Chapter 1545
Xiangshan Saltworks
Chapter 1545 Xiangshan Saltworks
The salt field in Xiangshan County has initially planned thousands of acres of land, but the ownership of some of the land is still in the process of being handed over, and the number of migrant workers that can be recruited in the local area is currently relatively limited, so it is impossible to start full-scale construction from the beginning. It was put into production in batches.
In order to be able to rush to implement it, Yang Yun didn't even have time to organize and formulate a relatively complete construction plan. After several foremen from the Ministry of Construction surveyed the topography and landforms on the spot, they roughly delineated an area for the migrant workers to start. Level the foundation, and then design the overall layout of the saltworks while constructing.Although it seems very hasty to do so, fortunately, Haihan already has a lot of experience in the development and construction of saltworks, so he just needs to apply the construction plan used in the past to the local area.
In the past few years, Haihan has popularized the use of wind and steam power lifting irrigation devices in salt fields around the country, making the seawater treatment capacity of the salt field much stronger than that of its counterparts in Daming, and has great advantages in terms of production cost and production efficiency. One of the main reasons why the refined salt produced in the Han Dynasty can beat the official salt in the Ming market.For Haihan, opening a salt farm is basically a business that can make a profit without losing money. Although the initial investment will be relatively large, the subsequent profit period is long enough, even far longer than the general plantation operation cycle.Moreover, Haihan's industrial development also requires a large amount of salt as a raw material. Even if the output at a certain stage is greater than the sales volume, Haihan's own demand is enough to easily digest this part of the production capacity.
Haihan hired hundreds of migrant workers locally, and news of the construction of the saltworks soon spread throughout the county.The public's reaction to this was relatively calm. After all, Haihan has been operating in Shipu Port in the south for more than a year. The locals have basically gotten used to Haihan's existence, and they also know that these foreign visitors are here to seek money rather than invade Ming Dynasty. , so I am not particularly surprised by engineering projects like the saltworks.Moreover, the Haihan people said that the salt from this salt field will be used as official salt and sold in the Ming Dynasty in the future. It is not private salt that violates the laws of Ming Dynasty, so there will be no procedural troubles, and ordinary people do not have to worry about being involved in this matter. liquidation.
Of course, the most important point is that the Xiangshan county government has maintained a completely indifferent attitude towards the salt field construction site outside the county seat. According to Haihan, it has already arranged for the magistrate Wang in advance, so the government of the government office side will not have any problem.It is estimated that Wang Huan in the yamen could only knock out his teeth and swallow it when he heard such a statement.
With the start of the project, Gu Qufei and others who cooperated with Haihan finally surfaced slowly. The local people are naturally envious, jealous and hated for these people to get the opportunity to open the saltworks with Haihan. Both.But only the few people involved know that they invited the Haihan people to come to Xiangshan for inspection, but they never considered building a salt farm locally. I won't touch it.
Deciding to gamble with Yang Yun that day, these people also made great determination, and even prepared for the worst.However, the situation has stabilized now, and they have transformed from risk-takers with limited fortunes into investment experts with unique vision, bold and careful, and attracted many envious eyes.There are also belated people who want to cooperate with Haihan and find a few pieces of coastal wasteland to build saltworks, but Haihan has not accepted the offer.Zhoushan didn't want to make the salt field too large, so that the Ming court couldn't pretend to be blind. It was just about right, and it would save some face for Daming.
The price of the wasteland offered by Gu Qufei and others was extremely low, and the total cost was less than 1 taels of silver. Of course, this price was the level before the news of the construction of the salt farm broke out. Now they want to spend the same amount to buy this piece of wasteland. It is no longer possible.
After Yang Yun negotiated with them, he finally transferred the ownership of this wasteland to the salt farm by buying the land at a discounted price, and Gu Qufei and the other five jointly held 20.00% of the salt farm's shares.Although it seems that the proportion is not large, this is not a one-off deal, but a long-term income that can be obtained all the time. As long as they and their descendants do not sell their shares, the dividends will be paid for as long as the Xiangshan Salt Farm is in operation. how long.The expenses they spent on acquiring the land will definitely be able to pay back in the first year after the salt farm is put into operation, so this investment can be said to be worth thousands of dollars.
