Chapter 1856 North Korean Market
As the most prosperous city under the rule of Korea in this era, Seoul not only served as the political center of the country, but also played the role of an economic and trade center. At least half of the powerful people in North Korea live in Seoul and nearby areas. After the war between Korea and the Qing Dynasty, a large number of upper-class people from the northern region fled south to Seoul for refuge, which further increased this ratio.
The direct impact of the influx of a large number of wealthy people into the city is an obvious inflationary effect. In addition to the impact on the prices of ordinary living supplies, even fixed assets such as real estate have also risen with the tide. Some civilians simply sold their residences to wealthy outsiders at high prices, and moved out of Seoul to settle in places with lower living costs.
For example, if the house where Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun stayed was priced at 4,000 taels of silver before the war, no one might be willing to buy it. But if the current owner is willing to sell it for 1,000 taels of silver, the buyers will probably queue up at the door. Of course, the owner of this house is neither short of real estate nor short of money. He lent the house purely to please the king and win the favor of the Haihan people. He will not give the house away just because of the current rise in prices. Sold.
However, those who have been snapping up real estate in Seoul recently are not all northern dignitaries who have fled here, but also a considerable number of businessmen from foreign countries. These people have relatively high requirements for the area, location, living conditions, etc. of real estate, but they spend very generously. As long as they like it, they don't care too much about the price, so they quickly increase the housing prices in Seoul.
Naturally, the majority of these merchants were merchants from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions of the Ming Dynasty and Haihan, especially the large Haihan merchants who had received the news in advance. Almost all of them managed to purchase real estate in the city for the purpose of opening business stores.
In fact, there were products from Haihan on the North Korean market before this, but most of them were resold by Ming merchants, and there were only some expensive high-end goods that ordinary people could hardly afford. In the future, if Haihan merchants directly enter the North Korean market, a large number of industrial products will gradually enter the daily lives of North Korean people, and Seoul will become one of the main distribution centers for Haihan products in North Korea.
Sungnyemun Gate in the south of Seoul is the closest city gate to the Han River. Because it is more convenient to transport goods and people from the Han River, the nearby area has become a favorite place for foreign merchants to settle. A shop facing the street in Chonglimen was originally a cloth shop, but it was taken over by a large merchant from Haihan some time ago. After being closed for renovation for more than a month, it will finally reopen for business recently.
After the store was renovated, it no longer engaged in the cloth business. Instead, a large plaque with the words "Haihan Bank" was hung at the front door. For the vast majority of North Koreans, they actually don’t quite understand what this sign means. Only a few businessmen and well-informed dignitaries who have been overseas know that this institution is not a shop in the traditional sense, but a bank account engaged in financial services. What is different from ordinary financial institutions is that this "Haihan Bank" is officially operated by Haihan. It is said to have extremely strong capital, which is far from comparable to similar private institutions.
How rich Haihan Bank's funds are can be seen from its generous investment of 20,000 taels of silver in one fell swoop to buy this cloth shop. This price has far exceeded the market conditions of the store, and may even seem like taking advantage of others in the eyes of outsiders, but Haihan considered more than just price when bidding.
For Haihan Bank to establish a branch overseas, it is a rather complicated project. The location alone is extremely demanding. There are corresponding assessment standards for the location, area, structure of the shop, and even the materials used in building the house. , in many places because it cannot find suitable shops, Haihan Bank will even buy a piece of land to build it by itself.
According to Haihan Bank, it is not easy to find a suitable store. Spending a little more money and saving precious time is a good deal. As for the funds invested in the early stage, it is not a large amount compared to the long-term benefits, not to mention that Seoul is the political and economic center city of the entire North Korea, and the number of potential customers is considerable.
Although the previous war almost drained North Korea's treasury, the wealth of the people has not been greatly affected. A considerable part of the large amount of money brought to Seoul by the dignitaries who fled south from the war zone is in a state of idle funds, and Haihan After the bank opens its branch in Seoul, it can try to absorb these funds for its own use - the industrial cooperation plan being negotiated between Haihan and North Korea requires a large amount of funds to promote implementation. If North Korea's own idle private funds can be fully utilized, It can also relieve a lot of burden for Haihan.
