In addition to the development of the raw silk industry itself, the collection of so many taxes in the raw silk industry is also related to the very severe crackdown on smuggling in the trade zone.

In order to control smuggling, the trade zone requires that the relevant transactions of commercial banks, companies and manufacturers engaged in the raw silk industry must be reported, and at the same time, the Shanghai Raw Silk Chamber of Commerce in order to control the price of raw silk and raise the export price of raw silk and create greater profit margins for the entire raw silk industry, it is also strictly controlled the price of each raw silk transaction of the members of the Chamber of Commerce and recorded.

The law enforcement department of the trade zone is also strictly monitoring these transactions, you must know that the raw silk transactions in these years are all large transactions, especially the export trade between silk reeling factories and foreign banks, which are all one-time transactions of hundreds of bags or even thousands of bags, according to the price of each package of raw silk ranging from 300 taels to 400 taels, the amount of each transaction is as little as tens of thousands of taels, and as much as hundreds of thousands or even millions of taels of silver.

Taking the Shanghai Textile Company as an example, in April, it delivered a total of 4,000 bales of high-quality factory silk to four foreign firms, including Xinde & Co. and Jardine Matheson, with a transaction amount of more than 1.4 million taels of silver and more than 40 tons of silver collected.

It is difficult to escape the monitoring of the law enforcement department of the trade zone for such a large transaction, you must know that in order to ensure the standardization of raw silk transactions in the trade zone, and at the same time ensure that the taxes of the raw silk industry can be collected, but there is a special 'raw silk supervision department' under the industrial and commercial department.

In this way, the tax rate in the raw silk industry can be said to be relatively heavy, generally reaching more than 10 percent, but despite this, the profit margin left for foreign banks and domestic raw silk manufacturers is still very large.

This can be seen from the fact that many commercial banks with strong capital continue to invest in the construction of the machine qì silk reeling factory, and the profits in it are still quite rich.

As a royal industry, the Shanghai textile company, in recent years, has invested in the construction of five branches, four of which have been built and put into operation, if there is no huge profits, Shanghai textile company will not invest a lot of money, and then build a fifth branch.

It's just that the Shanghai Textile Company is not the only one that wants to make a fortune, there are many wealthy families engaged in the raw silk industry, and the former Lin family is just one of them.

After the popularity of silk mills, many commercial houses, especially traditional raw silk firms, quickly gave up the handicraft workshop model and invested in the construction of machine qì silk reeling factories, such as the Baofeng silk reeling factory that Feng Baocai applied for before, which was jointly invested and built by several large raw silk firms in Huzhou.

Numerous silk reeling factories have sprung up, and although their goods are still not marketable, the competition with each other is also increasing, and the competition for a small number of high-quality exporters is also relatively strict.

Although there are countless foreign companies that go to Shanghai every year to buy raw silk, but there are also good ones, some of them are big commercial banks to ensure a stable supply of goods, and the domestic raw silk companies to establish a stable long-term cooperative relationship, generally given a more favorable price, such as Xinde foreign company to purchase Shanghai textile company's high-grade raw silk, its price is one to two percentage points more than the minimum price of the raw silk chamber of commerce, don't look at one or two percentage points of small amount, but the raw silk trade is often millions of taels of silver, This percentage point is a profit of tens of thousands of taels of silver.

These oceanic banks are not bad money owners, and the payment is very happy, often handing over the money with one hand and delivering the goods with the other, and directly delivering dozens of tons of cash as payment.

If the raw silk merchant itself does not have enough strength, then it is difficult to establish a preferential trading relationship with these ocean banks, and even an equal trading relationship is difficult, as the so-called shop bully, you only take a hundred bags of raw silk and want to do business with Xingde foreign companies, people are tens of thousands of taels per minute, are too lazy to dump you.

Therefore, the small domestic raw silk merchants either sell their goods to small and medium-sized foreign companies, or simply resell a top commercial house such as the Shanghai Textile Company.

