eager to ask his own people to intervene in 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 became faster and faster, the investment scale continued to expand, and the dependence on input funds and raw materials also deepened.These gaps are largely filled by exports of raw silk.

However, Zhao Yingong is very cautious about directly intervening in the raw silk business.Raw silk is a large industrial chain in the south of the Yangtze River, and countless people in the upstream and downstream rely on it to make a fortune.If you pull your whole body, it might be the second Leizhou sugar war.

The power of the gentry in Jiangnan is extremely heavy, and there are gentry with hands and eyes everywhere.Although I have established a certain relationship with Zhang Pu through the Catholic system and the Fushe Group that wooed Zhang Pu, once my raw silk trading touches their interests, it will inevitably cause a strong backlash.This is not Leizhou, where the special investigation team arrived at noon. Once hostile forces counterattack, he, Zhao Yingong, a small Guangdong scholar, will die anytime and anywhere without a place to die.

Now is not the time for a showdown with Jiangnan Jinshen. Right now there are things to deal with on all sides of Lingao, especially the infiltration of Guangdong.Therefore, he can only operate in a relatively low-key manner in Jiangnan.

Zhao Yingong can only join the raw silk business according to the idea of ​​pinching persimmons, starting with the silk reeling process.

Most of the sericulture families in Jiangsu and Zhejiang combine production and sales.Most of them raise silkworms and make silk at home.The procedures for making silk by the local method are extremely cumbersome, and Zhao Yingong once asked Wang Si's mother and daughter to show him the actual operation.It starts with cocoon cooking, then silk reeling, and then "twisting silk" and "slapping silk".It also needs to be sent to a special workshop for refining and dyeing, weft yarn is twisted into warp yarn, and there are other names such as "dropped warp" and "drawing warp", and finally "joint", and then it can be machine-woven. Raw silk of silk.

Not only the procedures are cumbersome, each link consumes a lot of labor.The efficiency is pitifully low, and the quality of the finished product is not high.Compared with semi-mechanized and mechanized silk reeling factories, there is no advantage at all.

If semi-mechanized silk reeling is used, the cocoons go in from one end of the machine, and the silk comes out from the other end, which is directly usable raw silk, and there is no need for "spinning silk" or "pulling sutras".All workshops in this industry had to close down, and craftsmen needless to say lost their jobs.What's more serious is that in the rural areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, almost every household has a spinning wheel for reeling silk. Women, regardless of age, mostly rely on this as a sideline job to supplement their household expenses.If this spinning wheel becomes waste, there will really be a scene of "silk eating people".Zhao Yingong could also imagine the various consequences that would follow: that would be truly tragic.

However, because most of the employees in the silk reeling industry are from poor families, although there are a large number of them, they cannot make a strong voice, and it is the least risky thing to touch their interests.Even if there are some trends, the gentry group, which only cares about the immediate interests, will not care, and the pressure he faces is relatively small.After these people lost their jobs, they naturally became backup workers for the new silk reeling and textile enterprises he planned to open.

Now that he wants to raise business shares for China Merchants, he also intends to expand the common interest group. After all, once a large-scale "civil uprising" is caused, it is not so easy to suppress it. If there is no gentry as a protective umbrella, it is easy to be used. Make a fuss.

In the confidential folder on his desk was the approval from the Finance Director's Department and the Planning Institute that he had just received yesterday: he had agreed to the China Merchants share quota plan he proposed.

The planned total share capital of China Merchants is set at 20 taels, and Zhao Yingong himself, as the nominal investor, owns 51% of the shares.Among the other 8000 taels of share capital, Shen Tingyang's family planned to purchase 8000 taels of ten sandboats, accounting for 24%, and the remaining 25% of the shares were priced at 5 taels to raise money from the gentry.

Zhao Yingong's so-called 51% investment is actually false money but real contract.The only funds he can use right now are [-] taels of silver that Delong recently transferred to him.The profits from this trade with Japan are considerable, but he has no right to use them on his own, and he is already satisfied with the [-] taels allocated by the Chief Financial Officer's Department.

Regardless of the fact that the Senate gave the naturalized people and aborigines the greatest feeling of being "rich", in fact the funds of the Senate were very tight.If it weren't for the efficiency of the Senate in the use and scheduling of funds far beyond this era, the capital chain would have been broken long ago.

Although Zhao Yingong is the person in charge of the Jiangnan area, the seemingly majestic sub-group ACE actually has limited resources from Lingao - not only can't get too many resources, but he also needs to give blood to his family as soon as possible.