In addition to the production facilities of the salt field itself, Haihan will organize migrant workers to build a residential area that can accommodate at least two villages in this place, so as to accommodate future salt field workers nearby.With the emergence of residential areas, many supporting industries and service facilities will also appear on this originally barren land.Prosperity similar to that of the Yinggehai Salt Field in Hainan Island is very likely to appear in the Xiangshan Salt Field in the future.
In addition, Haihan also needs to build a cargo terminal on the coast near the salt field to ensure that the locally produced salt can be easily transported to other places through sea lanes.There are wharves like this in all the saltworks owned by Haihan, and the construction standards are relatively uniform, so there is no need to spend a lot of time on design, as long as the details of the construction plan are slightly changed according to local conditions.However, there are quite a few wharves along the coast of Zhejiang, and it is not difficult to find some knowledgeable foremen to direct the construction locally.
The person who was most dissatisfied with the saltworks project was probably Wang Huan, the county magistrate.Wang Huan felt that he had been humiliated by his previous contact with the Haihan people. He refused to let go, hoping that his persistence would create some resistance for the Haihan people so that it would not be so easy for them to settle down locally.But in the end, he still found that this was just his own wishful thinking. The Haihan people did not regard his persistence as an obstacle at all. Instead, they chose to bypass him directly after they failed to bribe him, and organized their own people to start construction in Xiangshan County. saltworks.
Although Wang Huan is a local parent official, it is difficult for him to restrain himself from this near-demonstration action.The city defense forces in the county are all members of Chang Guowei, and Yan Guowei, the commander of Chang Guowei, has long been wearing the same pants as the Haihan people. It is obviously unrealistic to expect the city defense forces to fight against the Haihan people.
In addition to the city defense army, the only armed personnel Wang Huan can command are the county government officials and a few police officers.But the function of this group of people is only to maintain local law and order. If they are asked to come forward to fight the Haihan people to the death, then Wang Huan will probably be regarded by these people as having mental problems-the people who fight hard with the Haihan people here in Zhejiang are no different. There are even some court officials among them, but now the grass on the grave may be taller than a person.
Moreover, Wang Huan heard that the brother of Yu Tutou, the county government office, was working as a foreman on the construction site of Haihan's salt field. Watchdogs keep order.
In fact, as long as the people in the county government have connections, most of them will take the initiative to show favor to the Haihan people in order to get a chance to make a fortune.For a project as big as the construction of the saltworks, as long as the Haihan people can make some work through their fingers, it will be more or less an income.Taking a step back, the Haihan people have now settled down in Xiangshan County. From now on, everyone will see each other with their heads up and down. If we make friends early, we will get along better in the future.You can't be like the magistrate of the county, you don't want the benefits of being delivered to your door, you have to stick your neck and insist on going against the Haihan people.
Although no one dared to express such thoughts in front of Wang Huan, it was not difficult for Wang Huan to feel that the atmosphere in the county government was not biased towards him.But he didn't dare to go to Haihan's construction site to make trouble, so he could only pretend to be deaf to the situation outside the county seat, pretending that he didn't know that Haihan had started construction in the county.
Yang Yun really didn't take Wang Huan seriously. He had a lot of things on his hands, so he didn't care about Wang Huan's feelings.Ever since Wang Huan rejected his solicitation that day, Yang Yun had crossed this person off his list of social partners.For Yang Yun, Ming officials who are unwilling to cooperate with Hai Han can be treated as transparent people. If there are people who dare to oppose Hai Han, it will not be too late to notify the Ministry of Security to come forward to solve it.Like Wang Huan, an official who is greedy for life and fears death and pretends to keep his name, Yang Yun plans to wait until the saltworks construction project is on track, and then see how he can be removed from the post of county magistrate.
Haihan was not afraid of the Da Ming officials he was dealing with reaching out, but what he was afraid of was that the other party would not accept the benefits.As long as he is willing to collect money, there will definitely be a price for the power in his hands, and what Haihan is best at is to win over Ming officials for power and money transactions.For someone like Wang Huan who refused to take money, the best way to deal with it is to get rid of him and replace him with an official who is willing to take money.
