For the problem of funding, Zhou Lang's solution is very simple, that is, to introduce venture capital.

Compared with the introduction of partners, the introduction of pure funds does not have any special considerations. The reason why there are only two current partners, Henry Pitt and Xie Qinggao, is because Zhou Lang knows very well that 90% of the reasons for the failure of entrepreneurship in later generations are due to the problems of the founding team. Therefore, even for a person with a prominent background like Henry Pitt, he signed a partnership agreement with the other party after his own careful investigation and great consideration.

As for the other friends enthusiastically introduced by Henry Pitt, Zhou Lang has always maintained a cautious attitude and has never let go of his mouth to allow the other party to join.

Because, since there is already a person with a super background like Henry Pitt among the partners, it makes little sense to bring in other similar partners.

So Zhou Lang was not in a hurry to introduce new partners for the time being, but began to look for initial funds. At present, Zhou Lang has very limited funds at his disposal, and after joining the partnership, Henry Pitt paid 20,000 pounds of investment in exchange for 30% of the original shares, and Henry Pitt is quite satisfied with this, because Henry Pitt is using the current British East India Company to compare the potential of the future Chinese East India Company.

Zhou Lang is very generous to his partners, because he doesn't really value money too much. As a partner, he gave Henry Pitt 30% of the shares, he also gave Xie Qinggao 30% of the shares, and he retained 40% of the shares, so that he could become the largest shareholder, and at the same time he was confident that Xie Qinggao would always support him, so that it was enough to gain control of the company, and the introduction of new partners, the equity was bound to be further diluted, and his control over the company would be reduced at that time, which was his biggest concern.

Despite not being able to get his friends on board, Henry Pitt agreed to Zhou Lang's suggestion to absorb ordinary shareholders, and according to Zhou Lang's design, they would sell ten percent of the shares and absorb 100,000 pounds of investment, which means that they temporarily valued the company at a whopping one million pounds, which is an exaggerated figure, and even more exaggerated is that two equally crazy people think this figure is very reasonable.

At present, the Chinese fever of the British in India is not subsided, and investors are sometimes extremely blind, and with the endorsement of the son of a prominent family like Henry Pitt, it is not difficult to attract investment. Just a few good friends of Henry Pitt can afford to eat this money, you must know that there are so many children of British aristocrats in India, they do not need the financial support of the family, and the money they have is enough for them to make this investment.

The current governor of the East India Company, Cornwall, had been reforming the East India Company for ten years. Cornwally was a man that Americans were very familiar with, because he was the deputy commander-in-chief of the British forces in the American Revolutionary War, and the commander who surrendered to the Americans in the last decisive battle, the Battle of Yorktown. However, his defeat did not affect his career, and he was nominated to be the governor of India shortly thereafter in 1782, but unfortunately there were problems in the exchange of prisoners between the United States and the British, and Cornwallis had to continue to serve as a prisoner in the United States, which affected his appointment.

Cornwalli eventually became Viceroy of India in 1786, and he came to India with the special mission of washing away the shame of failure in the United States and reforming the East India Company, both of which he has so far accomplished. During the war, he finally completely defeated the Kingdom of Mysore, a stumbling block to the British expansion into the interior of India, and ceded half of the other party's territory, so that the Kingdom of Mysore had completely lost the potential to confront the British East India Company. In terms of reforms, he changed the private trade problems that had been rampant since the occupation of Bengal by the East India Company, and he used the special powers granted by Prime Minister William Pitt Jr., who supported his reforms (the Pitt Act), to use the powers of the Act, which included a committee of Chancellors of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State, and four Privy Council advisers appointed by the Emperor to administer India, and Cornwallis significantly weakened the direct control of India by the officials of the East India Company.

This was tantamount to cutting off the financial resources of many East India Company officials, and in order to compensate, Cornwallis gave a high salary in return. Since the officials of the East India Company in India were mainly composed of the big nobles and shareholders in London as a way to gain status for their children, there were a large number of children of powerful people like Henry Pitt. Cornwalli tried to exchange high salaries for these people to give up private trade, and greatly increased the wages of employees, and the lowest ordinary staff could also get an annual salary of five hundred pounds, like Zhou Lang will be able to get this salary from next year.

