These days, when you are a local official, your official reputation is still very important, and it is even an important consideration in whether an official can be promoted. After all, the people's eyes are sharp, and they can tell who is a good official and who is a corrupt official.
And people still use the simplest, even ignorant way to make distinctions.
If you benefit them and allow them to have food to eat and clothing to wear, then you are a good official.
If not, it goes without saying that you are definitely not a good official. You are either corrupt or derelict in your duties. Get out of here as soon as possible.
Well, if Chen Lifu directly used Shanghai's finances to give each of the people in Shanghai one tael of silver, then he would definitely be a very good official in the eyes of the local people.
Of course, he would be arrested later, not by the Anti-Corruption Department of the Supervisory Office, but by the eagle dogs of the Investigation and Statistics Department of the Hanlin Academy.
Spend money to buy people's hearts. What do you want, Chen Lifu, to rebel?
Chen Lifu doesn't want to create a lot of discussion just to build a bridge. Once the toll is charged, when people talk about the Wusong River Bridge in the future, they won't say that he, Chen Lifu, built the bridge, but that he, Chen Lifu, used this bridge.
He charged a toll for a bridge, and I don’t know how many people were yelling at him.
What people say is terrible!
Therefore, charging is not an option, at least not in the current political environment.
But the bridge still needs to be built. This is the prerequisite for developing the north bank of Wusong River. Without such a bridge, it is impossible to develop the north bank of Wusong River. But where will the money for building the bridge come from?
Two days later, Chen Lifu found someone to design a wooden bridge plan again, because it was low-cost, but the plan cost nearly 100,000 taels of silver, and the annual maintenance cost of the wooden bridge was very high, every year.
It costs several thousand taels of silver, and its service life is only twenty years at most. Although the initial investment of the steel bridge is large, subsequent maintenance is very convenient. It can be completed for at most a few hundred taels of silver a year, and its service life can reach five years.
More than ten years.
More importantly, the load-bearing capacity of the wooden bridge cannot meet the demand. This bridge is not only designed for pedestrians, but also for traveling between the North Bank and the business district, the first industrial zone, and the second industrial zone.
Designed for freight carriages.
The freight carriages used in the Tang Empire today are basically four-wheeled carriages, and the load capacity can easily reach more than one ton. If the load-bearing capacity of the bridge is not up to standard, it will not be able to meet the needs of the load-bearing carriages, and this is obviously not possible.
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Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Chen Lifu decided to build a steel bridge. As for the funds to build the bridge, Chen Lifu also asked everyone to propose several plans.
The original plan of taking a loan from a bank and using bridge tolls to repay the loan has been scrapped.
It is not possible to directly use financial construction.
Others have proposed several other solutions.
Some people have suggested that since the bridge was built for the development of the North Bank and to connect traffic between the North and South Banks, can some bridge repair fees be levied on some companies on the South Bank and those preparing to build factories on the North Bank? But this is not possible either.
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It is inappropriate to collect money directly, whether it is to collect bridge tolls or collect money in other names. It is easy to make false claims. Chen Lifu, who attaches great importance to reputation, will naturally not agree with this idea.
Some people also talked about taking loans in the name of the local government and using subsequent tax revenue from the North Shore region to repay the loan, but this plan was also rejected.
Directly applying for loans from local yamen for infrastructure construction and using local taxes to repay the loans is allowed by the policy and is also done in many places, but the risks involved are not small, not to mention that these five hundred thousand taels of silver are not
It's a small amount. Applications for such a large project need to go through layers of review and approval, and in the end, the Holy Emperor may be alarmed.
If this thing is done, it will be a good thing, but if something goes wrong, it will definitely become an indelible stain on Chen Lifu.
The political risks were too great, and Chen Lifu was also unwilling to bear them.
What's more, the development of the north bank of Wusong River was a plan proposed and implemented by Chen Lifu, and it was a plan promoted by Shanghai County itself. The higher-ups had no such idea in the first place. If Chen Lifu had proposed it now, he would have pointed it out in the end.
I'm not sure how many people were involved.
Chen Lifu didn't want his political achievements to be robbed by others in the end, and if something went wrong, he would be responsible.
The North Shore Development Plan is different from the previous Second Industrial Zone Development Plan, even in nature.
Chen Lifu is more willing to use Shanghai to promote and solve these problems, rather than go to Jiangnan Road or even the central government.
In the end, it was the people from the Shanghai Terminal Company who proposed a plan to Chen Lifu, saying that they would imitate the terminal construction plan of the year. The Shanghai Terminal Company could fund the construction of this bridge, but in order to recover the cost, they needed to acquire the Wusong River Bridge.
Part of the land on the north and south banks will be developed.
This suggestion actually made Chen Lifu interested!
There is already a precedent for promoting infrastructure construction by giving away land, so there is no policy risk in doing so.
But the Shanghai Terminal Company, so to speak, is a terminal company, but it already owns a lot of land. More than ten kilometers of riverside areas on both sides of the Huangpu River are their company's land.
Chen Lifu is not willing to continue to let the company grow, not to mention that the management of Shanghai Terminal Company has too much appetite and wants to swallow up a large amount of land on the north and south sides of the Wusong River Bridge. The areas on the north and south sides of the Wusong River Bridge are based on geographical location.
