Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 1031 Advance Along the River ([-])

"The purpose of capitalism's pursuit of colonies, generally speaking, is to maximize profits by investing capital, obtaining raw materials and commodity dumping places. The young East Coast capitalism that is growing up day by day cannot violate this economic law. Capitalism Even if communism transitions to its highest stage of imperialism, its demand will only be strengthened and not weakened in the slightest." In the roughly decorated office of Jiaohebao, Xu Xin took a puff of cigarette, put down his writing half of the manuscript paper.

These manuscript papers are already piled up in a thick pile, and the content is all Xu Xin's perception and experience over the years of work, especially during the years of his foreign trade and diplomatic work, he has learned a lot that he would not have learned in his lifetime. thing.The things gained from practice are gradually integrated with the knowledge of later generations. Many viewpoints and theories that I did not understand or did not understand thoroughly now gradually have a feeling of enlightenment. It can be said that at this point, Xu Xin already has his own ideas and viewpoints. , it is no longer the half-bottle of water that dangled just after crossing.

In order not to let his hard work be buried in the grave with him, Xu Xin has begun to find time to write some things this year, and then bind them into volumes. Absolute learning" is lost.As for the book with a lot of hard work, he even thought of the name, which is called "The Development and Different Stages of Capitalism".Traveling, running the country, and writing books, Xu Xin's life value has achieved the highest level of self-realization in this time and space in the 17th century, and it is worth living this life.

"Commissioner, Mr. Sirigu and Mr. Luciano are here." Seeing that Xu Xin was no longer busy, the secretary came in at the right time and reminded him softly.

Xu Xin nodded, then put the seal leather coat on the armrest of the chair on his body, and walked to the outer hall with the secretary, ready to meet the next few Italians.At this time, there were already seven or eight people sitting in the outer hall, all of whom were members of merchant families or their agents from northern Italy. The leading one was Sirigu, the representative of the famous Mendoria family in Genoa who had lived in the east coast for many years——at the same time He is also the Italian manager of joint ventures such as Luocha Textile Factory and Luocha Knitting Lace Factory. , This gentleman's personal connections on the east bank have suddenly reached a new level, and his status in Genoa has also risen even higher.

"Welcome friends from Genoa, Lucca, Parma, Mantua and Florence. It is a kind of great sincerity that you can cross the ocean to the New World. Our country is developing at a high speed. For this country We responded with great enthusiasm to every foreign businessman who came to the east bank for inspection or investment." Xu Xin said straight to the point, and after he finished speaking, he ordered his secretary to find the waiter to serve tea.

The tea came out quickly. The Baiyan camellia from Ningbo has always been Xu Xin's favorite. Naturally, the Italians here are not used to this fresh oriental drink, but they can only accept it as they please. .

"Commissioner Xu, thank you very much for this invitation. My friends and I are somewhat interested in investing in the Jiaohe area, but we would like to hear your opinion on this right now." Sirigu drank After sipping tea, he asked: "We all know that the Jiaohe area is facing some security problems. In addition, it is still a barren land with many diseases and dangerous environments. The initial investment is really amazing. Of course we don't I don’t mind investing a huge amount of money in environmental improvement in the early stage, because we Italians are not short of funds, and we don’t care about the length of the return on investment period. What we really care about is whether these projects can bring us benefits? Even if the benefits are not very high It doesn't matter, what we care about is long-term and stable income, according to the words of you East Coast people, it is the stable income of "a long stream of water."

Xu Xin laughed when he heard the words, and secretly thought that Europe is really interesting. The countries along the Mediterranean Sea are basically virtuous. When they make money, they want to invest in stable industries such as land, housing, and mining, and they are not willing to take risks to enter high-risk industries. industrial field.Among these people, the Italians are okay, and their aggressiveness is not bad, but the residents on the Iberian Peninsula are very obvious. According to the Portuguese, "when the crisis comes, every piece of land and every tree The olive tree will be the last refuge", which fully illustrates how the merchants who made a lot of money from sailing and overseas trade were obsessed with investing in less risky land and agriculture instead of investing it further in industry.

