Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1438 Hue ([-])

"Are you the person in charge of this forest farm?" After the conversation with Cornelis Bickle came to an end, Bai Yutang, who is the director of the trade department, waved and called Xuan Hao and Max over, whispering Asked: "What is the current production capacity of your forest farm, what is the proportion of ordinary wood and high-grade wood, and where are they sold?"

Xuan Hao and Max glanced at each other. The owner is not at present, maybe he went to a nearby forest farm to discuss matters, so the work here is managed by the person in charge of the forest farm and wood processing factory as usual.Although Xuan Hao is a confidant of the owner, he is usually responsible for supervising the work of these two places, but this time Bai Yutang asked more complicated questions, and he couldn't answer them for a while, so he could only answer nana: "The production capacity of the forest farm... ...is very large. The proportion of ordinary wood and high-grade wood is roughly equal... half of each. Ordinary wood is mostly sold to nearby construction sites, while high-grade wood is mainly shipped back to the mainland for sale, and is usually bought to make high-end furniture. There is still a great demand for materials, musical instruments and boat materials. Our forest farm is currently trying to find ways to increase manpower, and at the same time, we are also contacting the East Coast Gas Company to install a gas lighting system so that we can work day and night to increase production and support the construction of the motherland..."

Bai Yutang frowned when he heard this, knowing that the two people in front of him might not be the ones in charge of the front-line affairs, and after further questioning, he learned that they were the store owner and the security captain here, and his face was even more bright. A playful expression, no wonder this logging camp and timber processing factory looks like a prison.

"I will tell you this time. The Dutch suffered a lot in the naval battle with the British. You heard about the Bergen naval battle last year. The Dutch ended in defeat. After that, they lost more than 300 troops in a year. about one-third of them were captured by the British. Now that your business is coming, the five admiralties of the United Provinces have jointly decided that all merchant ships (which can be converted into armed merchant ships) and warships built from this year onwards must not Then use cheap pine wood as the main material, so the United Province must now import a large amount of high-quality wood from the outside world, understand?" Bai Yutang glanced at Xuan and Mai, and said with his hands behind his back: "You and a group of six nearby The forest farm and the two timber processing factories should seize the opportunity. If the machines are not good enough, buy more machines. If there are not enough people, find a way to recruit manpower. The purchase of the second-generation gas lamp system you mentioned just now is also justified, although the logging camp cannot use it. , but the wood processing plant can be used. In short, we must do everything possible to increase production, and the Dutch are standing here waving a check, so don’t let the business opportunity slip away.”

After hearing this, Xuan Hao and Max were immediately obedient, saying that they would report to the owner to let him know and pay attention.

In other words, since the East Coast Republic of China acquired the area south of Porto Seguro from the Portuguese, the government that has obtained a large number of high-quality timber producing areas has started a series of forest development plans.You know, this was in the 17th century. Forest resources hadn’t been exploited on a large scale. You couldn’t build roads without cutting down trees, and there was no source of houses and cultivated land. Therefore, the forest industry has gradually risen to the Hue Port area. As a pillar industry, the state has formulated a series of support plans, including assistance in talents, equipment, technology and markets.

At present, this plan can be said to have just started. The logging camp along the coast generally takes no more than two years to establish, and the official production time of the timber processing plant after commissioning is less than a year. The production capacity is still slowly increasing. Any explosive growth will probably take place next year or two years later.Moreover, this year is also a year in which the demand for timber—whether it is ordinary timber or high-grade timber—in the East Coast has increased significantly. Immigrant ships, merchant ships, warships, and fishing boats have been built together, and the construction of small steamers and dredgers for inland waterway transportation is also a big one. increase by one-third, and the increase in the export of export commodities has directly led to a 50% surge in the demand for cheap wood such as wooden barrels and wooden boxes, not to mention the construction of settlements on an increasingly large scale. The prosperity of the timber market was promoted, so that when Cornelis of the Dutch West India Company rushed to the east coast to buy tropical hardwood, the Ministry of Trade was embarrassed to find that the major state-owned forest farms had no surplus timber to sell to them.

