"That's right, one of my former disciples in Haining was named Xu Wenqiang, who was very talented in mathematics, and I came to Shanghai to teach, and he came with him later, you know.

Some time ago, I worked with him to analyze the data of the cloth business and the foreign cloth business over the years, and found a very interesting thing, that is, the import of foreign cloth is increasing, but the speed of retail sales in Shanghai is slowly decreasing.

If this trend continues for a period of time, it will lead to higher and higher inventories of foreign fabrics, but the sales speed will become slower and slower, and eventually the entire business will collapse, resulting in the breakage of the capital chain of many merchants and the formation of a wave of bankruptcy.

Wen Qiang and I discovered this trend, and only then did we understand that a few months ago, the eldest brother tried his best to clean up the inventory, and even did not hesitate to sell the Suzhou industry together, because he judged this trend in advance, and at that time he was full of praise for Brother Zhao's profound mathematical ability and decisiveness.

We think we've guessed Brother Zhao's mind somewhat, don't we?" asked Li Xinlan cautiously.

Zhao Dagui was silent for a while, this amount of information is so big, I don't know how to react.

Li Xinlan used to be a teacher in Haining, Zhejiang Province for a period of time, specializing in teaching mathematics, and later he came to Shanghai to work, and several students followed him to Oriental College, including this named Xu Wenqiang.

It's just that Zhao Dagui doesn't have much contact with this young scholar, mainly because Xu Wenqiang is too handsome, even more handsome than any star Zhao Dagui has ever seen.

However, this is not the point, the key is that Li Xinlan and Xu Wenqiang cooperated and seemed to have done a very remarkable thing.

"Are you saying that you have analyzed the data of the cloth business over the years, combined with the sales of foreign cloth, and found that the foreign cloth business may lead to the closure of many commercial houses through purely mathematical methods?" Zhao Dagui thought for a moment and asked uncertainly.

"Yes. Li Xinlan nodded and replied.

"How did you do it, what formula did you use, and how did you calculate it?" Zhao Dagui hurriedly asked with countless questions popping up in his mind.

"It's very simple to do, analyze the cloth business data over the years, and deduce the annual cloth sales curve by month, which is of course the homespun sales data.

Then, according to the import data and sales data of dozens of foreign banks, the corresponding weighted index is calculated, and then substituted into the homespun sales curve, you can obtain the sales curve of foreign cloth for a period of time in the future, and you can roughly calculate how much foreign cloth can be sold every month in the future.

On this basis, combined with the amount of new cloth shipped by foreigners every month, and the impact is calculated, and according to the financial strength of the foreign banks and cloth shops engaged in this business, it is not difficult to calculate that within half a year to a year, the sales of foreign cloth will fall to the bottom, and the capital chain of most of the commercial banks will be broken, resulting in a serious wave of collapse.

Here's the formula and the weighted index we use..."

Li Xinlan gushed about the work she and her students did, and expressed her judgment on the foreign cloth business, which made Zhao Dagui speechless for a while.

In modern society, economists like to do this kind of work, that is, based on the existing data, deduce the economic operation in the future for a period of time, some predictions are very accurate, and some are not much better than divination.

People with a certain degree of mathematical ability can build mathematical models and deduce the economic prospects of a place or even a country, and there are many economists in Britain who do this kind of work, some of them are very powerful, very influential, and can even influence the world pattern for hundreds of years to come.

However, in the current Shanghai, there are people who have this ability, and they predicted the collapse of the foreign cloth business so early, which makes Zhao Dagui a little hard to believe.

"How can you think of predicting the cloth business?"

"It's okay to be idle, and we think it's fun, so we do it in some spare time. ”

"You... Cow!" Zhao Dagui felt speechless, sure enough, a mathematician is a creature that cannot be measured by common sense, such an important thing, such a complicated calculation, can be done just for fun.

"Last question, where did you get your source materials?"

"Of course, it was obtained from your noble trading firms, including the customs declaration materials of various trading houses and the local cloth business of the consulates over the years. ”

"Well, I really forgot about it. ”

Zhao Dagui patted his head, knowing that he had not paid attention to the information in his hands, and he also underestimated scholars like Li Xinlan.

Originally, the trade between the British and the Qing Dynasty was carried out by a damned consular declaration system, and foreigners who went to Shanghai to do business had to report to the British consul the type and quantity of goods they had brought, and after the transaction, they had to report the amount and quantity of goods to be exported, and finally the consul determined the amount of goods imported and exported based on these data, and reported to Shanghai Daotai Gong Mujiu.

Finally, Gong Mujiu compiled this information and then collected import and export taxes from the merchants.

This customs declaration system was actually a serious violation of China's sovereignty, but Qing officials were bent on reducing contact with foreigners, and everyone from the central court to local officials particularly liked and supported this system.

The ocean-going merchant ships and local foreign companies that go to Shanghai will definitely not make honest customs declarations, and will do countless tricks and feet, making this customs declaration data very distorted.

However, as long as a mathematician carefully analyzes these data and calculates the ratio between smuggling and actual reporting, etc., it is still possible to calculate fairly accurate actual data, and then deduce the purchase and sale of goods by each trading house, and even how many goods a certain trading house imports, how many goods it exports, how much money it earns, how much working capital, and so on.

British businessmen have to submit customs declaration data to Consul Bafur when they do business, because this matter is very cumbersome, and it involves such things as communicating with Chinese officials after translation, so naturally Zhao Dagui, the comprador of the British Consulate, Zhao Daguan, is responsible for it.

Every month, Zhao Dagui would get the customs declaration materials of each trading house, and then get it translated by his own trading house, and then submit it to the officials under Gong Mujiu; in this process, for some unspeakable purposes, Zhao Dagui would ask his subordinates to copy a copy of this customs declaration information and keep it secretly in the trading house.

The shopkeepers of Dagui Commercial Bank all knew that Li Xinlan had a good relationship with Zhao Dagui, but because of their limited knowledge, they didn't understand the preciousness of these materials.

As for the calendar year's homespun trade data, it is easier to obtain.

The Qing Dynasty itself also had a relatively complete tax system, and there were records of how many goods were traded and how much taxes were paid in Shanghai each month.

Although these data are also heavily distorted, they can also obtain fairly accurate trading data by substituting the weighted index calculation.

In 1842, the British occupied Wusong Fort and the county seat of Shanghai, and then Li Taitai specially collected the tax collection documents of the Shanghai customs and the county government for decades, and brought them back to Hong Kong for sorting and statistics, and finally obtained a fairly accurate understanding of the Shanghai transactions.