1928: The rise of giant merchants

County suburbs.

The Rolls-Royce Phantom parked slowly on the side of the road.

Looking at the suburbs, which were even more barren than the county town, Shi Jianqiao frowned slightly, wondering why the second young master came here in the middle of the night.

The suburbs are close to Jinshan, Jiaxing and other places. The people living here are basically farmers and poor tenants. They have lived here for generations, but they have not been able to enjoy the dividends from the development of the largest city in the Far East.

The gravel road is uneven, and occasionally a few wild dogs will come out and bark at people.

Most of the people here live in shacks, eating, drinking, and sleeping in the same room, and there is a faint smell of urine in the air.

Hearing the sound of cars, many children wearing dirty coarse cotton-padded jackets secretly stretched out their heads and looked around curiously.

At home, the people on the road are usually women. They are skinny and skinny, and they are completely different from the ladies of the Republic of China that Ye Luo saw in prosperous areas such as the concession.

This is the true face of the people in the country.

Poverty, hunger, thinness, sickness, every negative word you can imagine can be confirmed on them.

"Why aren't there many men?" Shi Jianqiao followed Ye Luo closely, looking around in case someone suddenly attacked them.

"That's how it is in the suburbs. Men either go to work in the city or in the concessions, or they work in a few factories. You see, there are at least seven or eight people living in a small shack, some old and some young. There are so many mouths to eat, and the meager income from farming is simply not enough for them to survive.”

Ye Luo whispered and sighed softly.

He rarely comes to the outskirts of the county.

One is that it is not safe, and the other is that I want to be out of sight and out of mind.

The Shanghai headquarters of Ye's Charitable Foundation is considering providing relief to a large number of suburban residents.

Although the county is also poor, at least people can still have food to eat.

In such a suburb, when winter comes, if a man cannot earn money for the winter, he will die from hunger.

After witnessing the horrific gap between rich and poor in the Republic of China, you can truly understand what life is worse than death. Only when people are forced to this point will they rise up.

As for those who stutter, throughout the ages, how many people are willing to chase the illusory "Princes, generals, ministers, would rather have the seed"?

The two of them walked forward, and not far away there was a huge, enclosed industrial park.

This is the first time Ye Luo has come here, and it is also the first time Shi Jianqiao has seen the real lower class society. Every scene and every place refreshes her outlook on life and makes her feel heavy.

Her father, a famous general, was killed by Sun Chuanfang due to a warlord war, and the Shi family plummeted into dust.

Since her father's death, her life has been driven by revenge.

It seems that if Sun Chuanfang is not killed, her world will always be bleak.

However, her pain and her world seem to be nothing compared to the people here.

Standing at the entrance of the industrial park directly ahead were two men who looked like soldiers with live ammunition. However, they neither wore uniforms like the Songhu Police Department or the Patrol Room, nor did they wear the uniforms of the National Army. Instead, Shi Jianqiao had never seen them. They were wearing black uniforms. When they turned around, she saw the words "Yip's Security" written in big letters on them.

Shi Jianqiao glanced at Ye Luo in surprise and continued walking forward with him.

The first thing that catches the eye is the big billboard at the entrance of the park——

Ye's First Industrial Park.

When did the second young master do this?

Shi Jianqiao became more and more curious and confused.

Judging from the appearance of this simple park, it seemed that it had been built for a while, but she had no idea that such a place existed in the suburbs!

"This place originally belonged to several poor factories of the Kadoorie family." Seeing her confused expression, Ye Luo explained with a smile, "I spent 900,000 yuan to buy six factories under the name of Lawrence Kadoorie. They are two textile factories located in the county town, and now they also have Ye's signboards. Oh, by the way, they produce the dance costumes of the dancers of Ala Dance Company; there is also an electric power company in the public concession; and the other three I moved all the pharmaceutical factories here."

"In order to ensure the safety of the park, I specially asked my eldest brother to separate fifty elite employees from Ye's Security Company and equip them with some shotguns and other weapons to station here."

Ye Luo took Shi Jianqiao and continued walking inside.

The security personnel at the door bowed and saluted when they saw him, and then continued to guard the surroundings.

"In addition to three pharmaceutical factories, there is also a carton factory, a packaging factory and a transportation factory. Nearly half of the employees are recruited from nearby suburbs. They are familiar with this area, and most of them are honest, honest, hard-working and hard-working. People recruited from concessions and other places need to be much more capable."

Ye Luo and Shi Jianqiao were walking on the road. Occasionally, an old-fashioned Japanese Black Dragon convertible drove slowly by. The car was carrying two security personnel with live ammunition, and there were large wooden boxes in the back, which seemed to be transporting something. Walk outside the park.