The Portuguese are like this, and the northern Italians headed by the Genoese are also very different.In recent centuries, businessmen from Genoa, Venice, Lucca, Milan, Florence, Parma and other places in northern Italy have frequently traveled to trade fairs and exhibitions across Europe and made a lot of money.Many Italians who made money returned to their hometowns to invest in land and started relatively stable businesses.However, because of the high population density in Italy, not everyone can buy enough land. Therefore, many Italian businessmen immigrated to France and Austria, bought land for investment, and did some entrepot trade by the way; of course, many Italians immigrated to the Netherlands. The area is engaged in business, but there are relatively few such people.

The investment style tends to be conservative, which makes a large amount of capital "silt up" in the narrow domestic market. Taking the Genoese as an example, most people would rather invest their profits in government bonds or Among annuities, few people are willing to invest in manufacturing.In recent years, the Genoese have accelerated the relocation of manufacturing companies with increasingly backward technology, aging equipment, and increasingly scarce investment to the east coast, which has already explained some problems-they are more willing to play with finance than the hard and dirty manufacturing industry.

This time, Xu Xin contacted some Italian businessmen through various channels to invest in the Jiaohe area, with the idea of ​​the huge amount of capital (which means huge resource control rights) held by these Genoese.Anyway, the investment style of the Genoese is conservative, except for a few people, most people are greedy for stability, so it is very appropriate to let them invest in land development on the east coast and give them certain risk protection.In particular, many well-known enterprises and businessmen in the Republic of Genoa have invested in the east coast for many years and have made a lot of profits. The Rocha Textile Factory invested by the Guangdoria family paid dividends as high as 91 bank lire last year. Now they are even more Investing in the railway business on the east coast, with these pioneers as examples, I believe that most of the doubts of other Italian businessmen can also be eliminated.The only thing they worry about now is whether these investments will bring them benefits?

You know, the investment requirements of people on the east coast are quite high.For example: the people of the East Bank require foreign investors not to use money directly for investment as much as possible, because the East Bank itself is not short of gold and silver, what they lack is only manpower and some material wealth.If outsiders bring a lot of gold and silver to the east bank to invest, then what will eventually be squeezed out is still the limited human and material wealth in the east bank, and it will not bring any benefits to the east bank.But it is completely different to bring people, materials and other real objects to invest (such as the Southwest Railway model), because it does not occupy the domestic resources of the East Bank, but it also helps the people of the East Bank to do a lot of things, so it is very popular in the East. Welcome from all over the Shore Republic.

But this undoubtedly adds a lot of cost to foreign investors for no reason. After all, it takes time and money to purchase materials all over Europe (at this point, the pagans on the east coast are undoubtedly far less convenient than the Italians), and recruiting bankrupt farmers and skilled craftsmen , Hiring ships with ocean sailing experience is even more costly, which is not a small sum of money when combined.If the people on the east coast cannot come up with a plan that can satisfy investors, even if these Italians have abundant capital, they will carefully consider whether it is worth it.

Xu Xin has been in politics for many years, and his experience is so rich, so he understands Sirigu's question.He immediately asked his secretary to hang up a large-scale hand-painted map of Jiaohe and Beiyazihu ​​in the room, then got up and walked to the map, cleared his throat, and said, "Mr. The plenipotentiary commissioner sent by the committee to the Jiaohe area. What I want to say is that the Jiaohe area is not as scary as you imagined. Many things look scary, but once you put your mind to understand it, you will find it In fact, that’s all. In addition, in fact, many of the investment projects we have arranged for you do not have too many strict requirements on the environment. Risk protection measures, such as premium buybacks, etc., aren’t they?”

In fact, the preferential measures given by the Executive Committee to attract Italian capital are not limited to the buyback at a premium. They also provided a certain amount of low-interest loans in order to facilitate investors who have difficulty in capital turnover.In fact, to put it bluntly, the people on the east coast lend money to the Italians to buy things in the European market. After all, they are Christians, and most of the time they are more convenient than the people on the east coast.On the other hand, people from the east coast have been subject to more and more restrictions over the years. Not only are the prices for buying things extremely high, but many times they can't buy what they want, which is really frustrating.But it would be much better to switch to an Italian merchant group headed by Genoese. They are the people of the Lord. Their business network and personal connections are not comparable to those on the east coast. If it is cheap, then it is better to leave all these things to them, and then invest in the East Coast. It is simply a good win-win model.

(End of this chapter)