At the same time that Xiangshan started construction in full swing, Haihan also began to mobilize contacts in Hangzhou for this salt field project, sending benefits to the government officials in charge of the salt industry, so as to obtain an official salt status for the future production of Xiangshan Salt Field.
Obviously, this work will not be as easy as spending money to acquire land in Xiangshan County. To meet with these officials and negotiate a reasonable price requires a lot of preparatory work.Although Haihan is famous for his good money, he still maintains the values of a businessman in details, and he will inevitably bargain in every transaction to show how much he attaches importance to it.
On the tenth day of the construction, Hangzhou finally sent back the good news that the transfer of the Salt Emissary and the Salt Education Commissioner had been settled. Han saved a lot of money.
After the yamen in charge of the salt industry has been settled, the Xiangshan Salt Field under construction has successfully obtained the shell of the official salt field, and future production will naturally become official salt.Although it is necessary to pay salt tax to the competent yamen for this, there is a lot of room for maneuvering.
For example, assuming that the actual production of the Xiangshan Salt Field needs to pay 1 taels of silver to the Ming treasury as a salt tax, then as long as Haihan falsely reports the output, it will shrink to only need to pay 1000 taels of silver, and then prepare 2000 taels of silver for management The joints shut up the officials in charge, so that the inside and outside can make a lot of money.As long as Haihan obtains the title of the official saltworks, how much he produces and how much he reports will be done by himself, and the profits will not be much lower than during the smuggling period.The large amount of freight saved by local production can just be used to subsidize the cost of burning incense in various government offices.
Originally, the Xiangshan County Government was included in the list of people who wanted to burn incense, but Yang Yun had already crossed it out because of Wang Huan's performance.After the two competent government offices in Hangzhou were settled, there were no other objective factors that could hinder the Xiangshan Salt Field Project, and the existence of the Xiangshan County Government became dispensable to the implementation of the Salt Field Project.In addition to an army company sent by Zhoushan to maintain law and order here, Chang Guowei also specially sent a general with about a hundred people to station on the official road one mile away from the saltworks site to act as bodyguards. Role.
The reason why Chang Guowei was particularly active about this was because the command envoy Yan Guowei hoped to get the right to sell salt in some areas.He wanted to use his convenient conditions in the army to be able to squeeze into the salt merchant industry from then on.Although Haihan has not agreed to his application for the time being, Yan Guowei is also an old fox. He deliberately sent troops to guard the construction site, which meant to show outsiders that the salt field project in Haihan was guarded by Chang Guowei. There is no need for idlers to come and join in the fun.
Yang Yun couldn't see Yan Guowei's small plan, but he didn't have the extra energy to negotiate with Yan Guowei slowly.Anyway, Chang Guowei's troops did not consume Haihan's food, nor disturbed the order of the construction site, so Yang Yun let Yan Guowei do his best.
Yan Guowei is not the only one who is interested in the salt field project. The two yamen in charge of the salt industry in Hangzhou will each have the right to sell [-]% of their production. contact.After hearing about this, Qu Yutong, the prefect of Ningbo, naturally would not let go of this opportunity to make a fortune at his doorstep, and immediately sent someone to send a letter to Shi Diwen, hoping to get a share of it.
As the saying goes, the county magistrate is not as good as the current one, not to mention that Qu Yutong still pays locally, so Shi Diwen swiped a pen and allocated [-]% of the output to Qu Yutong as an underwriter.Of course, these Ming officials may not be able to find out the real production capacity of the salt field after it is put into operation. Only Haihan will know the proportion that will be allocated to them as an underwriter.
In August, with the smooth progress of the saltworks project, Haihan recruited more than 500 laborers in Xiangshan County, all of whom were put into the saltworks construction site, hoping to put the saltworks into operation as soon as possible.A large amount of cement used to build the salt ponds arrived here one after another from Fujian. Although the freight cost was high, it was finally delivered in time without delaying the construction period.
