Chapter 255 Imported Minerals
Wang Qin thought about it silently and felt that the Haihan man named Shi was right. Considering the current market situation of Haihan products, it is very kind to leave a thirty-day delivery period. As for only half of the deposit being refunded, there is nothing to say. After all, Haihan people also said that as long as they are willing to continue to order, the deposit paid last time will still be Effective.
"Do you have a product catalog list?" Wang Qin braced himself and continued to ask.
"Yes." He Xi next to him responded and handed a thick book to Wang Qin.
Wang Qin took it and opened it. Inside were colorful pictures of the products. Each page was a product, with a brief description and product number at the bottom. This is a product album specially created by the Ministry of Commerce by hand-painting by a few people with art background. It is sandwiched in a laminated photo album and serves as an external display.
Wang Qin finally got the treasure. He slowly flipped through the pages and couldn't put it down. However, Schneider and He Xi didn't have the patience to wait for him to make the selection slowly. There were still seven or eight customers lined up behind them waiting to negotiate. Time is money!
At that moment, He Xi coughed dryly and said: "Actually, these products are currently out of stock. If Boss Wang wants them in stock, just look at the last three pages."
Wang Qin raised his head and said: "Since there is nothing to sell, why make this album?"
"This is also a temporary situation..." He Xi quickly explained to him.
Daily in the Broadcasting Office contacted the base camp every day to confirm the goods and the goods that the order and the base camp can provide to amend the promotion of the product catalog on the second day. The goods displayed today still have a small amount of inventory, but before Wang Qin had been ordered by Da Commercial Bank from Chaozhou, there were more than half of it. A variety of products were directly copied, but the product catalog has not had time to do it. Correction. You can only blame Wang Qin a little later -if he insisted not to leave yesterday, he could be ranked in front of that one.
Wang Qin turned to the last three pages, and when he saw daily chemical supplies such as match, soap, he could not help but be a little frustrated. These things are good. The sales are definitely not a problem, but the profit is far less rich as glass products and silver mirrors. In contrast, the cost of running Yazhou is a bit high.
"Can I book the next batch of goods in advance?" Wang Qin still asked without giving up.
"In order to prevent our Haihan products from being monopolized by a certain firm, we currently do not provide reservation services and only sell spot goods." Schneider explained: "If we allowed reservations, then 'Furuifeng' would have already sold out next year's goods. All booked.”
Earlier, someone within the Ministry of Commerce also proposed to directly carry out futures trading in order to attract more merchants to purchase Haihan products in the shortest possible time, but this proposal was ultimately rejected by the Executive Committee. The Executive Committee believes that it is a radical risk to carry out futures trading when the current financial system is not perfect and the productivity level is still relatively backward. Once there is a problem in the goods supply chain that affects the delivery time, it will have a devastating blow to the current financial and commercial system. Judging from the current market trend, Chuanchuan Group is not worth taking such a big risk to gain popularity. and wealth. Of course, if all conditions mature in the future, futures trading will also emerge with the development of society. After all, the first futures exchange appeared in Europe as early as the 16th century. Crossing Group is not considered a pioneer in this aspect. Historical precedent.
Wang Qin also had to admit that what Schneider said was reasonable. All merchants in Guangzhou knew that "Fu Ruifeng" had a close relationship with the Haihan people, and "Fu Ruifeng" itself was also very powerful. It was not uncommon for one company to have a monopoly. It may happen - in fact, this was the case in the first few months when Haihan goods appeared on the Guangzhou market. However, the Haihan people did not seem to intend to put all their eggs in one basket, so they announced the location of Victory Port to the outside world and allowed merchants to go to Victory Port to purchase goods on their own.
Seeing Wang Qin's silence, Schneider guessed what he was thinking, so he took the initiative to persuade: "Boss Wang can organize the supply of goods by himself and transport some goods with price advantages to Victory Port for sale. If they are the materials we need, just Even better. Boss Wang, you can look at the last page, which is the various materials we are currently purchasing.”
