The midwinter of 1653 did not pass until mid-to-late February, and it was only at this time that the harbor of Kushiro Port in Ezo was navigable - although there was still a large amount of visible ice floes floating in the harbor, this was not a big problem in the eyes of the old sailors who used to run this route, as long as they were careful.

"The company's financial condition is not good, with a record loss for five consecutive years, and last year it lost 400,000 yuan, which also set a single-year loss record." Chen Shuo, the general manager of the Japanese company and a student of Wei Boqiu, stood on the lighthouse that had just been built outside the Kushiro port, thinking wistfully.

Since the Japanese company was founded five years ago and received the privilege of colonizing and developing Ezo Island, it is honest that it has achieved quite a lot. Not to mention anything else, it is a great merit to enable the more than 5,000 Ming people from Qingzhou Prefecture near Kushiro Port to take root - although their number is not as large as the number of people in Matsumae Domain, how many years have they colonized to have such a small family background, and it is enough to be proud that the people of the East Coast can achieve such achievements in five years.

In addition, after the autumn harvest last year, the Japanese company also relocated some of the residents (2,000 people) who had originally been settled in Kushiro Port, mixed with nearly 1,000 Korean and Ainu prisoners, and set out eastward until they reached a place called "Atsukishi" by the Ainu people, and built a new settlement -- according to the latest instructions of the Heishui Pioneer Team, once the population of any town exceeded 6,000, it was necessary to find a way to divert people out and build new settlements, so as to reduce the local population density and avoid the "punishment" of disease.

Two settlements of more than 8,000 people, a port that is beginning to take shape, a coal mine with steadily increasing production, logging camps everywhere, a timber processing plant, a seafood processing plant, a honeycomb coal factory, a reindeer breeding base, these are all the possessions of the Japanese company on the East Coast today - it sounds like a great achievement, but when you learn that the company has been losing money for several years, not only has it spent its registered capital, but it has also been saddled with more than 600,000 yuan in debt. You may be relieved. It turns out that these things are all piled up with money.

"Although most of the debt is long-term debt. The company's cash flow will not be exhausted in the short term, but it is not always a way to sit on the mountain and eat nothing. After a long sigh, Chen Shuo already had an idea of how to operate in the next two years: "I'm afraid that there will be no new immigrants this year and next year, although these people who have moved to Ezo are essentially employees of the company, and in the long run, they can create a lot of value for the company, but in the short term, the financial burden is too great, so let's stop for a while." Alas. Last year, they bought so many livestock from Jeju Island and Miaojie County, and then they organized people to plant pasture, and they also had to buy rations for new immigrants and building materials for building houses, and they also ordered six fishing boats from the Blackwater Shipyard and a large number of fishing gear from the mainland. In addition, the teacher also went to the company's account to buy a few steam woodworking machine tools from the local area, which cost tens of thousands of yuan, phew, the design is so bad, the thermal efficiency is so low old-fashioned machine tools, and they are embarrassed to sell such a sky-high price, it is really shameless, and there are scared to death sea freight, installation and commissioning fees, personnel training fees and supporting parts costs. Grandma is a bear, and tens of thousands of dollars are gone......"

"Why is it so hard to make some money now?" The wind on the sea is getting stronger. Chen Shuo wrapped his seal fur coat tightly, walked to the leeward of the lighthouse and lit a pipe for himself, and thought while smoking: "I heard that the new Standing Committee member Liang Xiangjian and the teacher are not very good at dealing with each other, and at the first Standing Committee meeting last year, he clearly opposed the teacher's proposal to intervene in the situation in Japan. Phew, a member of the Standing Committee who is ranked last is also so arrogant, what's wrong with this world now? Also, this guy also cut off a few sets of old-fashioned steam engines and second-hand machine tools that the teacher fancied, all of which he took to Heishui County to use, and I heard that they also ordered a few sets of industrial windmills, alas, it's really a good fate, and the company has another competitor in the future, and life is getting more and more sad. ”

Chen Shuo's concerns are not groundless. In fact, since Liang Xiangjian took office as the magistrate of Heishui County in the second half of last year as a member of the Standing Committee of the Heishui District, he has made quite a big move, not only vigorously rectifying the immigration and naturalizing the indigenous people of Shandan, but also beginning to update the originally slightly backward industrial equipment in Heishui County, and paying attention to cultivating technical personnel, which has made the Japanese company feel a lot of pressure.

You know, these two businesses are actually in great competition, such as timber processing, such as the coal industry, and the offshore fishing industry that Chen Shuo plans to vigorously develop (relying on the fishing grounds of the Thousand Islands) also has a certain competitive relationship with Heishui County - of course, the largest annual fishing volume in this sea area is still Dabo County - maybe only the animal husbandry with unique conditions is incomparable to Heishui County, right?

