The next time, Hu Chuyuan sent Yan Shizhang to the river port, and only when the boat had sailed away did he return to the Hu family compound.

Yesterday, I had already discussed with several shopkeepers, and they all said that if Lord Zuo Zongtang and Hu Chuyuan had the same idea, then they would do what Hu Chuyuan wanted.

Therefore, when Hu Chuyuan returned to the Hu family compound, he went directly to Rongdong Courtyard.

Zuo Zongtang has the habit of going to bed early and getting up early, is practicing boxing in the garden, playing very slowly, similar to Tai Chi, wearing a pair of gold wire crystal glasses on the bridge of his nose, which are his reading glasses.

Zuo Zongtang's eyesight was very good when he was young, but in recent years, it has become worse and worse, in addition to the problem of age, it is also related to the fact that he likes to read more and more in his old age.

This time he returned to the post of governor of Liangjiang, the reason why he stayed in the Hu family's compound and did not leave was to recuperate in Hangzhou -- his eyes were seriously ill and it was difficult to manage government affairs.

Hu Chuyuan waited by the garden for a while, and Zuo Zongtang finished a full set of punches before he stopped to contain his breath and asked Hu Chuyuan: "Have the foreigners' military debts been settled?" ”

Hu Chuyuan replied: "Back to Zhongtang, my shopkeeper has already sent someone to report that the foreign bank is willing to mortgage each other's debts, and it will take a few days to handle it properly." ”

Zuo Zongtang took a hot and humid towel from General Xiao who served him, wiped his sweat, and asked Hu Chuyuan to sit down in the corridor with him, and said, "In this way, the Hunan army owes your family more than 13 million taels of silver, aren't you worried that the Hunan army can't pay it back?" ”

Hu Chuyuan smiled slightly and said, "Why worry? Even if the Liangjiang Yamen has no money at the moment, it will be rich in the future! ”

Zuo Zongtang glanced at Hu Chuyuan meaningfully, hiding a trace of disdain, and said: "Money is not so easy to earn, just talk about the matter of Liangjiang Salt, I have secretly spent a lot of energy, and the progress I have made is also limited. Besides, your father's raw silk industry is now so big, accounting for a small half of the raw silk exports of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and the annual profit is only two million taels of silver, which is not worth the consumption of my 60,000 army for half a year. ”

After a pause, he sighed again: "Money has always been a thing that is earned like a thread and spent like running water, and your father's ability to make money is the best in the world, and he can't support my military horses. ”

Hu Chuyuan snorted, without too much echo.

Zuo Zongtang asked him again: "Have you ever thought that if so many debts are pressed on your family, you have no way to raise money to buy raw silk, and if you fail to get the Jianghuai salt industry in your hands, what will you rely on to make money in the future, and how will the military salary of the Hunan army be raised and dispatched?" ”

Hu Chuyuan said: "In fact, I have also calculated, once my father dies, the silk merchants in the south of the Yangtze River will definitely compete with me for the territory of silk harvesting, not to mention others, only in Hangzhou there are two traditional silk merchants in the city of Song and Huang, and the Huang family is also engaged in the salt industry, and the family is rich." In addition, Huzhou's four elephants and eight bulls, Su Xichang's Yan, Wan, Cheng, Qian, and Wu are not to be underestimated, as for Tang Yanshu and Xu Run in Shanghai, Ningbo Merchant Gang, Shaoxing Merchant Gang, who is not eyeing the tiger? There will definitely be a silk rush in this year's Xia Si acquisition, and next year's Spring Silk may be more intense, but everyone may not be able to make money! ”

Zuo Zongtang pondered, and said after a while: "Your father once told me that he fought hard with the Song family for two years in order to seize the market of Hangzhou silk, and later spent a lot of energy in order to acquire Huzhou silk and Wuxi silk, and he didn't make much money for two or three years. It's not appropriate for your father to fight the country, don't give up easily. The ancients said, the filial piety does not change his father's rut for three years, this is your own industry, I am inconvenient to say more, and I can only say these for your reference! ”

Hu Chuyuan smiled bitterly in his heart, and said secretly: You let me bear so many debts, and you want me to uphold my father's business and continue to buy raw silk, what kind of joke is this?