When Wang Qin heard this, he turned to the last page. The shopping supplies listed by the Haihan people were all raw materials or semi-finished products, many of which were minerals that he was not familiar with. However, the various agricultural products and seafood products where the Haifeng is located are not on the Haihan people’s purchase list.
"Most of the minerals and ores listed above are not familiar to me. What should I do?" Wang Qin couldn't help but feel a little anxious. He finally met the Haihan people. Now that he didn't buy what he should have bought, what can he do? Since I don’t have anything to sell, is this business already dead before it even started?
"Excuse me, Boss Wang, is your company from Huizhou Haifeng?" Schneider asked. The greeting card Wang Qin submitted previously clearly stated "Haifeng No., Huizhou Prefecture", so he would ask this question.
Wang Qin nodded and said: "Exactly."
"Check Haifeng's properties." Schneider nodded to He Xi.
He Xi got up and walked to the other side of the study, where there was a screen blocking his view. Wang Qin only heard a slight crackling sound, and then He Xi walked out from behind the screen.
"Haifeng is still a bit of a leader." He Xi said to Schneider with a smile: "Local tin, lead, and zinc are all available. Among them, tin ore has the largest reserves, and the quality is good. Even the ore can be purchased directly."
Tin is not a rare thing in this era. As one of the hardware, tinware has a very high usage rate among the people. But Chuanchuan Group plans to import tin ore, but not to use it to make tinware.
The military industry department has been clamoring to mass-produce bronze cannons, but due to the lack of mineral resources, they can only stay at the sample stage and cannot mass-produce them. The raw material bronze required for casting bronze cannons is essentially an alloy of copper and tin. The casting performance and heat dissipation ability of bronze are much better than that of cast iron, and the difficulty of casting weapons is much less than that of cast iron. In addition, bronze artillery has low carbon content and is not easy to cause sparks. It is also safer than cast iron artillery.
The most important thing is that under the same caliber, in order to prevent the barrel from exploding, the cast iron artillery must lengthen and thicken the barrel, while the bronze artillery can make the barrel thinner and shorter due to its material advantages, so that the weight of the barrel becomes Lighter, both army and naval guns can benefit a lot from this technological advancement. Under the current insufficient steelmaking scale and steel processing level, bronze cannons are obviously an excellent choice for the military industry sector. In addition to weapons, bronze can also be used to make wear-resistant parts and corrosion-resistant equipment, such as various mechanical bearings and various containers for chemical industry. These industrial uses even far exceed the military field.
Tin brass, known as "Navy Brass", requires tin and zinc, two minerals produced in Haifeng. Because of its strong corrosion resistance, this alloy can be specially used to manufacture ship parts. For example, the Ministry of Shipping plans to wrap all parts of warships below the waterline with copper. The material required is this kind of tin brass. .
In addition, the papermaking and printing project jointly constructed by the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Information Industry has now entered the development stage of printing technology. Several centuries have passed since the invention of movable type printing, and the technology has been very mature. However, wooden movable type, clay movable type and pottery movable type have all been eliminated in the course of history. Lead movable type was widely used in later generations in the 15th century. Created by the Germans, this kind of lead movable type is actually an alloy of lead and tin.
As one of the important external strategies of Chuanchuan Group, cultural export has always received the focus of the executive committee. In order to reflect the high-end image of Haihan culture, the quality of printed matter must greatly exceed that of contemporary competitors, and equipment such as lead movable type must be in place in one step. The executive committee spared no effort in this regard. In order to allow the metallurgical workshop to produce qualified lead-tin alloy as soon as possible, almost all the tinware on the market in Yazhou was looted - of course, most of the profits were distributed to the military industry department. The bronze cannon is gone. The Executive Committee even prioritizes cultural exports ahead of military exports, closely following commodity exports. In the long-term vision of the Executive Committee, this kind of cultural export is not just for Ming Dynasty, but based on the perspective of globalization, it should be launched to all countries and regions. Some people with more radical ideas even claimed on the forum that the "four great inventions" should redefine the world - let us travel around the world with a compass, conquer every inch of land with artillery, and record it all with pen and paper , and printed into books for later generations.
