Then, twenty or thirty craftsmen with a high level of skill or management experience were selected from among these workers, called master craftsmen according to the custom of the time, and an advisory group similar to the board of directors of the academy was formed to assist in the management.

Then, two shipyards were established on the north bank of the Wusong River, one Western-style shipyard and the other Chinese-style shipyard, and the technology and equipment on both sides were not common, so it would be easier to manage them separately.

Finally, the factory building was built, and then all the machinery and equipment brought over were installed.

Originally, when Zhao Dagui bought the Macao shipyard, he hired all the Western engineers in the shipyard, and if they helped, he could save a lot of money, but unfortunately none of the engineers that Zhao Dagui had high hopes for came to Shanghai.

Originally, he had a good agreement with these people in Macao, but when Zhao Dagui took a ship to Leizhou and returned to Shanghai, he found that none of these Western engineers had come, and it was said that they were jointly hired by several British shipyards in Hong Kong, and they were willing to pay liquidated damages or something.

If it's just one or two people, and more than a dozen engineers don't come, there must be a reason in the middle, Zhao Dagui sneered in his heart, but he couldn't think about it, so he could only reuse the masters among the Chinese workers.

Fortunately, there is no such thing as job hopping in this era, and a person who chooses an industry has to work for decades, although these Chinese workers are not well educated, and most of them are illiterate, but they have been immersed in shipyards for decades, that is, there are no Western engineers, and they can do a good job according to machinery and equipment.

However, there was not much work to do after the two shipyards were built, and Zhao Dagui had just entered the shipbuilding industry, and he was able to take on some maintenance work for ocean-going merchant ships and Chinese ships, but no one else ordered ships from him, and no one believed that a newly established shipyard could build any good ships.

As for the blacksmiths, coppersmiths, silversmiths, and gunpowder craftsmen, there is nothing to do.

To tell the truth, Zhao Dagui has recruited too many workers and scholars, in fact, at most fifty scholars and fifty workers are recruited, which are enough in the short term, and it is much easier to manage.

Zhao Dagui thought about it, leaving dozens of the best workers to work in the shipyard, announcing discipline training for other workers who had nothing to do, and there was no need to work for the time being--- anyway, he had money now, and he didn't care about raising these workers for a few months.

Zhao Dagui attaches great importance to discipline training, so he asked Bafur to help, transferred three lieutenants and twenty non-commissioned officers, and trained his subordinates, as for how to organize these rabble, and enhance their organization and discipline in a short period of time, the British Imperial Army has accumulated countless experience in various colonies around the world, and there is no need for Zhao Dagui himself to mention it.

Of course, in order to avoid Gong Mujiu from working hard with him, Zhao Dagui required all British officers to wear civilian clothes, and to the outside world, they should also claim to be housekeeper-type characters who specialize in helping large families train families and employees, and such discipline training does not involve weapon operations such as shooting and firing guns.

This training is very close to the military training carried out by college students in a certain country in the modern world after they go to school, and they do not fall behind in the process of walking, turning left and right, and queue training other than weapon operation, and they just do not learn weapon operation, but they can still do engineer training, digging trenches on the ground every day, and they have to crawl and roll.

It is not only the workers who participate in the military training, the Dagui Commercial Bank has been a lot more idle than before recently, and many shopkeepers have been taken to the concession area outside the city to receive military training, even more than 50 students such as Zhao Xiaohu have also been brought to military training, anyway, their teachers are also busy learning the basics and have no time to teach them.

The shopkeepers of Dagui Commercial Bank didn't like this kind of life in the wilderness, and they complained a lot, which made Zhao Dagui suppress it strongly; some students also complained, but most of them were just teenagers, and they thought it was fun and not hard, so it didn't matter.

Zhao Dagui originally hoped that those respected scholars of the Oriental Academy would also receive military training, but after all, these people were all scholars, and Zhao Dagui could not blindly force them, so he announced to them that the school teachers could voluntarily participate in discipline training, and they were unwilling and would not be reluctant.

These scholars were really not interested in military training at all, that is, Yang Weili, whom he met in Macao, and other less than ten young scholars were willing to participate in such training out of curiosity, and the others, including Li Xinlan, Wang Tao, and Sheldon, were not interested in the slightest.

After nearly a month of busy work, Zhao Dagui was idle, and all his subordinates studied and studied, and most of the work of military training was also arranged, and Zhao Dagui himself only needed to be responsible for some important decision-making affairs.

It was in this situation that Zhao Dagui seriously considered how to make money and how to develop.

Zhao Dagui took the personnel files of the scholars and the workers of the Oriental Academy and carefully considered it, then gathered 20 scholars and 20 workers to form a project team and decided to build a money-making machine from scratch.

"Our current economic situation is not good, the number of personnel has increased significantly, but the income has not increased much, if this continues, the funds in hand will be exhausted within a year, and both the college and the factory will not be able to open. Zhao Dagui found a huge room and gathered everyone together, and then he began to cry poor.

According to Zhao Dagui's taste, there is a long table in this room, Zhao Dagui sits at the head of the desk, there is a blackboard behind him, and the others sit on both sides of the table, and some can't sit in front of the table, so they can only pull the chair and run to the back.

This style of arrangement, in fact, is the mode of meeting of the chairman of the board of directors in modern society, but it is quite strange for people in this era.

"That's really sad, but what can we do about it?" asked Sheldun, a young scholar who had introduced Gu Sheng to Zhao Dagui, curiously.

During this time, Sheldon had a good life, there were many Western books to read every day, and Li Xinlan and other scholars could exchange experiences with each other, the only fly in the ointment was that his good friend Yang Willy didn't know what was crazy, and it was inexplicable to go outside the concession to receive so-called discipline training with the workers under Zhao Dagui.

"There's a lot you can do, at least a lot more than you think you can do. Zhao Dagui says:

"At present, the most profitable business in Shanghai is the import of opium and foreign cloth, and the export of tea and raw silk, which are all large quantities.

Our noble trading firm has always taken saving the country and benefiting the people as its own responsibility, opium will never be made, foreign cloth can be made, but the cloth business is quite complicated, unless we have sufficient preparations, otherwise we will resell some foreign cloth and feather silk, etc., and we will not produce it ourselves.

As for raw silk and tea, the combined exports of these two goods account for more than ninety percent of all exports from Shanghai, and even Guangzhou is similar to ours.

However, the regional factors of tea are too strong, and we want to improve its processing level, there are not many ways to think about it, so we can only resell, and there is no need to establish a professional tea processing factory.

On the other hand, raw silk has a huge transaction volume, the profit is much higher than that of tea, and its processing technology has a lot of room for improvement, which is very suitable for us to intervene.

At present, the raw silk sold in Shanghai to foreign countries is either purchased in Suzhou, or the merchants from the raw silk producing areas are transported to Shanghai for sale, and there are very few foreign firms or compradors who go directly to Huzhou and other raw silk producing areas to buy the goods.

My Dagui firm went to Huzhou a year ago to buy raw silk, and then I encountered bandits, a shopkeeper and two men were killed, and then they only bought a small amount of goods, and kept controlling its scale, so as not to provoke bandits or something.

This year, Shanghai's foreign cloth speculation is very prosperous, that is to say, foreigners hope to use foreign cloth directly in exchange for silk tea, in order to obtain higher profits, willing to spend cash to buy very few businessmen, Dagui firm this year did not do much raw silk business, and only earned 70,000 or 80,000 yuan, compared with last year is a lot different. ”