(End of this chapter)
The salt field in Xiangshan County has initially planned thousands of acres of land, but the ownership of some of the land is still in the process of being handed over, and the number of migrant workers that can be recruited in the local area is currently relatively limited, so it is impossible to start full-scale construction from the beginning. It was put into production in batches.
In order to be able to rush to implement it, Yang Yun didn't even have time to organize and formulate a relatively complete construction plan. After several foremen from the Ministry of Construction surveyed the topography and landforms on the spot, they roughly delineated an area for the migrant workers to start. Level the foundation, and then design the overall layout of the saltworks while constructing.Although it seems very hasty to do so, fortunately, Haihan already has a lot of experience in the development and construction of saltworks, so he just needs to apply the construction plan used in the past to the local area.
In the past few years, Haihan has popularized the use of wind and steam power lifting irrigation devices in salt fields around the country, making the seawater treatment capacity of the salt field much stronger than that of its counterparts in Daming, and has great advantages in terms of production cost and production efficiency. One of the main reasons why the refined salt produced in the Han Dynasty can beat the official salt in the Ming market.For Haihan, opening a salt farm is basically a business that can make a profit without losing money. Although the initial investment will be relatively large, the subsequent profit period is long enough, even far longer than the general plantation operation cycle.Moreover, Haihan's industrial development also requires a large amount of salt as a raw material. Even if the output at a certain stage is greater than the sales volume, Haihan's own demand is enough to easily digest this part of the production capacity.
Haihan hired hundreds of migrant workers locally, and news of the construction of the saltworks soon spread throughout the county.The public's reaction to this was relatively calm. After all, Haihan has been operating in Shipu Port in the south for more than a year. The locals have basically gotten used to Haihan's existence, and they also know that these foreign visitors are here to seek money rather than invade Ming Dynasty. , so I am not particularly surprised by engineering projects like the saltworks.Moreover, the Haihan people said that the salt from this salt field will be used as official salt and sold in the Ming Dynasty in the future. It is not private salt that violates the laws of Ming Dynasty, so there will be no procedural troubles, and ordinary people do not have to worry about being involved in this matter. liquidation.
Of course, the most important point is that the Xiangshan county government has maintained a completely indifferent attitude towards the salt field construction site outside the county seat. According to Haihan, it has already arranged for the magistrate Wang in advance, so the government of the government office side will not have any problem.It is estimated that Wang Huan in the yamen could only knock out his teeth and swallow it when he heard such a statement.
With the start of the project, Gu Qufei and others who cooperated with Haihan finally surfaced slowly. The local people are naturally envious, jealous and hated for these people to get the opportunity to open the saltworks with Haihan. Both.But only the few people involved know that they invited the Haihan people to come to Xiangshan for inspection, but they never considered building a salt farm locally. I won't touch it.
Deciding to gamble with Yang Yun that day, these people also made great determination, and even prepared for the worst.However, the situation has stabilized now, and they have transformed from risk-takers with limited fortunes into investment experts with unique vision, bold and careful, and attracted many envious eyes.There are also belated people who want to cooperate with Haihan and find a few pieces of coastal wasteland to build saltworks, but Haihan has not accepted the offer.Zhoushan didn't want to make the salt field too large, so that the Ming court couldn't pretend to be blind. It was just about right, and it would save some face for Daming.
The price of the wasteland offered by Gu Qufei and others was extremely low, and the total cost was less than 1 taels of silver. Of course, this price was the level before the news of the construction of the salt farm broke out. Now they want to spend the same amount to buy this piece of wasteland. It is no longer possible.
After Yang Yun negotiated with them, he finally transferred the ownership of this wasteland to the salt farm by buying the land at a discounted price, and Gu Qufei and the other five jointly held 20.00% of the salt farm's shares.Although it seems that the proportion is not large, this is not a one-off deal, but a long-term income that can be obtained all the time. As long as they and their descendants do not sell their shares, the dividends will be paid for as long as the Xiangshan Salt Farm is in operation. how long.The expenses they spent on acquiring the land will definitely be able to pay back in the first year after the salt farm is put into operation, so this investment can be said to be worth thousands of dollars.