Wang Qin didn't quite understand why the Haihan people wanted to import ore through their own trading company, but the price offered by the other party made him unable to refuse the offer. And Schneider also said that if this supply can remain stable in the long term, Haihan will set aside a certain share of glass products for him every month to ensure that the "Haifeng" will not be exhausted after transporting ore from Huizhou Prefecture to Victory Port. Short on the return trip. This kind of treatment even exceeds that of some merchants who have set up business warehouses in Victory Port - despite having the advantage of purchasing channels, when the supply of goods is tight, they still need to obtain the supply of Haihan goods through bidding.
Although Schneider and He Xi kindly invited Wang Qin to stay for lunch, Wang Qin declined their kindness. After getting such good preferential conditions, he had no intention of lingering here any longer and had to quickly take a boat back to Huizhou Prefecture to organize the supply of goods. From now on, you only need to run back and forth from Haifeng to Shengli Port once a month, and the profit will be worth the income of running four or five times in a row to Guangzhou - and there is no need to pay expensive fees to the hateful shipping company. Tariffs, this is really like what Boss He said, you can make money just by standing up.
Among the merchants coming in and out of the Guangdong Office in these days, there are many merchants like Wang Qin. The cargo handling capacity in the mainland is much stronger than that of the limited states and counties in Hainan Island. In just two or three days, the Guangdong Office Then all the little inventory produced by the base camp in the past half month was sold. Various sources of goods that had to be purchased at high prices in the early stage or that had no access at all now have a wider range of choices. Of course, the most important thing is that the reputation of Victory Port has spread. All that is left is word-of-mouth among businesses from various places, and the free port image of Victory Port can be slowly established.
December 13, 1627, the fifth day of winter in the seventh year of the Great Ming Dynasty.
After the lead ship hoisted a flag and identified itself to the Yulin observation post, a fleet of eight Dafu ships slowly sailed into Victory Harbor. This is almost the main force currently engaged in shipping tasks on the route of Black Tu Port-Do Son Peninsula-Victory Port. This collective dispatch is because the immigrants provided by North Vietnam have been gathering in Do Son Peninsula for nearly half a month. The North Vietnamese side was obviously not willing to keep feeding these "outsiders" who had been given to Haihan with food. For this reason, they repeatedly urged Haihan to send ships to transport them as soon as possible. So the Black Earth Port Authority adjusted the flight schedule and dispatched eight large ships at once to pull all these people back to Victory Port.
Gu Kai, the top leader of the Black Tu Port Management Committee, personally took charge of escorting the fleet. This was also the first time he returned to Victory Port after participating in the colonization operation in July. Of course, the reason for his coming back is not just to escort the immigration fleet, but more importantly, the end of the year is approaching. All units stationed abroad have to send people back to participate in the year-end summary meeting, and it will also be held at the plenary meeting of the Executive Committee. Debrief. Within this week, Schneider from the Guangzhou Garrison Office and Maliko from the Cliff Garrison Office will also return to Victory Port on behalf of their respective units.
Accompanying Gu Kai back to Victory Port, there was also a platoon of rotating militiamen. Their replacements were a group of new recruits who had recently joined the army. The first task these rookies received after joining the army was to station three troops in Black Earth Port. The month is also a moderate test for them.
A large number of family members who had been notified by the executive committee in advance came to the pier to greet their relatives, including Gu Kai's relatives, Tao Donglai and the foreign girl Ruisa. In order to avoid causing public onlookers and confusion, Tao Donglai specially greeted Raisa in advance and asked her to "not kiss passionately on the dock." But despite this, the long-lasting embrace between a man and a woman who had been separated for several months still attracted the attention of the public. In the end, Tao Donglai had to intervene to persuade them to leave - if they continued to embrace, the trestle leading to the pier would be blocked. The onlookers were completely blocked.