How can this be done!Cornelis has a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, so he is naturally unwilling to go back without purchasing enough wood!Therefore, at his request, the Ministry of Trade sent a number of officials headed by Director Bai Yutang Bai to accompany him to the coastal logging camps in the Hue area in the north. There are rich high-quality timber resources there. Outside the large area of ​​forest farms occupied by the forestry industry on the east bank of the company (currently due to lack of manpower, the construction has not yet officially started), there are many logging farms established by private investors. Their production capacity and quality are not the same. Just entered this field, and some have matured for a year or two, such as the forest farm + wood processing factory invested by Xuanhao Proprietor.

A prominent feature of privately invested forestry enterprises is their weak processing capacity, that is, a lot of wood is cut down, but very few can be dried, cut and processed intact.In this way, the company where Xuan Hao and others work is actually pretty good, because they have a wood drying kiln, and woodworking machine tools and cutting machines driven by small-horsepower steam engines. The workers in the forest farm sent the logs over by boat. The co-authors are that they have no processing ability, so they can only sell them to others at a low price nearby.

Cornelis was also a little surprised by the tight situation in the East Coast timber market, but fortunately, the East Coast government had promised to sell them a batch of high-quality hardwood. After wandering around Hue, Bai Yutang passed by and privately The investor's communication also indicated that a batch of high-quality timber could be sold to the West India Company.Moreover, the production of timber on the entire east coast has been increasing. As long as the United Province needs it, the people on the east coast can increase the supply of high-quality timber to the United Province from next year. This made Cornelis Bickle feel a little relieved .

"Now if you are really in a hurry, I suggest you consider the high-quality hardwood produced in China's Xinhua Island. Although the distance is a bit far, the quantity is large and the quality is good, and the price is not expensive." Bai Yutang, Xuan Hao and others After the conversation, he looked at Cornelis and suggested: "In addition, the timber industry in New Courland has reached a certain scale. If you are interested, I can send someone to Jakobshaven. The company introduced Mr. Beveren, the local governor. Ah, by the way, have you contacted the Caribbean Shipping Company in our country? They also run a lot of oak business, and the scale is quite large. If you need it, I believe they should not Mind selling a batch for your emergency.”

"Thank you very much for your suggestion, Mr. Bai. We have contacted the Caribbean Shipping Company before and bought a batch of oak, but they don't have any extra, because I heard that there are constant conflicts between the Free State and the Indians, and the output of oak is large. It's unfortunate that it's affected," said Cornelis Bickle resignedly.

"Yeah, it's really unfortunate that we got into a fight at this juncture." Bai Yutang also sighed, but then he was a little happy. The three bastards of Liang Xiangjian's family wanted to run the North American oak business. Hui and others borrowed money, but failed to negotiate because they wanted to buy shares.Unexpectedly, the grandson of Liang Qiangdong got a loan from Qiang Xiaoman. One of the two brothers almost became the national teacher of the Free State, and the other black kid of mixed blood even became the regiment training envoy and the commander of the horse infantry. There were hundreds of people under his command. , Dozens of horses, seem to have become the weather.The three brothers of the Liang family teamed up to create a boom in Free State. Bai Yutang was deceiving himself if he said he wasn't jealous, especially since he had once been optimistic about this project.Therefore, when he heard that there was another conflict between the Free State and the Indians, he was actually very happy in his heart, although he knew that this emotion was a bit wrong.

"Don't leave, you two, come here." Seeing Bai Yutang and Cornelis having a lively conversation, Xuan Hao and Max wanted to slip away, but Bai Yutang soon found out and shouted Liao came over: "I forgot to tell you about something just now, that is, you must guarantee me the production, and there will be no mistakes! I heard that there are various bad rules in many forest farms nearby. For example, wages are only paid once every three months. Sometimes There is also counterfeiting in kind, which is really bad and must be banned! Although the country has not issued relevant laws prohibiting in-kind wages, you should know yourselves, and there must be a limit to the exploitation of non-national laborers. Pause, then you will have nothing to eat and walk away."

