Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 1378 Food and Silver

In the history of Guan Ningjun's logistics supply, there is a phenomenon that caught Zhao Yingong's attention, that is, Guan Ningjun's obsession with cash.

As an armed group with 10,000+ soldiers and civilians, food is the highlight of the supply, but in terms of specific transportation, it is not uncommon for food to be transported in different colors, and there is a phenomenon of emphasizing silver more than food.

The biggest advantage of transporting less grain and more silver is to reduce the transportation cost. It is much cheaper to transport silver than to transport grain of the same value. market, stimulating local economic development.

But put it on Guan Ningjun, this is simply a bad practice.

The Guanning Army is located in the bitterly cold Liaodong. After the Ming Dynasty lost Shenyang, what it actually retained was a series of corridors from Jinzhou to Shanhaiguan. Although the military households continued to farm, the frost-free period in Liaodong was less than two months Under the harsh climate environment, its own food self-sufficiency rate is very low.Rely on the food supply in the pass.

In this case, transporting a large amount of silver for on-site transfer is tantamount to artificially creating inflation.Since it is impossible for Liaodong to supply enough grain, it can only rely on the import of grain from merchants in the pass as a supplement.The grain in the customs traveled thousands of miles, crossed mountains and rivers, and was exploited layer by layer all the way to Liaodong. High transportation costs and losses were added to the price of the grain.

Originally, there was too much money in the local area, and the food imported at a large cost could not meet the needs, so Guanning Town fell into a kind of inflation, and the price per stone was as high as more than ten taels, or even more than 20 taels.

Such a high price is extremely heavy for local ordinary soldiers, military households and ordinary people.Although on the surface, every regular soldier has a military salary of three or four taels of silver every month, in fact, except for a few elite family soldiers, most people rarely receive their salary on time and according to the amount. It is difficult to make ends meet if all of them are used to buy food, and they can barely survive.

But this kind of inflation is the best environment for the generals who control the allocation of resources to make a fortune.Through embezzlement of military salaries and food sales, the generals of the Guan Ning Army 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. If you transport [-] shi of rice, even if you can buy it at a price of three taels and one shi, you can at least double the profit if you sell it! More than enough to drop the cost.”

Shen Tingyang's eyes lit up, and then he shook his head: "How can you be so calm! Not to mention that it takes a lot of effort to raise [-] shi of grain, and it is not easy to find someone to buy the [-] shi of grain when it is transported to Liaodong." ——"

Even at the price of six taels of silver per stone, the total price of this batch of grain would be 30 taels. Shen Tingyang really couldn't imagine that anyone could afford such a huge sum of money to buy it.

If the pieces are sold in batches, the delivery date will be delayed—although this time is for the sake of experimentation, and the time limit is very loose, but the time is too long, maybe Guan Ning will use it as an excuse Deliberately making things difficult to extort extra favors.

"It's not difficult, my brother guarantees that someone can afford the money to buy it." Zhao Yingong was very sure.

Shen Tingyang looked at him with suspicious eyes, although everyone knew that Zhao Yingong had a mysterious background, not only had a strong "kun thief" color, but also probably had a great eunuch from Guangdong behind him.But he can be so sure about the business conditions of Liaodong, which everyone regards as daunting, it can't help but make people suspicious.

But Zhao Yingong is so confident, and he is not a person who is easy to talk big - after the last trade with Japan, Zhao Yingong's credit in the Jiangnan business district can be said to be solid, so he will not use big words to deceive him.

Shen Tingyang thought for a while, and immediately said: "Since this is the case, there must be Brother Lao. For this transportation, my brother means that China Merchants will come forward to do it."

Zhao Yingong immediately understood what he meant: Shen Tingyang's family owns a large boat, and they don't need many sand boats to go to Liaodong, so there is no need to let the joint venture company China Merchants do it.Shen Tingyang was testing him - if Zhao Yingong was telling lies, he would never dare to take risks with China Merchants, his "daughter".

Zhao Yingong showed a look of "surprise", and hurriedly said that it was inappropriate.

"There is absolutely no such reason," Zhao Yingong shook his head again and again, "This is Brother Shen's career."

"However, China Merchants also has Brother Yu's shares."

"If that's the case, I'll obey." Zhao Yingong no longer refuses, because he himself wants to cut into this transaction.

Seeing that he did not refuse, Shen Tingyang knew that he was definitely not bragging, so he couldn't help but let go of half of his heart: "It's just that it will not be easy to raise [-] shi of grain in a short time."

