Chapter 769 Communication and Cooperation
"You are really good at thinking..." Schneider spent an hour listening to Li Nai's story. On the one hand, he was a little bit dumbfounded, but on the other hand, he really admired his thinking: "Fortunately, you are just a businessman. If you go Qian Jinyiwei has probably been promoted to commander long ago!”
Li Nai responded with a smile: "Since Mr. Shi, you praise me so much, that means my guess is right, right?"
"Although it's not all right, it's not far off." Schneider rarely used two sentences in classical Chinese to evaluate Li Nai's performance: "There are still some deviations in the details, but the general direction is indeed correct."
When Li Nai heard this comment, he felt greatly encouraged and quickly asked: "Which detail is wrong?"
How could such a person like Schneider be so easily tricked by him? He smiled slightly and changed the subject: "Did you tell anyone other than your father about your inference before coming here?"
Li Nai shook his head repeatedly and said: "My father doesn't know about this either. If he knew about it, given his temper, he would have to think about it for ten days and a half before making a decision. In that case, the opportunity might have been missed."
"You are so decisive!" Schneider could only admire Li Nai's mobility. It was not easy for this guy to come to the conclusion that Haihan was going to attack Taiwan Island by relying on his imagination, but he actually didn't communicate with his leaders, so he made his own decision and came to Sanya from Guangzhou to discuss this matter with Haihan on behalf of Fulifeng. Such a major event can indeed be regarded as a very unique approach.
However, if the mature and prudent Li Jifeng knew the news, he would probably wait and see how the situation changes before making a decision, as Li Nai expected. After all, the amount of investment that may be involved in this matter is not at the level of 18,000 taels of silver, and its nature is also different from ordinary commercial cooperation. Li Jifeng will definitely be extra cautious.
In the past, for business cooperation projects similar to this kind of investment in Haihan Colony, even if Furifeng heard about it in advance, he would wait for Haihan to take the lead before getting involved. This time, Li Nai took the initiative to talk to Schneider about Haihan's unimplemented colonial development project. This is also the first time in the cooperation between the two parties. Even Schneider, who was well-informed, rarely felt a little uncomfortable at this moment.
The Ministry of Commerce has indeed begun to prepare a future investment plan for the Taiwan colony after receiving the information from Fujian. However, because the situation in Taiwan is changing so fast, other departments except the military have not been able to keep up. According to Qian Tiandun's pace, the matter of investment promotion has not even been discussed yet. Next, specific arrangements and plans need to be discussed with the civil affairs, shipping and other departments. Li Nai wanted to seize this opportunity to discuss cooperation with Haihan, but Schneider couldn't come up with much useful information to bargain with.
"Third Young Master, you are not an outsider, so let me tell you the truth. Regarding the matter of Da Yuan Island, it is not yet time to discuss cooperation." Schneider pointed to the documents in front of him and explained: "This pile of documents is all It's about Taiyuan Island. I will spend at least three more days reading this information, and then discuss with other departments how to organize immigration and what development projects need to be prepared before making plans to attract investment. You came too early. I guess it won’t be until the second half of the month at the earliest before the corresponding investment brochure comes out.”
"It doesn't matter, I can wait in Sanya." Li Nai's attitude was very determined, and it could be seen that his persistence in this matter was not just a joke.
"When we discussed business with us in the past, I never saw you being so serious." Schneider joked: "Your father would be very pleased to see you like this."
"It's different." Li Nai waved his hand and said: "In the past, my father and elder brothers took care of the business, and I just showed up. This time I want to operate it on my own, proving that I am not an idle person who only knows how to eat. A playboy and a rich young man waiting to die. ”
"Have ambition!" Schneider nodded and confirmed Li Nai's determination: "Since you want to insist, I will not object. When I have news from here, I will send someone to inform you immediately. But don't do this. Spreading it to others is both a commercial secret and a military secret, do you understand? ”
"I understand, I understand. Thank you for taking care of Mr. Shi. I will stay in Sanya temporarily during these days and wait for the good news from Mr. Shi!" After Li Nai finished talking about the business, he no longer wasted Schneider's time and stood up to leave.
