On December 10, after two days of purchases, telegrams were sent from all over the country to report on the purchase of cotton, Xiao Zhenlei asked people to sort out the telegram, and the number of purchases mentioned in the telegram was summarized and calculated, and learned that a total of 1.2 million stones of cotton were purchased in these two days, and the highest purchase price was 4 taels of silver and one stone.

According to Xiao Zhenlei sent people to investigate the national cotton production in previous years, the highest output was only 465,000 tons, calculated according to 160 catties of one stone, that is, 5.8 million stones, and Xiao Zhenlei purchased about one-fifth of the output in two days, and now the country's main cotton-producing areas are in the North China Plain, Central China, East China, and the cotton output in these areas accounts for the vast majority of the country's cotton production. On the one hand, there is a shortage of manpower, and on the other hand, there is not much cotton elsewhere.

Before Xiao Zhenlei began to start a cotton purchase war with foreign merchants, the price of cotton was only two taels of silver per stone, although the price was different from place to place, but the difference was not very big, and the price rose to four taels in just two days, which made foreign merchants unbearable.

After the start of the purchase war, cotton farmers found that the price continued to rise, except for some cotton farmers who were anxious to use money, or worried about the decline in cotton prices and sold the cotton in their hands, other cotton farmers still have some inventory in their hands, in fact, to December this time period, the purchase of cotton has actually entered the end, cotton farmers have only a small amount of cotton in their hands, most of this year's cotton is concentrated in the hands of small traders in the middle or slightly larger cotton merchants in the middle. It is not easy to buy cotton from these people, and these middlemen are very shrewd and sensitive. Many cotton middlemen have seen that the price of cotton will definitely continue to rise. These middle generals covered the cotton tightly in their hands, waiting for the cotton price to continue to rise.

After two days of price wars, the foreign businessmen could not stand it, and the price of cotton has risen to 6 taels of silver and one stone, which is more than two cups higher than the initial price, and if you want to continue to buy cotton, the cost will be more than twice as much as in the past.

Ward Road Villa, study.

Xiao Zhenlei asked: "How is the cotton purchase in the past two days?" ”

Cheng Yusheng said: "I collected 400,000 stones yesterday, and I have collected 330,000 stones so far today. It's a total of 730,000 stones, plus the 1.2 million stones collected last time, for a total of 1,930,000 stones, but we don't know how much the foreigners have collected for the time being."

Xiao Zhenlei got up and smoked a cigarette, "The foreigners have only collected 1.08 million stone so far, much less than what we charged, hum, the cash flow of all the banks on the beach in Shanghai has been drained, I see where they can get money to continue the price war with me." Where to get money to continue to collect, send people to keep an eye on the every move of those foreign businessmen, and report it immediately if there is any situation! ”

"Understood!" Cheng Yusheng nodded.

In fact, the cotton produced in China at this time was not enough for its own use, because the Chinese population was much larger than that of other countries. Every year, they have to export cotton overseas, because the price of exported cotton is higher than that sold at home, and cotton merchants naturally want to make more money.

And the opposite is true. China also imports cotton yarn and cloth from abroad every year, because of the large Chinese population. Lack of fabric, if not imported cotton yarn and cloth from abroad. More than half of the people have no clothes to wear. Take 1910 in history as an example, China's largest import value is cotton textiles, imported cotton 2.282 million stones, the total value of 62.83 million taels of silver (customs silver), the average price of one stone is 27.53 guan silver, the price of cotton in the country is only more than two taels, this out of an in, into cotton yarn on the price of ten times. In addition to cotton yarn, 17 million pieces of cotton cloth were also imported, with a total value of 6,785 taels of silver, and the average price of each horse was 3.99 taels.

