Chapter 2538
It is not uncommon nowadays for two generations to work for Haihan like Wan's father and his son. People with such family heritage have relatively high loyalty to Haihan and are often the ones the official trusts. Wan Yanneng's appointment as the head of the Ministry of Commerce in Hangzhou, supervising commercial activities in this important region, has fully proved this point.
As the political and economic center of Jiangsu and Zhejiang for a long time, Hangzhou has prosperous commerce and trade. In the future, Haihan will move its capital to Hangzhou, which will inevitably bring more business institutions and capital into this area. For example, Qiong Lianfa, a business giant with a keen sense of smell, has already begun to make plans around Hangzhou.
But this is the stage of change of dynasties. Although the transfer of power in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is relatively peaceful, there will definitely be people with various intentions who want to use this troubled times to achieve their own goals, and Wan Yan's mission in Hangzhou One of them is to supervise commercial activities and discover and solve those parts of commercial activities that are unfavorable to Haihan.
This is a blind spot for Tao Hongfang, who has been working in Sanya for a long time. His past work mainly focused on compiling and statistics of various economic data, most of which were desk work. Although there are times when I go out for inspections, I have almost never been out of Hainan Island, so the negative cases I can encounter are naturally relatively limited. How to supervise business activities and distinguish between normal and harmful business methods was Tao Hongfang's first experience with such work.
As the two chatted, the topic slowly turned to work.
Wan Yan said solemnly: "Since Mr. Tao has come to Jiangsu and Zhejiang for the first time, he probably doesn't know much about the local business activities. The situation here is indeed a bit complicated, and it is not as easy to supervise as in Sanya. Once it is dealt with If not done properly, trouble can easily occur.”
Tao Hongfang responded humbly: "Thank you, Director Wan, for your explanation."
Wan Yan said: "The local groups engaged in business activities, leaving aside small traders and hawkers, can be roughly divided into three categories. Let me explain them one by one to Master Tao."
The first category is local merchants who are basically based in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, such as the famous Yangzhou salt merchants, Hangzhou silk and satin merchants, etc. These businessmen are often from aristocratic families engaged in a certain industry, and have formed a near-monopoly advantage in the industry during their long-term business activities, thereby being able to obtain huge profits, and their financial resources are also extremely strong, and thus they have a strong local presence. Considerable influence.
The second category is the comprador merchants who have been supported by Haihan over the past two decades. Most of this emerging group sells Haihan products in the region through agents, or purchases certain products produced in the Ming Dynasty on behalf of Haihan. of raw material commodities, thus gaining the opportunity to make a fortune. Behind these people are not only the business resources provided by Haihan, but also often the support of local officials, so they also get a lot of convenience in the shopping mall.
Among the more representative figures, such as He Li, the former aide of Qu Yutong, the prefect of Ningbo, the He's Trading Company run by him boarded the Haihan ship, and the business activities he engaged in were essentially In fact, he was just acting as a white glove for Qu Yutong.
There is also a type of powerful merchants who are foreign dragons crossing the river. In addition to strong economic strength, these merchants often also have extremely strong official backgrounds. Behind them may be the weaving eunuchs sent by the palace to Jiangnan. It may also be a certain prince, minister, or relative of the emperor who acts as a sideshow in the local area. Ordinary local officials generally do not dare to provoke these people.
Nowadays, most of the powerful merchants that are famous in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions belong to these three types. There is both confrontation and cooperation between these businesses. The industrial channels and interest networks of these merchants often affect the whole body, and even affect the stability of the region.
Tao Hongfang interrupted when he heard this and asked: "The ones who are hostile to our country should be the two types, one and the other, right?" Wan Yan responded: "Yes, but not entirely right. Yes. Even if some merchants are dissatisfied with our country replacing the Ming Dynasty, they will choose to cooperate with us out of their own interests. For example, the Yangzhou salt merchants had a lot of conflicts with my country because of business issues twenty years ago, but now for the sake of their own interests. To survive, they will actively depend on us.”
Tao Hongfang had read the grievances with the Yangzhou salt merchants in the internal files, and he knew a little about it. He understood it when Wan Yan gave the Yangzhou salt merchants as an example.
In order to protect their business from impact, Yangzhou salt merchants tried their best to resist the entry of high-quality and low-price Haihan salt into the Jiangsu and Zhejiang markets, and even organized private armed forces to attack salt caravans. Such measures naturally attracted revenge from Haihan. In 1638, he even dispatched elite armed forces to sneak into Yangzhou and crack down on the most radical Shanxi salt merchants. Later, Haihan teamed up with local Anhui salt merchants and gradually eliminated the local hostile salt merchants.
After that, the supplier of Yangzhou salt merchants gradually changed from the official salt farm to Haihan. By 1654, when Haihan took over the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions, more than 70% of the salt supplied in the local market came from Haihan opened salt farms in Xiangshan, Ningbo and other places. The once arrogant Yangzhou salt merchants can now only rely on Haihan to provide supply to maintain their business. No matter how rich they are, they are just channel distributors, so they naturally dare not make mistakes easily.
Tao Hongfang then asked: "In that case, where is the most likely place to have problems?"
Wan Yan responded: "Although our country has surrendered to the Ming Dynasty, not everyone is willing to become our country's subjects. There are still many people who hope to take advantage of our country's unstable foothold in most areas to use war or other means. , overthrew the rule of our country and reestablished the Zhu Dynasty, which they regarded as orthodox.”
Tao Hongfang shook his head when he heard this and said: "The Zhu Dynasty has exhausted its strength. Even if someone supports it, it will be impossible to take back the world!"
Wan Yan smiled and said: "This is just our unilateral idea. Those who are hostile to our country will not think so. But to start a war, a huge amount of funds and materials will be needed. The Zhu Dynasty can no longer pass taxes To quickly increase their income, some people tried to engage in trading activities and then used the earnings to prepare for war.”
Tao Hongfang said: "Are there any effective regulatory measures at the moment?"
Wan Yan responded: "To be honest, it is difficult to supervise. This will inevitably involve a lot of investigation work. However, our yamen only has a few dozen people in total, and most of them are internal staff. How can we have the ability to investigate the market?" The details of so many merchants and firms.”
(End of chapter)