The key here is to find a big grain merchant who can supply such a huge amount of grain.The quality of the grain does not need to be good, because the delivery is silver, and the grain is sold on the market--now in Liaodong, as long as it is grain, there is no need to worry about selling it
It is hard to find a grain merchant who can provide [-] shi of grain.The scope of grain circulation in this era is very small. Although some grain distribution markets have formed, the scope of radiation is limited.

Moreover, there were disasters of different sizes in various places in Nanzhi last year, and the grain production was greatly reduced.After the grain was delivered by water transport, the remaining grain in the local area was limited, and it was necessary to find many grain shops to raise [-] shi of grain.

With such frequent and large purchases of grain, the price will inevitably rise sharply-the current market is already going up.Moreover, it is difficult to buy all the grain in one place, and it takes a long time for transshipment.Shen Tingyang estimates that even if he purchases grain from grain merchants in various places in Nanzhi through the commercial network, the average cost per stone of grain shipment may exceed three taels when it finally arrives in Shanghai.

"It's not busy." Zhao Yingong said calmly, "I'll help find a solution for the food. It's just that I have to get the folded silver as soon as possible. I have to ask Brother Ji Ming to run away on this matter."

This Zheshi silver is not so easy to get, and there must be a cost for every procedure, Zhao Yingong still understands this truth-even in the old time and space of democracy and the rule of law, embellishments are indispensable for business cooperation between Party B and Party A when paying the bill, not to mention This is the era when bad rules come directly to the table.

"That's what it should have been."

Zhao Yingong immediately got busy, there was a ready-made large dealer in Liaodong: Li Luoyou's Liaohai line not only has the strength, but also has a sales network.It is not a problem for his firm to buy the [-] shi of grain.

Although the price to sell to Li Luoyou cannot be too high, the price of one stone and six taels is still no problem. He doesn’t have to pay all the 30 taels of silver in cash, as long as he pays 10 taels, he can deliver it to Guanning Town——The Foreign Intelligence Bureau learned from the information that Li Luoyou’s Liaohai Bank used working capital in Liaodong all the year round. They are all three to four million taels, so it is not a problem to pay 40 taels in cash.For the rest of the money, according to the exchange agreement between them and Li Luoyou, they can use the money order to withdraw cash at various branches in the customs or directly purchase goods.

In Liaodong, grain is the most sought-after and the most profitable commodity. Whether it is sold to the Guanning Army, the Dongjiang Army or the Manchu Qing Dynasty, it can be sold at a high price.This depends on the choice of the Liaodong shopkeeper of Liaohaihang, not to do his business with Zhao Yingong.

There is another consideration for Zhao Yingong to make Liaohai Xing a big dealer.Whether it is the Senate or Shen Tingyang on the ground in Liaodong, it doesn't matter much.If you directly transport [-] shi of grain to Liaodong and recklessly sell it, not to mention how many merchants in Liaodong can have this strength, maybe all the grain will be hacked by the officers and soldiers, and you won’t get a penny——A business in the Denglai area Many businessmen in Liaodong went bankrupt because of this.

Li Luoyou has been operating in Liaodong for many years, with a deep foundation and deep collusion with local generals and officials. Naturally, Liao Haixing, who is under his name, has no such concerns--to be honest, only a powerful faction like him dares to join forces. You can make a lot of money doing business on the ground.

The rest is the crucial question, where does the brown rice come from.The grain in the south of the Yangtze River is in the stage of scarcity. The big households who have grain in their hands must be reluctant to sell it and wait for the high price. The price of grain will not fall until the summer grain comes to market-Shen Tingyang obviously can't wait.

Zhao Yingong's confidence is not as strong as when he assured Shen Tingyang.He originally planned to transport Siamese brown rice from Lingao. The Siamese brown rice in Lingao has a sufficient price advantage. Even if it is shipped to Shanghai, the CIF price per 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-up to now, Lingao's grain is still a first-level control material directly controlled by the planning institute for import, export and distribution.If you want to transport [-] shi from Lingao in one go, even if you can earn several times the profit, the Planning Institute will probably not approve it.Although he had already written a report to the Planning Academy, he also felt that there was little hope.

As for Taiwan and Jeju, although agriculture has been developed to a certain extent, they have to undertake a large number of refugee transfer work. Except for Jeju Island, which is barely 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 food reserves in these two places are relief rations and potatoes, which may be difficult to realize in Liaodong.

It seems that food has to find a way from other places.Zhao Yingong considered several locations. Li Chao of North Korea was a poor country, and Li Chao could complain endlessly with a few thousand shi of grain. It was unrealistic to buy grain from them.Although Japan's food production was considered considerable according to the standards at the time, the food that could be sold was very limited - food was never their export product.

Zhao Yingong thought over and over again, but he couldn't come up with any clever plan.

(End of this chapter)