It is not uncommon for officials to earn more than £1,000 for middle and lower level officials and £10,000 for senior officials, so that as long as you work for a few years, you will have a small amount of savings.

Cornwall's reforms, which strengthened the British government's control over the East India Company and India, protected the interests of the ordinary shareholders of the East India Company in Britain, but harmed the interests of a large number of East India Company officials, whose backgrounds were sufficient to determine the life and death of the company. According to statistics, there are hundreds of members of the British Parliament all year round, and they are also shareholders of the East India Company. After the completion of the Cornwallis reforms, the East India Company's shareholders had fewer than 30 seats in the British Parliament, and the British government abolished the East India Company's trade monopoly in India shortly thereafter.

Among Zhou Lang's current investors, the children of the powerful who have a certain amount of savings but are very dissatisfied with the loss of power in the reform have grabbed a lot of them. According to Henry Pitt, a few of his close friends would be able to scrape together the first £100,000 investment. But Zhou Lang insisted on winning over 10 shareholders, and each new shareholder was limited to 10,000 pounds, holding 1% of the company's equity.

The capital increase was soon completed and the company was registered in Kolkata and the first general meeting was held. At the meeting, Zhou Lang reported on the progress of the company's current operation, which is still in the founding stage, but the basic structure has been established. At the same time, the shareholders' meeting also appointed managers at all levels, and the company did not create a similar position as the president of later generations, but two directors have been appointed according to the business, Zhou Lang is in charge of the China business, and Henry Pitt is in charge of the India business. In addition, the chief financial officer is concurrently served by Zhou Lang. Xie Qinggao is the company's fleet supervisor.

The company's administrative structure was determined at the shareholders' meeting, and the recruitment of personnel for the actual business was also carried out relatively smoothly, Xie Qinggao found a suitable captain and recruited 30 crew members at the port, enough to sail a 500-ton merchant ship to the sea.

But an important problem is that Xie Qinggao was unable to find the ship. This question was something that Zhou Lang did not anticipate at first, Kolkata is a port with direct access to the sea. As a result, there were many shipyards, the most technically competent of which were, of course, the shipyards of the East India Company. However, there are also a large number of private Indian shipyards, and a large number of Indians have accumulated technology from repairing Western merchant ships to producing Western-style merchant ships for a long time.

Even the craftsmen of Canton had a certain amount of experience in building Western merchant ships, not to mention India, which had been trading with the West for hundreds of years. These private Indian shipyards may not have the technical ability to manufacture large warships, and the quality of the merchant ships they produce is not as good as that of the East India Company, especially in the casting of artillery, which is almost a technical gap. But what Zhou Lang asked for was not a warship, but an armed merchant ship with a certain amount of armed force, which these Indian shipyards could fully meet.

However, Xie Qinggao traveled all over the large and small shipyards in Calcutta but could not find anyone willing to build ships for him, Xie Qinggao was very frustrated and reported this negative at the shareholders' meeting, several aristocratic circles that had been involved in intrigue since childhood, and the elf-like shareholders immediately reacted, and someone made an off-market move, and there was only one organization that could prevent the shipyards of the entire Calcutta from doing business, and that was the East India Company.

Zhou Lang has known this bad news for a long time, and Henry Pitt, as a partner, also knows that in the initial stage of entrepreneurship, Zhou Lang is very open and honest, and the discord between partners is a big taboo. But a few people still have to say something to the board, first, to show respect for the rights of shareholders, and second, Henry Pitt also has the heart to show his ability again.

He looked at the expressions of the ten new shareholders quietly, and found that a few of them were really resigned, and it was obvious that these shareholders were dissatisfied with the East India Company, but not all of them had the courage to break with the East India Company.

After a moment of silence, Henry Pitt immediately stepped forward and promised in public that he would solve the ship's problems.