He could only reply: "If it is not broken, it will not stand." At present, except for Hangsi, all other provinces will give up the purchase of raw silk, and I do this for a reason and a goal, because my way of making raw silk is different from my father's. I want to take advantage of the time when others are rushing to buy raw silk, secretly prepare to set up a commercial house, deal in tea, rice, tobacco, sugar, cloth and salt, unify the distribution of goods in Shanghai, and market them in the south of the Yangtze River, and there are branches in all prefectures and counties. When my firm has gained a firm foothold, I will prepare to build a silk reeling factory, which does not need to be large, and specializes in domestic sales, and then steadily expands outward. ”

Zuo Zongtang's eyes lit up slightly, and he said, "That's okay, then are you sure you can make money?" ”

Hu Chuyuan insisted and said, "Yes." Shopping malls are like battlefields, and what is important is the harmony of the right and the strange. On the right way, my purchase volume is large, and the volume of running goods is also large, so I can bet on the low freight price; My buddies are worth five, as long as they do bulk goods, other guys only know silk, and my guys have to be proficient in everything, which is equivalent to reducing labor costs and salaries. In this way, my goods are good and cheap, and when I stabilize my business, I will expand upstream, I want to make black tea in Fujian, southern Zhejiang, Huizhou, Hangzhou, Huzhou silk, Jianghuai cotton, Taiwan sugarcane, Hainan rubber trees, the larger the production and sales, the lower the cost, the cheaper the price, how can others compete with me? ”

Zuo Zongtang couldn't help but praise: "The two armies are facing each other, and those who measure are easy to win, which is really the right way." And what about your miracles? ”

Hu Chuyuan said: "Government-run." The Yamen, the governor of Liangjiang, invested 20% of the shares, but where the net profits were transferred to Zhongtang 20% as military salaries, and the net profits were used for public welfare and charity, the opening of the school, and the establishment of the Chinese Academy and the Agricultural Museum, but the gold and miscellaneous taxes of the commercial banks in various places, and the Zhongtang adults were also asked to cancel it. In this way, the business houses have lower taxes and higher profits than others, and I will not go into details about other strange tricks. ”

"So?"

Zuo Zongtang couldn't help but have some doubts, the exemption of miscellaneous taxes is a matter of great importance, and it is not easy to decide, but it is not impossible, and Shanghai Steamship China Merchants Bureau has been exempted from a lot of miscellaneous taxes.

If Hu Chuyuan can really make this commercial house bigger, the annual net profit dividends will be amazing, and the yamen of the Liangjiang Governor can draw a lot of dividends, and when the time comes, the military salary of the Hunan army will not be a problem.

After pondering for a long time, Zuo Zongtang asked, "Then have you thought about the name of your firm?" ”

As soon as Hu Chuyuan heard it, he knew that Zuo Zongtang agreed, and was at least willing to support him for a while to see the effect, so he immediately said: "If you think about it, you will call Jiangnan Commercial Bank." When the commercial bank made a lot of profits, I opened the Jiangnan Agricultural Science Museum to recruit talents to study the science of mulberry tea, cotton and livestock, and widely promoted it in the Jiangnan area. Then open the Jiangnan Museum of Chinese Culture, invite Confucianism to open a lecture, continue to open the Jiangnan Western Museum to study Western academics, open the Jiangnan Medical Museum to combine Chinese and Western medicine, complement each other, and then open the Jiangnan Engineering Museum, hire Western technicians to teach foreigners skills, and train craftsmen. ”

Syllable.

Zuo Zongtang clapped his hands vigorously and said, "Good, good, good." You're doing a great job. Okay, this Zhongtang will support you in preparing to build this Jiangnan firm, and whether you can compete with foreigners' foreign firms in the future depends on your ability. ”

Hu Chuyuan smiled happily: "Thank you, Lord Zhongtang, my subordinates will definitely do their best!" ”

Zuo Zongtang said: "The best thing about your method is that Benzhongtang has found a way to solve the mystery of the salt industry, and we will build this Jiangnan Commercial Bank, which is run by the government and the stock business, and sells the salt industry, isn't this better than the salt ticket law?" In that case, how could the imperial court disagree? ”

Hu Chuyuan thought about it and felt that this was the truth.

Among the various enterprises set up by the Westernization Movement, the government-owned commercial offices are the easiest to succeed, and as long as the officials do not manage them, and give them favorable policies, and the businessmen themselves have the ability, then they will certainly be able to run them well.

In addition, once Zuo Zongtang and the imperial court decided to support the development of Jiangnan Commercial Bank, it would gradually become a huge chaebol.

It can be said that the road that Hu Chuyuan wants to take is the road of the Mitsui family, the first chaebol.

During this period, the four major zaibatsu families had all transitioned from the privileged merchants of the Tokugawa shogunate to the capitalist zaibatsu of the Tokugawa shogunate, and it was their defection that enabled the political axe army loyal to Emperor Saymoto to to finally defeat the shogunate army, and they also gained more privileges in the new economy of Tsumoto.

