New Shun 1730

When the sun rose higher, the auspicious time had arrived, and the firecrackers crackled for a long time.

The shareholders, full of expectation, entered the meeting room of the headquarters building one by one and sat down according to their table numbers.

The dividend meeting will be held for ten days, and the profits this time may not be announced until the last day. But they also knew that Liu Yu would make some policy explanations, which was exactly why they were more willing to accept the court's control.

In business, it is all about profit, not justice or the country.

But even in business, policy differences are bound to exist.

Short-term profit.

Long-term interests.

How to choose, all of this needs to be made clear at the shareholders' meeting.

On the stage, a huge glass cabinet with account books was placed there, and those account books recording the amount of gold and silver seemed to emit bursts of sacred light.

Soon, the hall gradually became quiet, but Liu Yu did not talk about European trade first, but wrote the four words "Wuyi Canal" on the curtain board behind him.

After writing these words, Liu Yu first talked about the importance of tea trade in the entire foreign export, and then took out very detailed figures to introduce the issue of Wuyi Canal.

"Twenty years ago, tea from Wuyi Mountain had to go to Jiangxi first, then to Poyang Lake for packaging and to collect tea from the two lakes."

"For packaging, it can go through the northern route, through Mobei, to Beihai, and then to Moscow."

"Or it can go through the southern route, through Dayuling, the ancient road of the First Emperor, to Guangzhou."

"At least before the Wuyi Canal was built, I calculated the average price of tea in Guangzhou."

"Wuyi tea is 39 taels of silver per dan."

"Kung Fu tea is 63 taels."

"Songluo is 76 taels."

"Xichuntun Green is 120 taels."

"Let's not talk about how much these teas can be sold for in Europe. Let's first talk about the original customs price of these teas in Guangzhou."

"Now that the canal is built, let's not talk about anything else. Just say that Wuyi tea does not need to go to Poyang and then go south, but can go through the canal to Fujian and be loaded on ships to Songjiang Prefecture for distribution."

"Now, it only takes 20 taels of silver to get the goods."

"We don't have to go to Poyang and then go south. We only do wholesale. "

"We have our own special business group responsible for retail, and the Dutch are the ones who arranged it. We don't care who we sell to."

"That's why we want to give the Netherlands a share. The Netherlands has an organization called Sons of VOUT, which specializes in this. In short, we only do wholesale. Efficient smugglers... uh, the efficient business group Sons of VOUT can guarantee that they can sell half of our goods next year."

"A load of Wuyi tea is 100 taels of silver at this auction. If it is sold to a big customer, it's only 90 taels."

"Gross profit, 450%. "

"Of course, what if the Wuyi Canal hadn't been built before? The gross profit is only 100%, although it's also quite high, but the difference is huge."

When Liu Yu gave a gross profit of 450%, there was a thunderous cheer in the venue.

450% gross profit, this is.

How could those who were sedentary and traveling merchants make such a high profit before?

Selling tea to foreigners for 30 taels per load, everyone knows that tea is very profitable, but I never thought it could be this profitable!

"No wonder those Westerners come here from afar. They really don't get up early without profit."

"Hey, otherwise it's said that Westerners have organized trading companies and don't allow others to interfere. If there is full competition, and if you compare price cuts, in fact, the business can be done at 40 taels per load."

After cheering, a group of people muttered there, unable to hide their excitement, and discussed loudly.

Liu Yu vaguely heard the word "price cut", and his face looked a little ugly. He thought to himself, why do you always think about price cuts to compete, and can't think about monopoly to make money?

After waiting for the cheers to subside, Liu Yu said, "What am I talking about with the Wuyi Canal? It's to say that supervision is important."

"I say you are all a bunch of rubbish, you have been spoiled by the hardworking people. You used to be able to collect money just by sitting at home. You don't know what profit and competition are. It's hard to hear, but it's here."

"The tea trade has been going on for a long time, right? Who of you said that we should organize everyone to invest in building the canal to reduce the transportation cost of tea?"

"I've been waiting for twenty years, and I really can't wait any longer. I really can't stand your incompetence. I have no choice but to come forward to organize and talk you into building the canal."

"If the court doesn't supervise and doesn't set policies for you, you can still only get 100% of the profit, not 450%. Am I right?"

The people present were used to it. Liu Yu often said that they were rubbish, a bunch of rubbish merchants spoiled by the people.

Although this is unpleasant to hear, in the face of this huge profit, no one wants to care about this matter.

Although they don't say it, some people feel that it is too unpleasant in their hearts.

Some people think that what the Duke said is unpleasant.

What happened to selling tea before? What is happening now? Can it be the same?

To build a canal, hundreds of thousands of taels of silver are needed. Everyone is competing and suspicious of each other. If you sell 40 taels to the Dutch, I can get 39. In this case, who can invest in building a canal?

Even if it is built, will others be allowed to use it?

If you don't let others use it, you will eat it all by yourself. Then won't everyone unite to kill you?

If you let others use it, even if you collect the shipping fee, when will you get your capital back?

Some people feel unhappy, and naturally there are also people who are self-reflective.

Some businessmen were scolded a lot by Liu Yu, and they did reflect on it.

Liu Yu had scolded them before, saying that tea was the only place of origin in the world, and there was no other place besides it. This purely natural monopoly advantage can be taken away by Westerners and the pricing power of delivery. Is it wrong to call you trash?

If the canal issue can still be refuted, then many businessmen really have nothing to say about it.

In fact, before Liu Yu took action to establish a trading company, Dashun merchants were defeated everywhere.

In Japan, Japan has taken away the pricing power of Japanese copper.

In Guangzhou, Westerners took away the natural monopoly on tea pricing.

There is really nothing to say.

