Chapter 2693
Haihan has a long history of organizing armed militias in overseas colonies and trading ports, which can be traced back to the early days of the Annan Black Earth Port. Later, Qian Tiandun formed a local special operations force specializing in mountain warfare. Some of the soldiers were from the militia under the jurisdiction of the Black Tu Port Management Committee. The Golden Shield Escort, which is now famous in major trading ports, was formerly a militia group formed by Haihan with the help of the Guangzhou Furifeng Company.
Afterwards, the number of overseas colonies under Haihan's control gradually increased, but the scale of Haihan's overseas garrison obviously could not keep up with the expansion speed, so militia groups became the standard configuration of each colony. In addition to maintaining local security, militia groups in some areas also assume the responsibility of reserve forces. Most of their commanders are retired personnel from the Haihan Army, which ensures that these militia organizations can quickly connect with the Haihan Army during wartime.
However, as the situation develops, the establishment of overseas militia groups is also constantly changing, gradually dividing into two departments with different functions. One is the militia with certain combat capabilities and focused on local defense; the other is the police department whose functions tend to deal with civilian affairs and specialize in public security work.
For situations like Busan, where exclusive economic zones are designated within cities and towns in other countries, the security teams specially formed for this purpose are generally more inclined to the latter function and will not emphasize their combat capabilities.
What's more, one of the original intentions of forming this team was to reduce security costs for the Haihan Chamber of Commerce as much as possible. If this team is trained and equipped according to the standards of a militia force, then it may be more cost-effective for them to directly hire the Golden Shield Guard Contracting Zone for security work.
Shi Chengwu is well aware of the nature of this team, so he will not emphasize the functions of this team in the professional field to the selected candidates, but requires them to always remember who they are loyal to in the future. Although many of them are North Koreans, and more non-Han people will definitely join in the subsequent open recruitment, Shi Chengwu knows that this is not a problem. As long as they are not fools, they will naturally understand it soon. The benefits of loyalty to Haihan.
"President Zhang, Mr. Fu, the rest of the work will be left to you! If it can run smoothly for about a year, a special police station can be established and they can be transferred to become police officers." When Shi Chengwu left, he specifically added A few words of advice. Although there will be dedicated personnel coming to train these personnel in the future, future operations will still rely on Zhang Fu and his two men to direct and coordinate.
Zhang and Fu quickly bowed in agreement. Both of them know very well that the division of special zones and the formation of security teams will greatly increase the power in their hands. If they can seize the opportunity and make some achievements, this will become their capital to move forward in the future.
At the same time, Tao Hongfang is presiding over the audit work related to the local chamber of commerce. Almost all civilian staff in the mission were temporarily transferred to review various trade materials submitted by the Chamber of Commerce.
This audit work is not just a formality, but is closely related to the operation of the zone after its establishment.
After the Haihan Zone is established, the tax collection and collection work for Haihan merchants and commercial institutions engaged in local trading activities will be taken over by the Zone Management Committee. Therefore, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of the current trade situation. As the representative official of the Ministry of Commerce, Tao Hongfang naturally shouldered this task without hesitation.
Tao Hongfang has been working in the Ministry of Commerce for several years and has seen all kinds of strange things. Of course, he will not 100% believe the information submitted by each company. By putting pressure on Wen Zhihong, he had obtained the registration information of Haihan merchants paying trade tax in Busan in the past five years. He then compared this with the information submitted by the merchants themselves to get a general understanding of the taxation here. level.
In fact, before this, the Ministry of Commerce had a general understanding of the trading situation of Haihan merchants in Busan, otherwise the mission would not have rashly proposed using taxes to operate various regional public institutions, including the security team. However, after reading first-hand information, Tao Hongfang was still surprised by the large volume of Haihan's trade in Busan. As early as five years ago, Haihan merchants paid various taxes in silver to the Busan government, which amounted to more than 200,000 taels throughout the year. Although the tax rates for different commodities vary, if we simply estimate based on the 11-tax rate, the trade volume related to Haihan is at least two million taels.
In the following years, the total tax paid by Haihan merchants continued to increase steadily at a rate of about 10% per year. By the time of settlement last year, it had reached 300,000 taels, which is definitely not a small amount. No wonder the local government was very resistant to the establishment of Haihan District. It must be very painful to suddenly lose such a large amount of income.
Of course, for local officials like Wen Zhihong who hold real power, Haihan has his own way to help them recover their personal losses from other places. Wen Zhihong is now willing to cooperate, mostly because he hopes that Haihan can keep his promise and provide him with other resources in the future.
Tao Hongfang is not worried about Wen Zhihong's future attitude. What he is worried about is that the other party is not greedy. But since the other party is willing to accept benefits, many things will be much easier to operate. The most important thing at the moment is to quickly complete the audit task and arrange the related work of trade activity registration and tax collection before leaving Busan.
Part of the audit work has touched upon the commercial secrets of Haihan merchants. However, due to tight time, heavy tasks, and not enough manpower, even temporary personnel like Zhu Zian were brought in to participate in the audit work.
Before this, Zhu Zian did not have a precise understanding of the scale of Haihan's overseas transnational trade activities. After looking at the large pile of ledgers assigned to him, he was shocked beyond measure.
In the Port of Busan alone, the annual trade volume of Haihan merchants is as high as one million taels of silver, and the taxes paid to the North Koreans in a year are two to three hundred thousand taels, which is an astronomical figure for him. . As far as he knew, when his ancestors built Prince De's Mansion, the project lasted for nearly four years. Including materials and labor, including furniture and furnishings, the total cost was less than 200,000 taels of silver.
Before Zhu Zian left Prince De's Mansion, the imperial court could no longer afford the royal family's salary. Under successive years of disasters, no one was cultivating the fiefdom of Prince De's Mansion. Even if it was sold at a low price, there was no guarantee that there would be a buyer. The royal family's food and clothing for the next year The cost has been reduced to about ten thousand taels of silver. If Haihan hadn't paid for all the expenses of his trip south, he might have been out of pocket while preparing for the exam in Hangzhou.
Compared with the wealth of the Haihan people, Zhu Zian felt that his family was not like a royal family member, they were clearly penniless poor people.
(End of chapter)