Chapter 1101 The Datang Western Company, which is worth more than the Navy
Jinling New East City, a new urban area that has been newly developed in recent years, can be said to be completely different from the old city of Jinling.
The old city of Jinling looks like a traditional Chinese city. Although the city appearance has become very good after years of continuous transformation, the layout of the buildings is still traditional.
But in New East City, this urban area is different from traditional cities. First of all, this city has no city walls.
This is probably the biggest difference from other cities, but the reason why there is no city wall is because of this place.
First of all, New East City was not developed as a city at the beginning. At the beginning, it was a wharf. Later, a large port area was built based on this wharf. Relying on port facilities and other buildings, many businesses settled there.
A large number of enterprises were brought together, and in the end, a large number of state-owned enterprises gathered here to build their headquarters.
And this has driven the development of the entire New East City!
Today, in fact, the overall size of New East City is not much smaller than that of the old city. Even the permanent population is nearly 100,000, while the old city now only has a population of more than 100,000.
The current permanent population of Jinling as a whole has reached more than 200,000.
In fact, this population size is not large for the whole of China. After all, according to the latest survey statistics from the Ministry of Household Affairs of the Tang Dynasty, the population of the Tang Dynasty exceeds 150 million, and this data does not include Ryukyu Prefecture, Lu
The natives of the Song Dynasty, Wanten Islands and other overseas territories, because the empire does not recognize the natives as people of the Tang Dynasty, only the people of the Tang Dynasty are generally counted in population statistics.
It has a population of over 150 million, and Jinling is currently the largest city in the Tang Dynasty. It only has a population of over 200,000, which is actually not that much.
But if you take into account the transportation and other technological factors of this era, it is almost a terrifying thing to have more than 300,000 permanent residents living in a city.
Although many history books record that ancient cities had a population of over one million, anyone with basic common sense knows that this is impossible. This is just like an ancient war involving an army of millions.
Whoever believes it is stupid!
The Tang Dynasty and the Ming Army have been fighting for so many years in the Unification War. The total number of regular field armies on both sides does not exceed one million, and these people are widely distributed across the country. A large-scale battle is often
There are tens of thousands of people, and the majority is basically only hundreds of thousands of people on one side.
Among the many battles between the Tang Dynasty and the Ming Army, the most massive were the Northern Expedition and the Southwest Campaign. However, in the Northern Expedition, the Tang army only had tens of thousands of people, and the Ming army only had about a hundred thousand.
In the Southwest Campaign, the Tang army numbered over 100,000, while the Ming army only numbered over 100,000!
A battle involving hundreds of thousands of people has never happened before, let alone one involving more than a million people.
The population of a certain place mentioned in history books is hundreds of thousands or millions. In fact, most of them refer to the population of a certain administrative region, such as the capital of the Tang Dynasty. In a sense, you can also say that it has a population of more than two million, but in fact
Most of the population lives in rural areas outside the city.
Therefore, when it is said that Jinling, the capital of the Tang Dynasty, has a population of more than two million, it refers to the entire Chengtian Mansion, not just the city of Jinling!
Chen Lifu and the Dongxi Liangchen Village where he lives are the most typical examples. They are serious Jinling people, but Dongchen Village and Xicun Chenke are both outside the city, more than ten miles away from the city.
In addition, if a person wants to live, he cannot just have a place to live. He has to eat!
Ordinary ancient people had to either farm or work to eat. Naturally, they couldn't expect to be able to farm in the city. The city was only so large that there couldn't be too many fields.
If you don’t farm, then you have to buy food, and buying food requires money, so you need to work!
So the question is, in an industry that is almost zero, and employment in the city basically relies on public service, services, commerce, and handicrafts, how many jobs can be provided?
Not much actually!
In addition to the employment factor, there is also the issue of material supply!
A city, no matter what era it is, basically needs to rely on external supplies for its daily necessities. Let’s not talk about other things. Food alone is a quite terrifying figure, and it is limited by the food output of this era.
Due to low production efficiency and low transportation efficiency, we want to rely on external input of food to sustain the consumption of millions of people.