No one doubted Henry Pitt's assurance, although he was only twenty-three years old, and although he was only the lowest-ranking official of the East India Company, no one believed that a member of the family who could put a twenty-four-year-old child of the family into the post of British Prime Minister would wait for a long time in the low-ranking position of the East India Company, and everyone understood that Henry Pitt had just come to India as a low-ranking official, and it would not be long before he would be promoted, and he would be constantly promoted, and no one doubted that he would climb to the rank of the senior officials of the East India Company within a year.

Even if he is only a low-level official now, I am afraid that even the Indian Governor Cornwallis will have to give him face, so it should not be a problem for him to come forward to solve the problem of merchant ships. The only thing to worry about is how determined the East India Company is to stop the Chinese East India Company, and if it is so big that even Henry Pitt can't solve it, then it is really time to consider the prospects of this new company.

So most of the shareholders showed their approval, flattering that as long as Lord Pete came out, there was no need to worry about Yunyun, in fact, this was just an exam for them to start testing the strength of the new company.

For Henry Pitt, this was an opportunity for him to show his influence, and once he succeeded in getting the East India Company, the new company would be smooth sailing, and no one would doubt it again, and it would only be a matter of time before it became bigger and stronger.

As soon as the board was over, Henry Pitt was up and running, and he had to find out who was standing in the way of their company's start, and he was confident that he would be able to settle everything.

Zhou Lang had a bad premonition, everything was too smooth before, but he didn't expect a big tiger to jump out in the end, which caught him off guard. If the East India Company really wanted to thwart his plan to start the Chinese East India Company, this business plan would really have to be stillborn, because at least in India, the East India Company was a giant existence. If you can't buy a ship, I'm afraid it's just a casual move by the East India Company. Not to mention the East India Company's own shipyards, even those Indian shipyards mainly rely on the East India Company for their livelihood, and they are not guilty of cutting off their financial means for a small customer. Therefore, as long as the East India Company said hello, no one dared to sell the ship to Zhou Lang's company.

Although the obstruction of the East India Company was unexpected, it was also reasonable, and it was no secret that Zhou Lang established the Chinese East India Company, and it was even registered. In the public proposal, there was indeed a part of the business that competed with the East India Company. But this kind of competition is also being done by many British retail merchants in India, such as the founders of the famous Jardine Matheson and Baoshun Matheson, which are now all such retail merchants.

The difference is that these retail merchants had to obtain permission from the East India Company to trade between China and India, and their shipments were transported by the East India Company, and their own exchange was through the East India Company, so to speak, they were subject to the East India Company. The protests of the retail merchants have been carried out many times in the London Parliament, and many people have tried to break the monopoly of the East India Company, but because of the international environment, from the Seven Years' War to the American Revolutionary War, and now the French Revolution is again, Britain can not take the time to directly invest in overseas expansion, and can only rely on the East India Company, so it can only continue to give the East India Company monopoly.

Theoretically, the East India Company established by Zhou Lang is the Chinese East India Company, which has nothing to do with Britain and is not subject to the concessions of the British King and Parliament, although it has not yet completed the state license of companies such as the Dutch East India Company and the Swedish East India Company, but it can give everyone a huge imagination, because Zhou Lang has been promoting the purpose of the company is to obtain the trade license of the Chinese emperor.

Whether it succeeded or failed, a company whose main business was planned to be trade between China and India had an impact on the monopoly of the East India Company. But Zhou Lang didn't expect that the East India Company would make an external move, because this kind of competition was also done by the Dutch, the Swedes, and the Danes, and even the nascent United States had such an organization to compete with the British East India Company.

Another reason is that the great problem that has always existed in the trade between the British government and the East India Company in China is not excessive competition, but mainly the inability to buy enough goods from China.

Therefore, Zhou Lang had always considered his company's business to be a supplement to the East India Company, not a competition, as if the East India Company supported those retail merchants, in order to bring more Chinese goods to India and finally ship them back to Europe. The Dutch actively encouraged Chinese merchants to traffic goods to the Dutch colony of Batavia, and sometimes even hijacked passing merchant ships to Batavia for trading, and the famous merchant ship Gothenburg was intercepted by the Dutch to Batavia for as long as half a year, because the Dutch themselves could not purchase enough goods from China. Therefore, Zhou Lang even had the idea of seeking the support of the East India Company at first, but he was worried that the East India Company, a giant of the company, would swallow up the autonomy of his company, and second, he was worried that it would become a retail merchant controlled by the East India Company, so he finally chose Henry Pitt, an ambitious young magnate as a partner and investor.

