Chapter 123 Preparing to Return to Beijing (Part 2)
The rivals of Jinghua Trading Company are at sea.
It has been nearly eight years since Gao Jingshi built the Tianjin Private Port in the late Longqing Dynasty. During these eight years, Gao Jingshi once again let the world see the magic of the Midas Touch - even more than once.
First of all, the rise of Tianjin Port is jaw-dropping. According to other people’s thinking, the so-called parallelization of water and sea transportation is nothing more than transferring some tasks that cannot be completed by water transportation to the sea, and water transportation is inherently a loss-making business, so there should be no need for sea transportation. Profitable.
Is water transport a loss-making business? It must be, Gao Pragmatic knows this very well. In his previous life, he had read several monographs on water transport in the Ming Dynasty, and all of them believed that water transport was definitely a loss-making business, and there were detailed data to support it.
In fact, water transportation in the Ming Dynasty was not a profitable enterprise in itself, and the Ming court never regarded the cost issue as a major issue.
For example, as far as grain is concerned, despite the high cost of transportation, the imperial court still sells grain on the market in the capital at prices lower than the initial price from time to time. Is this considering the cost? Obviously not, this is from the perspective of cost. Consider the issue from the perspective of governance stability in the Gyeonggi region.
The consumption of labor, especially the labor consumption of maintaining the Cao River channel, is often not considered by the water transport authorities. In fact, while the whole country is doing its best to transport grain to the north, private merchants are transporting grain to the Huaihe and Huguang areas. to the south.
What impressed Gao pragmatically the most about the water transport issue was a monograph that said: “In 1632, the Minister of Household Affairs reported to the Ming Dynasty that a large number of taxes paid in kind had not yet been collected; including those listed on the list as being paid by Suzhou of honey, its value is less than 28 taels of silver. This petition was submitted when the national tax arrears exceeded 17 million taels of silver.
In addition, the currency circulation channels can also reflect the lack of systematic management. In 1592, Wanping County under Beijing delivered goods to 27 military stations and institutions (some of which were located on the Great Wall) specified by the central government. However, all items were not worth the money. 2,000 taels of silver; some of the items contained less than 50 taels of value, and some even only had one or two taels. We are not surprised by this. Regarding the management of the Cao River, the Ming Dynasty bureaucrats also set up many costly and wasteful measures. program."
The Cao River, also known as the Grand Canal, is a man-made river. Its operating efficiency is not only closely related to the sand content of the Yellow River, the water level of Gaoyou Lake and the freezing season in North China, but also, to a considerable extent, depends on the people of the time. opinions and responses to various issues.
The Cao River occupies a prominent position and has always been the only trunk line for transportation to the capital. What is the main reason? What are the number and variety of items transported on the Cao River? How to manage the Cao River? How to avoid losing money?
Gao Pragmatic knew very well that what really determined this series of issues was not the natural environment, but the ideological concepts that dominated the court.
But Gao Pragmatic can't solve this problem for the time being. Not to mention that he is just a civil servant now, even if he becomes the chief minister. To solve this problem, he not only needs to become the chief minister, but also needs the emperor's full support. There are a lot of disciples, former officials, political allies, and even a high reputation among scholars, otherwise it will be impossible to deal with the opposition from both the government and the opposition.
Therefore, he could only avoid the most important and transfer part of the water transport function to the sea - this was only possible with Gao Gong, the first assistant and third uncle who supported the opening of the sea.
However, after transferring this part of the water transportation function, can Tianjin Port develop? Of course not.
If we just rely on this part of the seaborne grain transit business, the most pragmatic Tianjin Private Port can guarantee that it will not starve itself to death, which is definitely not enough if it wants to develop. So Gao Pragmatic has prepared supporting measures early on, that is
...to attract investment.
Of course, it is not about attracting investment to build factories in Tianjin, but by improving the facilities of Tianjin Port to attract more southern businessmen to sell goods to the capital and the entire north by sea! At the same time, the goods from the north are transported through Tianjin Port.
Return to the south to sell. Only by forming this thriving north-south trade boom, as the owner of Tianjin Port, can he obtain sufficient profits from it.
At the same time, Gao Pragmatic was not limited to the port itself. After Tianjin Port began to make profits, he began to target more excellent ports and began to build his own shipyard.
He still followed the old routine, which was to purchase wasteland in advance to build new ports in the Bohai Rim area. The new ports that have been completed so far include Yingkou Port at the mouth of the Liaohe River in Liaodong Province (this is what Gao Pragmatic is calling
(name changed for convenience), Tangshan Port near the Luanhe River estuary, Laizhou Port in northern Shandong and Jiaozhou Port (later Qingdao) in the southeast of Shandong.
Among them, Tianjin Port, Tangshan Port, Yingkou Port and Laizhou Port are the four pillar ports of his "Bohai Rim Business Circle" plan.
Because Tianjin Port is backed by the capital, its core position is certain, so it is also the largest in scale. The main significance of Tangshan Port is to transport products from the three major factories in Kaiping, both for civilian and military purposes. However, because the goods are relatively single, the market is still limited.
Therefore, the scale of this port is currently the smallest; Laizhou Port is mainly responsible for the transfer station for buying and selling goods to Shandong, because the current economic and population core of Shandong is mainly in the inland area of Jinan in later generations, and Laizhou is relatively close; as for Jiaozhou Port
, in fact, it is mainly an "anchorage" for Gao pragmatic's southward expansion. Its commercial value itself is relatively limited, but it also has another important task, which is to become Gao pragmatic's first shipbuilding base.
The geographical advantage of Qingdao Port is naturally unparalleled. In addition to being a natural deep-water port with various natural conditions for shelter from wind and waves, it also has the advantage of location itself - not far to the north is North China, and not far to the south is North China.
Jiangnan.
Gao pragmatically decided to set his first shipbuilding base here because he hoped to build an all-round shipbuilding base here that could produce not only flat-bottomed sand ships suitable for the Bohai Sea, but also sharp-bottomed sea-going ships suitable for the East China Sea and even Southeast Asia - after all, he was in
When working in a "private enterprise", one must consider the cost issue. It is of course the best to be able to use one place for multiple purposes.
After the completion of these major ports, the Bohai Rim business circle has actually laid a good foundation.
Nowadays, leather goods, Dongzhu, wild ginseng, and other items from Liaodong can be easily transported to Yingkou through the Liaohe River, and then depart from Yingkou, transported to Tianjin, and then transferred to the south.
Silk, porcelain, cotton cloth and even grain from the south can also be shipped directly to ports in the north to meet the needs of Beizhili, Shandong, Liaodong and other places.
The iron products and cement from the three major factories in Kaiping can also meet the needs of various parts of the north and even the south of the Yangtze River through Tangshan Port...
In such a revitalized port circle, Gao Pragmatic can make a lot of money just from the berthing fees, not to mention the rental of many warehouses and storefronts within the port, which are all good businesses with huge profits.
Especially when Gao Pragmatic unified these businesses under the name of "Jinghua Sea Trading", Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd. naturally could not stand out!