That's almost impossible, and it's not worth the loss!
Not to mention that the legendary ancient cities couldn't do it, even the current Jinling City under the rule of the Tang Dynasty couldn't do it!
Today's Jinling City can be said to have great advantages over ancient cities. First of all, as a political center and commercial center, commerce is quite developed, and there are also many factories, regardless of whether they are large factories or small and medium-sized workshops.
and so on, which can provide a large number of jobs.
In terms of material transportation, relying on Yangtze River shipping and the Jiangnan water network, it is also quite developed. It can be said that almost all food and other materials in the Zhili region are concentrated in Jinling City.
In major areas such as ports and urban areas, rail carriages serve as the core transportation force, while for short-distance transportation, there are a large number of freight four-wheel carriages.
In terms of roads, the Tang Dynasty also vigorously developed cinder roads. I dare not say that in other places, but in Jinling City and surrounding areas, the development of cinder roads was quite popular.
The number of various means of transportation traveling to and from the city every day is quite large, even causing serious traffic jams. This situation was established in the Tang Dynasty when special traffic regulations were established. Patrol police were stationed at major traffic intersections to direct vehicles and pedestrians.
Under normal circumstances.
It is almost unimaginable to maintain so many transport vehicles and people in a place without special traffic regulations and traffic control.
In addition to the lack of trains and steam ships, Jinling City's transportation system has actually reached the pinnacle of traditional transportation capabilities!
However, even so, it is still very difficult!
In fact, Xindongcheng District was gradually developed to some extent because the old city could not bear its heavy responsibilities. In addition, in order to ease traffic, no city walls were specially built.
The headquarters of Datang Western Company is located on the easternmost side of Yanjiang Road in Xindongcheng District. Although the place is a bit remote, who told them that their company's exclusive dock is here.
The headquarters building of Datang Western Company is also quite peculiar, that is, the foreign style of this building is too strong1
The headquarters of Datang Western Company is not the traditional building used by many institutions, nor is it the two or three-story brick and tile building used by many companies in recent years, but a new-style building!
There are obvious differences between this new style of architecture and traditional architecture, regardless of whether it is Chinese or Western style. The biggest feature is that it is big, tall and square!
Many high-level people in Datang who are qualified to enter and leave the Royal Villa know that the headquarters building of Datang Western Company is basically built according to the Hanlin Building in the Royal Villa.
As for the Hanlin Building, it was an architectural style designed by Li Xuan himself!
So, what does the new architectural style of Hanlin Building and Datang Western Company look like?
Well, it’s actually a very common square building in later generations!
These two buildings were actually the earliest applications of cement in the Tang Dynasty!
Last year, Datang Royal Institute of Technology worked hard and finally figured out how to make cement from lime. After this was figured out, people naturally did not hide it, and immediately authorized the patent to the Royal Assets Department. Later,
This specially invested in the establishment of a cement factory and began to officially produce cement.
But don’t think that cement can be popularized in this way, that’s not the case!
Why?
Because it’s expensive!
The cost of raw materials is actually the same. Although it is more expensive than quicklime, it is not too expensive, but the patent is expensive!
The Royal Institute of Technology is not a charity. They have spent so many years and countless funds to come up with this cement. Moreover, the patent is valid for twenty years. Naturally, they want to recover the cost within the patent period.
Not to mention, we also need to make a firm profit so that we can have funds to invest in subsequent research and development.
Therefore, the current selling price of cement, the total cost of cement, raw materials, production and even transportation of one hundred taels is actually only a few taels of silver at most, but what happens to the remaining money?
At least fifty taels of silver are taxes!
There is no way, the taxes in the Tang Dynasty are so high, basically 50% of the selling price of any product is tax!
However, the taxes they collect are not collected directly from the selling price, but from various aspects of the circulation of goods, making it invisible to ordinary people.
There are still more than thirty taels of silver, at least twenty taels of silver is the patent cost, and more than ten taels of silver is the company's gross profit!
Well, this is actually not just cement, but also most other products!
Of course, what I'm talking about here is just the essence. In fact, when companies calculate costs, they will include taxes, procurement costs, etc., and will not only calculate the actual value of the item itself.