But now that the East India Company has indeed made a move, this surprised Zhou Lang at the same time, and at the same time, he couldn't help but feel a little proud, which at least to a certain extent shows that the East India Company feels a little nervous about its actions, even if it is a little bit, it also shows its own weight.

But as for the real reason, you can't guess it, it all depends on Henry Pitt's political energy, which is the advantage of bringing in this influential partner enough to help you solve some problems outside of business. But soon Henry Pitt came with very unoptimistic news, because Henry Pitt was able to figure out that the obstacle came from the top of the East India Company, that is, the Governor of India, Cornwally, who was blocking them.

This is troublesome, not being able to buy a boat is a small problem, and there are ways to solve it. The big problem is that if Cornwallis, the Viceroy of India, really wants to obstruct it, even if you have a ship, you can't set sail from an Indian port! Because Cornwally's power at this time was unimaginable, the British government and Prime Minister William Pitt Jr. really made too much determination to root out the bureaucracy and corruption of the East India Company and gave Cornwally almost absolute power.

In 1783 and 1786 respectively, Britain introduced two bills against the East India Company, in addition to setting up a management committee to let government officials and parliament control this body, just before the arrival of Cornwally, there was also a special Act of 1786, which greatly increased the powers of the Governor, stipulating that in exceptional circumstances the Governor could make decisions without regard to the majority opinion of the committee, and also stipulated that the Governor and the commander of the army could be the same person.

That is to say, as long as Cornwally wants to, he can do anything within the East India Company, with the bill as a guarantee, not to mention that Henry Pitt can't influence him, even Prime Minister William Pitt can't intervene, so Cornwally is now blocking Zhou Lang's plan, except for Cornwally to let him go, Zhou Lang has no other way.

But what does Cornwallis want?

Henry Pitt said, "He's going to take a stake!" ”

Kanghuali is not a shareholder himself, he is vigorously prohibiting the private trade of company employees, and of course he cannot blatantly take the lead.

Cornwalli is not such a person, he is from an aristocratic family. He is not like the former Bengal Governor Klavu, who has risen from the bottom again, and has a vice-like habit like smoking opium; is not like the former Viceroy of India, Hattings, who was abandoned by his father and raised by his uncle since he was a child, and his unfortunate childhood caused an unhealthy personality, and finally he was crazy about accumulating wealth in India, and was deposed for corruption, and was impeached for corruption after returning home.

Everything is perfect at Cornwall, born in an upscale London neighborhood, his father is a lord, his mother is the daughter of a cabinet loyal viscount, his family is a famous family, many members of the family are members of Parliament, two uncles are the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other is the Governor of Gibraltar. He attended Eton College, an aristocratic school, and later Cambridge University, where he received a rigorous elite education for the British aristocracy.

This kind of person is a typical member of the British ruling class, whose worldview is very consistent with the interests of the country's rule, and he is the most willing to reform.

The most important thing is that he still has the ability and resources to reform, even if the United States is in a bad situation, he can easily accept the surrender and get a chance to start over, the world is tolerant of him, so he has more confidence in the world.

Therefore, he came to India with confidence to carry out reforms, and his educational background and long-term military career made him rigorous and self-disciplined, and he had strong execution and strong determination. So he came to India to work hard in India as an extremely diligent public official, and he wrote to his son that his daily work was heavier than his son's homework in a year.

It is impossible for such a person to pursue his own personal gain, and when he speaks of a stake on behalf of the East India Company.

Kanghuali's request gave Zhou Lang a huge sense of crisis, and cooperating with the East India Company would naturally get twice the result with half the effort, but at the same time, it was also possible to be controlled by this company, just like countless Bengali princes, Zhou Lang did not want to become a senior manager who received the East India Company's annuity.

Zhou Lang said solemnly: "I want to negotiate with Kanghuali!" ”

Henry Pitt was also very frustrated, and he nodded: "I will convey it for you." ”