What is the art of speaking? It is to speak to people's hearts.
Lao Liu used Xiao Ma's classic lines on these two former bosses who were in similar situations, and it was a surefire success.
As expected, the two men no longer refused, and both kowtowed and expressed their willingness to join the Shipping Division.
"Haha, okay!" Zhu Zhen stood up happily, pulled the two of them up personally and said: "From today on, you two will be the shipping committee members of the Shipping Department. I have only one request for you, and that is to make the Shipping Department bigger.
Be stronger! Believe me, as long as you can do this, your two families will definitely be able to regain their former glory."
"Yes." Naturally, both of them agreed with what they said.
"Come on, sit down and talk." Zhu Zhen finally asked the two of them to sit down. Before, they had been standing and talking.
He briefly introduced the current situation, focusing on the upcoming Zhenjiang Conference. Then he pointed at Han Yike and said:
"But to be honest, my senior brother and I are both laymen. If you two experts have any ideas, feel free to speak freely without any worries."
"..." The two of them looked at each other and knew that His Highness was testing their level in school. How dare they not show some real skills?
After pondering for a moment, Gu Yuanchen spoke first: "With all due respect, Your Highness, convening a meeting of major Jiangnan households will definitely be useful, but don't expect too much."
"How do you say it?" King Chu asked calmly.
"Because maritime trade is different from land trade. In road trade, the more people involved, the better. In maritime trade, the fewer people involved, the better." Gu Yuanchen said solemnly: "The most ideal situation is that there is only one company on the sea.
.At this time, profits can be maximized, costs can be minimized, and everything done can be done most efficiently.”
"Oh..." Zhu Zhen suddenly became interested and said, "This is a new explanation. This is the first time I have heard it."
"Your Highness, what Lao Gu said makes sense." Shen Rong on the side also agreed: "Because maritime trade is based on huge profits. The sea is dangerous and dangerous, and the ship will capsize if not handled properly. There are also miasma, pirates,
Fanyi... can kill people at any time. If there is no huge profit, who is willing to risk all the dangers and travel across the ocean?"
"It makes sense." Zhu Zhen nodded and smiled: "I'm not afraid of your jokes. I only know how to make money from maritime trade, but even now I don't know how much money I can make."
"Let's take Japan as an example." Shen Rong said: "That island country lacks everything, but is rich in gold and silver. So the Han family used to specialize in Japanese business.
"During the Tang Dynasty, they learned how to weave silk brocade from my country, but they did not know how to make raw silk. If the sea was blocked, there would be no silk to weave. So the price per hundred catties was five to six hundred taels of silver..."
"How much?" Han Yike screamed in shock and hurriedly confessed to His Highness.
"Very exaggerated?" Zhu Zhen asked him.
"It's an exaggeration." Han Yike said: "In Jiangnan, the most expensive thing is Hu silk, which does not exceed one hundred taels of silver per hundred catties."
"Fuck..." Zhu Zhen couldn't help but curse. What did he say?
With a profit of 50%, it will take desperate risks; for a profit of 100%, it will dare to trample all human laws; with a profit of 300%, it will dare to commit any crime and even risk hanging.
Danger?
That's pretty much what it means.
In the Ming Dynasty, smuggling can earn 500% profit... Go ahead and do whatever crazy things they can do!
~~
"But this is a situation where I have a monopoly. If there are two companies together, my family's profits will definitely be affected. Because compared with domestic mass production, the overseas market is much smaller after all. Then in order to sell more goods, competitors will seize my company. The market will take the initiative to lower prices.
"Those shrewd Japanese celebrities will also use their opponents to lower the price to me. In the end, I can only follow up and lower the price. This is still a situation where there are only two sellers. The more sellers there are, the more serious the situation of price-killing will be, and huge profits will not be possible." Exist again." Shen Rong continued: "Without the huge profits, overseas trade will also lose the value of existence."
"Moreover, there are pirates, Japanese pirates, and unfriendly barbarian countries on the sea, which require huge costs to deal with. There are more families involved, and each family is unwilling to pay the high cost and hopes to enjoy the benefits. As a result, Just..." Shen Rong paused, wondering how to describe it.
"Three monks don't have water to eat?" Zhu Zhen asked.
"Yes, that's what it means." Shen Rong nodded hurriedly and said: "In short, the more people who share a piece of the pie, the more chaotic the sea will be, and the less profitable sea trade will be."
"So originally, there were only six maritime merchants." Gu Yuanchen said: "Any latecomer who wants to join will be turned away by the six merchants."
"Good guy, get on the car and weld the door shut." Zhu Zhen's understanding of this phenomenon was far better than the two of them expected.
He remembered reading in a book that when only the Portuguese could transport pepper from Asia back to Europe, the price of pepper remained high for nearly a hundred years, and the Portuguese made a lot of money for generations.
But when the Dutch and the British successively broke the Portuguese blockade, came to Asia, and began to traffic pepper to Europe, the price of this expensive spice soon continued to plummet, and within a few years it fell to parity, allowing hundreds of More than ninety-five percent of the East India Company went bankrupt...
It seems that the rules of the game in maritime trade have nothing to do with free trade.
~~
"Actually, six companies are too many." Shen Rong said lightly: "A lot of energy is spent every year to divide routes, share costs, and coordinate interests. However, problems still arise one after another, and the internal consumption is huge."
"Yeah." Zhu Zhen nodded.
"So what you're saying is that it's best to eat alone?" Han Yike asked the two of them with a frown.
"It's not that we are alone, but that we are the only one on the sea." The two people hurriedly explained to their future boss: "The big families and people in the south of the Yangtze River can not only supply us with goods, but also sell goods for us domestically. If they want to There is no problem in doing maritime trade, but you must take our ships, use our ships to transport goods, buy and sell according to the prices we set, and you must not break the rules."
"It makes sense." Zhu Zhen nodded.
"Isn't this the official ship of the Yuan Dynasty?" Luo Ben, who had been silent until now, suddenly asked inwardly: "How can you guarantee that you will not repeat the mistakes of the Yuan Dynasty?"
As mentioned earlier, the "official ship" system means that overseas trade is monopolized by the government and a government-business joint venture model is implemented. In it, the ship and capital are provided by the government, and the government selects merchants to operate it, and the profits from sea operations are divided into 70% and 30%.
"Well, it seems that the capable people of the Yuan Dynasty also realized that sea trade should be monopolized by the government." Zhu Zhen nodded and said: "And there is already a very mature method. But the result was not only unsuccessful, but also made the merchants The company is completely devastated."
"There is no problem with the official ship system itself. The main problem is that the people who implement it are poor. The officials were sent just to exploit merchants and line their own pockets. There is no monopoly on maritime trade at all." Shen Rong replied.
"Although the Yuan Dynasty has repeatedly issued orders to prohibit private individuals from going to sea, and there have been several sea bans for this reason. However, the local civil and military affairs are extremely corrupt. As long as they give money, they can smuggle at will. Private merchants can go to sea at will, how can the official ship be an opponent?" Gu Yuanchen also said.
He is actually the best example. He himself served as deputy Wanhu of Haido Wanhu Mansion, but the Gu family owned a huge smuggling fleet...
