According to the arrangement of the Executive Committee and relevant units, there will be several product promotion meetings with different contents on this day. In addition to the fist product promotion meeting jointly organized by various production departments and commercial and trade supervisory units, there is also an additional promotion meeting for school-age children's education courses organized by the education department and specially aimed at trade objects, as well as an arms product exhibition held by the newly established "Haihan Military Industry", of course, this is only a special promotion meeting for individual customers, and not everyone can go. In addition, there is also the most eye-catching, but set the entry threshold of the "Qiong Lianfa" development project briefing.

When "Qiong Lianfa" was preparing for its establishment in Guangzhou, it had already caused a lot of fluctuations in the local business circle. There has never been such a precedent for organizing so many wealthy businessmen together to form a large commercial bank with a cross-provincial business scope. Of course, many outsiders do not know that the investment direction of "Qionglianfa" is not in the two provinces of Fuguang in the mainland, but on Qiongzhou Island, which hangs overseas. And the scale of investment will be unprecedented in history.

In the specially arranged conference room, the 12 shareholders of "Qiong Lianfa" sat around the bar conference table, looking at the two huge maps that Tao Donglai and Schneider had just hung on the wall.

The map on the left is easy to recognize, clearly showing the main towns on the island, including the port of Shengli where everyone is now. The map on the right is relatively unfamiliar to many people, on this map covering almost the entire Southeast Asian region, Qiongzhou Island is just a small piece of land in the center of the map, north to Songjiang Province, east to the Philippine Islands, south to Java Island, west to the Indian subcontinent, this map depicts an area beyond the range of those people who have been farthest they have been, that is, Batavia (now Jakarta) on the island of Java. As for the area west of the Straits of Malacca, for those of you here, it is only fragmentary information obtained from various rumors.

Although the great eunuch Zheng He made seven trips to the West during the Yongle period, he had already been to places far away from this map, and the place where Zheng He died in the eighth year of Xuande was even far away on the west coast of India, but for the Ming people two hundred years later, it was already an unattainable world.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you have seen some of the local infrastructure facilities in the past two days, and I believe you have a preliminary understanding of Shengli Port. But I think many people may not understand why we set the investment zone of Qionglianfa on Qiongzhou Island, rather than the mainland area with better development status. Tao Donglai raised his hand and pointed to the map behind him: "I believe everyone is already familiar with these two maps, and today I want to combine the map to give you a general explanation of the future development ideas of 'Qiong Lianfa'." ”

"All of you here are maritime merchants who have been running the sea for many years, and I would like to remind you of a question first, where does the largest trade volume between Tongguò and Daming come from?" Without waiting for everyone to answer, Tao Donglai announced the answer on his own: "It is from those countries on the western Europa continent, they have traveled thousands of miles, risked their lives to come to Daming, buy back Daming specialties and ship them back to their home countries to make huge profits." From the perspective of making money, in fact, there is no fundamental difference between Western maritime merchants and all of you here, everyone works hard for silver. ”

"As you can see from this map, if the western maritime merchants want to reach the Ming Dynasty, there are two shipping routes after coming out of the Strait of Malacca, one is to go to Guangzhou through Guò Annam and pass through Qiongzhou Island, and the other is to go around Guò Borneo, Palawan and Manila. It can be said that no matter which waterway it is, it is full of dangers and hardships for maritime merchants. If now we can move the trading center from Guangzhou to Qiongzhou, or I put it more bluntly, to Shengli Port, then we can see what happens. ”

Tao Donglai said as he marked the routes and voyages of each section on the map with a pen: "You can calculate for yourselves: If we can turn Shengli Harbor into a trading center between the Ming Dynasty and Western countries, then the voyage of Western maritime merchants from the Strait of Malacca will be shortened by at least one-third! If it is a merchant ship that needs to go around Manila and then go to Guangzhou or Fujian, the voyage will be almost doubled! What does this mean? Even if it is only the voyage from Qiongzhou Island to Guangzhou, it will take about 10 days to make a round trip. You all have business at sea, you can imagine if there is such a trading port nearby that can meet the needs of a qiē transaction, then are you willing to risk the sea to go farther away to buy goods of the same quality but more expensive?"

Tao Donglai's last sentence naturally refers to the current zero-tariff policy implemented by Shengli Port. With the guarantee of this policy, the selling price of Daming goods can indeed maintain a lower level than that of foreign trade ports such as Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and the attraction to Western merchants will naturally be higher. However, up to now, Shengli Port has not opened its door to Western maritime merchants, and the traders who come here are basically Daming maritime merchants, who bring in various raw materials or primary processed products, and then buy various industrial products produced locally.

If Western maritime merchants also began to enter the port of Shengli, then it is very likely that the Ming maritime merchants would abandon the distant Batavia and Manila, and directly transport goods to the port of Shengli to trade with Western merchants, after all, whether they are shipped to Manila or Batavia, they will also inevitably be levied by the local government, and the port of victory does not have this drawback that the merchants hate the most.

