New Shun 1730

When they arrived at the Governor's Mansion, the Dutch were already waiting there, all with serious faces.

With the experience of being completely suppressed in terms of momentum last time, the Dutch didn't waste any time this time and handed a thick Ceylon immigration plan directly to Liu Yu's hand.

When submitting the proposal, everyone looked unhappy.

Liu Yu sat there and roughly looked at the outline of the plan written in Latin. He thought to himself, what kind of crap is this? If this was placed in the Sixth Department of the Imperial Court, whoever wrote such an official document on immigration would have his career ruined.

The Dutch really regard people as tools to generate profits. Although they say they can tolerate a certain and inevitable mortality rate, they do not really think that Chinese people can be treated as Tamil slaves.

He raised his hand and threw the plan book on the table, mockingly saying: "I have long heard that the Dutch are the most 'generous'. This is indeed true."

"Even farmers know that in order to harvest, you must first sow seeds. Ceylon's prospects are very good. Immigration has brought you huge profits in the past, so why do you need to make everyone miserable? After all, you are also a company. Not happy with making money in advance, really 'generous'.”

"The more you invest, the more you earn. Why, the company is running out of money? Can't afford to invest even this little money? After all, VOC is also the number one company in the world at this time, right?"

The interpreter tried his best to translate all the curse words in Liu Yu's words. When Valkenier heard the question "The company's finances are out of money," he could only smile slightly, pretending to be indifferent, and did not answer.

He couldn't answer now.

Because, there is really no money.

The previous plan for Ceylon immigration had been reported to the board of directors.

When spices lost their medicinal halo along with the theory of the four liquids of the human body, the Dutch monopoly became increasingly unable to fulfill its purpose, and Britain, France, and Prussia began to attack Dutch merchant ships with mercantilism, the board of directors actually knew that the company produced cinnamon and the dye betel nut needed by India. Ceylon is a very good profit point in the long run.

Even if the Chinese were not thrown over as debt slaves, there would still be profits.

Liu Yu got to the point. As long as the return on investment is higher than the company's average dividend, it is a profitable business.

The company's stocks are not divided into spices or immigrants, but are calculated as a complete company's internal financial accounting.

The east side loses and the west side gains, and they must be consolidated when the final dividend is calculated.

However, Valkenier understands the current difficulty of the board of directors... It may be a bit inaccurate to say that there is no money. The more accurate statement is that there is not enough cash to approve.

Now that Liu Yu is aggressive and he really can't expose this difficulty, Liu Yu will really have the initiative and the upper hand. The momentum of future negotiations will definitely be suppressed.

Although the Netherlands is now beginning to decline, it actually still has a very solid foundation.

The seven provinces were not without money. They bought so many British treasury bonds and paid nearly 4 million taels of silver in interest to the Netherlands every year.

It's just that Dutch bankers only care about interest and rate of return. When the Netherlands and Spain were at war, Dutch bankers still borrowed large sums of money from Spain. Even France, which forced the Netherlands to break its dikes and retreat with water, also borrowed money from Spain. The Dutch banker borrowed 25 million dong.

However, as the "own family" of the VOC East India Company, the situation was too special and it was almost at its end financially.

It’s not that I can’t borrow money, it’s that I don’t dare to borrow money.

Being unable to borrow money does not mean the same thing as being afraid to borrow money.

The East India Company had a 17-member board of directors, but in reality the theoretical board of directors had more than 70 people. Small bourgeoisie, buying something like this for three to two hundred dollars, of course does not count, so naturally they have no say.

These 17 people belong to different provinces, and there is also intrigue among the various provinces in the Netherlands.

The seven provinces must strive for the interests of each other. Just like the Trade Commission with China incident, the provinces of Amsterdam and Zeeland caused big troubles over the "proportion of ships sent by each province to trade directly with China."

Zeelan almost teamed up with the other companies to overturn the table, and finally created a funny trade committee with China.

It’s enough for the 17 people to fight for their own interests in the seven provinces. The 70 theoretical board members are constantly asking for power and hope to enter the decision-making level.

Among these 70 people, there are major private shareholders and money from various cities, but there is really no way to compete with a large oligarch like the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce.

However, once given the opportunity, I still hope to take a bite of decentralization.

Faced with this situation, the 17-member group is of course united, but they are all businessmen, so the solution is simple and crude: high dividends and high rates of return. Under the leadership of the 17 of us, the company has a bright future.

If the theoretical board of directors of more than 70 people wants to gain power, it must mobilize the "masses", that is, those small citizen shareholders.

However, small citizen shareholders don't really care whether it is a group of 17 people or a group of 70 people, as long as they can get dividends.

The small shareholders looked at it and said, oh, for a stock worth 3,000 dong per share, over the past few decades, the dividend alone has been paid out 107,665 dong, and the dividend is more than 30 times the share capital.

Then I have nothing to do, why do I have to ask how the company is run? Why do you have to read the company's financial reports and accounts? With 17 people doing such a good job, is it possible that your 70 directors can get higher dividends than they do now?

The extremely high rate of return made the 70 directors lose their arrogance and dare not ask for power. The game of promising extremely high returns was played by the French only 20 years ago. The Dutch have suffered three big losses in the tulip bubble, the South Sea bubble, and the Mississippi bubble in France. Although they did not learn from it, the previous lesson was too recent. They really did not believe in such verbal promises of high returns.

