Chapter 974 Productivity Gap
After the carriage entered the city, Fan Diemen noticed that the streets here were not as lively as those in Sanya city. There were not many pedestrians on the streets, but the streets were still neat and tidy as was typical under Haihan's rule. From time to time, teams of five black-clad security police can be seen on the street. This prepared posture may be related to the visit of the big shot Ning Qi.
"It seems that there are not many residents in the city." Van Diemen said casually.
Ning Qi responded: "Most of the people living in Yacheng now are local officials. There are representatives of commercial banks operating projects here, as well as our personnel stationed in Yacheng. As for the immigrants working in plantations outside the city, they They all live in resettlement villages outside the city, and they usually only go to the city when they need to go to official agencies for business. ”
Van Diemen thought that this situation was similar to Batavia. The local social structure was that the rich and powerful people lived in the city, while the fishermen, farmers and other craftsmen mostly lived outside the city.
The settlement of Ning Qi and Fan Diemen in Yacheng was the courtyard of the Cliff Resident Office. However, due to the improved institutional functions, the scale of the current Cliff Resident Office has been greatly expanded. It is not just the small courtyard they originally bought. Later, he bought a large piece of land nearby and built a new office compound and residential area. The small courtyard where the first generation of Cliff Office personnel originally lived is now only used as a storage warehouse and archives center.
The Cliff Office has specially prepared two upper rooms, which are only provided for the residence of the chiefs who come here for inspection. Although these two upper rooms may not be used once a year, this kind of special treatment is not an economic issue, but a political issue, so it has been retained. As a "distinguished guest" invited by the executive committee, Van Diemen also enjoyed this special treatment.
The ceramic bathroom ware, hot water supply, bedding, and furniture decoration used in this room are all customized products that cannot be bought on the market. There is even a socket connected to the battery in the room to allow the head of the room to stay. Conveniently use the laptop they carry.
Although Van Diemen did not quite understand the pursuit of material comfort among high-ranking officials like Haihan, he could still see the quality of these things, such as the complete set of blue and white porcelain sanitary ware made by Haihan in the bathroom. If he got it from Batavia At auction on the market, it is estimated that one hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy slaves can be obtained. What he personally likes most is the uninterrupted hot water supply in this room. You can get into the bathtub and take a comfortable bath at any time. This is really a good enjoyment in the hot and humid Southeast Asia.
There were several special desserts and snacks placed on the coffee table in the room. Van Diemen picked through them for a while, and finally chose a nougat. However, this kind of sweet seemed not suitable for him. Before he finished eating, he felt a dull pain in his two molars. Van Diemen quickly poured a cup of tea and poured the nougat that had not completely melted in his mouth directly into his stomach, and then he felt better.
Fan Diemen rested in the room for a while, and Ning Qi came to invite him to the banquet. During this visit to Hainan Island, Fan Diemen got to see the banquet culture of the Haihan people. In addition to breakfast every day, banquets of varying sizes were arranged at noon and evening. The military, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Shipping, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, and the Executive Committee The conference office and other units came forward to invite him one after another. Even though Van Diemen thought he was in good health, he had been drinking heavily at the banquet in the past few days and was a little overwhelmed. He originally thought that he could avoid these occasions by going on an island tour, but he didn't expect that as soon as he arrived at the first stop, Yacheng, there would be another banquet waiting for him.
"Mr. Ning, are these banquet arrangements a little too frequent?" Van Diemen said with a bitter smile: "I have only been in your place for a few days, and I have already attended more banquets than in the past year!"
Ning Qi said seriously: "This reception banquet was arranged by the staff of the Cliff Office, and I didn't know it beforehand. If we refuse to attend, it will easily make the people below worried, so we'd better attend it as a routine."< br>
Van Diemen himself is also a powerful figure, so he can naturally understand this kind of relationship in the workplace. At the moment, he could only smile bitterly: "You can go, but you can't drink too much."
