Despite the fact that many people in the Shanghai Business Zone are waving millions of cashier's checks in search of investment opportunities, most of them will be invested in some mature industries, such as raw silk-related industries, such as tea trade and even some other small-scale industries.

But few people would take such a big risk to invest in an entirely new industry.

Although the domestic cotton industry has a history of thousands of years, the use of steam power for spinning and weaving, no one has done this before, they are all cotton, but the woven fabric industry and the homespun industry are completely different things, not the same day.

If the Huisheng Textile Company he invested in before was very profitable, it would be fine, but the key is not, as the Minister of Industry and Commerce, Lai Changying knows better the development of these enterprises.

Huisheng Textile Company's sales last year added up to only a few million, and a considerable part of it is the income from the direct sale of cotton yarn, and the sales of real finished woven fabrics will not exceed two million, and it is more difficult to operate with small profits and quick turnover, and the gross profit margin is quite low.

He personally estimated that the net profit of Huisheng Textile Company last year would definitely not exceed 100,000 yuan!

If you include the upfront investment costs such as construction, equipment purchase, and training workers, it will take at least five or six years for Huisheng Textile Company in this state to recover its costs, and it is estimated that these five or six years are not enough.

However, during the same period, if you invest in the silk reeling factory, the gross profit margin is as high as more than 30 percent, and the cost recovery of two or three years abounds, and the hardware investment of the silk reeling factory is actually not large, and the real limit on the scale of production and sales is that the capital of the silk reeling factory is limited, which is not enough to purchase a large number of cocoons.

Basically, the money spent on the acquisition of silkworm cocoons in the current year will exceed the total assets of the silk reeling factory. As a result, there are ten silk reeling factories, and basically nine of them have to borrow money or banks. Otherwise, they would not have been able to scrape together enough money to buy cocoons for production.

But in any case, the raw silk industry is relatively mature this year. At the same time, industries with relatively high and stable incomes would not have attracted a large amount of Chinese and foreign capital investment.

After all, the current raw silk in the international market is in short supply, basically you produce as much as you want from foreign companies, you must know that some time ago when the Chinese Empire did not go to war with the coalition forces, the British consul asked the Chinese Empire to organize the supply of goods as much as possible through diplomatic means, and provide more raw silk for export.

When the silk reeling factory industry was thriving, this He Feitu did not follow the trend to invest in the raw silk industry, but opened up the woven fabric market alone, both in terms of vision and courage. The person in front of me is all good.

Lai Changying, who admires this He Feitu in his heart, also chatted with him a few more words, of course, like all politicians, Lai Changying will never promise anything.

He Feitu was already satisfied with this, he didn't expect to get any promises or anything like that today, he only needed to let the upper echelons of the empire hear his voice, and that was enough.

As long as the empire attaches importance to the development of the cotton industry, then the huge investment in He Feitu in the future is a guarantee.

At this time, most of the people in the venue were doing similar things, these wealthy businessmen spent huge sums of money to buy treasury bonds, and even traveled all the way to Nanjing to attend the state banquet, even if some of them were to pay homage to the holy face. Meet the so-called style, and brag about it later. But more often than not, they came for a variety of business purposes, and they saw this opportunity as an opportunity to communicate with the top level of the government.

After everyone chatted, a short time an official wearing a special uniform of the palace affairs department entered. Those who are familiar with the high-level political circles of the empire will know that the identity of this seemingly faceless official is somewhat special, because he is the director of the Secretariat of the Palace Affairs Department.

This peripheral is not strictly a person of traditional officialdom. He was just a down-and-out talent in his early years, and in 1854 he recommended himself to join Yu Sheng's army. became one of Lin Zhe's staff, although he was only a showman. But the writing is quite good, so I have been dealing with paperwork in the shogunate for a long time.

In addition, he is a bit wooden, and he is not very good at welcoming and sending off officialdom, so he has always been a very low-key and unobtrusive person in Lin Zhe's shogunate.