Tao Donglai also stepped forward and gave Gu Kai a brief but strong hug, patted him on the shoulder and said, "I feel a lot more energetic these past few months since I've been out!"
"It's true that I'm tanned a lot!" Even after several days of rough seas, Gu Kai seemed to be in good spirits: "There are too few people in Heitu Port, and the people below don't know anything. They have to teach each other step by step, and there is almost no time to stay in the house to enjoy themselves. When I come back this time, I will propose to the executive committee to increase the post allowance for the staff stationed at Black Earth Port!”
"There's nothing to consume in that place, so it's useless if you increase the allowance." Tao Donglai knew he was joking, so he responded with a smile.
Tao Dong came to look behind him and couldn't help but ask: "Didn't Qian Tiandun say he wanted to come back with you? Why didn't he see anyone?"
"We originally planned to come back together, but there were some temporary changes. He has to stay on the Tushan Peninsula to handle things." Gu Kai responded: "It seems that something happened over there in North Vietnam. A commissioner was sent to Tushan a few days ago. The peninsula is waiting to meet with the military chief here. However, I never ask much about military matters, so I will probably have to wait until Qian Tiandun sends a telegram to find out what is going on."
Tao Donglai didn't pay much attention to the news and asked Gu Kai and Raisa to go back and rest for a while. He himself went to the immigration ship parked on another pier to check on the status of the North Vietnamese immigrants arriving in Hong Kong.
Different from the group of North Vietnamese immigrants who arrived in Hong Kong in October, the proportion of prisoners of war and prisoners among this group of immigrants has been greatly reduced. Among the more than 1,100 immigrants, there are only less than 200 prisoners of war and dozens of Among the prisoners, the rest are almost ordinary people, mainly war refugees, which saves the Ministry of Civil Affairs a lot of trouble in settling these immigrants.
"Is the North Vietnamese side showing kindness this time or something? They no longer treat prisoners of war as subjects to deal with us." Ning Qi murmured, while watching the security guards escort the immigrants on the ship according to their status. Gather at the scheduled venue and check the immigration information in hand.
"Something is not right." Tao Donglai slowly shook his head and said solemnly: "To the North Vietnamese regime, the value of prisoners of war is the lowest. If there are prisoners of war, they will definitely deal with the prisoners of war first, and then the prisoners. and domestic refugees”
"You mean... the war situation in North Vietnam might be a bit unfavorable?" Ning Qi is also a very smart person, and he already understood what Tao Donglai meant when he heard what he said.
"Qian Tiandun stayed on the Tushan Peninsula this time and did not come back with the fleet. I guess there are also reasons for this." Tao Donglai guessed: "If North Vietnam faces a tight war situation, then they are likely to These musketeers in the training camp will be required to graduate early and go to the battlefield.”
"How much combat effectiveness can a musketeer who has been trained for one or two months have?" Ning Qi was somewhat dissatisfied with this: "Although the musketeer is easy to train, I heard that the training plan of the training camp has been changed again and again, and it is not fully followed. Our charter comes.”
"That's true. To put it bluntly, their big boss is reluctant to spend money. Live-fire training is quite expensive." Tao Donglai couldn't help but smile as he said it. The military industry department's method of making money by selling ammunition is equally effective in North Vietnam. To train a unit with a certain combat effectiveness, it still requires a large amount of material investment. It does not mean that each person can shoot three or five rounds of teaching ammunition. Then drag it onto the battlefield and use it as a killing machine.
"I bought tens of thousands of taels of arms, why would I save this little money!" Ning Qi was also quite disdainful of North Vietnam's actions, completely forgetting that he also had a military budget in the executive committee.
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(End of chapter)