As soon as Li Nai left, Schneider picked up the phone and called Yan Chujie: "Old Yan, things in Taiwan need to be accelerated. Li Nai came to me just now and asked me if I was going to do something in Taiwan soon and wanted to participate. Subsequent development.”
After hearing this, Yan Chujie didn't realize what was wrong at first: "That's a good thing, anyway, Furifeng is involved in most of our overseas industries, so just follow the previous operating model!"< br>
"We did not inform him about Taiwan, but he inferred it based on the information he had." Schneider had to add one more sentence.
Only then did Yan Chujie come to his senses: "Then did Li Nai publicize this matter?"
"Not yet, but he can think of it, and others may think of it, so we can't delay this matter any longer. We have to come up with a plan as soon as possible and establish the rules first so that there will be no chaos. Otherwise, in a few days, the threshold here will have to be changed. It will be crushed by people." Although Schneider was joking, his attitude was very serious. Yan Chujie naturally knew the seriousness of this matter, and immediately expressed his position: "Okay, Yue Zhiyun is also holding a coordination meeting here. I will go with him to find Ning Qi later, and we can unify the general tone first. , and adjust the details slowly.”
In the development of Taiwan Island, the main departments involved are the military, shipping, civil affairs and commerce, and at most the Ministry of Construction. However, during the current construction process of Haihan Colony, the Ministry of Construction often only produces planning drawings and a few foremen, while the construction personnel adopt a nearby solution. These yamen will decide more than 90% of the affairs in Taiwan's immigration development process. They will also decide whether and when the Haihan Colony on Taiwan Island will invite foreign investment, as well as details such as the terms of the investment.
According to the general work process, the Penghu base signed an agreement with the Dutch, which means that the main obstacles for Haihan to land on Taiwan Island have been basically cleared, and then various departments will start the follow-up steps for building a colonial point. Communicate and designate corresponding plans. However, there are countless tasks that need to be done. To reach the stage of attracting investment, a month is considered very fast. If it involves the development of some agricultural projects, it is very likely that the Ministry of Agriculture will have to send them to conduct on-site inspections before they can formulate corresponding plans and then attract foreign investment.
However, Li Nai's sudden arrival really disrupted this step-by-step work arrangement, because Haihan did originally intend to adopt some new practices in the development process of Taiwan Island.
In the past investment project operations, the tendency of localism was still very obvious. Most projects would give priority or consciously take care of local investors. For example, in the plantation projects developed locally in Hainan Island, the investors were mainly from Hainan and Guangdong. Most of them came from a wealthy family, and the seaport built in Annan first had to take into account the investment needs of Annan dignitaries, and then the shares allocated to Ming merchants. Large regional agents like Fulifeng and Xu Xinsu are more wary of foreign merchants' involvement in local projects, and generally require Haihan's investment promotion measures to impose various restrictions on foreign competitors to protect the interests of local merchants.
This situation is of course not the ideal business form in Schneider's mind. Although the business promoted by Haihan is based on regional agents, the purpose is to concentrate the power of resource allocation and utilization in more places into his own hands. This is More cross-regional commercial circulation activities are needed. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to build more neutral free trade ports, but existing ports are often interfered with by relatively obvious localism and cannot achieve Schneider's vision.
Regardless of whether Haihan locates the port in Hong Kong or Penghu, such interference and influence are inevitable. However, the operation process of Ambon Island has brought new revelations to the Ministry of Commerce. Territory, or unclaimed land, there will not be so much external interference during the development process. Whether it is Annan, Daming or investors from other places, they will better follow the rules of the game stipulated by Haihan in order to Participate in development and competition in a fairer way.
However, Ambona Island has an insurmountable shortcoming, that is, without good port conditions, it is impossible to become a large trading port in the South China Sea. Dingpotian is only a maritime transit station and a large plantation rich in tropical crops. In comparison, the conditions on Taiwan Island are much better. Although there are indigenous people and foreign colonists, in the eyes of Haihan today, this is an unclaimed land with huge development potential.