Due to the particularity of banking business, employees of this institution must undergo professional training and a period of internship before they can start working. Therefore, from top to bottom, the Seoul branch basically comes from Haihan, and only from the local area before opening. The shop hired a few smart guys to hand out printed flyers at the door to attract customers.
Of course, really big customers will definitely not be brought back from the street temporarily. When the location of the Semicolon was still being selected in the early stage, Mei Baiji, who was designated as the person in charge of the Seoul Semicolon, was already visiting local dignitaries and developing development projects. Long term customer.
Mei Baiji came from a Han landlord family in Danzhou. In 1630, Haihan marched into Qiongbei in the name of suppressing bandits and successfully captured Danzhou City. At that time, the Mei family wisely chose to quickly defect to the new master and sent the young Mei Baiji to his family. Ji was sent to Sanya to study abroad. After Mei Baiji studied for a period of time, he gradually showed his talent in finance, and was then selected to receive targeted training at a specialized agency of the Ministry of Finance.
Mei Baiji was known as a child prodigy when he was in Danzhou. However, after he entered the training class of the Ministry of Finance, he discovered that there were too many smart people in the world. Some children were younger than him but were more intelligent. When it comes to magic, he is only considered to be a middle-to-upper-level person, not as unique as he is in the countryside of Danzhou. So he quickly put away his pride and honestly studied the knowledge taught by the Haihan people.
After Mei Baiji received two years of training, he was assigned to work at Haihan Bank. He only worked as a teller for more than two years before he was spotted by Cai Jinmei and promoted to become a personal secretary. Maybe it's a matter of eye connection, or maybe it's because both of their names have the word "plum" in their names. In short, Cai Jinmei has put a lot of thought into cultivating this young man. In the following years, Mei Baiji traveled around with Cai Jinmei, and experienced the entire process of several overseas branch offices of banks from project establishment to implementation to business operations, and really learned a lot of real skills.
When Haihan Bank was preparing to establish a North Korean office, Cai Jinmei recommended Mei Baiji to Schneider as the person in charge, and successfully obtained Schneider's approval. So Mei Baiji, who was only 25 years old, was sent to North Korea and was responsible for preparing a branch of Haihan Bank in Seoul.
Although he has been in this business for five years, it is still not easy for Mei Baiji, who is taking charge of his own business for the first time, to complete this task alone. In particular, North Korea is still a relatively unfamiliar country to Haihan. If you want to conduct financial business here, you will inevitably encounter many unknown difficulties. Fortunately, the special international situation encountered by North Korea created excellent external conditions for Haihan Bank to conduct business. The panic caused by the invasion of the Qing army and the large number of people fleeing south caused the private wealth in North Korea to quickly concentrate near Seoul. Having so much idle funds, whether stored or used, is a huge problem for many outsiders. Haihan Bank can provide them with the most convenient and safe solution, and can even use money to make money to generate more income. .
The impressive achievements of the Haihan Army on the Korean battlefield also greatly enhanced Haihan's reputation. Coupled with the public opinion propaganda that Haihan deliberately guided, the North Korean people gradually equated Haihan with security. . Haihan Bank, which operates under the banner of Haihan's official bank, has naturally won the trust of some North Koreans. They agreed to open an account at the bank after it opened and deposit some of their spare money into Haihan Bank.
Mei Baiji was busy for more than a month before the opening, visiting hundreds of potential customers, but when it came to the opening, he was still so nervous that he couldn't sleep at night. This was not because the two military generals Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun came to Seoul, but because his old boss Cai Jinmei also came specially from Zhoushan, Zhejiang. Whether your early work can be recognized by your boss probably depends on your results in the first few days after opening.