In addition to the production facilities of the salt field itself, Haihan will organize migrant workers to build a residential area that can accommodate at least two villages in this place, so as to accommodate future salt field workers nearby.With the emergence of residential areas, many supporting industries and service facilities will also appear on this originally barren land.Prosperity similar to that of the Yinggehai Salt Field in Hainan Island is very likely to appear in the Xiangshan Salt Field in the future.
In addition, Haihan also needs to build a cargo terminal on the coast near the salt field to ensure that the locally produced salt can be easily transported to other places through sea lanes.There are wharves like this in all the saltworks owned by Haihan, and the construction standards are relatively uniform, so there is no need to spend a lot of time on design, as long as the details of the construction plan are slightly changed according to local conditions.However, there are quite a few wharves along the coast of Zhejiang, and it is not difficult to find some knowledgeable foremen to direct the construction locally.
The person who was most dissatisfied with the saltworks project was probably Wang Huan, the county magistrate.Wang Huan felt that he had been humiliated by his previous contact with the Haihan people. He refused to let go, hoping that his persistence would create some resistance for the Haihan people so that it would not be so easy for them to settle down locally.But in the end, he still found that this was just his own wishful thinking. The Haihan people did not regard his persistence as an obstacle at all. Instead, they chose to bypass him directly after they failed to bribe him, and organized their own people to start construction in Xiangshan County. saltworks.
Although Wang Huan is a local parent official, it is difficult for him to restrain himself from this near-demonstration action.The city defense forces in the county are all members of Chang Guowei, and Yan Guowei, the commander of Chang Guowei, has long been wearing the same pants as the Haihan people. It is obviously unrealistic to expect the city defense forces to fight against the Haihan people.
In addition to the city defense army, the only armed personnel Wang Huan can command are the county government officials and a few police officers.But the function of this group of people is only to maintain local law and order. If they are asked to come forward to fight the Haihan people to the death, then Wang Huan will probably be regarded by these people as having mental problems-the people who fight hard with the Haihan people here in Zhejiang are no different. There are even some court officials among them, but now the grass on the grave may be taller than a person.
Moreover, Wang Huan heard that the brother of Yu Tutou, the county government office, was working as a foreman on the construction site of Haihan's salt field. Watchdogs keep order.
In fact, as long as the people in the county government have connections, most of them will take the initiative to show favor to the Haihan people in order to get a chance to make a fortune.For a project as big as the construction of the saltworks, as long as the Haihan people can make some work through their fingers, it will be more or less an income.Taking a step back, the Haihan people have now settled down in Xiangshan County. From now on, everyone will see each other with their heads up and down. If we make friends early, we will get along better in the future.You can't be like the magistrate of the county, you don't want the benefits of being delivered to your door, you have to stick your neck and insist on going against the Haihan people.
Although no one dared to express such thoughts in front of Wang Huan, it was not difficult for Wang Huan to feel that the atmosphere in the county government was not biased towards him.But he didn't dare to go to Haihan's construction site to make trouble, so he could only pretend to be deaf to the situation outside the county seat, pretending that he didn't know that Haihan had started construction in the county.
Yang Yun really didn't take Wang Huan seriously. He had a lot of things on his hands, so he didn't care about Wang Huan's feelings.Ever since Wang Huan rejected his solicitation that day, Yang Yun had crossed this person off his list of social partners.For Yang Yun, Ming officials who are unwilling to cooperate with Hai Han can be treated as transparent people. If there are people who dare to oppose Hai Han, it will not be too late to notify the Ministry of Security to come forward to solve it.Like Wang Huan, an official who is greedy for life and fears death and pretends to keep his name, Yang Yun plans to wait until the saltworks construction project is on track, and then see how he can be removed from the post of county magistrate.
Haihan was not afraid of the Da Ming officials he was dealing with reaching out, but what he was afraid of was that the other party would not accept the benefits.As long as he is willing to collect money, there will definitely be a price for the power in his hands, and what Haihan is best at is to win over Ming officials for power and money transactions.For someone like Wang Huan who refused to take money, the best way to deal with it is to get rid of him and replace him with an official who is willing to take money.
