Chen Lifu couldn't understand why Feng Company suddenly entered the shipbuilding industry at this time, and also entered the shipbuilding industry across borders, but he was not a businessman.
Although the Chen family has many properties, the Chen family is still not positioned as a business family, but as a family of officials and scholars. Except for Chen Lifu, the children of the Chen family are basically focused on studying for the imperial examination and then becoming officials.
So far, except for Chen Lifu, more than ten people from the Chen family, including direct and collateral families, have joined the officialdom. Although most of them are still working as low-level officials, as long as they have the strength, they can join the officialdom.
With some luck and Chen Lifu's help, I can't say that I will be able to reach a high position in the future, but it will not be a problem to become a mid-level official.
These are the foundation of the Chen family, and business is just incidental.
Therefore, although Chen Lifu's family has a lot of assets, Chen Lifu rarely cares about the situation of these industries. Basically, they are taken care of by the defeated people who have no talent for imperial examinations.
Therefore, Chen Lifu is actually not very clear about business affairs. He mainly understands some general affairs and specific business operations. He is not professional.
So I was surprised, but that was it.
However, aside from not understanding that the Feng family wanted to enter the shipbuilding industry, Chen Lifu still felt that the Feng company moved very quickly and was able to acquire this area of adjacent development when the North Shore Development Zone project was just confirmed.
It is not an easy task to acquire land along the river in the district.
You must know that these places are all privately owned. The land acquired by the government in the early years was limited to the North Bank Development Zone, and the development zone only covers an area of more than thirty square kilometers.
Its approximate scope is about eight kilometers north of Wusong River and about four kilometers west of Huangpu River. The total area is only thirty-three square kilometers.
Except for these places, the rest is basically private land!
Since the news of the North Bank Development Zone project came out, the land prices around the North Bank Development Zone, especially along the Huangpu River adjacent to the development zone, have been rising every day.
I think everyone knows that if the North Shore is developed, it will directly drive the development of the surrounding areas. Even if the development is not as good as that of the inner development zone, it can still reap a lot of benefits.
Many companies in the development zone are unable to obtain a hundred-year preferential lease term due to lack of strength and insufficient investment. However, if they want to acquire land quickly and use it as a long-term base, they all want to purchase land from private hands in surrounding areas.
Of course, the official side is very clear about these, and they have not interfered in any way. Well, they can't interfere.
Although the government can expropriate these lands through land expropriation, land expropriation costs money. According to the current market price, a large amount of remaining land around the development zone will be expropriated. No matter how rich the finance of Shanghai Special County is, it will not be possible.
I can't afford it.
What's more, it can easily be labeled as competing with the people for profit.
The gain outweighs the loss.
What's more, even if it is forcibly expropriated, Shanghai's finances will not have so much money for development. If it cannot be developed after expropriation, it is better to let private capital enter.
The development of the three new urban areas in Jinling City, the capital of the Tang Empire, followed this model. Official guidance was at best just the beginning, while the development of large new urban areas was still dominated by private capital.
It’s different from the official version here in Shanghai.
However, many of Datang's policies do not provide any clear distinction between the two methods. Anyway, as long as there is no violation of laws and disciplines, local governments can do whatever they like. Anyway, the superiors only need to see the results.
What result?
People's livelihood!
Nowadays, officials from all over the Tang Dynasty focus on people's livelihood for promotion and wealth, because although education and stability are more important, they are too illusory. Education is simply education and brainwashing, and it is often difficult to see the results.
As for things like stability, peace, and rebellion, although they still happen occasionally, they are still too far away for most places.
Therefore, the only shortcut left for local officials everywhere is people's livelihood.
But the people's livelihood in the Tang Empire was the real people's livelihood, not the economic growth rate, the GDP, nor the amount of local fiscal revenue.
Rather, it refers to whether the people can have enough to eat, whether they can have clothes to wear, and whether they can have houses to live in.
If everything is miserable under the rule, and a large number of people are hungry and cold, unable to afford food, housing, or clothes, it will be useless no matter how high your economic growth rate, GDP, and fiscal revenue are.
.
You will even be read by Ginseng, saying that you do not care about the life and death of the people, but you are robbing the people of the people.
The fundamental purpose of developing agriculture, industry and commerce is not to make the data look good, let alone more gold and silver, but to make people live better.
People-oriented!
It is a pity that not many people have been able to understand such a simple truth from ancient times to the present, or they know it, but they do not do it.
Most of the royal families and officials of other dynasties hold one belief, that is, I only need to drink the hot and spicy food, and the life and death of the people at the bottom are none of our business!
Li Xuan actually doesn't care much about the life and death of others, but he cares about his own throne as emperor, the survival of the empire, and whether he can unify the world.
And these are all based on the same premise, that is, the people can live and work in peace and contentment!
When the people don't have enough to eat, there will be careerists who will call the king, prime minister, and general Hou Ning to pull the people into rebellion!
The quality of life of the people, the survival of the Tang Empire, and the stability of Li Xuan's emperor's throne are actually related to each other.
Therefore, the current policies of the Tang Empire towards agriculture and industry and commerce are actually contradictory. On the one hand, they have given a large number of policies to support the development of industry and commerce, and formulated a large number of laws and regulations to promote the development of industry and commerce.
