Captain Ventura stood at the bow of the boat, and had just sung an Italian ballad, which he had sung with that broken gong voice, which was a melody of melody, and was a torture for the passengers.

Agnelli sat curled up in the cabin, a smile on his lips. Although the song was sung horribly, and the accent was strange to him - he was Neapolitan and Captain Ventura was Tuscan - this did not prevent him from being in a happier mood because of his acquaintance.

Ships sail on the vast and boundless Lake Mirin, a simple dredged area of deep water that reaches a depth of seven or eight meters, which can be called a golden waterway. To the east, however, Agnelli could still see some shallow marshes - as seen by the dense reeds. These reeds grow in saltwater lakes, but they grow extremely luxuriantly, and they are home to a large number of water birds and mallards, but not the crocodiles that are common in northern duck lakes.

There is a large amount of farmland on the west bank of the lake, which, according to a nearby traveler, belongs to Meilin Township and Qishan Township. It's early spring, and the fields are full of green wheat seedlings, but unfortunately they are too far away to see the growth of wheat seedlings. Occasionally, rows of red-brick and blue-tiled houses dotted the wheat fields and canals, and at noon, smoke rose over the village, reminding Agnelli, a man who had long been accustomed to running around, of his home.

"Now the country has liberalized the private wheat trade." Agnelli, who was in reverie, suddenly heard a loud voice in his ears, he was startled at first, and when he looked up, he saw that it was Captain Ventura, and he didn't know when he was already standing in front of Agnelli.

"Yes. I've heard about it too. Perhaps this will intensify competition in the machine-made flour industry. Agnelli smiled. He took a sip of his water bladder from his waist and said: "For the peasants, war is profit, a good life, new clothes for their sons and daughters, and a brand-new carriage. Although the war did not end, with the expansion of cultivated land and the continuous improvement of farmland irrigation measures. As well as the in-depth promotion of the three-crop rotation system, the situation of increasing grain output year after year may not be improved in the next many years. Now the country is allowing more and more fluctuations in food prices, which means that the space for food prices to fall has been opened......"

"But isn't that a good thing for the milling industry?" Captain Ventura asked, following suit.

"In theory, this is true, but in practice, cereal prices in Europe are also falling rapidly. Didn't you see, just last month, the export price of wheat at the Rocha Bulk Trade Center was reduced to 30 yuan per metric ton -- the Dutch West India Company price. Scratching his head, Agnelli said: "The war in Europe is also coming to an end, production has resumed in many places, and grain prices have experienced a series of declines. This is not good news for the milling industry. Because the small domestic market is completely unable to digest the current excess capacity, if it cannot be exported. The domestic machine flour industry is bound to usher in a painful process of eliminating excess capacity. ”

"Aren't you a tinker? Now that you are talking, why do you have the same tone as those officials? Captain Ventura shook his head, as if incomprehensible.

"I'm the most literate tinkerer on the entire East Coast, and I've read a little bit in Naples." Agnelli raised his chin smugly, and then said, "Of course, I have been chatting with some veterans of the milling industry for a long time recently, and I have some understanding of this industry. All in all, now the industry is very competitive, the domestic market is saturated, and everyone is fighting for the international market. With the change of large shì, everyone needs to reduce costs in the first place. ”

"Does the cost include this?" Captain Ventura asked thoughtfully, bending down to pick up a lump of black coal from the hold.

"This is Tacheng refined coal, and I'm afraid no factory in China can afford it." Agnelli said embarrassedly, "Now everyone uses Ping An coal produced by the Ping An Mining Bureau, and some thrifty bosses will even organize employees or family members to go out to cut grass, collect firewood and reserve it, and then use it as fuel for steam boilers, after all, now that the "Forest Law" is more and more strictly enforced, individuals can no longer cut down trees at will." ”

"Ping An Mining Bureau's coal is only six dimes a ton, which is already very cheap. How much coal does your broken steam engine consume per hour, is it 80 kilograms? I don't think so! That is to say, the coal spent six dimes is enough for you to burn for more than 12 hours, which is almost a day's production time, which is 300 days a year, and the total is less than 200 yuan. Your mill can process about 1,000 tons of wheat a year, and the flour output may be about 600 tons, which is only a few cents a ton when converted into costs, which is nothing at all. Captain Ventura pouted. In his opinion, the price of this fuel is already very low, but businessmen always want to pursue the highest profits, and it is reasonable to save some fuel money.