If the cotton to be exported in China is intercepted at a price higher than that of foreign merchants, and cotton yarn and cotton cloth are produced in China, the foreigners will not make a tenfold price difference. But this is not the case, not that no one sees this, even if there is a see, but it cannot be realized, because the scale and technology of the domestic textile industry can not be compared with foreign countries, on the one hand, because the production cost of cotton yarn and cotton cloth is much higher than that of foreign businessmen because of the production machine and technical reasons, on the other hand, because due to textile technology, the quality of foreign cloth and foreign yarn is better than that of domestic cotton cloth and cotton yarn, and it is more beautiful and good-looking, the price is also lower, and the competitiveness in the market is greater. Of course, the common people like high-quality and inexpensive foreign cloth and foreign yarn, so for a long time, the domestic textile industry has been hit hard, and it is no wonder that Cheng Yusheng's textile factory will be on the verge of closure.

Xiao Zhenlei didn't plan to produce these hoarded cotton in the country at all, this is unrealistic, there is not such a large textile scale in China to digest these cotton, and the cotton yarn and cotton cloth produced are not as good as foreign cloth, and they must not compete with foreign cloth, these cotton will eventually be exported to foreign countries, but the price can not be decided by foreigners, it must be decided by him, this is his purpose, the previous cotton merchants control the source of goods in their own countries, but they can't set their own prices, What Xiao Zhenlei has to do now is to concentrate the source of goods that the cotton merchants used to decentralize and control, and take back the pricing power of the export price from the foreigners, forcing the foreigners to give in, of course, the price of cotton exports is finally set at what price, this is not how much he Xiao Zhenlei wants, this is determined by market demand, what Xiao Zhenlei has to do is not to be controlled by foreigners The absolute pricing power.

Xiao Zhenlei smoked a cigarette and walked to the window to look at the delicacy outside the window, and said: "According to the current situation, in the next few days, there will definitely be less and less cotton in hand, those middlemen are not fools, they still have a lot of cotton in their hands, and they will definitely not shoot lightly, what we have to do is that no matter what price the foreigners offer, our bid must be higher than them, so that they can't receive cotton, they must bid higher than us if they want to receive cotton." But we must not budge! This time, we will take the export pricing power of cotton into our own hands, and we will take back the export pricing power of raw silk in the future. We can't let foreigners invade us economically! ”

Cheng Yusheng only listened to the blood boiling, as if he was dozens of years younger. His face was ruddy, and he nodded, "Understood!" ”

The French Concession, a residential area for foreigners.

In the living room of a luxurious villa sat seven or eight people, all foreign merchants engaged in the textile business in Shanghai, not only the British, but also the French, Germans, Italians, Japanese, and Russians.

Xavier, a French cotton merchant, was a stocky old man, dressed in a dignified suit and a bow tie around his neck, looking a gentleman. I saw him stomp on the floor with the civilization staff in his hand and said fiercely: "Everyone, you all know the situation in the past few days, right? There are some poor Chinese who want to challenge our authority, want to control the source of cotton, so as to control the right to speak, what are we doing these days? Fighting separately, the firepower is scattered, and it is not the opponent of the other party at all, as far as I know, it was Xiao Zhenlei of Zhenhua Company who launched this acquisition war. I've already sent someone to investigate this in detail! Do we want the yellow-skinned monkeys to snatch the right to speak from us? ”

"Ahem! Ahem! Kenji Matsushita, the manager of Tomian Bank, coughed twice.

Xavier suddenly realized when he saw it, and hurriedly apologized: "I'm sorry Mr. Matsushita, I didn't mean to target the Japanese, the yellow-skinned monkey I said is from the Qing Kingdom." Not Japanese! ”

Kenji Matsushita heard this, his face looked a little better, and he also hated Xiao Zhenlei to the core, when Xiao Zhenlei held a bidding meeting in Xiao Mansion. And at the cocktail party, he insulted them that Dongmian Foreign Bank was not doing its job properly, and was engaged in the cotton textile business, but went to participate in the bidding reception of the machinery manufacturing industry. It made him feel a great humiliation for this stubble. He has always been obsessed, and now that he finally has the opportunity to be ashamed, of course he is not willing to let go, there are so many powerful foreign businessmen here, he feels that this is an excellent opportunity to kill Xiao Zhenlei.

