After a three-and-a-half-month voyage, the four U.S. warships that sent Zhu Jinglun back to China arrived in Guangdong at the end of July, but Zhu Jinglun let them continue to fly the American flag and temporarily anchor in Kowloon Harbor. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

After several years of development, Kowloon Port has become the largest port in the southeast region, and due to the good business environment, Kowloon Port can even rely on its own business to develop on a rolling basis, without the need for government investment.

Kowloon Port also appeared a few years ago Chiwan Port situation, with the impact of capital, nearby farmers finally began to sell land, of course, for the sake of conservatism, most of them are sold to Kowloon Port in the form of lease, the port hoarded a large amount of land, the coastal area of development potential has basically entered the port reserve, the current port has a land area of 100,000 acres, more than the concession of Shanghai.

Of course, the cost of paying for this every year is also extremely high, the smart landlords of Kowloon and the second landlords, in the port to increase the rent by about ten times, every year to give ten taels of silver rent per mu of land, they have no reason not to sell, but also stipulate that every three years the two sides can renegotiate the rent, but also to dispel their worries, to know that those land in Shanghai is a permanent rent, the rent is fixed, foreigners through a large increase in the value of the land, the annual rent to the landlord is only 1 tael or even less.

With 100,000 acres of reserve land, the port has to pay more than one million rents a year, but this expenditure is now fully affordable.

The land, warehouses and wharves that were bought from Hong Kong foreign banks a few years ago took only two years to earn back from foreign banks with rent, services and other expenses.

As a necessary place for China to go out of the South Seas, the development potential here is really good.

It even brought Hong Kong Island, which is across the water, to the brink of bankruptcy.

In the past two years, Robinson has built reservoirs to solve Hong Kong's water problems, and has continued to reclaim land to expand the space of Hong Kong Island, but all this is in vain, because the cost is too high.

Before the construction of Kowloon Port, Hong Kong's entrepot trade was huge, with an annual import of 20 million taels of opium, 7 million taels of cotton fabrics, 5 million taels of woolen fabrics, 2 million taels of hardware, 12 million taels of raw silk exports, 29 million taels of tea, 6 million taels of cotton, and the total import and export value was as high as 81 million taels, but now it has dropped to one-third, barely about 27 million taels.

The contraction of trade led to the contraction of trade-dependent industries, which in turn led to a decline in tax revenues, which had fallen to the level of 1847, less than £30,000. And just three years ago, it was as high as £70,000. A large number of public works in Hong Kong required continuous investment, and the result was that Robinsons had to raise taxes and add water, which displeased the locals, especially the local Chinese businessmen, who believed that Hong Kong was "nothing but donations", and some would rather abandon their properties in Hong Kong and move out of the place.

As a result, the population has dropped from 100,000 five years ago to 50,000 now, and the decline in population has exacerbated those consequences, resulting in the depreciation of land assets, the more money the Hong Kong government has, the more taxes have to be raised, the labor cost has risen, and ships are more willing to dock in Kowloon, further causing the shrinkage of the service industry.

Of course, it is not only the competition of Kowloon Port, historically, Hong Kong has been shrinking since the 50s, the main reason is actually the rise of Shanghai, but there is one industry that saved Hong Kong, and that is the coolie trade. However, in this era, the strong competition in Kowloon Port has worsened the situation in Hong Kong, and it is no longer possible to rely on coolie trade alone.

As a free trade port, when the import and export trade shrank, Kowloon Port slowly replaced Hong Kong as a good port for entrepot trade, and even when British merchants first chose to dock at Kowloon Port, Hong Kong had little future.

And in the next step, Zhu Jinglun also plans to crack down on their current pillar industry, coolie trade!

Of course, the most important thing before that is to solve domestic problems.

The reason why Zhu Jinglun landed quietly, did not make a noise, and did not let anyone know his whereabouts was actually because he was worried.

He secretly summoned the Kowloon Port Revenue Department, Zhang Ziliang from the Cheung clan in Kowloon, a fairly young tax officer.

Kowloon is an entrepot and a **** This kind of port is extremely well-informed, Zhang Ziliang knows most of what happened in the Ming Kingdom.

The situation is confusing, and Zhang Ziliang himself can't judge the situation.

The news of Zhu Jinglun's assassination reached China through the British channel more than a month ago, and the reason why it was able to do so quickly was because the British expanded the telegraph line very quickly, and it was able to reach Italy directly from Britain through the European continent, and then the news was transmitted back to Guangdong by land.

This is at least a month faster than by sea.

Zhu Jinglun was already in a hurry, but he was still not as fast as the speed of the telegram.

Guangdong also had telegraphs, with Kowloon as the center, and it was connected to Guangzhou the year before last and to Chaozhou last year.

