Chapter 2169
Using official channels to obtain business information and other convenient conditions is not a simple operation for ordinary people. However, when Yin Changxing was in Seogwipo, he once resold seafood to the logistics department of the Haihan Army under the instructions of Yu Chengli. Recently, I have followed Yu Chengli everywhere to visit local officials, and I have become more aware of how to seek commercial interests by cooperating with official personnel.
If Xiunian could provide him with some convenience in Baiquan Town, Yin Changxing felt that it would not be difficult to squeeze out the market share of these rural salesmen - it might take a month or two, or even less. Compared with those big businesses with too high thresholds, or small businesses with meager profits, this kind of business seems to be more suitable for Yin Changxing's own conditions,
After completing a lap of the towns on Zhoushan Island, Yu Chengli only sold a dozen pieces of silk cloth, which was still far behind his expected results. However, Yu Chengli was not discouraged by this. After all, he had successfully met many local officials in the process, and some of them had even become brothers. Even if the deal was not concluded this time, there would be other opportunities for cooperation in the future.
Yu Chengli did not give up here, but set his next target on other islands under Haihan control near Zhoushan Island, such as Qushan Island, Liuheng Island, Daishan Island, Zhujiajian Island, Jintang Island and other larger islands. On the island, there are also management agencies at the town office level, and the population density is not much different from the towns on Zhoushan Island. Yu Chengli believes that because these islands are further away from the commercial center of Zhoushan, competition may not be as fierce as on Zhoushan Island, and he should be able to find greater operating space locally.
Yu Chengli wanted to expand the scope of his business activities, so Yin Changxing could only continue to follow him. Although he has his own selfish motives, he is indeed grateful to Yu Chengli for bringing him out of Seogwipo and teaching him a lot of business methods and social knowledge, but these things cannot be found anywhere even if he spends money. The ability to learn.
Yin Changxing finally chose to repay his kindness first and then do his own thing. He took half a day to go to Baiquan Town and informed Xiunian of his situation, saying that starting a business would have to be postponed for a while, so that Xiunian should not think that he had given up on this plan.
Xiunian is not in a hurry about this. He is now studying and familiarizing himself with various grassroots government affairs. In fact, it is difficult to be distracted by Yin Changxing's affairs. Since Yin Changxing will leave Zhoushan Island for travel with Yu Chengli recently, Then he just happened to concentrate on his own work first. As for cooperating in business, it's not too late to wait until things fall into place and then take advantage of the trend.
And when the fate of these little people came to the head of Shi Diwen, the highest official in Zhoushan, it was just a string of abstract numbers.
The latest statistics compiled by the civil affairs department show that more than a thousand Japanese immigrants who were assigned to the Zhoushan colonial area after the war have completed the isolation and training stages of the immigration camp and have all been assigned to the village level of each town in the area. Settlement site. During this period, only two people died due to sudden illness, and their funeral arrangements were properly handled.
As for the group of foreign businessmen and their family members who evacuated to Zhoushan with the East China Sea Fleet, more than half of them have already chosen a place on the island and are preparing to stay permanently and continue to engage in cross-border trade.
Yang Yun, the commercial chief of Zhoushan Colonial Zone, prepared some preferential conditions for these foreign businessmen, such as tax exemptions, low-interest loans, land concessions, etc., coupled with Zhoushan's superior local trade environment, it is indeed very beneficial to the businessmen. Strong attraction.
But at the same time, Yang Yun also pointed out some potential problems in the report. For example, most of the projects previously operated by these businessmen in Hirado overlap with some of the most competitive industries in Zhoushan, such as porcelain, silk, tea, etc., and even It also includes some industrial products produced by Haihan.
After all, the number of goods that can be transported across the sea from the Ming Dynasty to Hirado for sale is limited, so the competition faced by these industries in Hirado is not too fierce. The operation of some goods is simply monopolized by individual merchants. It is not necessary to make money from the local market. Too easy. But in an environment like Zhoushan, their operations may no longer be so easy. Regardless of the scale of operations, local businesses have been in business longer, have a better understanding of the market, and have relatively mature purchase and sales channels. Later, It will be difficult for researchers to close the gap in these areas in a short period of time.
