After arriving in Shanxi, Zhou Wen began to develop his team, buying imported equipment and weapons on a large scale, and he also bought the most expensive and advanced ones in the world. In addition, he opened pharmaceutical factories, steel plants, ammunition factories, hospitals, etc., and almost completely destroyed the original equipment and weapons.
Some funds were spent as much as seventy-seven or eighty-eight dollars.
When the pharmaceutical factory and the steel factory started to make money, since there were still dividends from the shares of the three companies and part was handed over to Marshal Yan, the money received was only about 500,000 US dollars a year.
Calculated in two and a half years, a total of approximately 1.2 million US dollars was earned.
The key is that Zhou Wen led the mercenary group to participate in the Songhu Anti-Japanese War and the Great Wall Anti-Japanese War, but he did so at his own expense and did not receive a penny from the government.
Fighting means making money, let alone an elite unit like the mercenary group that advocates firepower first. After the two wars, the materials and equipment consumed, as well as various pensions and rewards, cost about 300,000 US dollars.
In addition, due to the daily training consumption and the continuous addition of equipment, Zhou Wen must ensure that he has 300,000 US dollars as a strategic emergency reserve at all times in Shanxi.
In other words, without the compensation from the Kong family, the funds Zhou Wen could use would only be 600,000 US dollars.
Originally, he planned to use the 600,000 US dollars to develop in Shanghai, but because he got an additional 600,000 US dollars from the Kong family, Zhou Wen used the 600,000 US dollars from Shanxi to build his hometown in Lishi.
The specific construction project that requires such a huge amount of US$600,000 is the construction of the anti-Japanese base area that Zhou Wen is planning to start.
Zhou Wen's cousin has been doing a lot of things as the county magistrate of Lishi County for the past two years. In addition to implementing household registration statistics and management of the entire Lishi County, he has also basically built simple roads from Lishi County to the towns under his jurisdiction.
, the so-called simple highway is a road that can at least pass cars.
As the saying goes, if you want to get rich, build roads first.
The construction of roads has accelerated the circulation of goods and manpower in the remote mountainous areas of Lishi County countless times, and the economy has naturally developed countless times.
Coupled with the Lishi Chamber of Commerce's assistance to some impoverished mountainous areas, now in Lishi County, not only does everyone have enough food and clothing, but at least there are no more cases where children are sold, and people starve to death or freeze to death.
The key is that Wang Chenghao, with the help of the mountain people, found a place in the Luliang Mountains that can be used as an excellent base. Zhou Wen had already visited it before and determined specific measures to develop this mountainous area.
Originally, he planned to invest the limited funds in Shanghai first, and then start the construction of the base area after a delay of half a year and the dividends from the pharmaceutical factory and steel factory were in place.
But now that he has the Kong family's compensation, he naturally doesn't want to wait any longer.
Since it is used as a base for the future all-out war of resistance, the sooner it is completed, the better. After all, everything is a preliminary idea now, and there must be many incomplete considerations. If there is anything that needs to be changed and strengthened later, there is still time.
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But when Zhou Wen arrived in Shanghai with 600,000 US dollars, he realized that the money was not enough.
At this time, it is impossible to allocate funds to Shanxi, because the construction of the base area there has already begun design and budget work, and even contracts for the purchase of many materials have been signed with the seller.
All construction work that had begun was completely disrupted.
Some people may ask, Yufeng Pier only costs about RMB 500,000, so why is there not enough money?
In fact, for Zhou Wen, the dock is just a small part of the money spent. The real big part is the purchase of ships, transportation vehicles and the merger of small shipping companies.
Zhou Wen is in the river transportation business. If he wants to really make big money, he must achieve a monopoly.
Monopoly business can not only be achieved by having a lot of money, but also must have enough talents. In the words of later generations, both software and hardware must be strong.
Buying ships and vehicles is just to strengthen hardware, while merging small companies is actually merging talents. This is the most critical purpose.
Although Zhou Wen's goal is not to monopolize all the markets, he must monopolize most of the markets, so that he can influence the price trend of the Yangtze River transport business, and money will naturally flow in.
Therefore, if most of the funds are invested in the investment in the terminal alone, when will his shipping company be launched? He still has to wait for the dividends from the pharmaceutical factory and the steel factory to be in place, which is another problem.
Years have passed and time waits for no one.
So now Zhou Wen is in some trouble. Unexpectedly, as soon as he came to Shanghai, he was slapped on the head by an American.
What made Zhou Wen even more angry was that he originally thought that peace was the most important thing, so he asked Mandel, a German friend in Shanghai, to introduce him to visit James specifically and wanted to talk to him in person.
In Zhou Wen's opinion, Americans at this period should still be able to communicate, at least much better than those British people with their nostrils turned upward.
However, Zhou Wen did not expect that he would encounter the biggest humiliation since time travel.
When Zhou Wen walked into James' office, he was despised by this American cowboy in his forties, tall and tall with a tall nose.
What is contempt?
This American guy held his head high and didn't even look at Zhou Wen. He even turned a blind eye to Zhou Wen's smiling and extended hand. Instead, he said with a straight face to Mandel who brought Zhou Wen here: "Mr. Mandel, I won't talk to these people.
Yellow-skinned monkey, please tell them that I don’t need to negotiate anything with them, and I won’t give up a penny on the price.”
Zhou Wen really didn't expect to encounter such a thing. Even with his current mood, he couldn't help but feel a surge of anger rushing to his forehead, and almost slapped him in the face.
But he still calmed down and grabbed Zhang Xiaoping, who was about to rush forward with red eyes.
We are in the concession now, and a conflict with a foreigner in such a public place will definitely not end well.
James was also stunned. He didn't expect these two Chinese people to actually understand English, but he didn't care. He looked at Zhou Wen and Zhang Xiaoping with provocative eyes and snorted disdainfully.
He obviously wanted to anger Zhou Wen and the others.
In his opinion, as long as these two Chinese men who are smaller than him dare to take action, with his skills as a boxer, he might be able to beat them to a pulp in just a few strokes without even breaking a sweat, just like him
It's like beating up that Chen family nephew in Guangzhou.
However, Zhou Wen held back his anger, but Mandel couldn't help it. His face turned red and he immediately scolded James loudly: "Mr. James, these two are my Chinese friends, how can you be so unreasonable?
Since you don't want to negotiate with them, why did you agree to meet with them? You must apologize to my friends."