Neither the wealthy Guangdong business community nor the Hsu interest group in Fujian have any direct influence on the island of Taiwan. This means that the ports and other industries established by Haihan on Taiwan Island no longer need to take care of anyone's emotions. They can completely follow the plans of the Haihan Executive Committee, or more accurately, the Haihan Commerce Department led by Schneider. Let’s realize it bit by bit - provided that Haihan can do all the preparations before making the relevant information public.
But if someone like Li Nai notices some subtle trends and detects Haihan's local plans in advance, then the direction of things is likely to change. When Qian Tiandun first led his troops to inspect the Zhuoshui River Basin, he had already conducted it as a secret mission in order to prevent the Fujian military from discovering Haihan's intentions prematurely. After that, when he went to the west coast of Taiwan for the second time, Qian Tiandun also took the fleet to sea in the name of maritime training, and he didn't even bring a single training personnel affiliated to the Ming Dynasty. As for the several contacts with Dutch representative Philip, as well as the treaty signed with the East India Company chief Hans outside the port of Dalian, they were all classified as top secrets, and all military personnel who knew the inside story were under arrest. Got a gag order.
The reason why the military is so cautious is mainly because it is worried about letting Xu Xinsu get the news in advance. With his style, he will probably ask Haihan to directly participate in the development process - just like he was involved in the development and construction of Penghu before.
After the Battle of Penghu ended in May, Xu Xinsu took the initiative to express to Haihan that he could send a large number of laborers to Penghu to assist Haihan in building ports and other infrastructure facilities, and the materials needed locally could also be transported from Zhangzhou and Quanzhou nearby. As for the transportation capacity that Haihan lacks, Xu Xinsu also said that he can solve it at once. Of course, such assistance was not provided unconditionally. After all, the exchange condition for Haihan to send troops to expel Shibazhi was the right to govern Penghu, and Fujian officials were not obligated to assume anything after that.
The conditions Xu Xinsu offered to Haihan were exclusive business terms in Penghu, that is, merchants outside Fujian must set up exclusive terminals, storehouses and other facilities locally. In addition to obtaining Haihan's consent, they also need to Obtained permission from the Fujian government. This means that although foreign merchants like Fulifeng can dock in Penghu for supplies and even conduct transactions, they cannot have long-term operating institutions in the local area. They can only act as passers-by and cannot become merchants. In this way, To a great extent, the competitiveness of foreign businessmen has been weakened.
At that time, in order to quickly stabilize the Penghu outpost and save the time and cost required for initial construction, the Haihan Executive Committee agreed to the exchange conditions proposed by Xu Xinsu. Therefore, although the Fujian government no longer has any direct influence in Penghu, these conditions are written in black and white in the cooperation agreement between the two parties, and there will be no changes at least in the short term.
However, Taiwan Island is a lawless place. If there are no protective measures, businessmen from Guangdong, Annan and even other places will definitely enter Haihan's port on Taiwan Island in the future, and this will undoubtedly affect the Xu's interest group in Fujian. maritime interests. If Xu Xinsu had learned about Haihan's plans in Taiwan, she would definitely not sit back and watch Haihan slowly revise the development plan and then publicly invite investment.
The changes in the situation in Taiwan can be concealed for a while but not forever. Even if all the people under Qian Tiandun can keep it secret, the Dutch will definitely not be able to cover it up over time. However, Haihan and his gang did not expect that there would be a commercial spy like Li Nai who was able to piece together Haihan's strategic intentions in Penghu and Taiwan Island with the help of some fragmented information. If Li Nai wasn't so close to the senior officials at Haihan, then Schneider probably wouldn't have called Yan Chujie, but directly informed Hao Wanqing from the Security Department.
What Haihan has to do now is to start the immigration and construction work on Taiwan Island as soon as possible before external forces exert influence, and then come up with a more appropriate solution to attract investment.
(End of chapter)