You know that these lands have great commercial value. If these lands are developed and operated for decades, the income can be more than a mere five hundred thousand taels of silver.
However, the Shanghai Terminal Company's proposal gave Chen Lifu a new idea!
This transaction of exchanging land for investment cannot be done by the Shanghai Terminal Company, nor can it be done by any private enterprise. After all, these lands belong to the government and are imperial assets. It cannot be justified to transfer them to private enterprises.
However, you can set up a new government-owned enterprise, allocate land to them, and then let them use the land to apply for loans, and use the commercial income from the land to repay the loan.
After thinking about this, Chen Lifu carefully studied the precedents of the Shanghai Terminal Company, and then instructed the Shanghai Special County Finance Department to directly register and establish the Shanghai Bridge Company.
And a large area of land on both sides of the north and south was assigned to this newly established company.
In this way, although this company does not have a dime in cash, it does own a large area of land. Not to mention the potential of the undeveloped land on the north bank in the future, the land on the south bank is very valuable.
Because the land on the south bank belongs to the business district, and the land price in the business district is very high now, and this area, which belongs to the tidal flat at the north end, used to be a warehouse belonging to Jiangnan Textile Company, but Jiangnan Textile Company only rented it
This is just a piece of land, because the land in the entire business district belongs to the government and can only be rented but not sold.
If the Wusong River Bridge is built in this area and the north bank is developed at the same time, as a bridgehead connecting the north bank, its commercial value will naturally be very great.
After the Shanghai Bridge Company was established, it immediately started the design and construction plan of the Wusong River Bridge, but it was not just a bridge, but also a hotel construction plan.
It's a bit difficult to get a bank to provide a loan just by relying on this piece of land. After all, the value of the land depends on the buildings on it.
Therefore, the Shanghai Bridge Company plans to build a hotel on the south bank, at the northern end of Yanjiang Avenue in the business district, named Wusongjiang Hotel.
Just looking at the design plan, you know that this is a hotel that focuses on high-end accommodation, catering, and conferences. The main floor reaches five floors, the podium is two floors high, and it covers a very large area. It has a huge courtyard. The building adopts
A rare Western style.
Today's buildings in Shanghai are still dominated by traditional Chinese-style buildings. In addition, there are many new-style buildings. These new-style buildings are usually reinforced concrete buildings. The external style is generally relatively simple, and they also incorporate some traditional elements. Well,
For the specific style, please refer to the boxy cement buildings of later generations, plus a pair of stone lions. It can be regarded as a combination of modernity and tradition, focusing on practicality.
The design of Wusongjiang Hotel is a rare Western-style building with an obvious Baroque style, and there is a large lawn garden in front, which is very suitable for holding open-air banquets.
Apart from anything else, just using such a large piece of land as a lawn in the business district is a waste of money!
It can be seen that if this hotel is built, the consumption will definitely not be low. Coupled with the relatively unique building, it may become a new generation landmark building in Shanghai.
In fact, the people from Shanghai Bridge Company really think so. They just want to build a new landmark building to increase the commercial value around the hotel and the North Shore area.
Otherwise, how will they get their money back?
Banks will definitely ignore a loan to build a bridge without charging bridge tolls. Even the Royal Bank and several banks from the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises will not pay attention to it. Although these official banks need to take into account the factors of supporting local areas, they
You must also be responsible for the safety of your funds. If you cannot get back the loan money, some people will lose their heads because of this.
Without seeing a feasible loan repayment plan, let alone Chen Lifu, even if the cabinet boss came to visit in person, it would be useless.
If you don’t give money, you don’t give money!
However, if there is such a large piece of land and there is a development plan for this land with a considerable return rate, then the bank will be very happy.
It’s no problem to take out a loan to build a bridge, and it’s also no problem to take out a loan to build a hotel.
As long as you use the land as a mortgage, you don't need any ownership rights. You can't get it anyway. All they need is a one-hundred-year leasehold mortgage.
Chen Lifu took a look and found that although the conditions were a bit harsh, the loans were also issued by the Royal Bank and the Datang Imperial Bank under the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. The former was wholly-owned by the Royal Assets Division, and the latter was wholly-owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises. Even if it is in the future.
Something went wrong and the loan was not replaced. The land fell into the hands of the bank, but it was just a left hand exchange for a right hand, and there was no suspicion of selling off the empire's state-owned assets at a low price.
So I waved my hand and did it!
Let's get the money to build the bridge first. As for how the Shanghai Bridge Company develops the land on the north and south banks allocated to them, Chen Lifu is too lazy to worry about it. Anyway, he only needs to see the Wusong River Bridge completed within two years.
After the construction funds for the Wusong River Bridge were received, the final detailed design began immediately, and construction even entered soon.
At the same time, the development plan on the north bank of Wusong River has officially kicked off!
This is Chen Lifu's biggest move since he took office in Shanghai. His political performance during his three-year term depends on it. Since the money is in place, it will be delayed. It will be done as quickly as possible, for fear that the bridge will not be built before he leaves office.
It is completed, but the North Shore has not yet been successfully opened.
In that case, wouldn't he want those who came before him to pick the tree for others to enjoy, and he would bear all the risks?