"Although you are not required to pay wages on a weekly basis, you can always do it once a month, right? In the recent period, you'd better not deduct your wages for various reasons. Wait, don't justify yourself, I know your methods , it is nothing more than deducting wages on the grounds of the quality of the products produced and the excessive cost of production materials; the other is to use thugs and thugs to coerce and find fault with the behavior of workers at work, and then systematically deduct wages Hmph, let's put away these methods for the time being, and ensure production first, otherwise no one will be able to save you. Some things, the country does not ignore, but just ignores you for the time being. Don't take the initiative to kill yourself, like that It's going to be an ugly death." After speaking, Chief Bai Yutang beat them as usual to prevent them from going too far.

"This, this... our forest farm is not like this." After seeing Max, who was so majestic in the face of the troublesome laborers, he didn't even dare to breathe, Xuan Hao had no choice but to step forward and said: " The workers in many forest farms next door work from six o’clock in the morning to ten o’clock in the evening, and even work all night on Friday, in order to compete with us who have a lot of mechanical processing equipment. This is really cruel, and it has always been our east What the Lord strongly criticizes, our proprietor opened a store here, in fact, it is more because the surrounding area and even the whole Shenmu Township are too remote, and it is very inconvenient for the workers not to open a store. Of course, I know that some small vendors often come here , but their goods are always not so complete, workers don't like to buy, really."

Xuan Hao is quite familiar with the ability to tell nonsense with his eyes open. After thinking for a while, he organized his words and said: "And the prices of all kinds of goods in our store are not very high, especially those imported from the southern prairie. The price of bread is generally [-]% lower than that of other nearby forest farms. The rent of the wooden houses we provide to non-national laborers is also the lowest standard, and has not increased in the past two years. In order to provide laborers with convenience in life, we The proprietor of the account has really tried his best and paid too much."

"Also, in order to improve the enthusiasm of the laborers, the proprietor decided to learn from the excellent experience in the south and promote the piece-rate wage system in the entire logging camp. That is, whoever does more and better work will get higher wages. Those with less or poor income will naturally have less income, and the proprietor believes that this can effectively increase production." Xuan Hao finally added.Of course, he didn't mention that the total wages stipulated by the proprietor Xuanhao remained the same, that is to say, even if the timber output of the entire logging camp increased as a whole, it was just that those who worked more got more money.And where did the money come from? Naturally, it came from those who did less work. Anyway, the total number of wages has not increased, which shows the cruelty of their stinginess and exploitation.

"The piece-rate wage system, your proprietor is a caring person, and keeps pace with the times. This system has only just begun to be tried in the south. It originally only existed among handicraftsmen, and it rarely appeared in factories. Your proprietor can think of this level. , Not bad." Bai Yutang glanced at Xuan Hao when he heard the words, and then gave him a few words of approval. He had a bad impression of this so-called store owner who was so slippery, because what he said was true. False, annoying.

After giving these instructions, Bai Yutang stopped entanglement with Xuan Hao, Max and the others, and then, together with Cornelis and the others, left the small pier and boarded the small boat to the big ship.It is rare for Cornelis to come to the East Bank from Amsterdam. Naturally, it is impossible to come here purely to discuss business issues. In fact, he also shoulders some other important responsibilities, and the people from the East Bank themselves also want to speak through Cornelis. Discuss a package of issues including New Netherland, Guyana, and British South Africa to the three levels of parliament in the United Provinces, and put forward his own proposal that the East Coasters give up the right of first refusal to exercise the New Netherland, Instead, obtain British South Africa as compensation, and the English can occupy the New Netherlands with peace of mind. As for Guyana, it is better to compensate the United Provinces.

This plan can be expected to be acceptable to the United Provinces, but the English must not accept it, because the wealthy Guyanese British seem to be reluctant to let go.Well, it depends on the next series of diplomatic operations and developments, such as the situation of the Anglo-Dutch naval battle, such as the increasingly clear situation in South Africa.

(End of this chapter)