Tao Donglai looked around at the people present: "Some people may say that the conditions of Qiongzhou Island cannot be compared with the mainland, and most of the things that Western maritime merchants want to buy, Qiongzhou Island does not produce. This is true, in the past, Qiongzhou Island did not produce much, Yazhou was just a place for exiled prisoners, Qiongzhou Island is surrounded by the sea, but even salt is not enough to eat, and a part of it has to be transported from the mainland every year. It's a place that doesn't have much to offer, so no one will run it as a trading port. ”

"But that was in the past, and that changed very quickly since we got here, or since Joan Lianfa started working. Tao Dong stopped here, and Schneider hung a list on the wall next to him.

"This is the main export goods of Daming in the near future, you can confirm whether it is true. Tao Donglai pointed to the list and read: "Silk fabrics, porcelain, books, cotton cloth, cane sugar, medicinal herbs, ......."

Everyone here saw that this list lists more than a dozen common export commodities, which are basically the fields that various shareholders are involved in, and it is not just nonsense from Haihan people.

Tao Donglai continued: "These commodities that Western merchants are interested in can actually be produced on Qiongzhou Island, but no one has organized production before that. I believe that we Haihan were not the first to think of this method, but we must be the first to take this step! The various projects that Qionglianfa wants to operate are to make Qiongzhou Island a maritime trade center between the East and the West, and make it a distribution center for goods from the East and the West. You are all veterans of business for many years, and after the matter is completed, I think you all know how much oil and water there will be in the middle. If you are willing to take out your money to invest in shares, I believe that you are also here for this bright future. ”

A merchant representative asked: "Everything else, how can there be silk fabrics, porcelain, and cotton cloth on Qiongzhou Island?

Tao Donglai responded: "It was true that there was no before, but in fact, except for cotton cloth, everything else can be had." For the information you have in your hands now, please turn to page 4. ”

In front of each delegate was a bound project manual, which was transcribed by the commerce department for several days in order to take care of the reading habits of the Ming people. Everyone opened it and turned to the fourth page according to the words, and saw that the content was "Qiongzhou Island Sericulture Base and Silk Fabric Production Plan". The plan will take two to three years to build a sericulture base on Qiongzhou Island, cultivate sericulture varieties suitable for the local climate, and strive to produce silk fabrics within five years.

The plan details the implementation steps, how to collect silkworm seeds suitable for Qiongzhou's climate from Fujian and other places, how to plant mulberry seeds in the enclosure of Qiongzhou Island, how to screen silkworm seeds, and how to introduce skilled weavers and craftsmen.

While everyone was reading carefully, they heard Tao Dong say: "Page 8 is the production plan of porcelain, you can also take a look at it first." ”

Although Hainan is not famous for producing porcelain in history, in fact, Hainan Island has excellent natural resources, and Qionghai and Wanning on the east coast of Hainan Island are all stored with kaolin mines. The so-called kaolin is a clay mine named after Gaoling Village, Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province, which can basically be regarded as a synonym for porcelain clay. With this thing, there is a basic guarantee of raw materials for the development of the local porcelain industry, and the rest of the work is to build a kiln and introduce technicians. In addition to making zuò ceramics, kaolin can also be used in papermaking, refractories, coatings, cement raw materials, etc., and is very versatile.

As for the fact that the origin of kaolin is still outside the current control range of the group, the executive committee is not worried about this, it is nothing more than silver to open the way, and they take real money to buy worthless soil in the local area, will the officials and people there not cooperate?

As for other export products, it is even less difficult for the group to achieve. Papermaking and printing have now begun to enter the trial operation stage, and mass production of publications will be realized within the year, and the "Haihan Book Company" in Guangzhou will no longer need to buy from other booksellers, and the long-awaited newspaper and periodical media of the propaganda department will also begin to be put into practical use. Sugarcane has already been planted on a large scale in Yalong Bay, and there are further plans for large-scale cultivation in the Yazhou boundary, and harvesting cane sugar is also one of the goals that can be achieved in the near future.

As for the cultivation of medicinal herbs, tea and the like, it is not a problem, the people of the Ministry of Agriculture have not been idle since they crossed, and they have been planting seeds non-stop, and there are at least more than ten varieties of tea trees that have been planted on trial basis. Although the large export of tea to the West only emerged during the Qing Dynasty, the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Agriculture agreed that many marketing techniques could be used to gradually cultivate consumption habits in the potential market, just like the trend of glass products made in the Guangdong market during the year. As long as the means are in place, it is believed that it is not impossible to drive the tea drinking trend in Western countries one or two centuries in advance.

In addition to these goods exported by the Ming to the West, the crossing group also has a huge advantage, and the vast majority of the goods imported by the Ming from the West and Southeast Asia can also be produced locally. For example, all kinds of spices, precious wood, glass products, and even Western munitions, which are in high demand in China, are all produced in Shengli Port, and there is also a supplier from North Vietnam that can provide some special goods that Hainan Island does not have. Some Western goods that used to have to be purchased across the sea to Manila or even as far away as Batavia can now be purchased directly at Victory Harbor.

