Chapter 2154
After successfully presiding over the entire process of planning, construction, and commissioning of the Xiangshan Saltworks project, Yang Yun has fully proven his professional abilities, and he has gained more trust from this. Currently, Shi Diwen has completed the entire Zhoushan Colonial Zone All business affairs were entrusted to him.
Yang Yun did not dare to neglect the group of foreign businessmen brought back from Hirado by his boss in person. He didn't know whether there were some people with special status and background among these people, but since Shi Diwen brought them back personally and asked him to arrange highly preferential investment measures for these businessmen as soon as possible, it was enough to show the importance of this task. Sex.
In order to understand the situation of this group of people, Yang Yun made a special trip to the East China Sea Fleet headquarters after receiving the order to find out the news from familiar officers. Only then did he learn that these foreign businessmen were "forced" to come to Zhoushan to settle temporarily, and Shi Diwen hopes to compensate their economic losses in Hirado through preferential measures, so as to allow these businessmen to stay in Zhoushan and develop.
Most of the preferential measures in investment promotion are tax reductions and fee reductions. Yang Yun has been responsible for investment promotion work in Penghu and Zhoushan for several years, and he is very proficient in this. However, considering the special background of these businessmen, how to determine the scale of preferential measures is the main issue that Yang Yun needs to consider.
If the discounts given to this group of people are too large, the spread of the news will easily arouse the dissatisfaction of other businessmen, and it will be very troublesome to tighten it later, and the next public investment activity will not be easy to plan. Standard. After some deliberation, Yang Yun decided to call these businessmen together for a small meeting to see their attitude towards the current investment promotion measures, and then judge whether adjustments needed to be made.
In order for the Western businessmen present to understand, Yang Yun also specially prepared translators. As the number of foreign businessmen on Zhoushan Island increases, the number of professionals working as translators has also increased. Moreover, not all of these translators are Han Chinese, but some are foreigners who have lived in the East for a long time and have learned Chinese. . After all, working as a translator in a trading port is easy and the income is high, which is much better than living as a seafarer for a year and a half once you go to sea.
After Yang Yun greeted everyone, he quickly got to the point: "Everyone here was brought back from Hirado by our navy. I believe I have explained to you why the military made such an arrangement. Yes. Our country is a responsible country. Although the Japanese Hirado clan is responsible for causing the war, our country is still willing to take the initiative to take on the task of resettling the vast number of innocent people after the war, whether it is the local Japanese people in Hirado or in Hirado. For merchants from various countries engaged in trading activities, we will use various methods to reduce everyone’s losses.”
As soon as these businessmen heard this, they knew that Mr. Yang was not a good person. In just a few words, they blamed all the reasons for the war on the Japanese who could not defend themselves. In this way, the responsibility for causing them to be involved in the war was all placed on the Japanese, and the losses they suffered due to the war should naturally be compensated by the Hirado domain official. Now that the Haihan official is willing to take them in, it is purely Do good deeds when obliged.
This also means that the preferential measures that Haihan will give them are actually of a rescue nature, and are definitely not war compensation.
Official Haihan settled the matter in a few words, but this may have a completely different meaning to the businessmen. If it is war compensation, then businessmen, as direct victims, can certainly bargain with Haihan officials to obtain more compensation for themselves. But if it is a rescue, it becomes a charity. Haihan is not obligated to help the businessmen restart their business or provide them with a certain degree of charity. Naturally, there is no room for negotiation of conditions.
This undoubtedly immediately greatly lowered the expectations of the businessmen. Most of them believed that the promise given by the Haihan Army in Hirado was war compensation, so they followed the Haihan Army to Zhoushan with peace of mind. But now This Haihan official clearly shied away the responsibility in just a few words, and there was obviously a gap in the middle.
After Yang Yun finished speaking, he stopped, looked around at everyone and said, "If you have any questions about this, you can ask me and I will answer it immediately."
Someone immediately asked: "Mr. Yang, your military officers told us that as long as we came to Zhoushan, our losses in Hirado would be made up for. This seems to be a little different from what you said?"