In the contemporary raw silk industry, although there are enough customers, but there are also good and bad customers, and now the silk reeling factories are competing for these high-quality customers, especially Xingde Foreign Company, Jardine Matheson Foreign Company, these super-large-scale strength foreign companies.

Although the Shanghai Textile Company managed by Feng Baocai started early, and there are already four silk reeling machine factories under its command that are in operation, there are too many rich people in the business area, and they are not soft at all when they throw money at all. In this case, Shanghai Textile Company is also facing the pursuit of many silk reeling factories step by step.

If you are not careful, you will lose the status of the industry boss, and without the status of the industry boss, you will occupy a disadvantageous position when bargaining with major foreign banks in the future, which Lin Shenbian cannot tolerate.

However, a large number of wealthy businessmen carried funds into the raw silk industry, and after the construction of a large number of machine reeling silk factories, it also directly led to the development of other industries, not to mention the service industry, among which the more important is due to the rapid increase in silk reeling factories, these silk reeling factories can all use machine equipment, once broken, they can not be dismantled back to Europe for maintenance.

Therefore, there have been several specialized machine factories in the business area, and if nothing else, they will repair the machines for those silk reeling factories.

Among them, the best development is the joint venture of Xinde & Co. and Lin's Commercial Bank, Linde Machinery Company, which recruited a large number of senior technicians from Europe, not only repairing machines, but also trying to build their own steam engines and textile machines.

At the beginning of the year, they imitated a loom, although the performance and foreign imported products are lagging behind, but it is cheaper, Linde Machinery Company focuses on the price war, and the price of the loom is reduced to only about seventy percent of imported products.

Some small and medium-sized textile enterprises with poor funds have begun to purchase their looms tentatively.

As for the steam engine, a more technical high-tech product, those foreign engineers of Linde Machinery Company led a group of workers to work on it for a year or two, although it was said that a prototype was made at the end of last year, but the stability and efficiency were really unsatisfactory, and they could not be put into the market at all, and now they are still working hard.

Why has it been done for so long, and it has failed several times, and it still invests in the research and development of steam engines, which has nothing to do with the revitalization of national industry and the revival of the country, it is purely driven by interests.

You must know that now the steam engine market in China and even the entire Far East is a blank, can only be imported from Europe, if Linde Machinery Company can take the lead in manufacturing qualified steam engines, with the price advantage can quickly seize a large number of markets.

Not to mention anything else, just the warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy, the marine steam engine required by commercial ships is a huge market, as long as Linde Machinery Company can get the steam engine out, the Admiralty will immediately place an order without saying a word!

In the face of huge market prospects and huge profits, Xinde Foreign Company, another major shareholder of Linde Machinery Company, was more active than Lin's Commercial Bank, and was eager to immediately build a steam engine to create huge profits for them.

Although there was an accident in the fifth branch, and the loss was not small, Lin Shenbian still handed over the report, but within two days, he received a notice that Pan Lixuan, the director of the finance department of the palace affairs department and the helmsman of the entire royal industry, would arrive in Shanghai, and it was expected that many people in charge of the royal industry would be convened for a meeting.

After Lin Shenbian learned about this, he had a trace of doubt in his heart, although the accident at the fifth branch was a bit strict, but it would not alarm Pan Lixuan, the big man.

Could it be that Pan Lixuan did not come to Shanghai because of the Fifth Branch, but for other things?

Lin Shenbian waited with some apprehension for Pan Lixuan's arrival, and Pan Lixuan had just disembarked from a transport ship of the navy at this time, and then led a group of people straight to the government of the business district.

Although the headquarters of the Finance Department of the Palace Affairs Department is in Nanjing, since most of the royal family's industries are located in Shanghai, it also sets up a branch office in the business area.

This branch is located in the government of the Business District.

The commercial district government complex has already begun to be divided with Nanjing, the capital of the Chinese Empire, and the original Lin Ze's official residence continues to be retained by the imperial family as the official residence of the imperial family in Shanghai.