Eating and drinking is a characteristic of Haihan's officialdom. Driven by Chuanzhong, the entire bureaucracy from top to bottom is accustomed to choosing banquets as a place for communication. Because there are many foreign-invested plantations here in Yacheng, the Yazhou Office as the local competent authority has a lot of time to deal with people from all walks of life. Eating and drinking are very common activities, and there is also a dedicated public relations department in the office budget. Hospitality expenses. When a big leader like Ning Qi goes to inspect work at a local level, he must receive a full set of necessary courtesy treatment. You can't just have a work meal to get started. If these red tapes were omitted, even if Ning Qi wouldn't blame him, the people at the Cliff Office wouldn't be able to rest assured.
Of course, Van Diemen's pre-statement did not successfully save him from the toasting relay at the banquet. Although local Ming officials, business representatives and cadres in the Cliff Office did not dare to drink Ning Qi's wine, they were still concerned about this. The stupid Xifan barbarian didn't have to worry about it. The seven or eight people who accompanied him took turns to fight, and soon Van Diemen began to be overwhelmed. If Ning Qi hadn't stopped him after seeing what was going on, Fan Diemen would probably have been knocked down again.
The direct consequence of this reception banquet was that the local inspection trip had to be postponed to the next day in order to allow Van Diemen to return to a sober state. Ning Qi did not rest. He took advantage of this period to listen to the recent work report of the Yazhan Office. He also met with two investor representatives and finalized with them the development of two new oil fields in the upper reaches of the Ningyuan River north of Yacheng. Crop plantation planning. The two plantations will take about half a year to complete the preliminary reclamation and planting, and will also create more than 400 jobs for local people. The next day, Ning Qi and Fan Diemen visited several local business banks. To be precise, these business banks are just local offices of foreign investors. The Qiong Lianfa Business Group behind them is currently the richest in the South China Sea. A powerful private business organization, Qiong Lianfa can provide all the supplies that the Dutch want to obtain from Northeast Asia.
Van Diemen lost no time in seizing this opportunity to invite various companies to send caravans to Batavia for trade, and said that after the signing of the South China Sea Trade Alliance agreement, the trading activities of Haihan and Ming merchants in Batavia also increased. will enjoy more preferential tariff policies. However, his publicity did not achieve very good results. Most of the shopkeepers just said a few polite words or said that they had to ask their superiors for instructions. No one would agree to his invitation in front of Ning Qi.
The trading firms that Qiong Lianfa belongs to have many years of cooperation experience with Haihan. They understand Haihan's methods of operation and are very sensitive to policies. The bosses are also very concerned about the operation methods of the South China Sea Trade Alliance. I have already inquired about the relevant information. One of the contents of the agreement between Heihan and the Dutch East India Company is that the Netherlands will give up commercial activities north of Ambrosia Island, and Heihan will provide it with purchase lists and supply sources. Haihan's measure is obviously to monopolize the Dutch's trading rights in Northeast Asia. Under this premise, who would dare to go out and carry out trade activities with the Dutch on their own without interest?
The Haihan people want to monopolize this business, of course, in order to obtain higher profits, and Qiong Lianfa, as a private business organization dependent on the Haihan trade system, will naturally not go against the official. Anyway, when Haihan receives orders from the Dutch, there are many goods that still need to be forwarded to them for purchase. These firms do not have to worry about not being able to obtain profits from them. And Ning Qi is confident, so of course he won't care about Van Diemen's futile propaganda activities.
Van Diemen obviously didn't know much about the inside story, otherwise he wouldn't have done useless research on these Qiong Lianfa's shareholder firms. But he could also feel from the expressions of these shopkeepers that his efforts had little effect. Van Diemen thought that this might be because Batavia was not attractive enough to these businessmen. After all, Batavia was far away from the Ming Dynasty. It was too far away, but Sanya, run by the Haihan people, was much closer. If there were not enough benefits, it would be difficult to attract Ming merchants to cross the entire South China Sea to Batavia for trading activities.
At noon that day, several shopkeepers jointly hosted a banquet for Ning Qi and Fan Diemen. This time, Fan Diemen held his position resolutely and refused to drink. Ning Qi looked on secretly amused. I am afraid that Van Diemen will be allergic to the banquet for a long time after he returns. After the meal, the shopkeepers led the way, and everyone went out of the city to visit the plantation.