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Yang Yun responded without changing his expression: "That should be because the officer who communicated with you used the wrong words. The term 'make up for' is wrong. We have no obligation to take responsibility for the Hirado clan, and everyone's losses in Hirado are also It should not be borne by our country. What we have to do now is to provide you with an excellent trading environment and help you make a comeback here. I believe that if you can start running your familiar business again here, you will soon be able to do so. Earn your losses.”
Yang Yun's bottom line is very clear, that is, he will never admit that Haihan is responsible for the losses of these merchants in Hirado. He should first gain a moral high ground so that he can control the intensity of preferential measures given to the merchants later.
"You don't have to worry, you might as well understand some of the conditions we will provide first. If you still feel that it is inappropriate, then you have the right to leave Zhoushan and find another way out." Yang Yun observed the words and also noticed that the mood of these businessmen was a bit low. At that moment, he took the initiative to bring the topic back to business.
Regardless of whether they were satisfied with Yang Yun's statement, it was certainly impossible for the businessmen to just get up and leave. Now that you are here, of course you have to listen to what kind of preferential measures Yang Yun can come up with.
The preferential conditions given by Yang Yun are mainly divided into two parts. One is the traditional tax reduction and fee reduction, and the other is the provision of low-interest loans to businessmen, which are both very practical measures.
The so-called tax reduction and fee reduction, as the name suggests, is to provide discounts and exemptions on commercial taxes and various miscellaneous fees. The Zhoushan Colonial Zone holds investment promotion activities in spring and autumn every year, so these preferential measures have unified standards. Compared with the trade environment of the Ming Dynasty, they are indeed attractive to a certain extent.
The transaction tax in the first year of settling in Zhoushan can be halved according to the current standard. You can purchase real estate at a low price in designated areas. During the same period, you can get a warehouse with a limited area but free use. You can get a loan provided by Haihan Bank without a mortgage. Low-interest loans, operating some special industries designated by Haihan can also enjoy greater discounts... Yang Yun listed more than ten preferential measures such as this in one breath.
Haihan's business and management methods in the field of commerce were almost all developed by Schneider. Although some of the measures proved to be too advanced and not suitable for the situation of this era, after several years of practice, Haihan still concluded that We have developed some effective means to enable businessmen from other countries to follow the business system advocated by Haihan and integrate into this leading-edge trading system.
Of course, just listing these measures is not enough. Considering that most of these businessmen are exposed to Haihan's business system for the first time, Yang Yun has to explain the actual benefits that these measures will bring to them one by one, and Answer various questions they ask. Yu Chengli was very interested in the measures listed by Yang Yun. Although he did not fully understand some of the details, he keenly felt that these measures could indeed greatly reduce his operating costs. And in the long run, Zhoushan's trade environment should be better than Hirado. Whether it is hardware facilities or safety guarantees, there is a relatively large gap in Hirado Port.
But for Yu Chengli, although these measures are very attractive, they are not the main factors he needs to consider.
What really worries Yu Chengli is whether there will be fierce competition in Zhoushan's trade environment. The textile industry he is engaged in actually has certain requirements for the location of business operations. There are not many merchants in Hirado who deal in high-end textiles produced in the Daeming Dynasty, and Yu Chengli is one of them with a relatively large scale of operations. It has a certain advantage in terms of cost. In addition, his strategy of going up the upper class in the Hirado Domain is very successful. Therefore, the competitive pressure is not great.
But Yu Chengli is not the kind of person who has no sense of crisis. He knows that after changing to a new environment, many things may no longer follow the previous rules. For example, if he wants to continue to operate textiles in Zhoushan, he must take into account the competitive pressure from local peers.
Jiangsu and Zhejiang are the main producing areas of high-end textiles. There are many businessmen in Suzhou and Hangzhou who have much larger business scales than him. In terms of supply of goods, connections, and sales channels, they are far superior to him as an "outside household". Even if Haihan provides these preferential measures to reduce operating costs for a period of time, he is not sure that this will be enough to allow him to gain a foothold in the fierce competition.