However, coal is now a fuel that is really getting more and more deeply involved in the daily production and life of the people on the east coast. This can be seen from the increasingly popular coal trading in Coal River Township, Ping'an County, where the local government has now built a huge coal wharf along the coal river for coal stacking, transportation and even trading.

A large number of coal brokers were active in the process, forming formal, informal companies that were not engaged in coal mining and excavation, but bought coal from the Ping An Mining Bureau, and then organized their own manpower and ships to transport the coal to the designated place for sale. With the gradual liberalization of industry and commerce by the state, a part of the private capital that is unwilling to invest in industry began to enter the coal sales industry.

Each of these companies has a number of investors behind them, such as Bai Siwen, who started as a beef trader, and this gentleman pulled a group of people from the legal department in the East Coast political arena (such as Jiang Nanqi) to jointly invest, and then monopolized a considerable part of the coal produced by Ping An Coal Mine. They shipped the coal they bought in whole ships to nearby "densely populated" cities such as Ping'an County, where they sold it separately to local wholesalers.

Wholesalers, who usually have special shops in the cities, buy the coal, break it up further - to facilitate sale, and then put it into 5, 10 and 20 kg sacks and sell it at different prices depending on the quality of the coal. There are small merchants, small restaurant owners, small business owners, etc., and the sales volume is quite good, and the profits are relatively objective.

Of course, a considerable number of ordinary residents buy coal for cooking or heating, because the domestic production of honeycomb coal is still quite limited, and many people can't wait to buy slightly more expensive coal. Fortunately, a ton is only less than one yuan (terminal retail price), which is enough to burn for a long time, so it can be afforded. All in all, after years of publicity, education and marketing, there is no doubt that coal has become a very common mass consumer product in today's Eastern Republic. Bai Siwen and others took a fancy to and meddled in the trade of this commodity, which was not untargeted.

Over the years, the Executive Committee and the Government Council have been encouraging domestic industries and the private sector to reduce the cutting down of trees and use coal as an alternative fuel on a large scale, and have introduced a series of policies to this end. For example, the construction of coal terminals, coal storage bases, and coal stations promoted by Bai Siwen and others is in full swing, and these projects are jointly funded by the central and local finances, and some private capital has also been absorbed. According to the words of Bai Siwen and others, it is to recover a large amount of currency, precipitate a large amount of circulating capital, and reduce domestic inflation. Of course, all of the above is nonsense, and the essence of these projects is to make it easier for them to make a fortune by monopolizing the coal trade.

In any case, as things stand, the effects of these policies are quite impressive. Last year, Ping'an Coal Mine produced more than 200,000 tons of coal, which was converted into a market price, which is a big business of more than 200,000 yuan. Excluding industrial coal with low profit margins (most of the enterprises on the east coast are state-owned enterprises, and the coal purchase agreements are signed by the competent authorities), the civilian market still accounts for more than half, that is, the output value of no less than 150,000 yuan, no wonder so many people will grab the head.

Captain Ventura's "Yiyun-007" river steamboat slowly docked at the wharf of Hekou Township in Zhenhai County on October 7 - the 18th anniversary of the crossing. Agnelli said a brief goodbye to him, then hopped back in a carriage that had gone to the city to sell vegetables and waddled along Highway 2 to the village of Rabbit Hole, where Gao Jinzhong lived.

Agnelli waved goodbye to the kind coachman again and headed straight ahead. The destination he was looking for was obvious, because the chimney erected at the head of the village was so obvious, and the smoke coming out of the chimney was black and yellow, and it seemed that the sulfur content was quite large, which was also a common problem of Ping'an Coal, and everyone had long been familiar with it.

Pushing open the door of the roaring micro-factory (wooden shed), Gao Jinzhong, who was busy working inside wearing a mask, was slightly stunned, and then said with great joy: "Old man, you are finally here, this is really good!" Damn, I've been so busy lately, I've grabbed orders for two Brazilian plantations, good guys, it's a big order, enough for us to keep busy for a long time. I was too busy to come, I didn't expect you to come, the Guarani man I invited before was really stupid, his temper was not small, and his hands and feet were not clean, so I was fired the day before yesterday. It's best if you come, let's do it together, and discuss it with everyone in the future, and this factory will also be your share. Everyone climbed out of the same trench, and there will be no separation from each other. (To be continued......)