Haihe Industrial Zone, located in the southern suburbs of Tianjin, on both sides of the Haihe River, that is, the historical Tianjin Nine-Country Concession area, covers an area of about 4,000 acres, and the general scope is all or part of the historical Japanese Concession, French Concession, British Concession, American Concession, Italian Concession and Russian Concession.

Its total area is much larger than the original Shanghai Business Zone.

Of course, it is impossible to directly develop all such a large place, Tianjin intends to develop the northern area first, that is, part of the area close to the county seat of Tianjin, that is, the historical Japan, the French concession, and the area on the north bank of the Haihe River is also a key development area, because the north bank of the Haihe River is the Tianjin Railway Station station of the southern section of the Tangjin Railway.

In order to cooperate with the development, the new governor of Zhili Province, the Yamen of Tianjin Prefecture, and many other official institutions will be relocated to the Haihe Industrial Zone in the south.

At the same time, in order to improve the navigation capacity of the main stream of the Haihe River from Tianjin urban area to Dagu Estuary, a large-scale renovation will be carried out in the lower reaches of the Haihe River, and efforts will be made to allow larger tonnage sea vessels to reach Tianjin urban area directly along the Haihe River from Dagu Estuary.

At the same time, a large bridge will be built across the Haihe River to connect the north and south banks of the Haihe River

The planning of the industrial zone is very huge, not only for the development of industry, but also the construction of a new industrial city planning, very similar to the later Yuan Shikai in Tianjin to carry out a new deal to establish the Beihe New City flavor.

Therefore, Hai Ha Industrial Park is not just an industrial zone, but also a brand new city!

Tianjin wants to build the Haihe Industrial Zone into a new industrial and commercial economic center in Shanghai, the north.

In order to plan the city, the core of the early development of the Haihe Industrial Zone was the Northern Arms Company as the core. In turn, it will drive the development of heavy industry, and the light industry is dominated by several newly built cotton spinning enterprises.

Among them, it is worth paying attention to: The North Coal & Iron Company has been preparing to build a steel plant in Tianjin's Haihe Industrial Zone, although the Tianjin North Iron and Steel Plant, which is still on paper, is far less designed than Jiangnan Mining's Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Plant and Daye Iron and Steel Plant.

But the North Coal and Iron Company is different from the Jiangnan Mining Company. Jiangnan Mining Company is a wholly-owned enterprise of the royal industry, with a strong official background, to some extent it can be said to be a state-owned enterprise of the Chinese Empire, its development is supported by many policies of the state, and there is never a need to worry about the capital, because there is a large royal bank to provide financial support.

However, the North Coal and Iron Company is a pure private enterprise that has only been established in recent years, first from the merger of several small and medium-sized coal mines in Luanzhou, and then acquired a small iron mine in Ma'anshan and other coal mines and iron mines.

Its follow-up development funds mainly come from the issuance of additional share capital. Didn't rely on loans like Jiangnan Mining Company!

Since the establishment of Zibei Coal and Iron Company, it has successively carried out four additional issuance of equity capital for financing, and has raised more than 8 million yuan in cash alone.

As a result of multiple financings, the company's shares are quite dispersed, and some wealthy families in China more or less control some of the shares, but the majority is controlled by various financial institutions, such as those banks and banks.

Even the foreign-owned HSBC Bank has a 4% stake in the company!

Although the shares are quite scattered, the company's founder, Shang Haijing, the former general manager of Luanzhou North Coal Mining Company, has always firmly controlled the management of the company, and his own stake in the North Coal and Iron Company is only 8 percent. But it was under his leadership that the Northern Coal and Iron Company got to where it is today, even to the point where it could try to challenge the steelmaking field of Jiangnan Mining Company, so many shares are in favor of Shang Haijing's management rights, such as HSBC, which occupies 4% of the company's shares. It's his supporters.

This time, the investment and construction of 'Tianjin North Iron and Steel Plant' in Tianjin Haihe Industrial Zone is a strategic transformation made by Shang Haijing for North Coal and Iron Company.

In the past, although the Northern Coal and Iron Company hung the word coal and iron, it basically only had the development of coal and iron ore, and Lian Iron and Steel was not involved. The iron ore they mined was basically sold to the Jiangnan Mining Company.

The establishment of Tianjin North Iron and Steel Plant is of great strategic significance to North Coal and Iron Company. To this end, Shang Haijing intends to invest heavily in capital. The initial investment is as high as 800,000 yuan, and there will be at least 2 million cash investment in the future.

The North Coal and Iron Company spent a huge amount of money to build Tianjin North Iron and Steel Plant, which naturally has their own considerations!