Seeing that the time was ripe, Hu Chuyuan seized the opportunity and said to Zuo Zongtang: "Zhongtang, in fact, there is another thing that can open up the sales of the commercial house right now!" ”

Finding that Hu Chuyuan was still very powerful, Zuo Zongtang couldn't help but ask with some interest: "Then you can talk about it!" ”

Hu Chuyuan said: "The great famine in the north, even if the climate improves next year, the fields have been abandoned for so long, and the people have not even grown food, this famine is likely to spread to next year." The subordinates wanted to use the signboard of the Jiangnan Commercial Bank first, buy rice along the Yangtze River in Huguang, Jiangxi, and Anhui, and transport it all the way to Yantai and Tianjin, and then find a way to escort it to Jiangxi, Hebei, Shaanxi, and Xinjiang Province, so that the commercial bank could not only make some money, but also solve the local famine. ”

Zuo Zongtang quietly frowned and sighed: "Although you have some abilities and ideas, you still have no real business experience after all. Chu Yuan, if you think about it carefully, the people who really have the money to buy rice, he is not short of rice, where are the hungry people who want to buy rice? In fact, the north has long been in turmoil, and it is difficult to pass through all parts of the country, if it were not for this, the old man would not have recruited the imperial court back to Beijing, let alone suspend the war in Xinjiang Province and return to Liangjiang. ”

Hu Chuyuan had already taken a countermeasure, and immediately said: "I have a way, if I can transport rice to various counties and towns, and let the hungry people exchange land deeds for rice in the local area, and use the contract to stipulate that no land rent will be collected within three years, and no tenants will be changed within ten years, but the tenants can only grow grain, and they can only be sold to commercial banks." Of course, the price at which I purchase the title deed will never be lower than the land price in previous years. ”

Not......!

Zuo Zongtang pondered for a long time, and he always weighed it in his heart.

He knew that Hu Chuyuan's method was good, but the risk was also very large, of course, it was not a danger of transportation, as long as he reported to the imperial court, he could send the Hunan army to escort him all the way.

The problem is that the amount of land that the trading house can control is very staggering, can the imperial court tolerate it?

In case it occupies half of Shanxi Province, the imperial court is afraid that it will be difficult to sleep and eat.

Zuo Zongtang thought silently for a long time before he said to Hu Chuyuan: "The method is good, it is enough to prove that your business is no worse than your father, the question is...... If the amount of purchase is too large, it may be suspicious.

Hu Chuyuan said: "Then I still have a way, I will buy a certain amount of land in the local area and start a grain cooperative, choose those farmers who know a little bit of writing and are good at farming households, and let them jointly run the grain cooperatives, how many grain cooperatives are owned by commercial banks, few people know, even if you know one of them, you may not know the other." In addition, I was divided into parts, and the commercial bank was responsible for transporting it to the county and town, and selected the rich gentry to cooperate in the local area, and they were responsible for the exchange. ”

Zuo Zongtang couldn't help but feel a sense of horror when he heard it.

He can also be regarded as having met a lot of powerful businessmen, Hu Xueyan, Qiao Zhiyong, Xu Run, Ye Wenlan...... He has never seen it, but there is really no one who is more flexible than Hu Chuyuan's mind, more novel ideas, and more courageous.

After pondering for a moment, Zuo Zongtang finally nodded and said, "Okay, then let's do it, the Hunan army has thirty-two battalions, and the old man has twenty-one in his hands, most of which are in Xinjiang Province." At present, the old man can only draw out three battalions, and the soldiers are divided into three ways, all the way, all the way, all the way to sell. The old man reported to the imperial court again, and asked the green camps in various places to assist in the defense on the grounds of transporting grain to the local area to suppress the famine. ”

Hu Chuyuan smiled happily: "Thank you, Lord Zhongtang, my subordinates will go back to handle the details, and while handling the matter of transporting rice, they will recruit all the facades and guys from all over the country in the past few months!" ”

Zuo Zongtang bowed his head slightly as calm as a loose heart, and said, "Yes." It's a pity that your family's raw silk foundation will be destroyed most of it in the past two years, which is all your father's hard work. The world is unpredictable, whether you can rely on this Jiangnan commercial bank to regain the lost ground of Jiangsu and Zhejiang silk industry in the future, it is still unknown, you must be prepared in your heart. ”

Hu Chuyuan nodded silently, then said goodbye to Zuo Zongtang and went back to prepare for Jiangnan Commercial Bank.