, In the cabin below the deck of the Erlong Liuding, Lin Yi first relied on his own luggage roll, and "saved a few urgent tasks to be done after arriving in Qiongshan."

The first is to do the work of Hai Shuzu.

Originally, the crossing group wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to lure him to Lingao to go through the formalities and take back the big ship. But Hai Shuzu obviously had doubts, and hid in Qiongshan and refused to come to Lingao.

Of course, I wouldn't dare to come here if I were him. Lin Yiguang thought to himself, who knows what the Australians are playing? In the end, he is also a person with a bit of wealth.

He didn't come to the heights, and it was good for the crossing group to have a large ship and a lot of goods, but in comparison, Hai Shuzu was much more useful to the crossing group, not because he wanted to use the fact that he was a descendant of Hai Rui to win over the local Zhushen, but it was of more practical use.

The CWC has been reporting to the Executive Committee to find a way to mine coal in Qiongshan. The coal mine in Haikou is the relatively haode coal resource on Hainan Island, mainly lignite, which can be used for coking and developing Tiandu iron ore, and coking coal will become a big problem. Vietnam's Hongji Media Minerals is not suitable for coking high-quality anthracite, and there are all kinds of difficulties in foreign mining. At the same time, it is also limited by the capacity of sea freight. The CWI hopes to have a nearby place to obtain stable butterfly ore resources.

However, in this time and space, the coal mines in the Haikou area have not been mined on a large scale. Mining was a hassle in ancient times, not because of the difficulty of formalities or the heavy tax pressure, but because the mining of minerals was often interfered with too much by local shili. Sometimes it is driven by economic interests, sometimes it is influenced by sayings such as "feng shui and earth lines", and some are suppressed by the primitive concept of environmental protection, mining and smelting will inevitably damage the local environment and cause serious pollution.

The government has no standard for whether mining is allowed, and the local government is not too enthusiastic about mining: the Ming Dynasty has no concept of resource tax, except for the Wanli Dynasty for a short period of mining tax, mining is not beneficial to local finances, although it can bring personal benefits to the county's officials big and small, but mining will inevitably attract a large number of miners to gather. Workers have always been a "factor of instability", which often puts strong pressure on the government to maintain stability. That is, there is no benefit and it is easy to provoke right and wrong, so that once a dispute occurs, the government will most likely adopt the practice of banning it.

If there is no local Shili figure who is in charge of the overall situation, or has a relationship with such a person and uses it as an umbrella, it will be difficult for this mine to be opened. It is because of these unfavorable factors. The crossing group did not rashly send agents, such as Lin Quanan, to directly invest in local mines. Instead, they hope to induce the locals to open mines and buy them for resource gathering. However, coal cannot be produced overnight, and the investment is quite large. If the purchase price of the crossing group is low, no one will want to open the mine; If it is too high, the Planning Commission feels that it is not possible to do it.

So Zuihou has a different approach: to find a local agent to come forward, and the crossing group will actually invest in the mine.

In the eyes of the Executive Committee, Hai Shuzu is an extremely haode agent, and it is still easy to settle the local government and local shili with the prestige of the Hai family.

How can you convince Hai Shuzu? Lin Baiguang thought about it, Hai Shuzu was able to raise funds to buy a ship. The act of going to the ocean to trade shows that there is an element of adventure in his character, and he is full of desire for money. With these two premises, it should not be difficult for such a person to convince him to open a mine. And according to the information gathered by Chen Tong, the Hai family is now facing an extremely serious economic crisis. This is a good opportunity.

Lin Yiguang pondered on the floor of the cabin over and over again. Without further ado, the current coke oven is now using coal bought from Guangdong, the amount used is not large, and it can be dealt with, and when the first batch of iron ore arrives in Tiandu next year, coke will immediately become a bottleneck in the steel industry.

After Lin Qiaoguang arrived in Qiongzhou, the shopkeeper and man transferred from Leizhou, and the dart master transferred from Guangdong also arrived one after another. The renovation of the house is in full swing.

In this gap, Lin Zhouguang took care of Chen Tong to step up his infiltration of the Hai family, always grasping its first-hand information, and the senior brother was sent out to conduct a thorough investigation of the social situation.

After seven or eight days, the information obtained from all sides was very good for Lin Qiaoguang: Hai Shuzu raised funds to buy a ship to trade in the city this time, and even his family had a total of 51 families who contributed money or goods, a total of 90 shares, and Hai Shuzu himself accounted for 23 shares. The structure of these 51 families is very complicated, that is, there are the same clan, relatives, and friends of the Hai family, as well as local small merchants, who have heard that they can make a lot of money to invest in the West, and even the slaves of the Hai family and other families, who have gathered their savings and collectively participated in the four shares.