When the Mississippi bubble first occurred, small shareholders and ordinary citizens did question the 17-member committee: Damn, the French Mississippi Company promised an annual return of 45% to 65%, and even within half a year, the stock price of 500 yuan per share rose to 18,000 yuan. What is this concept? Just take out 500 yuan, and it will become 18,000 yuan in half a year. You don’t have to do anything, and it will be enough for decades of salary.

What does a 45% annual return rate mean? As long as you take out all your salary for two years and invest it, you don’t have to do anything every year, and you can maintain the same life as before.

What do you 17 people do for a living? Only an average of 21% dividends per year? Rubbish!

However, with the crisp sound of the bubble bursting, most of the French nobles and most of the Dutch citizens were treated as leeks by the "financial genius" John Law, and the Dutch citizens realized that: in fact, the annual average return rate of 21% is quite good...

Although it has now dropped to about 17%, but relatively speaking, the annual interest rate of 17% is really not low.

If the 70 directors want to incite grassroots public opinion to gain control of the company, they have to promise a higher rate of return than now, but the 70-member board of directors does not want to learn from the Mississippi bubble and give a nonsense rate of return of 50%.

As long as the company continues to maintain the appearance of "healthy financial situation, reasonable investment allocation, and dividends paid on time every year", they will not be able to demand power.

However, the reality is cruel.

Britain, France, Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden and other countries have established the East India Company. The monopoly is no longer enough, and the VOC can no longer do the amazing spice trade business with a profit of 1200% in 1640.

There was a profit growth point 20 years ago, which was the Ostend Company incident. VOC spent money desperately to get Ostend's tea in its hands. Whoever couldn't hold on first would give up the tea business completely, knowing that they couldn't compete.

Monopoly companies like to spend money to grab the market, and the same is true in later generations.

As a result, tea, which was originally brought into Europe by the Portuguese royal family and symbolized the upper class, flew from the old royal court to the homes of ordinary people.

Originally, this was an opportunity to make small profits but quick turnover. If you seize the opportunity, you can take off again.

But it happened that there were problems in the Netherlands in those years. The expansionists and disarmamentists were fighting each other. The Netherlands and Zeeland hoped to expand the navy to continue to monopolize trade and break the "Navigation Act".

But other provinces are not stupid. Amsterdam and Zeeland will benefit from expanding the navy. Why should we, like Frisia, who grows land, pay for building a navy?

In 1619, the "proportional tax" policy for each province was set, and each province paid taxes according to the budget of the Republic. At the beginning, business was just starting to develop, and most people were farmers. The agricultural province of Friesland was second only to the Netherlands, bearing a 13% tax rate, which was reasonable at the time, as farmers were still quite wealthy.

Now more than a hundred years have passed, and the tax rate is still the same. Those who engage in business are making a lot of money, but the tax rate of each province has not changed. Can Flanders be happy?

After all the fuss, even the consul was thrown away. The provinces have been arguing until now, and the fleet is basically an empty shell.

The British blockade, the French blockade, and the high salary of Prussia to rob people, the East India Company is not having a good time.

In order to maintain the image of the company as "very healthy, very profitable, and not short of money", the company resolutely does not disclose financial statements every year, but uses high dividends to keep small shareholders from making trouble, and discloses them once every ten years: Publicizing public financial statements has nothing to do with us, as long as the dividends are in place.

Disclosing once every ten years means that it is much easier to falsify accounts.

Sometimes when there is really a lack of money and turnover, you have to borrow money.

Or, take money from one place to pay for another.

But they couldn't borrow money from Dutch bankers, some of whom were shareholders. Once the borrowing was made public, it might cause distrust among small shareholders.

The Dutch people were frightened by the three previous bubbles. Once the East India Company started borrowing money, they panicked.

Once they panicked, the 70-member board of directors would take the opportunity to question the 17-member group and start asking for power.

The 17-member group not only enjoyed power, but also had huge interests because they had to report their accounts once every 10 years.

As long as they could still occupy a position, sometimes they had to maintain a high rate of return even if they borrowed money. After all, the foundation was still there, and they could balance the loans abroad and the income from Southeast Asia, and they could still maintain it by making some repairs.

As long as this broken ship did not sink, the 17-member committee in power would be profitable.

They had to maintain high dividends to prevent shareholders from worrying about details, but they could not borrow money from the country to avoid losing confidence. This inevitably led to two roads of no return.

First, investments should seek short-term returns as much as possible. Stealing, robbing, forced labor, turning Chinese people into debt slaves, etc., those investments that may require long-term returns are no longer considered.

Don't consider long-term returns or long-term interests.

Second, if you can't borrow money domestically, borrow it abroad.

The average interest rate in China, with the credit of the East India Company, can borrow at a low interest rate of about 5%, but in order not to be exposed, it has to borrow from the East India at a high interest rate of about 18%.

Anyway, the 17-member board of directors pressures the other directors and the Federal Parliament, and only reports once every 10 years. As long as the borrowed money is wiped out within 10 years, the small shareholders in China will not know.

It can also prevent the 70-member board of directors from taking the opportunity to make trouble and demand to share the management rights of the company.

This is the current situation. It is known that Ceylon is an important profit growth point for the company in the future, but there is no money to invest.

This is not a simple question of whether the Chinese are debt slaves or not. Even if they are debt slaves, they have to make some initial investments if they want to get a return. Debt slaves can only reduce labor costs at most, but don’t things like oxen and seeds cost money?

The board of directors asked the governor of Batavia to solve it, but Dashun had just attacked Japan and cut off the trade between Japan and the Netherlands, which broke the company's stable cash flow.

Where is the money in Batavia?