If Ye Luo hadn't said this was an industrial park, Shi Jianqiao would have thought he had entered a warlord's military base by mistake!

"We don't have domestic trucks, and the trucks imported by foreign companies are too expensive, so now we still use these obsolete caravans as the main means of transportation. If the caravans are not enough, we use human carts, donkey carts, etc. as substitutes. They are really not enough, so they park in the park. The thirty Chevrolet 490s inside can also be used temporarily."

Ye Luo said hello to the people passing by.

They looked at Ye Luo with an expression full of respect and fear. As soon as he passed by, the employees would take the initiative to separate on both sides of the road, bow and watch him leave.

"If nothing happens, a saltpeter storage warehouse will be built here in a few months, and more manpower will be needed by then. I would like to ask some brothers from the Jingwu Sports Association to help. You have been discussing with them before. , how do you feel about them?"

Ye Luofeng Danyun looked around lightly, seeming quite satisfied with the current situation of the park.

After buying the factories of the Kadoorie family, Ye Luo secretly planned to build this industrial park. This land is located in a remote area, and whether it was the Central Plains War or the subsequent Songhu Battle, it was a piece of land that was ignored by the military. dilapidated area.

It is also the only "lawless place" that he believes can escape the war period.

Considering the future war situation, Shanghai Beach is obviously not his first choice for industry.

37 years ago, he would first build his own business empire, and then slowly transfer many core industries overseas or to Macao and other places. Within eight years of the Anti-Japanese War, Macao, occupied by Portugal, became a place of refuge. , has never been invaded by the Japanese invaders.

At this time, Yeluo's business has not spread overseas, but the light industry business is imminent, so he can only choose this place to build a temporary industrial park, which can also create more jobs for the local people.

"The Jingwu Sports Club is mainly composed of passionate young people. They are very energetic and are not that easy to discipline. However, Second Young Master, you have a very high reputation there. If you make your request to Huo Ting'en in person, you should be able to recruit some people." Shi Jianqiao hesitated for a moment and then said, "But they are full of patriotic thoughts. They participate in various protest demonstrations all day long, or declare their rights and interests to the consulates of various countries and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Bureau. If you want them to help with business, I find it difficult!" "

Ye Luo smiled, shook his head and said: "I am not asking them to work as employees of Ye's Investment Company, but I hope they can support my industry to save the country. In the early years of the Republic of China, Shanghai Beach was still the only core base of light industry in the country, and everywhere Various factories and companies, especially the textile industry. But 21 years later, foreign companies and Japanese merchants came back, and the market collapsed, resulting in the complete blockade of our domestic products."

"Now I am ready to restart these industries, but I need a large number of people who are willing to help and capable of helping. They are the best candidates I can think of at the moment."

If this group of people could come from the Jingwu Sports Association, Ye Luo would certainly not train them to work as workers. Instead, he would follow Song Ziwen's example of setting up a tax corps and build a group with front-end weapons and equipment and combat technology, similar to that of international maids. The organization of the corps.

Ye's Security Company is the initial base for cultivating such war talents.

Of course, he would not disclose these layouts and plans to Shi Jianqiao, and it would be very difficult to implement them. However, Ye Luo calculated the time and it was time to build up a protective force.

"In a few days, there will be a Sino-Japanese friendly competition between Huo Ting'en and Hongkou Dojo Zecheng Naoki. If the second young master is interested, I can go and talk to him and take this opportunity to meet a group of people."

Shi Jianqiao was smart. Although Ye Luo didn't say it explicitly, after seeing the layout and arrangement of this industrial park, she vaguely guessed what Ye Luo was thinking.

"I think so too. I just want to take advantage of this competition to let Ting En help me promote the new medicines from the Sino-French Pharmacy." Ye Luo smiled faintly. He had already considered this matter, and this event has been discussed by many people recently. The arena competition was covered by newspapers and magazines, and Ye Luo was the biggest sponsor!

"New medicine? Sino-French pharmacy?" Shi Jianqiao was stunned for a moment, "Didn't Boss Huang still not believe it?"

"In the past few days, he can't stand it any longer. Anyway, it will be mine sooner or later. I will produce the medicine first, and wait for the official handover of the Sino-French Pharmacy. By the way, I will let Lu Meiseng and others make my billboard. Coupled with the promotion of this Sino-Japanese arena competition, it can be seamlessly connected, allowing my new drug to completely replace Rendan."

Ye Luo smiled a little.

Shi Jianqiao looked over and found that it was a large pharmaceutical factory with a huge flow of people and a very busy place!