There are quite a few such small shareholders among the 90 shares, and some even have only half a share. The failure of Hai Shuzu's adventurous business can be said to have hit these small shareholders so much that many people took the coffin book out to make this "investment". Although the small shareholders with the worst ability to know the old two risks are ancient people, they will not be at risk by Bei, and they need to be cautious to participate in "easily sending themselves to lick their injuries and jump off the building, and the ancients did not understand what "limited liability" is, but unceremoniously gathered at the door of the Hai family's house, making a big fuss every day, asking Hai Shuzu to repay the money.

This is tantamount to a slap in the face in public for Hai Shuzu, who values the reputation of the family very much. Originally, running a sea trade was not a long-faced thing among scholars, but now there is such a trouble, and the current embarrassing situation of Haishuzu can be imagined.

His troubles don't stop there. In addition to equity participation, there are also loans, otherwise it is impossible to build such a large sea vessel, and the borrowing will naturally have interest. This interest is not low. When the creditors heard that the ship had been robbed by pirates, they also came to the door to ask for it.

Zuihou is the more terrible group of people, the small traders who are neither shareholders nor creditors. They are passengers on the big ship of the Hai family. Although most of them were rescued by the crossing group, they not only survived, but also recovered some economic losses. But many of them are empty of people and money. The orphans and widows who had lost their husbands and sons came to his door one by one, asking him to "return his life"

"It's really hard to argue." Lin Heguang sighed, "It seems that this sea trade business is really not good. ”

"Master, this is the so-called only seeing thieves eating meat, not seeing thieves being beaten." The senior brother said on the side. "There are many people who are bankrupt in sea trade, and the small ones often hear Master Gao mention it when they are on an errand. There are those who are buried in the belly of the fish, there are those who are bankrupt, and there are those who have lost their capital and cannot return to their hometowns and are exiled in foreign countries, even Master Gao himself has lost several ships, and there are tens of thousands of taels of silver in total. ”

Lin Zhiguang nodded, the unexpected risk of this sea trade is too great, and what is even more terrifying is that the ancient business habit is "unlimited liability", and all his public and private property will be used to pay off debts. A business failure can completely collapse the operator, and there will never be a day to turn over.

Of course, Hai Shuzu was also aware of this terrible consequence. And he is still a descendant of Haigong in the end, if he falls into such a fate, it is not only a matter of personal gain and loss, but also an insult to the family.

Lin Zhiguang could completely imagine Hai Shuzu's current mood.

After pondering repeatedly, he asked Chen Tong: "How is the Hai family's property?" ”

"It's just an empty shelf." Chen Tong said that in addition to the 200 acres of sacrificial fields shared by the clan, the Hai family has less than 200 acres of land. As for movable property, there is no talk of Hai Jui's reputation for incorruptibility, and when he dies, he can't even afford a decent coffin, and his descendants naturally won't have much property.

Because there is such a celebrity who is known for his honesty and honesty in the family, in order to maintain the reputation of the family, some crooked and evil ways commonly used by local scholars to collect money have never been touched.

"It's not easy!" Lin Yiguang exclaimed, "He is worthy of being the descendant of Haigong." ”

"Who's to say it's not." Chen Tong thought so, "Everyone is also discussing, saying that this is a catastrophe." ”

"If the Hai family can survive this trouble, they will be able to prosper." Lin Weiguang said implicitly, "It depends on whether Hai Shuzu's comprehension is enough." ”

Lin Baiguang instructed his senior brother: "You go and inquire about the creditors who have lent money to the Hai family." Are you willing to sell the IOU? ”

The senior brother understands: the little one understands. "Don't be too anxious to make a move, you have to bargain hard." Lin Weiguang took care of him, "Hai Shuzu's IOU is almost worthless. ”

If Hai Shuzu had no other financial resources, no financial support from outsiders, he would in fact have gone bankrupt. He did a rough mental calculation that just paying off the debt and interest would be enough to bankrupt his family.

"The matter of buying debts must be done in concealment." Lin Shenguang instructed his senior brother.

Of course, the debt is not bought for the sake of doing good, but is prepared to be blackmailed with it, and once the news is revealed, it will not be beneficial to both parties.

Hai Shuzu simply hid in Guangzhou. There was nothing he could do. Since the ship was robbed in the strait, he has not slept a good night's sleep, a boatload of people later came back one after another, only from their mouths to know that the ship was robbed by pirates in the Qiongzhou Strait, fortunately got the help of the Australian people in Lingao, everyone escaped a life, how much in Lingao did some business. The five-masted ship was also towed to Lingao. Because the steward he had sent with him had died, he didn't dare to trust the words of these ship-carrying merchants and sailors. It wasn't until the captain of the five-masted ship returned with letters and gifts from Australians that the exact news was learned.

asked him to go to Lingao to retrieve the ships and goods in person, Hai Shuzu hesitated for a long time not because he didn't want to go, after all, there was still a glimmer of hope to go to Lingao to recover some of the capital, and if he didn't go, he would sit back and wait. But his family and friends advised him not to go, saying that the Australians were not using this as bait and let him throw himself into the net.