The original buildings on the left and right, the one on the right continues to be used by the government of the business district, and the building on the left is used by the Susong Taidao government.

However, many central departments have set up branches here, such as the Shanghai Finance Bureau under the Ministry of Finance, the Shanghai Industry and Commerce Bureau under the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and the Finance Office of the Imperial Household Agency also set up a Shanghai branch here.

For example, the Navy's First Fleet Headquarters has been located on the north bank of Suzhou Creek in the commercial and trade zone, and the headquarters of the Navy's First Fleet Headquarters and the Royal Army's Seventh Infantry Division Headquarters have been directly moved into the barracks in the northeast of Shanghai County.

Some other military branches, such as the Shanghai office of the Ordnance Department and the Shanghai office of the Quartermaster Department, are all selected from their own locations.

After arriving at the Shanghai branch of the Finance Department of the Imperial Household Agency, Pan Lixuan first took time to visit Xue Huan of Susong Taidao and then visited Xiao Changzhong, the head of the business district.

Among these two people, Xue Huan was a former high-ranking official of the Qing Dynasty who took refuge in Lin Zhe early, in traditional terms, he was an early minister of the dragon, and after the establishment of the empire, he still served as the most critical Taoist of Su Songtai, the most critical Taoist in the Chinese Empire.

Nowadays, although the territory of the Chinese Empire has expanded a lot, and there are also provincial-level institutions, there are still no provincial-level officials, and the governors of Jiangsu and Zhejiang are vacant, and the central government directly governs the provinces below.

Among the provinces of southern Anhui, southern Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, the most critical of them is naturally Susong Taidao, which alone maintains the life of the Chinese Empire and contributes the vast majority of taxes.

Speaking of simple taxation, the entire Zhejiang Province is not as much as Songjiang Prefecture, which is subordinate to Su Song Taidao.

And Pan Lixuan naturally would not despise Xue Huan, who was Su Song Taidao.

As for Xiao Changzhong, the head of the business district, although he was born as a comprador in a foreign bank, he went from an ordinary clerk of the general affairs office of the business district to the general office, and then was appointed by Lin Zhe as the first head of the business district, in charge of the only industrial city in the Chinese Empire and even the entire Far East, and the business and trade zone under his rule supplied nearly half of the military expenses and all ordnance of the Chinese Empire.

It can be seen that this person is also a non-negligible existence in the civil system of the Chinese Empire.

Although he Pan Lixuan is at the helm of the entire royal industry, he is also polite to them.

After visiting these two people successively, he summoned the heads of various enterprises in the royal industry, including Qin Shenyun, general manager of Linde Machinery Factory, Lin Shenbian, general manager of Shanghai Textile Company, Shi Ding, general manager of Shanghai Shipyard, Cheng Tongjian, general manager of Linde Machinery Company, and others.

After everyone sat down, Pan Lixuan was the first to speak: "The reason why I called all the busy people here is because if we want to report many things, our finance department has a big move in the near future, which requires the strong cooperation of various industries!" ”

"Big move?" Lin Shenbian relieved his heart, it seems that Pan Lixuan did not come because of the matter of the fifth branch, but what was the big move in his mouth?

I only heard Pan Lixuan continue: "Many days ago, the Ministry of Finance presented a request to His Majesty to set up an official bank. His Majesty has approved this plan, but although the Ministry of Finance has a set of money and money, it is clueless how to deal with banks and businesses, and you all know that the empire does not respect government-run enterprises, so after considering many parties, this bank is run by our Finance Department! ”

"Open a bank?" Lin Shen was a little puzzled when he heard this, the predecessor of the royal industry, Lin's Commercial Bank, no matter from that point of view, he is an industrial enterprise, whether it is the main raw silk industry or the ordnance industry involved in recent years, or machinery manufacturing, shipbuilding industry, etc., these are all serious industries, but they have nothing to do with the financial industry.

If you want to open a bank, you have to be the money banks in the business area, and the foreign banks can do it, and you have to let a group of industrialists in the royal industry change their careers to start a bank. (To be continued.) )