The look and feel on the carriage is obviously different from the feeling of actually walking into the fields. It is not difficult for Van Diemen to notice that there are no menacing foremans holding whips in the plantations here, and the working atmosphere is quite harmonious. One of the shopkeepers introduced them: "The labor prices here are slightly more expensive than those in the Ming Dynasty, but there are no unnecessary troubles. All operations of the plantation must sign a special contract with the yamen in charge of Haihan, and all matters must be handled." There are clear regulations and there is no need to purchase land, so the cost of operating a plantation is actually lower than that of the Ming Dynasty.”
The "unnecessary troubles" mentioned by the shopkeeper mainly refer to various management fees outside the system collected by the government, but under Haihan's rule, there are not so many messy things. All local labor employed by investors are provided by Haihan, and the daily management of these laborers is also handled by Haihan's civil affairs agencies, eliminating the need for investors to spend additional energy and money.
After hearing the explanation, Van Diemen also secretly compared the plantations operated by the East India Company in Southeast Asia, but soon discovered that the two were not very comparable, because most of the indigenous residents in the areas under the East India Company were very lazy. They were unwilling to engage in manual labor for a living, so most of the laborers in local plantations were Chinese and slave laborers trafficked from other places. As a result, some problems that cannot be ignored inevitably arise. First, cultural differences cause many obstacles in communication. The Dutch have never been able to handle the relationship with these foreign workers; second, the labor relationship between the two parties has not been through agreement or agreement. Regulations are required to protect this, which results in workers having little enthusiasm for work, and bosses will not be kind to their subordinates who cannot do their jobs well without beating or scolding them.
In terms of the relationship between management and labor alone, the plantations run by the Dutch will definitely not be able to reach the level of the Haihan plantation in terms of labor efficiency, and this efficiency gap will result in differences in operating costs. Moreover, the Haihan people often further process the primary agricultural and forestry products produced in the plantations to produce high-end commodities such as cane sugar, edible oil, alcoholic beverages, etc., and then sell them on the market for several times the price. If we look at the economic value created by plantations, the gap between the two sides is indeed quite obvious.
Van Diemen then visited a local sugar cane pressing workshop. The steam pressing machinery used here was a new type of equipment that he had never seen before. Not only was the pressing speed much higher than that of human and animal power, but the specially designed rollers would The sugar yield is nearly 20% higher than that of traditional technology. After watching the actual operations of the workers, Van Diemen was convinced that he had found the fundamental reason why the cane sugar produced in Batavia had become increasingly unsaleable in the past two years-given Haihan's planting scale, labor costs and processing technology. Advantage, it is possible to control the price of sucrose below the production cost line of the East India Company. As long as Haihan's output can meet market demand, then it's damn good that the East India Company's cane sugar can be sold.
"This is really... an amazing production equipment!" Seeing the roaring press constantly swallowing the sugar cane, Van Diemen's tone was filled with jealousy.
It goes without saying that this weird iron thing will not be allowed to be sold. Van Diemen has seen a lot of this kind of equipment called "steam engine" made by the Haihan people in the port of Sanya, and that kind of equipment in The large railway cars running on the railway tracks in Sanya seem to be driven by this kind of equipment. This unique invention of Haihan people has an obvious role in promoting productivity. Unfortunately, the principle of this thing is still a secret so far. Although the East India Company has recently been trying its best to find out the secrets of this kind of mechanical equipment, there has been no actual harvest so far. The factories that manufacture this kind of equipment are all located in Tiandu, inland Sanya, which is inaccessible to outsiders. In the military controlled area, the risk of sending people to inquire for information is too great.
Van Diemen did not know that a Spanish espionage case had just been solved in Sanya. Although there were people under his command lurking in Sanya, their social status was far lower than that of Du Wen, the main criminal in the Spanish espionage case, and they had no access to steam engine manufacturing technology. This level of confidentiality. But he also knew that if he left it alone, it would make the gap in strength between the two sides even wider.
(End of chapter)