If Kowloon does not take the lead in the competition, it will be one step behind in the competition with Hong Kong, and Zhu Jinglun has always been a strong supporter of all industries that compete with Hong Kong, so as early as three years ago, he approved Hurd's proposal to set up a telegraph company.

As with most of the new affairs, it was still managed by the customs presided over by Hurd, and to be honest, Hurd had too much power, more than any Ming official, but the problem was that only the department he managed had these people, and the main users of the telegram at the moment were also customs and customs-related commerce.

Let other departments do it, and even they will have resistance, Guangzhou's telegraph line has not been very normal since it was erected, and the line has been cut at every turn, and countless people have been arrested for this, but they have repeatedly failed to catch it, and the common people are disgusted with all foreign things, even if most people have acquiesced to these changes, but there are always a handful of diehards who resist and do not accept it.

This is also because the Guangzhou line is at the bottom of the Pearl River, and if the line is put on the road, it will simply not be able to operate at all.

Because of this route, customs can become the most well-informed department.

Zhu Jinglun asked Zhang Ziliang to send a report to Hurd, and asked Hurd to come to Kowloon secretly, and he needed to learn the first information from Hurd, an official in Guangzhou.

I also asked about the recent development of Kowloon.

Zhang Ziliang said that the development is not bad, a large number of cotton exports in recent years, many are re-exported from Kowloon, it is not strange that the cotton produced in Guangdong is re-exported from Kowloon, and some cotton from Shanghai is exported from here, which makes him feel very fulfilled, because the cotton output of Guangdong is not comparable with the traditional cotton producing area, the Susong area with Shanghai as the center.

In 1866, after the resumption of the supply of cotton from the United States to the world, it directly caused the collapse of Shanghai's economy, 6 of the 11 foreign banks collapsed, and many cotton merchants, real estate developers, and builders went bankrupt directly, and some even committed suicide.

What made Zhu Jinglun happiest was that many businessmen from Jiangsu and Zhejiang actually came to Kowloon from Shanghai to develop, compared with the land price of every inch of land in Shanghai, the land price here in Kowloon is relatively low, and the rent of ten taels per mu of land is nothing to those rich people who have avoided disaster due to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Rebellion.

The reason why some of Shanghai's cotton exports are exported from Kowloon is that these businessmen from Shanghai have brought them through the channels brought by these merchants from Shanghai, and they sell the cotton purchased from Shanghai through the futures market in Kowloon.

The Taiping Rebellion caused a huge impact on the psychology of many landlords in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, their traditional concepts collapsed, and many gave up the old idea of valuing agriculture and suppressing business, and after losing their land, they could only engage in commerce, and the good education they received gave them some innate advantages in the competition with ordinary people, at least the literacy rate was very high, and they had capital in their hands.

Moving from Shanghai to Kowloon, many people came directly for business opportunities, so they also brought Shanghai's commercial network, linking the two places, they continued to ship products from the East to Shanghai, the most important is grain, they bought cheap rice imported from Vietnam and Siam and other places, and sent it to Shanghai, which has a growing population, and made a lot of profits.

Others imitated foreigners, rented small steamers, and opened a route from Shanghai to Kowloon.

There are also some local small merchants in Susong or even just ordinary immigrants, who brought the already developed cotton textile handicraft industry in Susong, rented land here in Kowloon to set up a large number of cotton textile workshops, and hired locals or immigrants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to carry out production.

A large number of female textile workers rescued by Zhu Jinglun from Tianjing worked in these workshops and helped Zhu Jinglun solve considerable troubles. Zhu Jinglun reciprocated by saying that the Industrial Incentive Law promulgated a few years ago still applies to them, and for capitalists who are willing to set up Western-style factories, they can be provided with interest-free loans of up to 10,000 taels, but they are required to raise at least one-third of their own capital, mainly out of risk considerations, in case some people cheat on loans or are too aggressive.

The arrival of such a commercial force has greatly strengthened the commercial interaction between Kowloon and Shanghai, and it is also a great help for Kowloon to develop better and better. Of course, Kowloon can develop, mainly thanks to the geographical location, followed by the promotion of local commercial capital in Guangdong, and then the promotion of foreign capital, Jiangsu and Zhejiang capital from Shanghai can only occupy the third place, after all, Jiangsu and Zhejiang capital is mainly developed in Shanghai, and it is obviously impossible to be a big capital by the high cost of Shanghai forced to Kowloon.

Hurd rushed to Kowloon three days later, bringing first-hand information about the political scene in Guangzhou, the situation was not the worst, but it was somewhat beyond Zhu Jinglun's expectations, he didn't expect his father-in-law to jump out again, and get involved with Hou Jin.

In Hurd's words, the two were plotting a coup d'état! (To be continued.) )