For copper, Japan is the producer and Dashun merchants are the buyers.

For tea, Dashun merchants are the producers and Western merchants are the buyers.

It can’t be said that for various reasons, you can’t get pricing power when you buy it, and you can’t get pricing power when you sell it, right?

Production and purchasing are extremely opposites. It is said that they have an either-or relationship. If you can't get one, you will definitely get the other.

Is there any other explanation besides incompetence?

If we say that the ship was detained in Batavia and the Dutch were forced to sell tea at a low price and lose money, it was because of the incompetence of the imperial court. But sitting at home, holding a natural monopoly in hand, and being manipulated like this is really unreasonable.

In some matters, Liu Yu really felt that China's bourgeoisie might be inherently deficient. If we say that Dashun's previous trade with free competition resulted in frequent internal fights and mutual lowering of prices.

When the Manchu Qing Dynasty established the Thirteenth Industry, it was almost monopolized by a small circle. The pricing power was still in the hands of Westerners, and they were forced to sell woolen goods.

This is really hard to understand. In Liu Yu’s previous life, he had never seen anyone in a monopoly industry take away pricing power easily.

After once again stimulating these businessmen and causing these businessmen to suffer a blow to their self-confidence, Liu Yu saw that these businessmen were no longer embarrassed, but were accustomed to being scolded by him so often, he smiled helplessly and said: "The reason is Let’s talk about the Wuyi Canal first, and it’s very important to talk about some of the company’s costs.”

"Canals, transportation, that's part of it."

"The monopoly, escort, inspection and anti-smuggling of spices are also necessary investments that can make money."

"Garrisons, military expenses, fortresses."

"Building ships, artillery, and agrarian reform."

"Repairing the port in Amsterdam, repairing the supply station in Cape, maintaining the escort scale of several warships, and arranging inspection of seals in tea-producing areas."

"All these are expenses. Do you think they are necessary?"

"Why did I say from the beginning that including the previous trading companies to Japan, they must also assume certain military obligations? That's why."

"These expenses are the basis for ensuring a gross profit of 450%. Without these expenses, there would be no such high profits."

"I must make this clear to you."

"Ordinarily, I will supervise you. As long as I guarantee profits and the minimum annual interest I promised, that's enough."

"But one day, I can't always supervise. I hope you can grow up and the board of directors should appropriately look forward when making decisions in the future."

"Look at the problem from a long-term perspective. Don't just look at this year's profits and next year's profits. Don't just look at the hundreds of thousands of taels spent investing in the canal, but don't think about how much money you can get in return after repairing it."

"I know that some people feel that more than a million taels of silver are taken away every year to give to the court to build the navy and build forts. Many people feel unfair."

Speaking of this, many people lowered their heads in shame.

Internally, many people are dissatisfied with the fact that the imperial court takes away more than one million taels of silver every year for naval construction. They feel that the imperial court is sucking the blood of businessmen again.

Liu Yu is well aware of this dissatisfaction, so today he uses the Wuyi Canal to increase Wuyi Tea's profits from 100% to 450% to talk about the importance of necessary expenditures.

Let these merchants, who have been spoiled and spoiled by the hard-working masses, not only return to the level of the pre-Qin period where "odd goods can be used to control politics", but at least reach the level of "the chaebol's cruelty at home and expansion abroad".

Today, Dashun's industrial and commercial development is actually following the path of the state's support of chaebols.

Several major chaebols have gradually emerged.

The Japanese trade chaebol group; the Nanyang banking and plantation industry chaebol group; the shipbuilding machinery, coal, and iron metallurgical chaebol group; and the overseas export chaebol group.

The imperial court has shares, the noble princes have shares, and the emperor's internal funds have shares. With the support of the imperial power, some conveniences and monopolies were granted.

Building a large chaebol with a monopoly nature not only facilitates the control of the court, but also facilitates the concentration of power.

To be a chaebol, you must have the consciousness to be a chaebol. At the very least, chaebols need to know when to be willing to spend money and where they cannot save money.

If being a chaebol means being cruel on the inside and tolerant on the outside, then you really can’t help yourself. You just have to be the most despicable among the four people.

Dashun is a country that pays attention to "reason" and "justice". Since Liu Yu has chosen supervision, he needs to explain things clearly to these people. When talking about business, he only talks about it from the perspective of pure commercial profits.

As for things other than commercial profits, such as strengthening control over Nanyang, finding a population pressure relief valve for Dashun, preparing battleships for future wars, etc., he did not mention them.

He hopes that one day things will come true in the future, and when the day comes for war with Britain, these big businessmen who have placed their hopes on the chaebol will be the group of people in Quan Dashun who support the war the most.

Even, they will use the low interest returns to buy enough war treasury bonds.

If they can achieve that step, it can be considered that they have gained their own class consciousness, or at least the consciousness of being a ruling class - taking responsibility for the country in which they are the ruling class.

When will the landlord class be able to use the same positive class consciousness that it used to suppress peasant uprisings to engage in external expansion and internal incitement? When will this group of people truly wake up?

But looking at it now, it is still early to have such awareness, and it must be cultivated step by step. Now I spend my whole day thinking about banning Qi Xing forever, asking the court to let go of land purchases, etc.

Since it was a long training process, Liu Yu just stopped there and did not go into more details.

After everyone was silent for a while, Liu Yu said with a smile: "That's all, the future is long. Today is a happy day for the company, so I won't be so embarrassing. Just stop it, stop it. What I said just now is a bit heavy, so I will say it now Talk about pleasant things related to tea.”

He turned around and erased the words Wuyi Canal on the curtain board and wrote two more lines of poetry.

"In the old days, the king's swallows flew in front of the hall and flew into the homes of ordinary people."