Textile merchant Yu Chengli is a good example. His business situation in Hirado is relatively stable and he is the designated supplier of local dignitaries. As long as he can ship a few batches of goods from Daming every year, he does not have to worry about sales and profits. But after arriving in Zhoushan, he had to face competition from more than 20 merchants of various sizes on the island selling various textiles.
Although Yu Chengli is good at operating the upper-level route, he is a latecomer after all, and it is not easy to steal customers from other peers. Therefore, after staying on Zhoushan Island for more than half a month, he chose to find a place to consign the goods on hand. Instead of rushing to open your own store.
Yu Chengli was far from the only merchant who encountered similar problems. Therefore, after withdrawing from Hirado to Zhoushan, some foreign businessmen realized that their long-term business prospects here were not optimistic, and they could only use the local area as a trading market. He stayed for as long as he wanted and then left.
Even Yu Chengli himself has not yet decided to stay in Zhoushan and work hard. If there is still not much improvement after visiting the Zhoushan colonial area, then he will probably give up his plan to take root in Zhoushan.
Yang Yun pointed out in the report that this group of foreign businessmen introduced from Hirado have mediocre adaptability to the local trade environment, so the current retention rate is not high. Nearly half of the businessmen have left Zhoushan, and not all of the remaining ones have. All will stay.
This situation is obviously very different from Shi Diwen's original intention of bringing people back from Hirado. He spent a lot of effort to gather these foreign businessmen in Hirado and persuaded them to follow the East China Sea Fleet to withdraw to Zhoushan. Of course, it was not just to protect these businessmen. interests, but hope that these businessmen can bring their wealth and business to add to Zhoushan's trade environment, and at the same time see if they can take this opportunity to open the door to trade with Japan.
Of course, after this war, Haihan and Japan are already at war. It will probably be very difficult to establish trade relations with the Japanese official in the short term, so Shi Diwen’s idea is to use these people who have been doing business in Hirado all year round. Foreign businessmen, acting as middlemen, import industrial products produced by Haihan into the Japanese market on a large scale. In Shi Diwen's view, if this trade route can be opened up, it may bring a stable long-term trading partner to Zhoushan.
But if you want to become an official Haihan agent, naturally not everyone can get this qualification. You must at least gain the trust of the official first. Whether there is an operating industry in the area under Haihan's rule and the scale of the industry are the conditions that the official will consider. Those businessmen who are unwilling to stay in Zhoushan to operate industries for various reasons are equivalent to automatically giving up the opportunity to become agents.
But as the top local official, Shi Diwen certainly hopes that more businessmen can stay in Zhoushan to prosper the local market, so that when selecting agents for trade with Japan, there will be more samples to choose from. "If these businessmen see no hope and end up running away, then it will be in vain for us... Yang Yun, do you think it is necessary for us to remind these foreign businessmen that they can consider returning to their old business?"< br>
After Shi Diwen read the report, he found Yang Yun and asked him face to face.
Yang Yun responded: "General, it is not difficult to remind them, but we do not know their previous business conditions in Hirado, and we have no way to judge whether they can cooperate with us in operating trade with Japan... In other words, we do not know the strength of these businessmen. and character, we can only slowly confirm their abilities by observing their business activities after arriving in Zhoushan. If they all run away, I think this can only mean that there are no suitable candidates among this group of people, although our work will be in vain. field, but at least there will be no direct losses.”
Shi Diwen had to admit that his subordinates' views were reasonable. If a clear reminder was given now, it would be equivalent to changing it to an open-book exam. As long as he was not a fool, he would naturally try his best to obtain the qualifications of an agent. This would be a good choice for the official selection of cooperative merchants. In fact, it does more harm than good. Although Shi Diwen wanted to open up the trade route with Japan, he also had to try his best to avoid the situation where he was entrusted to others. Therefore, it was necessary to conduct a period of secret inspection of these candidates.