Cai Jinmei did not come to Seoul empty-handed this time. Shi Diwen specially sent an expedition-class warship to bring her here. Such grand treatment was not only due to Cai Jinmei’s prominent position as the president of Haihan Bank, but also Part of the reason is that her trip brought a large amount of funds needed for the operation of the Seoul Branch - Haihan Bank's business projects are not only to absorb deposits, but also to lend money.
Considering that Haihan Bank had just arrived and might not be able to absorb enough local deposits in the early stage, Cai Jinmei shipped a large amount of gold and silver from Zhejiang. In addition to serving as working capital in the early stage of opening, it is also to demonstrate its strength to some large customers who lack confidence in Haihan Bank, so that they can put money into the bank with peace of mind.
Although there are no taboos for female officials in Haihan, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, Cai Jinmei did not take the initiative to visit local dignitaries after arriving in Seoul. She still left all socializing tasks to Mei Baiji. She herself was sitting in the semicolon, reviewing whether all preparations were in place, and studying the local market research report and work plan written by Mei Baiji.
Cai Jinmei and Mei Baiji are both superiors and subordinates, as well as mentors and apprentices. She took the initiative to recommend Mei Baiji to the Executive Committee and Schneider. Naturally, she also hoped that the apprentice she brought out could make great achievements in North Korea. , her face will be bright by then.
Cai Jinmei is quite satisfied with the preliminary preparations for Mei Baiji's organization and command in Seoul, especially this house located in the most prosperous area of the South Gate of Seoul. It has a large yard with three courtyards, and the base of the walls is made of bluestone. It is very solid and has a street frontage, so it is relatively easy to transform it into a structure required for bank operations.
Even buying a house and renovating it, Mei Baiji spent nearly thirty thousand taels of silver here, but in Cai Jinmei's opinion, this was not considered extravagant. Years of work experience have made her very clear that the more glamorous and luxurious the bank's hardware environment is, the more customers can feel at ease to handle various financial services here. Only the rich can attract truly wealthy people.
Of course, the environment alone is not enough. It is only part of the bank's operating methods. In order to get the Seoul branch off to a good start, Cai Jinmei had actually done a lot of work in advance, and part of it was left to Mei Baiji to complete.
"In the arrangement of the reception work, you must take the people below to go through the process several times, especially those North Korean employees. There must be no mistakes. How many people can be invited to support this time? Are these big shots interested in our business? , is likely to directly affect our early operating conditions, so no amount of effort is needed to prepare. ”
While drinking tea, Cai Jinmei told Mei Baiji to pay attention to things. In fact, she didn't need to emphasize these things again and again. Mei Baiji also understood their importance, but she still bowed her head very respectfully and listened to her boss's instructions, just like she had done in the past few years.
For the opening of the Seoul branch this time, Haihan has sent invitations to many prominent figures in Seoul through official channels, asking them to come and watch the ceremony. However, Mei Baiji did not have an exact estimate of how many people would come.
Most of the invitees accepted the invitation for Haihan's sake, but they did not make it clear whether they would show up at that time. This caused a lot of trouble for Mei Baiji's reception preparations. He was not even sure how large a reception area would be on the adjacent street. Moreover, if few guests are invited to come and it fails to warm up the atmosphere and attract attention, then it will be difficult for him as an organizer to do his job.
So far, the only North Korean official who has explicitly promised to be present is Kim Sang-jiu, who has had several interactions with Cai Jinmei. However, Kim Sang-joo's official position is only North Korea's envoy to Dinghai Port in Zhoushan. He is not a prominent figure even in Seoul. As the main guest participating in the ribbon-cutting, it seems that he is not important enough.
Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun, who are originally in Seoul, will definitely come to support it, but if there are no officials of equal status in North Korea, the effect of this official endorsement of the bank's credibility will inevitably be lacking. So from Cai Jinmei's perspective, she still hopes to invite officials of Kim Sang-heon's level to attend the opening ceremony. If a few senior North Korean officials can stand up for Haihan Bank, the daily operations and market development after its opening will be easier.
(End of chapter)