Kenji Matsushita nodded and said: "Mr. Xavier is right, more than 20 years ago, our predecessors launched a business war, united to defeat Hu Xueyan, a red-topped businessman of the Qing State at that time, and firmly grasped the right to speak in the textile export industry of the Qing Kingdom. Are we inferior to our predecessors? I believe that as long as we work together, we will be able to defeat Xiao Zhenlei, he will be like Hu Xueyan back then, and in the end, the behemoth of Zhenhua Company will collapse! ”

Ralph, a British businessman, said, "What is the purpose of our coming here today?" Before receiving Mr. Xavier's invitation, I knew his intentions, if I don't agree I will rush over, Xiao Zhenlei uses Zhenhua Company as a backer, with strong capital, none of us can compete with him, and now we can only deal with him by joining forces, what do you think? ”

German businessman Kane shrugged his shoulders and said, "I don't have any opinion!" ”

Russian businessman Vallovsky spread his hands: "I agree!" ”

Holland, an Italian businessman, smoked a cigar and asked, "So what are we going to do?" ”

Everyone looked at the French businessman Xavier, who initiated this alliance cooperation, and he must have thought of some good countermeasures.

Xavier sat up straight and said: "I think we can do it in two steps at the same time, first, divide the cotton production area into regions, each of us will divide the area, each of us will purchase cotton in this area, and jointly raise the purchase price, this price we must reach an agreement and unity, because we ourselves can not fight among ourselves, only to achieve the purchase price unity can ensure this!" ”

With that, Xavier looked at the others, and everyone present began to weigh up, and soon everyone nodded in agreement.

Subsequently, Xavier said: "Second, we can ask the Qing officials to help, let the Qing government in various places post notices, and let cotton farmers and cotton merchants go to our purchase location to sell cotton, I think in a country like the Qing State, the people at the bottom cannot ignore the requirements of the government!" ”

Ralph, a British businessman, nodded when he heard this: "Yes, yes, this method is good, I believe that as long as we use this method, we will soon be able to complete our acquisition!" What do you think? ”

Several other people looked at each other and nodded, indicating that this method was feasible, anyway, the Qing court was cowardly, and the local officials were even more afraid when they saw the foreigners, as long as they came forward to greet them loudly, I believe that the local officials of the Qing court would not lose face.

Seeing that everyone present agreed, Xavier stood up with his wine glass and said: "Okay, since you have no opinion, then it is decided at this time, now we will raise a glass together to wish us success, as for the details, we will discuss it in detail later!" ”

"Okay, cheers!"

"Cheers!"

The next night, the merchants gathered here again, and everyone had a smile on their faces that they had heard the good news, and after they began to move, these two tricks did work well.

???????

Xiao Mansion.

"Jingle bells—jingle bells—" The phone rang in the evening.

Xiao Zhenlei had just come back from outside, and when he entered the study, he heard the phone ringing, and he walked over to pick up the phone: "Hey? What the? Okay, you can count a few places where this happens, okay, I see! ”

After putting down the phone, Xiao Zhenlei's face was so gloomy that he was about to drip water, he didn't expect that the foreign businessmen over there would greet the government in various places, and let the government come forward to post notices everywhere, and the notices asked the cotton farmers to pull the cotton to the purchase points set up by the foreign businessmen to buy, and many officials did not want to offend the foreigners and agreed, after the notices were posted, there were really many ordinary people who were afraid that the government would find trouble and did not dare to offend the government, and sold the cotton to the cotton purchase points set up by the foreigners.

Fortunately, the cotton purchase points set up by foreign merchants in various places are good, and they hurriedly sent people to set up points in various places after the panic buying war began, and Xiao Zhenlei planned and then moved, and prepared a qiē before launching the battle, and he had an absolute advantage in this point.

The current situation is not the worst for Xiao Zhenlei, before that, he had long expected that the acquisition war would be very tragic, and there must be a lot of setbacks, but he did not expect that the foreign businessmen would use this method to let the government come forward to issue a notice to encourage the people to sell cotton to foreign merchants, this trick is quite powerful.

Xiao Zhenlei thought about it for a long time, and he thought of a way, but he was not sure whether this method could save the situation, but it was not okay to do nothing. (To be continued......) R1292