Speaking of this, Tao Donglai has shown the advantages of "Qiong Lianfa" very clearly, under the form of occupying the innate geographical advantage, if it can produce all kinds of goods needed by the East and the West locally, coupled with the relaxed environment of local trade policies, and the strong guarantee of military defense, then it is only a matter of time before Shengli Port and even Qiongzhou Island evolve into a commercial and trade center in the South China Sea. In the process of the evolution of regional functions, "Qiong Lianfa" will play a great guiding role, at least on the surface, it will be dominated by the investment direction and business projects of "Qiong Lianfa". As for the benefits that will be generated in this process, the big businessmen here can weigh it, and it is not something that can be measured by tens of thousands of taels of silver.

Although the shareholders have participated in several symposiums before this, after coming to Shengli Port this time, combined with the various facts they have seen with their own eyes, and after listening to Tao Donglai's explanation, everyone feels that they have more confidence in the development prospects of "Qiong Lianfa".

Judging from what everyone has seen with their own eyes, at least in Yazhou, in the south of Qiongzhou Island, there will no longer be any strength that can compete with the Haihan people. After the "Qiong Lianfa" began to operate the project locally, its influence was probably second only to the Haihan Executive Committee, and it should still be above the Yazhou government, which has basically become an ornament. What made them feel most excited was that the big pie drawn by the Haihan people was not just a small fight such as reclaiming wasteland and building a few plantations, but all aimed at specific goals, to build various industries that could make a lot of money in the local area. Such a large layout is something that these shareholders who claim to be top wealthy businessmen have never even thought about before.

After cheering up the group, the next step was to be presided over by Schneider, who began to explain the specific operation process of the project to everyone, and launched a public offering to raise funds for the project's operation.

According to the shareholding ratio agreed at the beginning, Haihanfang will be the largest shareholder and automatically hold 50% of the shares of each project, and the remaining 40% will be raised from 12 shareholders. Considering that some projects may not be optimistic to shareholders, if there is a shortage of funds at the end of the IPO, the Haihan side will be responsible for making up for the situation. In addition, in order to avoid shareholders competing for some popular projects, the 40% of the shares will be distributed evenly according to the number of shareholders in the project, and if some of them think that the quota exceeds the number they are willing to subscribe, then the excess part will be distributed to other shareholders who are willing to subscribe.

There are a total of seven IPO projects prepared by the commercial department for "Qiong Lianfa", and the contents are all in the "Project Manual" in the hands of everyone. Among them, there are long-term investments such as the development of sericulture industry on Qiongzhou Island, as well as plans for the ceramic industry that will yield relatively quick results, and there are very practical infrastructure projects such as the "Sanya Inland Port Development Plan", as well as some projects that shareholders find more mysterious, such as the "Shengli Port to Guangzhou Regular Passenger and Cargo Flight Plan".

Even the ceramic industry, which has the least funds for the project plan, has opened a fundraising market of 50,000 taels of silver, of which 25,500 taels are funded by Haihanfang, and the remaining 24,500 taels are competed by 12 shareholders, and the minimum entry threshold is as high as 1,000 taels. Although the cost is high, as a project with obvious benefits, the twelve shareholders have expressed their willingness to participate in the investment, so it only took two minutes to complete the fundraising of this project, and the average distribution is only more than 2,000 taels each, which is not a burden.

The investment period of the project indicated in the plan is half a year, during which "Qiong Lianfa" will organize the construction of porcelain kilns locally, hire technicians from the mainland, complete the production and development of porcelain, and find export channels.

Between the 16th and 18th centuries, Western maritime merchants, led by the Portuguese, Spaniards and Dutch, bought large quantities of porcelain from the Ming Dynasty and shipped them to Europe. In 1603, the armed fleet of the Dutch intercepted a Portuguese merchant ship Santacatarina in the Strait of Malacca, with a total weight of 60 tons and more than 100,000 pieces of porcelain. As the Netherlands replaced Portugal and Spain as maritime supremacy in the Far East in the 17th century, the number of porcelain shipped to Europe by the Dutch East India Company increased dramatically, and according to the surviving archives of the East India Company, in the first half of the 17th century, at least 3 million pieces of porcelain were shipped to Europe by its merchant ships, and more than 20 million pieces of Chinese porcelain were trafficked to Europe throughout the 17th century.

Merchants from both the East and the West would never ignore the very lucrative trade of porcelain. Since the Haihan people can have a way to operate a porcelain industry on Qiongzhou Island, the shareholders will certainly not miss this opportunity to make money in vain. If the qiē goes smoothly, then the money invested in it can be recouped exponentially within the year.

Immediately after the fundraising of the project was completed, an agreement was sent for the shareholders to sign and pledge. As for collecting money, there is no hurry, anyway, there are many projects in the future, and they can be collected together after the discussion. This agreement requires a receipt of the deposit to be effective, so there is no need to worry about anyone evading the ticket