In the nineteenth century, the coal industry, like the iron and steel industry, was a very typical heavy industry, and the requirements for capital and technology were quite high.

For such a capital-intensive industry with slow cost recovery, it is difficult for ordinary private capital to raise a large amount of capital for investment.

Capital is profit-seeking, and most of them are short-sighted, they only see short-term benefits in front of them, so it is basically impossible for them to invest heavily in the steel and coal industries without the impetus of considerable benefits.

In this environment, the only one that can provoke the development of the coal and steel industries is the royal industry with the nature of official capital.

Jiangnan Mining Company is a wholly-owned enterprise of the royal industry!

Although there are several shareholders of the company, namely Linde Machinery Factory, Shanghai Shipyard, and Jinling Arsenal, all of which are wholly-owned enterprises belonging to the royal family, even the royal bank to which the royal family belongs to the large loans is provided.

In this way, Jiangnan Mining Company is naturally a wholly-owned enterprise of the royal family.

The company's start-up capital is not much, and the share capital raised by the three major shareholders in the first phase is only 60,000 yen, and additional investment is made in the later stage, but it is only an additional 100,000 yen.

However, the company received two loans from the Royal Bank, totaling 800,000 yuan, and with this loan, the Jiangnan Mining Company was able to reluctantly establish the mining area of the Ma'anshan Iron Mine and the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant, and later invested more than 10,000 yuan in a Chizhou coal mine.

Although the company's own funds are not much, Jiangnan Mining Company, which has a whole royal industrial system standing behind it, cannot be viewed at face value, as long as necessary, the royal industry can make additional investment in Jiangnan Mining Company at any time, and at the same time provide high loans for the company through the Royal Bank.

Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant is a first-class large enterprise under Guo Longyun's rule, so Guo Longyun also hopes that the company can continue to increase investment in Anhui. Exploration and mining of coal mines.

As Guo Longyun's subordinate, Bi Xuanxi, the prefect of Taiping Mansion, naturally knew the intentions of his boss, so he said something like self-sufficiency.

However, although Liao Ben'an is the deputy general manager of the Jiangnan Mining Company and the general manager of the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant, he does not have the power to decide on the major investments of the head office, especially the coal business, which is still not under his control.

At present, as a comprehensive coal-iron enterprise integrating coal exploration, mining, iron ore exploration, mining, iron-making and steelmaking, Jiangnan Mining Company has a complex structure. The company has seven or eight subsidiaries alone, including Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant, Ma'anshan Iron Mine, Chizhou Coal Mine, Jiangnan Shipping, etc., and even has an internal machinery repair factory.

There are several deputy general managers in charge of steel, iron ore, coal mines, property, freight and other businesses!

Liao Ben'an is not the deputy general manager in charge of the coal business, he is only in charge of steelmaking, iron ore and coal mining and source is not his responsibility, so in the face of Bi Xuanxi and others. He also played hehe, and then the topic changed back to Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant itself.

Liao Ben'an changed the topic, Bi Xuanxi and the others could naturally hear it, but it was not easy to complain about anything, he could not force them to explore and mine coal mines all over Anhui.

However, Guo Longyun on the side secretly made up his mind in his heart, and in a few days, it is estimated that he will have to talk to Pan Lixuan from the Finance Department of the Palace Affairs Department, so that they can pay attention to Anhui's coal industry.

It's just that the exact effect is unknown, as far as he knows. At present, the Jiangnan Mining Company has invested a lot of energy in the areas controlled by the Chinese Empire, especially in the Yangtze River basin, to find easy coal mining areas.

The reason why Jiangnan Mining Company is obsessed with finding coal mines in the Yangtze River basin. One of the main factors is traffic!

In the era when there were no railways, the transportation of large quantities of goods was very dependent on ship transportation, so this coal mining did not have to have coal, but also had to be close to the main inland waterway or simply in the coastal area, otherwise the coal could not be transported by digging up.

There are also a number of traditional coal mining sites in Anhui, such as Chizhou. There are both Huainan and Huaibei areas, but there are more or less problems, and it is difficult to meet the conditions for large-scale investment by Jiangnan Mining Company.

After all, even if Jiangnan Mining Company is a royal industrial enterprise with a certain official nature, its operation mode is also a pure business model, and when the enterprise invests, it naturally considers many conditions such as profit and cost recovery first.

Today, Jiangnan Mining Company has not found large-scale coal mines along the Yangtze River. It has simply set its sights on the Tangshan area of Zhili, which is close to the coast and easy to mine, and more importantly, the coal in the Tangshan area is of high quality, which can not only be used as steam-powered coal for enterprises, but also for the smelting industry, and can barely be used as thermal coal for warships and ships.

It can be said that the mining value is very high and suitable for large-scale investment.

The only problem is that the Zhili region is still in the hands of the Qing court!