What Yu Chengli has to do now is not to calculate how much benefit he can get from Haihan's preferential measures, but to first understand how many local competitors there are in Zhoushan and how big the local textile trade is, and then examine whether he has enough strength. Take a certain share from it.
If Yu Chengli thinks that it is difficult to establish a foothold in this industry, then he will have to consider whether to switch to other businesses, or simply leave Zhoushan early and find another suitable place to continue operating his old business.
Yu Chengli's situation was not a special case. In fact, most of the businessmen who evacuated from Hirado to Zhoushan had to face a similar situation. Due to geographical reasons, there are only a very small number of merchants who can engage in cross-border trade between the Ming Dynasty and Japan. Therefore, the competitive pressure of operating in Hirado is not too great, but it is different when returning to the surrounding areas of the Ming Dynasty, especially in Zhoushan. This type of free port brings together merchants and sources of goods from various countries. Without unique operating advantages, it may be difficult to stand out from the competition.
Because of this, Yang Yun spent half a day talking about it several times, but he still failed to win the approval of these businessmen. Although businessmen are very interested in the preferential measures, they still seem to have some concerns that prevent them from making a decision.
Yang Yun also realized that this should not be a problem of the strength of preferential measures, but he failed to realize the competition issue that businessmen were really worried about. This is not because he is not professional enough, but because this is a psychological blind spot for him.
In Yang Yun's view, Zhoushan Dinghai Port has become one of the most important foreign trade ports on the eastern coast of the Ming Dynasty. Its influence has radiated to the most prosperous Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions in the Ming Dynasty. The scale of trade has increased year by year and the market prospects are very broad. Now it is engaged in Zhoushan Through cross-border trade, it is easy to enjoy local development dividends. He really couldn't imagine that businessmen were worried that they would not be able to face fierce competition in Zhoushan, because in his opinion, the market was getting bigger and bigger. Even if there was competition in specific industry areas, there was still enough room for survival to accommodate more people. of operators.
However, Yang Yun has been working in this position for several years. Although things did not go smoothly, he did not get angry because of it. Seeing that it was already lunch time, Yang Yun took the initiative to interrupt the meeting and invited the businessmen to have lunch.
This is a completely new experience for businessmen. In the past, whether in Ming Dynasty or Japan, they were the only ones who shyly invited officials to dinner to build relationships, but officials never took the initiative to invite them to dinner. Although cooperation has not yet been reached, having lunch with officials from Haihan is not a bad thing, so no one declined the invitation.
According to Yang Yun's experience, if you can't agree on something at the desk, you should change the environment and discuss it at the dinner table. With a little alcohol to help, you will often get unexpected results.
And this is exactly the case. Changing to a relatively relaxed environment can help all parties to let down their guard and reveal their true thoughts. After destroying several jars of Haihan special brew, the atmosphere at the dinner table became heated, and the businessmen began to chat and explain their concerns to Yang Yun.
Yang Yun has a lot of experience in dealing with businessmen. After listening for a while, he discovered the problem. At that moment, he secretly sighed that he was confused. He even forgot that these businessmen from Hirado not only did not understand the local business system, but also lacked understanding of the local business system. Knowledge of the local trading environment. It would be a bit abnormal if they were not worried at all about the competition they would face after settling in Zhoushan.
As long as the source of the problem is found, it will be easier for Yang Yun to solve it. With his eloquence and ability, it was not difficult to describe to businessmen the growing business scale of Zhoushan and the huge business opportunities contained therein. As long as the businessmen believe that they will not only be profitable after entering Zhoushan, but also have excellent development prospects, the rest will be very simple. Businessmen who are naturally driven by profit will naturally make the most beneficial decisions to themselves. choice.
When Yu Chengli returned to his residence, he was already a little delirious. He didn't remember how much wine he drank during the dinner. He only remembered that he seemed to have put his arms around Mr. Yang's shoulders and called him brother and sister. He also patted his chest and promised to stay in Zhoushan as soon as possible. Open a shop and continue running the business.
(End of chapter)