But his temperament was also looked at differently by Lin Zhe, and Lin Zhe did not send him to other institutions, but stayed by his side to help deal with paperwork.

After several years of obscurity, this veteran staff member, who had never been transferred to a local area or served in an administrative organization such as a ministry, finally came to prominence last year.

He first served as Lin Zhe's entourage secretary, and then rose to the position of director of the Secretariat of the Palace Affairs Department.

Although this position is only a division chief, the name of this position is far less prominent than the ministers and co-ministers of the cabinet ministries, and it is not even as good as those directors, but the palace department is more special, it does not belong to the cabinet, but belongs to the emperor's direct agency.

In addition to serving as Lin Zhe's accompanying secretary, serving tea and pouring water, and other chores, it also undertook to assist Lin Zhe in handling many official affairs, and many official documents handed to Lin Zhe by the cabinet will be finally instructed by Lin Zhe to "transfer to the secretariat for reading".

It can be seen that the secretariat actually assumed the role of helping Lin Zhe review the official documents, which is generally similar to the celebrant in the Ming Dynasty, except that the secretariat does not have the power to deal with it, and can only review the official documents and then draw up opinions, and then return them to Lin Zhe for final instructions.

In particular, some large documents, such as those laws and regulations transmitted by the Ministry of Justice, and the development plans submitted by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, are casually dozens of pages and hundreds of pages, and Lin Zhe can't read them even if he has 48 hours a day of non-stop work, so the way to deal with these documents is generally: the cabinet submits them to Lin Zhe, and Lin Zhe sometimes reads them by himself and then gives direct instructions, and if he doesn't have time to read them, he directly forwards them to the secretariat for review, and the secretariat gives relevant opinions after review. Lin Zhe will make relevant instructions after reading it.

To a certain extent, this secretariat is responsible for many of Lin Zhe's time-consuming tasks.

Although the Secretariat's review opinion is not the final comment, it has a decisive influence on Lin Zhe's final decision.

Based on these factors. It was also a time when the power of the Secretariat of the Palace Department was growing, and many bigwigs in the cabinet saw the director of the Secretariat around Cheng. Most of them will treat the other party as an equal person, rather than treating him as an ordinary secretary.

I saw that after entering the hall. First, he looked around, and when he saw that everyone had stopped talking and looked at him one after another, he took a deep breath and said loudly: "His Majesty the Great Emperor has arrived!" ”

As soon as the words came out, the people who were still in the hall quickly looked for their positions, and the generals of the military quickly stood on the left side of the gate.

The civil servants stood on the right.

As for those wealthy merchants and gentry, they also stood on the left and right sides according to the teaching arrangement of the Etiquette Department two days ago, and then looked at the door together.

Suddenly, there was silence in the hall that was still noisy!

He Feitu, like the others, stood at the back of the line. Looking at the door, I only heard a sound of footsteps at the door, the footsteps were steady and fast, and after a few breaths, a figure appeared at the door.

In He Feitu's sight, the person who came was only about thirty years old, wearing a black Chinese suit, but unlike the solid color and unadorned Chinese clothes worn by many officials, the Chinese costume on his body had dragon pattern entanglement on the cuffs, and a dragon pattern medal hung on his chest. The whole person exudes a majesty that is somewhat similar to that of a soldier.

You don't have to think about it, just by seeing this dragon pattern, you can know the identity of this person, he is Lin Zhe, the emperor of the Chinese Empire.

I have long heard that the emperor is young, and he is still a soldier. But today, when I look at it, I know that the rumors are true, although Lin Zhe is very stable in his dress and expression, but the young face is difficult to hide. Seeing this young face, He Feitu couldn't help but think about when the emperor was preparing for Yu Shengjun's start. I guess I'm in my early twenties.

Who would have thought that a few years later, this young man would be able to lead Yu Shengjun to rise up and establish a country and achieve such a hegemony?