But if it continues like this, everyone may lose patience and give up in the end. It is difficult for Shi Diwen to accept this result. After all, there will not be a second military operation against Japan in the near future to obtain new candidates. . Therefore, he still hopes that Yang Yun can come up with a better solution to ensure that the official can find suitable candidates from this group of businessmen. Even those with slightly less qualifications can improve their strength through later training and support to serve as Haihan's representative in Japan.
"Among the remaining businessmen, are there any outstanding ones who are proactive and can be candidates?" Shi Diwen continued to ask.
Yang Yun had been working under Shi Diwen for a long time. He understood what his boss meant as soon as he heard it. After a slight hesitation, he replied: "There are also two or three people who have asked me privately whether they can continue to do business with Japan." But I haven’t given a clear answer yet. I just said that we need to observe the changes in the situation and confirm the attitude of the Japanese shogunate after the war.”
"It's okay to take the initiative to ask you for information...then these people are all Han, right?" Shi Diwen asked.
"They are all businessmen of the Ming Dynasty." Yang Yun knew what Shi Diwen really wanted to confirm, and quickly replied: "And the families are all in the Ming Dynasty, and they have nothing to do with the Tagawa clan of Hirado and the Shiba Shiyu Party. .”
The main reason why Haihan sent troops this time was to eliminate the hostile forces hiding in the Hirado Domain. Naturally, Shi Diwen did not want future business partners to be one of them. In addition, all Western businessmen are excluded, even their ally Portugal. After all, it is impossible for these Western businessmen to be loyal to Haihan. If they are not from our race, they will have different hearts. In Shi Diwen's opinion, they are far less reliable than the Han people who share the same ancestry.
"Then you should spend more time on this matter, screen out suitable candidates early, and implement follow-up measures." Shi Diwen did not ask Yang Yun again about the specific circumstances of the person selected. As the commander, he Just point out the direction of attack. It would be too tiring if you have to personally give instructions on how to attack.
Yang Yun quickly agreed. In fact, preparations for trade with Japan had been underway months before the war began. But because of this military operation, the original plan was completely disrupted, and we had to start from scratch again.
Before the war started, a lot of goods were shipped to Japan via Zhoushan Dinghai Port. The Zhoushan authorities have no intention of grabbing the trade share of traditional goods from private merchants, but they are interested in exporting Haihan industrial products to Japan and developing it as a new sales market.
Although private merchants will also transport some goods produced in Haihan to Japan for sale, in the eyes of the Zhoushan authorities, this trade volume is too small, and the Japanese market should have greater potential to be tapped, so Shi Diwen also intends to It is necessary to use Haihan's operation method to open up the Japanese market, and leave this matter to Yang Yun.
Yang Yun's original plan was to use Hirado Port as the trade destination, and he made a lot of preparations for this. However, he did not expect that the situation changed suddenly this year, and Hirado Port was suddenly gone. So Yang Yun could only modify the plan based on the military's suggestions, making Nagasaki, Japan's only remaining foreign trade port, a new trade destination, and then select suitable personnel from the merchants who moved to Zhoushan from Hirado to carry out this plan. plan.
If the plan can be implemented to establish a trade route from Zhoushan to Nagasaki through middlemen and sell various commodities produced in Haihan to Japan, then Yang Yun will definitely be the first to do so, and with his status, it will not be difficult to start from this Gain some practical benefits for yourself from the operation of this trade route. So for Yang Yun, even if Shi Diwen didn't urge him, he still had 12% of motivation to implement this matter as soon as possible.
However, in order to avoid suspicion, Yang Yun could not act too eagerly. When Shi Diwen asked about the matter, he also had to point out the various difficulties that existed during the operation in order to win Shi Diwen's support as much as possible. Everything seems to be going well so far. The next step is to further screen the few targets he selected to confirm the reliability of these people.
Although Shi Diwen gave him great power, he also had great responsibility. If something went wrong in the future, he would be the one to take the blame. So even though he was solely responsible for the current plan, he did not get carried away. The plan is still being implemented step by step.
(End of chapter)