However, most of the fiscal revenue contributed by industry and commerce is filled into the bottomless pit of agricultural production.
This point is even more prominent in local government offices.
Most of the fiscal revenue of most prefectures and counties is invested in agriculture-related construction. As for industry and commerce, it basically only provides policies and a small amount of funds. If you want to provide a large amount of financial support, it is basically
Don't count on it.
At present, the Tang Empire is actually still a very typical agricultural country. Although industrialization has begun, the fiscal revenue contributed by industry and commerce has also been rising steadily, even reaching more than 30%.
However, this does not mean that industry and commerce became the pillar of the Tang Empire.
Chen Lifu walked around the North Bank Development Zone and then returned to the county town. This made Sun Herong, the general manager of Feng Company who had just received the news and was about to pay a visit, very disappointed.
He also wanted to take this opportunity to meet with Chen Lifu, the county's most respected man, and then see if the area of his newly purchased land could be included in the development plan of the development zone.
After all, the land purchased by Feng Company is right next to the development zone, and the area is not very big. It really needs to be included in the planning of the development zone, which is just a matter of Chen Lifu's words.
If it can be done, this area will be directly managed by the development zone, and then it will be able to enjoy many preferential policies in the development zone.
Unfortunately, it was too late and there was no chance to meet in person.
However, although he was disappointed, Sun Herong also knew that even if he saw the opportunity to facilitate this matter, there was not much chance.
The various preferential policies in the development zone are quite strong, in order to attract large enterprises to settle and invest, and these large enterprises obviously do not include Feng's Enterprise.
Large enterprises refer to large enterprises such as Zhaoqing Machinery Company and Jiangnan Textile Company. Although Feng's enterprise is quite large in shipping, it cannot be compared with these large enterprises.
Otherwise, they would not save the country by trying to save the country by buying land on the edge of the development zone. Instead, they would go directly to the development zone to rent land for a hundred years. In the end, they are still not strong enough and the development zone yamen will not tolerate them.
If you want to rent land directly in the North Shore Development Zone, not just any company can do it. It must be a large company and promise to invest a huge amount. As for small and medium-sized enterprises, the development zone naturally welcomes them, but don't expect to rent land directly.
Now, you can only rent a factory building, and most of them have a three- or five-year contract.
Feng Company, as you can tell from the name, is a family business. It was established and controlled by the Feng family in Hangzhou, Zhejiang. At first, it was just a few small ships. Then, taking advantage of the prosperity of the shipping market, it expanded aggressively and tried every means to expand the size of the fleet.
, and eventually became the leader in the inland waterway shipping market in northern Zhejiang.
But they were not satisfied, so they quickly entered the Huangpu River shipping market!
In order to raise funds to expand the size of the fleet, the Feng family sold off all the properties that could be sold. They even bought all the land that had been the lifeblood of the family in the early years, and then borrowed money from various loans.
In such a crazy state, Feng's company's fleet expanded rapidly, and finally became one of the top ten inland shipping companies in Shanghai, but this was still far from enough!
They want to go further, not just in Shanghai, but to become a prominent shipping company in China!
In order to further expand, the Feng family finally gave up their stubbornness in holding shares and began to introduce strategic investors. With the sufficient funds thus obtained, Feng's company began to expand comprehensively. Not only inland shipping and offshore shipping, they also prepared to get involved in
What about the long-sea shipping market?
While expanding, in order to reduce ship procurement costs, they have plans to enter shipyards. Not only do they build themselves, they also plan to directly acquire several medium-sized shipyards.
At the same time as Feng's company expanded, the Feng family in Hangzhou also completely lost control of the company. The Feng family currently only retains more than 30% of the equity, and the remaining shares are sold to major financial institutions.
Or it is held by companies in related industries.
Otherwise, this shipping company with the word "Feng" would not let a person named Sun be the general manager!
Sun Herong previously served as the general manager of the Yangtze River Transportation Company, the largest inland shipping company in China, jointly owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises and more than ten other companies.
The board of directors of Feng Company paid a high price to recruit him as the general manager of Feng Company!
Both the company's board of directors and Sun Herong himself have big plans.
The simple shipping market in northern Zhejiang and even southern Jiangsu can no longer satisfy them. They want to enter the Yangtze River and even offshore shipping markets, and compete for the nationwide shipping market!
How can a company with only money but insufficient strength compete for the market?
The answer is simple: start a price war!
To fight a price war, burning money is certainly indispensable, but its own low cost is also a must!
Therefore, before engaging in a price war, they are preparing to acquire and build their own shipyards to reduce ship procurement costs through self-production and sales.
If this operation method can be completed, Sun Herong is confident that he can reduce the cost by more than 20% based on the existing freight cost.
Such low freight costs will provide the most advantageous weapon for the subsequent price war launched by Feng Company in the shipping market!
Sun Herong is looking forward to seeing freight prices plummet by 30% or even half in the subsequent shipping market.
At that time, a group of shipping companies will definitely die, and when that happens, Feng Company can strengthen itself by annexing these bankrupt shipping companies.
If all goes well, Feng's company will become one of the leading shipping companies in the country. It is not an extravagant hope at all!