Nowadays, the consumption of steel within the empire is increasing day by day, not to mention other aspects, but the demand for steel by railroad alone is a huge market, and it is also a huge market that cannot be met by the two steel mills under the Jiangnan Mining Company

You must know that the empire has built the Xuzhou Railway, and at the same time, the China Railway Company is still building the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway and the Zhuping Railway.

Not long ago, China Railway Corporation has officially announced the preparation for the construction of the Tangjin Railway!

The Northern Coal and Iron Company had already contacted the China Railway Company early and participated in the bidding of the Tangjin Railway, relying on their geographical advantages, their quotation was at least eight percentage points lower than the rail quotation provided by the Jiangnan Mining Company, and if the Tangjin Railway chose the rails of the Northern Coal and Iron Company, this alone would be enough to save them hundreds of thousands of yuan.

It is precisely because of the track order of the Tangjin Railway that the Northern Coal and Iron Company has the confidence to invest more than 2 million yuan in the construction of a steel plant.

If the Tianjin North Iron and Steel Plant, which is under construction, can be successfully completed, it will become the first private steel plant in the empire.

When it was learned that the North Coal and Iron Company had invested in the construction of a steel plant, the third largest mining company in China, the Nanyang Mining Company, had also spent a lot of money to obtain the mining rights of Tiandu Iron Ore from Qiongzhou Prefecture in Guangdong Province, but they did not plan to build the steel plant for the time being.

After all, although the Nanyang Mining Company is also known as the three major mining enterprises in China, but in fact it is a small generation, the company was only established in 1861, and the beginning of the establishment was to compete for the coal resources in northern Vietnam, but because of the rich value of its shareholders, sufficient cash reserves, after obtaining the mineral mining rights in North Aki, Vietnam, it has successively acquired some domestic coal mines, iron ore, steel mines, etc.

However, in the end, the time is too short, at present they are still in the early stage of entrepreneurship, is the layout of mineral mining, as for the steel industry, the need for large funds, and the technical requirements are very high, without sufficient preparation, only money can not be played.

The rapid development of the two privately-funded mining enterprises, the North Coal and Iron Company and the Nanyang Mining Company, far exceeded the expectations of the Jiangnan Mining Company.

At present, these three companies have formed a fierce competition in the two major fields of coal and iron ore, especially in coal, which is very competitive.

The fierce competition between the three companies in the coal market directly led to the fluctuation of domestic coal prices, even if the domestic demand for coal was very large, and even the supply of high-quality coal was in short supply, but in the fourth quarter of 1861, in the coal market in Shanghai, the CIF price of coal did not increase significantly as expected, but showed a stable trend.

This is definitely not normal for Shanghai's coal market, because the fourth quarter is winter, and the demand for coal for home heating will increase further, and at the same time, the price should have risen due to the large number of factories and ships that need coal for steam engines.

But in the fourth quarter, it didn't rise!

From this point of view, it can be seen that the competition among the three major domestic mining companies in the coal market is already relatively fierce.

However, although this kind of competition is not a good thing for Jiangnan Mining Company, it is a good thing for the entire empire.

This is not to say that competition will produce the impetus for progress, but because the current domestic coal and steel production capacity is too small, and the domestic coal supply is still mainly dependent on imported coal, and the foreseeable next few years, the domestic demand for coal and steel will be greater.

If there is not enough domestic production to meet the needs of industrial production, then it will have a great negative impact on the industrial development of the empire.

Even in order to reflect the Empire's welcoming attitude towards private capital investment in heavy industry, the Imperial Cabinet further introduced a series of preferential policies.

And very importantly, the Royal Bank also announced in a timely manner that it will increase its lending to non-royal industrial enterprises!

The strength of Royal Bank, the country's largest, if not the only national bank, is unquestionable.

Although the bank's own assets are not much, it has depositors' funds is very terrifying, the bank manages the national tax and local government tax deposit business, and the bank that pays the salaries of state employees and soldiers, these two alone are enough to keep the bank's cash reserves at more than 200 million yuan all year round.

At the same time, the bank also accepts deposits from the private sector, so much so that the amount of cash held by this bank is very terrifying.

However, as a royal bank, although its operation model is a business model, it is still greatly influenced by the government, and the loans issued are basically national tasks.

For example, in the case of railways, the Royal Bank has issued a total of nearly 20 million loans to Chinese railway companies, and will also issue loans to the three major arms companies to expand production capacity and develop new weapons.

Then Qingdao Naval Shipyard, Shanghai Shipyard, the same royal industrial investment, Guangzhou Shipyard is still in the construction stage, and so on.

The number of loans obtained by these enterprises related to national defense and security is very large, starting from one million at random and more than 10 million.

In addition to these corporate loans, the Royal Bank has in fact undertaken a large number of loans for infrastructure. (To be continued.) )