However, the Jiangnan Mining Company was not worried about this, and they had great confidence in the Chinese military, believing that the Chinese army would be able to reach Zhili in a short period of one year or two years, and then they would follow the military's footsteps in the Tangshan area to invest in coal mining.

Under such circumstances, Jiangnan Mining Company naturally has little interest in some coal mines that are deep in the inland areas, where mining is not easy, and the coal quality is average.

After Guo Longyun inspected the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant, he sent a handwritten letter to Pan Lixuan, who was in the Finance Department of the Palace Affairs Department, in an attempt to win the Jiangnan Mining Company to invest in a large-scale coal mining base in Anhui.

But what happens next, it's not a day or two to get the news.

After Guo Longyun left, Bi Xuanxi, the prefect of Taiping Mansion, naturally left the Ma'anshan area, and he, the prefect of Taiping Mansion, was also a busy man.

He was transferred to Taiping Mansion as the prefect, which can be said to be the great expectation placed on him by his superiors, and the Organization Department hoped that he would be able to do a good job in the development of iron ore in Ma'anshan, and also hoped that he could restore the livelihood of Taiping Mansion as soon as possible, so that this traditional agricultural county located in the plain terrain of the Dajiang South region could recover its vitality as soon as possible.

Although Taiping Prefecture said that there are not many counties and prefectures under its jurisdiction, only Dangtu, Wuhu, and Fanchang counties, this is the only plain area in southern Anhui, which is a typical terrain of the Jiangnan Plain.

However, due to the tug-of-war between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing army and the Chinese army, the population of this traditional agricultural production area was greatly reduced, and a large number of good fields were abandoned.

In the past two years, the counties of Taiping Province have been trying their best to restore agricultural production, and although they have not yet returned to their former heyday, they have somewhat regained their vitality, and large areas of farmland on the south bank of the Yangtze River have been restored to cultivation one after another.

In the first half of this year, there were no large-scale natural and man-made disasters, so that Taiping Province ushered in the first harvest season in nearly five or six years, and now the entire Jiangnan region is in the summer farming season, farmers are busy harvesting ripe rice, and then ploughing the fields and sowing autumn rice.

And if the second half of this year is also smooth, then Taiping Mansion can be regarded as a real harvest year this year!

Agricultural production has been the top priority since ancient times, and it is even more so for contemporary China, how to say it, the Chinese Empire can have no guns or artillery, the big deal is that it can't win the war, but it can't do without food, because it will cause large-scale famine, and it is a big deal to sign a few unequal treaties if you lose one or two foreign countries, and when you have the strength to start a war, you can take it back, but if you starve tens of millions of people to death in a large-scale famine, it will be irreparable.

Therefore, even though Bi Xuanxi is an official who is known for being good at industry and commerce, since he became the prefect of Taiping Prefecture, most of his energy has actually been focused on agricultural production, and ensuring the food and clothing of the people in the province is his primary job.

Now that the farming season is busy, he has naturally become even busier, personally going to the countryside to inspect and urge some grassroots officials below to do a good job in farming.

Lian ran outside for several days, and when he returned to the prefect's yamen in Dangtu, his whole body was tanned!

The outside inspection did not find any major problems, the busy agricultural work in the counties is proceeding smoothly, perhaps stimulated by the rare harvest this year, the gentry of the following counties are more actively involved in the restoration of the water conservancy project organized by the prefect and yamen.

Some donated, and some mobilized villagers of their own ethnic groups to participate in voluntary labor to dig and dredge water canals.

After the autumn, the entire county water conservancy project will be on the agenda, and according to the existing plan, the official investment will not be too large, just as an organization, the excavation of the canal is excavated by the villagers themselves, and the food during the construction period will generally be donated by the local gentry and wealthy businessmen, and the government yamen only paid about 5,000 yuan in the early stage.

While Bi Xuanxi and other local officials were busy with summer harvest farming, officials from the Ministry of Finance were also busy preparing to collect summer taxes.

Although the agricultural tax is no longer absolutely dominant in the tax system of the Chinese Empire on paper, it is still very important, and in economically developed areas, such as Jiangsu Province (excluding trade zones), although salt tea and commercial taxes occupy the lion's share, agricultural taxes still account for about 30% of the share.

In some areas where the industrial and commercial economy is not very developed, the agricultural tax occupies the lion's share, for example, the agricultural tax in Taiping Province can account for more than 60 percent of the entire tax revenue.

In the entire area of the Chinese Empire, agricultural taxes would account for about 40 percent of all tax revenues.

The agricultural tax is so important, so it's no wonder that the officials of the Ministry of Finance don't pay attention to the collection of the summer tax!

As early as June, the finance departments at all levels of the finance department, the finance department, and the finance department were already grinding their fists, and they were already prepared in advance before the summer harvest began.

Now that the summer harvest has just begun, those grassroots officials of the Ministry of Finance have already gone to the countryside and villages to officially start the collection of summer taxes. (To be continued......)