In this way, the raised 5 taels of equity capital is crucial to the operation of the new enterprise.Especially if he wants to acquire silkworm cocoons next, he will need a lot of capital injection.

These days, Mao Sansheng and other shopkeepers are running outside for him, and he himself has personally called on some gentry and wealthy households in Hangzhou.The stock offering went very smoothly. This trip to Japan made many big households jealous. Shen Tingyang even sent a letter to ask him to keep a certain share—many people secretly asked him to buy shares.

The matter of raising shares was much easier than he expected. Not only has the first phase of 5 taels of silver been roughly raised, but it is not a problem to raise another 5 taels.

But things are not that simple. As a modern silk reeling factory, only silkworm cocoons are needed.However, silkworm farmers have worked so hard to raise silkworms, and most of them are unwilling to sell the cocoons—the profit is too low.In the agricultural society of the Middle Ages, the value of labor was very low, and it was very common to exchange a large amount of labor for negligible cash gains.Sericulture farmers here in Jiangsu and Zhejiang generally make their own silk for sale, forming a large-scale rural sideline labor.

If most silkworm farmers were unwilling to sell cocoons, Zhao Yingong's silk reeling factory, which was under construction at the moment, would be in a predicament of having no rice to cook.This is what worries him the most.

Besides that, he has a second worry.He can't get his hands on the small amount of silk cocoons that are directly sold - he doesn't have a "ministerial photo" of the silk cocoon shop, so he can't buy silk cocoons directly from farmers, he can only buy from the silk cocoon shop, and the silk cocoon shop is a monopoly The sex industry guild has a style of buying and selling dead people.In consideration of maximizing his own profit, it is impossible for him, an outsider, to buy enough silkworm cocoons from them and not be exploited by them--exploitation is fine. Considering that the operating cost of the silk reeling factory is very low, it is slightly higher. Some prices are also acceptable.But once the silk reeling mill starts, any individual can understand the importance of a continuous supply of silkworm cocoons.In terms of the style of businessmen at that time, it was impossible not to take the opportunity to coerce them.

How to ensure the safety of cocoon supply has always been the focus of Zhao Yingong's consideration. In the old time and space,

The most direct solution, of course, is to buy a cocoon company directly or find a relationship to get a "buy post" from the Ministry of Households, and open the door to buy silkworm cocoons.

However, in this way, it is bound to be bound by the trade association. Judging from the information they have obtained, the silk cocoon industry trade association has a unified price for the purchase and wholesale of silkworm cocoons and raw silk, which will have a great impact on their own business activities. hindrance.If you ignore this, I'm afraid you won't be able to exist in this guild at all.Zhao Yingong has fully studied the various things that Leizhou Sugar Factory encountered in Leizhou back then.
After thinking twice, Zhao Yingong decided to start from scratch.Control the cocoon production directly from the place of origin.To be precise, it is a model of small producer cooperatives similar to Leizhou Rural Cooperatives.

Like sugar cane production, cocoon production also requires credit.Except for a few wealthy households, ordinary silkworm farmers generally need credit in the process of raising silkworms: buying silkworm eggs and mulberry leaves is a big investment.Loan principal and interest is an essential and extremely heavy expense for silkworm farmers.And the risk is very high: Once a large area of ​​silkworm disease occurs, the silkworm farmers who borrowed to raise silkworms will often go bankrupt. Wang Siniang's family is an example.

Zhao Yingong felt that as long as he could offer small loans with low interest rates, he could attract a considerable number of silkworm farmers.As long as there are debts, there is no fear of not being able to control the production and products of silkworm households.At that time, it will be a matter of course to promote technological improvement and industrialized breeding.

Once the cooperative is successful, his "Phoenix Mountain Silk Industry Union" will be a one-stop complex of production and sales, with all channels from raw materials to sales. In the long run, it is bound to form a demonstration effect.Attract more farmers to join cooperatives.

In this way, the role of financial institutions such as banks is highlighted.This kind of small loan business should be operated by professional institutions.Thinking of this, he couldn't help thinking of the situation of Hangzhou's banking industry that Mao Sansheng reported to him a few days ago.Among them, it is mentioned that the silk cocoon industry goes to the countryside for acquisitions, and often relies more on loans from the silver and money industry-otherwise it is not enough to pay for the acquisition cash.In the old time and space, Hu Xueyan was very successful in manipulating the export trade of raw silk, which had a lot to do with the fact that he owned a bank at that time and had flexible capital management.

(End of this chapter)