While I was thinking wildly. He felt a slight tug on his sleeve, and turned his head slightly to see that someone was making a face at him.

At this time, he was in a trance, and then quickly lowered his head and withdrew his gaze towards the door.

In the etiquette teaching a few days ago, those officials of the Department of Etiquette said very solemnly that there is one thing that must not be done, that is, to look at the Son of Heaven, which is a great disrespect to the Son of Heaven!

Immediately afterwards, under the guidance of the officials of the Department of Etiquette, the civil and military officials, as well as the gentry and wealthy businessmen, began to say in unison: "Ministers welcome the emperor!" ”

When these words were shouted, the ministers were already bent down and bowed in unison, and in such a situation, the few wealthy merchants who had never seen such a scene were already weak in their legs, and if they were not forced to compodate, they would probably have to kneel.

However, this kneel does not dare to kneel, the empire has clearly decreed that unless the enthronement, the wedding of the Son of Heaven, the national sacrifice and other large-scale ceremonies still follow the ancient rites of kneeling, the daily kneeling ceremony will be abolished, whether it is the people to the officials, or the officials to the emperor, all will be abolished, and the bowing ceremony will be replaced by a bowing ceremony, and there is also a matter of the prescribed way of bowing.

When bowing, the head is lowered, you can't raise your head to look forward, your hands are naturally down, your fingers are close together, you can't open your legs, your legs are straight, and you can lean forward about 35 degrees based on your waist.

After the subjects saluted, Lin Zhecai raised his right hand slightly, and gently spit out two words: "Flat!" ”

At this time, He Feitu straightened up again, just like others, but although his head was still tilted to the door to look at Lin Zhe, he didn't dare to look directly at Lin Zhe.

Lin Zhe, who was in the direction of the door, was not as restrained as these subjects, and saw him walking forward with his feet raised, followed by Prime Minister Bi Yutong and the director of the Secretariat Zhou Cheng and several others.

When walking through the crowd on both sides, Lin Zhe did not walk too fast, but occasionally said a few words to a few ministers, said some concern or simply joked, as if a few officials at the level of co-organizers and other officials who rarely saw Lin Zhe on weekdays were moved.

After walking through the group of civil and military officials, Lin Zhe came to the front of those rich businessmen and gentry, and those rich businessmen and gentry also stepped forward one by one under the guidance of the officials, Lin Zhe generally didn't say anything to them, most of the time he nodded slightly, or simply didn't nod his head, and only a few people could get a word from him.

For example, when He Feitu was taken forward by the secretary of the palace affairs department, as soon as he reported to his home, he saw Lai Changying, who was already standing beside Lin Zhe, leaned over and whispered to Lin Zhe twice, Lin Zhe glanced at He Feitu after hearing it, and then said with a smile: "Being able to open up new industries without fear of competition, well, good!" ”

Hearing Lin Zhe's words, especially the word 'good', He Feitu was full of blood for a while, the conscience of heaven and earth was not an admirer of Lin Zhe or the imperial power, and he was respectful to Lin Zhe, but if he wanted to say worship or something like that, it was too much, but now when he heard this, he was moved to his heart.

Immediately, his face turned red, and he immediately said: "It is the duty of the grass people to share worries for Your Majesty and solve difficulties for the empire!" ”

Originally, he wanted to talk more about the plan, but when he saw the palace official on the opposite side glaring at him with an anxious face, he knew that he couldn't stay any longer, after all, there were dozens of people waiting to see Lin Zhe behind, and if they all said a few more words, when would they go.

After bending down and retreating, He Feitu saw the gazes of a few friends, and among the dozens of people in front of him, most of them only got a nod from Lin Zhe, and some didn't even nod their heads, and only a handful of them got a word, and he was praised by Lin Zhe on the spot, and he was the only one who said 'good'.

Seeing the envious eyes of his friends, He Feitu's mood couldn't help but feel relieved! (To be continued......)