Every time he thought of this, Chen Shuo felt extremely bored. Now the Japanese company has just started, everything is very difficult, to put it mildly, if it were not for the maintenance of a large amount of orders from the Blackwater Pioneer Team, I am afraid that this company would have gone bankrupt and liquidated long ago - I really can't find a way to make money!

Salted fish is facing fierce competition and is not selling much; Timber, is your timber still superior to that of Sakhalin? Coal, speaking of which, Heishui County has more reason to make trouble, because of Shao Shude's favoritism, a large number of Kushiro coal in the area under the jurisdiction of the Heishui Pioneer Team, and Heishui coal can only be sold in nearby areas except for marine coal, which is very aggrieved. After counting it like this, hey, there are really not many places where Japanese companies can make money!

In fact, it is not to blame Chen Shuo and others for having no way to operate, which is more or less related to the general environment of the Heishui area. Without him, this is still a military region, and it is normal for economic activity to be less active because it is facing severe external military pressure. Coupled with the habit of Ming residents not like to spend money (daily necessities like to produce their own), and the company's products are relatively simple, this commodity naturally cannot be sold. At present, the company sells a large number of standard wooden planks, salted fish, coal, honeycomb coal, and a small amount of beef and mutton every year by a large number of orders from the army, and the private sales channels have never been completely opened, but it is believed that with the gradual resumption of production in Dengzhou, Ningbo and other places, the business conditions of the Japanese company should gradually improve in the next few years - but only God knows how much it will improve.

You must know that the most important thing for the Heishui Pioneer Team in addition to fighting is to transform the social structure of Denglai, Ningbo and other places (the civilization in the Heishui area is relatively primitive, without too many historical fetters, it is equivalent to a blank piece of paper, so the transformation is relatively fast), this transformation is first based on the absolute military superiority of the people on the east coast in the local area (foreign troops and even foreign armies are the basic plate, and this army suppresses the conservative forces of the Ming people dominated by the gentry without mercy).

Second, it was to take advantage of the great opportunity of the great relaxation of the social order after the end of the great chaos and the extreme weakening of the power of the landlords and gentry who had bound the peasants, to strengthen economic and trade ties with the outside world and to implement the policy of economic control, so that the colonial characteristics of the economic system in Ningbo, Denglai and other places became more and more apparent, and finally achieved the goal of completely destroying the old forces of local tradition and establishing a new order -- and without the establishment of the new order, economic development would be just empty talk, and it would be just another reincarnation of a self-sufficient small-scale peasant economy; Similarly, the embryonic industrial sprouts in Heishui County, Kushiro Port and other places will be stillborn, after all, it is obviously very unreliable to rely on long-term government investment to maintain no market.

Therefore, Chen Shuo and others are now sincerely looking forward to the success of social transformation in Denglai, Ningbo and other places. However, as far as the current situation is concerned, it is not very optimistic, after all, this kind of small-scale peasant economic system that has been precipitated for 2,000 years cannot be broken overnight. Even though it has been extremely weakened now, and many of the landlords and gentry who are representatives of the conservative forces have been sent to the Heishui Forced Labor Camp for labor reform on the grounds of the East Coast Railway, the local ideology and social atmosphere are still relatively conservative, and the people's spending money is not very strong, which really makes people gray - you can't use knives and guns to force them to buy a bunch of goods they don't want to buy, right? The Spaniards did this, such as forcibly selling pantyhose and glasses to the Indians, but the East Coasters couldn't pull their faces to do such shameless things.

What's more, in the eyes of the locals, all kinds of new ideas, new policies, and new measures promoted by the people on the east coast are simply "perverse" actions! And under the secret instigation of well-intentioned people, the people's view of the East Coast is now becoming more and more negative - especially in Ningbo Province - and the whole society is like a pressure cooker, and once the lid of the pot (a strong army) that suppresses them is removed, then the whole society will immediately have a great upheaval.

And it was precisely because of this situation that Shao Shude and others completely broke off the idea of transforming the whole of China, which is not something that can be accomplished in one or two generations at all -- and after one or two generations, God knows what the successor will be brainwashed by the gentry -- everyone should still find a way to maintain and suppress the current situation in Denglai and Ningbo. If there are sufficient cadres, funds, and propagandists (most of whom have to rely on local support), and if the army enforces various policies (at this time the foreign army is much more reliable than the Ming army), it is estimated that in ten or twenty years there will be a benign change in the social atmosphere and thinking of the two places -- if the exemplary role of the new vested interests cultivated by the people on the east coast is more effective -- but until this transformation is completed, it is conceivable that the industrial development of the Heishui region will not improve much, Unless you can find another market.

"Is it true that we want to carry out the teacher's plan to make up for the company's financial deficit in the next few years?" Chen Shuo, who couldn't figure it out, took a puff of his cigarette and thought irritably. (To be continued......)