If all are taken into account, the cost of one hundred taels of cement is more than eighty taels. They only make a gross profit of more than ten taels. They are actually not evil.
In addition, as for costs, taxes are easy to say. They are calculated on a proportional basis. However, patent royalties are not calculated on a proportional basis. They are calculated on the basis of output. Every ton of cement produced needs to be charged.
How much is the patent royalty?
Therefore, the high price of cement is directly related to the high price of patent royalties. Otherwise, the price of cement would not be so expensive.
This cement is expensive and ordinary people can't afford it. After some promotion, only the military has ordered a batch to build permanent fortifications, such as forts and so on.
But the market for the military is destined to be small. If you want to make money, you have to rely on the private market. But how to open the private market? Naturally, you can't take the lower-level route, you can only take the upper-level route.
As the actual boss behind the cement factory, Li Xuan naturally wanted to promote his own cement, so he built a Hanlin Building using cement.
This Hanlin Building can be said to be the latest embodiment of contemporary technology. The main material of the building is stone, the adhesive is cement, and the windows use the largest area of glass that can be made at present. Then the layout of the building
It has also gone through the most scientific calculations to ensure lighting and ventilation.
The Hanlin Building is only three stories high, but it has a total height of more than 20 meters, and the most important point is that its floor is not made of wooden floors, but cement and steel reinforced floors.
This is a rectangular building about 60 meters long, 40 meters wide, and more than 20 meters high. The whole building looks magnificent!
In addition to the grandeur of the main building, the details are naturally not bad. After all, this is a palace building. Although it is said to be a building for the offices of the Hanlin Academy and the ministers on duty in the Imperial Study Room, etc., it is also
It belongs to the palace building.
So it looks magnificent!
The exterior walls are decorated with a large number of white marble carvings, and there are two bronze unicorns in front of the gate. However, the exterior can only be regarded as ordinary, and what is really important is the interior.
When you walk into the door, the first thing you see is not anything else, but a huge hall. This hall is a three-story hollow hall!
There is a large glass window made of transparent glass on the front exterior wall, and there is a huge curtain beside the glass window!
This is a curtain that is more than twenty meters long from the top of the building to the bottom. In order to allow the curtain to move freely, it is even equipped with hinges.
The floor is a smooth marble floor, and above the head are several ram-horn lamps that can be said to be the largest that can be made in contemporary times.
There are two semi-rotating staircases in the lobby leading to the second and third floors!
In the whole building, this lobby is the most impressive!
When you walk in, you can feel how small you are!
As for the layout of the building outside the lobby, there is nothing much to say, just ordinary offices and conference rooms.
The entire building can accommodate nearly 300 people working, which is just enough to accommodate the ordinary office staff of the Hanlin Academy and the Imperial Study Room.
Hanlin Building was just completed in August last year, but this is nothing. The most important thing is that the entire building was built using many advanced technologies and equipment. From laying the foundation to completing the main building, it only took three months in total.
It’s just time!
However, the interior decoration took several months, and it was not officially put into use until the beginning of this year.
The headquarters of Datang Western Company was built at the end of last year. Their company headquarters is smaller than Hanlin Building, and it cannot pay attention to details like the royal buildings, so the construction speed is faster and the total cost is
It took five months before it was put into use.
But even so, for a private office building, the headquarters of Datang Western Company still amazed the navy generals!
Some people even muttered that this Western company is really rich, richer than our navy!
Isn't that right? The total market value of Datang Western Company exceeds 60 million taels of silver. The navy's annual military expenditure is only a few million taels of silver. Even if all the warships are sold for money, none of Datang Western Company is worth as much.
However, the market value is the market value. The market value of Datang Western Company is 60 million taels, which does not mean that their company really has 60 million taels. In fact, when all fixed assets and cash are added up, it is actually only 60 million taels.
The scale is tens of millions of taels of silver, and this is all invested by shareholders in the past two years. Before this, the total assets were only more than one million taels of silver.
What is valuable is not the fixed assets, but the trade license!