At the same time that Xiangshan started construction in full swing, Haihan also began to mobilize contacts in Hangzhou for this salt field project, sending benefits to the government officials in charge of the salt industry, so as to obtain an official salt status for the future production of Xiangshan Salt Field.
Obviously, this work will not be as easy as spending money to acquire land in Xiangshan County. To meet with these officials and negotiate a reasonable price requires a lot of preparatory work.Although Haihan is famous for his good money, he still maintains the values of a businessman in details, and he will inevitably bargain in every transaction to show how much he attaches importance to it.
On the tenth day of the construction, Hangzhou finally sent back the good news that the transfer of the Salt Emissary and the Salt Education Commissioner had been settled. Han saved a lot of money.
After the yamen in charge of the salt industry has been settled, the Xiangshan Salt Field under construction has successfully obtained the shell of the official salt field, and future production will naturally become official salt.Although it is necessary to pay salt tax to the competent yamen for this, there is a lot of room for maneuvering.
For example, assuming that the actual production of the Xiangshan Salt Field needs to pay 1 taels of silver to the Ming treasury as a salt tax, then as long as Haihan falsely reports the output, it will shrink to only need to pay 1000 taels of silver, and then prepare 2000 taels of silver for management The joints shut up the officials in charge, so that the inside and outside can make a lot of money.As long as Haihan obtains the title of the official saltworks, how much he produces and how much he reports will be done by himself, and the profits will not be much lower than during the smuggling period.The large amount of freight saved by local production can just be used to subsidize the cost of burning incense in various government offices.
Originally, the Xiangshan County Government was included in the list of people who wanted to burn incense, but Yang Yun had already crossed it out because of Wang Huan's performance.After the two competent government offices in Hangzhou were settled, there were no other objective factors that could hinder the Xiangshan Salt Field Project, and the existence of the Xiangshan County Government became dispensable to the implementation of the Salt Field Project.In addition to an army company sent by Zhoushan to maintain law and order here, Chang Guowei also specially sent a general with about a hundred people to station on the official road one mile away from the saltworks site to act as bodyguards. Role.
The reason why Chang Guowei was particularly active about this was because the command envoy Yan Guowei hoped to get the right to sell salt in some areas.He wanted to use his convenient conditions in the army to be able to squeeze into the salt merchant industry from then on.Although Haihan has not agreed to his application for the time being, Yan Guowei is also an old fox. He deliberately sent troops to guard the construction site, which meant to show outsiders that the salt field project in Haihan was guarded by Chang Guowei. There is no need for idlers to come and join in the fun.
Yang Yun couldn't see Yan Guowei's small plan, but he didn't have the extra energy to negotiate with Yan Guowei slowly.Anyway, Chang Guowei's troops did not consume Haihan's food, nor disturbed the order of the construction site, so Yang Yun let Yan Guowei do his best.
Yan Guowei is not the only one who is interested in the salt field project. The two yamen in charge of the salt industry in Hangzhou will each have the right to sell [-]% of their production. contact.After hearing about this, Qu Yutong, the prefect of Ningbo, naturally would not let go of this opportunity to make a fortune at his doorstep, and immediately sent someone to send a letter to Shi Diwen, hoping to get a share of it.
As the saying goes, the county magistrate is not as good as the current one, not to mention that Qu Yutong still pays locally, so Shi Diwen swiped a pen and allocated [-]% of the output to Qu Yutong as an underwriter.Of course, these Ming officials may not be able to find out the real production capacity of the salt field after it is put into operation. Only Haihan will know the proportion that will be allocated to them as an underwriter.
In August, with the smooth progress of the saltworks project, Haihan recruited more than 500 laborers in Xiangshan County, all of whom were put into the saltworks construction site, hoping to put the saltworks into operation as soon as possible.A large amount of cement used to build the salt ponds arrived here one after another from Fujian. Although the freight cost was high, it was finally delivered in time without delaying the construction period.
(End of this chapter)