Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2319

On January 1697, 1, in the Funan District of Luoyang, Governor Zhao Ke was talking with someone.

Sitting in front of him were several businessmen of foreign origin, such as Oleg Naryshkin, Dimitro Pisani, Goivan, Christopher Wagner, Jose Rodriguez, Luis Al Meda, Gianluca Zorro, Claudio Doria, Nick Hampton, etc. represent the interests of all parties and have great potential influence.

Among these people, some have been naturalized on the East Coast and have adopted Chinese names, such as Naryshkin, Goivan, Jose Rodriguez, Luis Almeida, etc.; For various reasons, they still retain their original nationality. It may be for the convenience of managing enterprises and representing the interests of their respective governments or business circles. However, most of their children have acquired East Coast nationality.

Among them, Oleg Naryshkin from Russia has the most assets under his personal name. He owns a six-story Naryshkin Building in Nancun Port, and a newly built eight-story Naryshkin Building in Luoyang Mansion. More than half of the building has been completed. In addition, he is also a member of the board of directors of the Shangyan Railway and a shareholder of the Southern Line of the Wool Transportation Special Railway. His net assets should be 80 million yuan, and there is still a lot of room for appreciation.

Gianluca Zorro is the one who manages the most property. He is the general manager of the old foreign-funded enterprise Forest Development Company. He has worked for many years and is shrewd and capable. Companies in other industries are thriving.In the case of continuous dividends for many years, the company's net assets still exceed 100 million won, which is amazing.

The company's most valuable asset is probably the famous forest development railway, which has now continued westward from Zuocheng County, via Quyang Township, and finally arrived at the river port in the western suburbs of Houqiu County.The reason why this railway is famous is that there have been a lot of back and forth during the construction process, many stoppages, and it was even announced that it would no longer be built.In the end, it was the local government on the east coast that was superior. Through various means, both hard and soft, it successfully forced the Italians to build this series of railways.

Of course, the Italians themselves did not suffer a loss, in fact they still made a profit.It's just that they have no money to engage in other projects because the construction of the railway has squeezed too much funds.More importantly, there is no money to pay dividends, which makes shareholders very angry!However, after surviving that difficult period, with the increasing economic development of Dingjun, Dingxi, Yiling, Jiaohe, Hualong, Zuocheng, Houqiu and other places, this railway that traverses hundreds of kilometers from east to west has become a The local traffic artery has provided stable profits to the forest development company every day, and has become an important source of income for the company.

In addition, the company also owns a large number of forest farms, earning a lot of money through felling trees and further processing.As for the open space where the wood was cut, it was cleared and planted with food and various cash crops.Because forest development companies use a large number of cheap Sicilians and Neapolitans to work, the production costs of these forest farms, farms, food processing factories, timber factories, and furniture factories are very low, and after being transported by rail to various places, they are quite competitive.

To be fair, the southern foot of Dingjun Mountain, which was originally geographically remote, was basically developed bit by bit by the forest development company.It was they who cleared the inaccessible virgin forest and turned it into farms, villages and factories. It was they who built the key railway from scratch under the guidance of the technicians on the east coast. They ordered ships and brought in a large number of laborers from the densely populated southern Italy, laying the economic foundation for many towns at the southern foot of Dingjun Mountain.Therefore, even though Naryshkin may be more successful in business, in the eyes of the East Coast government, the forest development company is undoubtedly more lovely-enterprises must have a sense of social responsibility!

Except for these two outstanding ones, the others are actually quite average.Goivan inherited the Goshkin Construction Company founded by his father. Because it could not recruit enough cheap workers, the company has now become a very ordinary construction company, surviving by undertaking some municipal projects.Christopher Wagner has a trading company registered in Qingdao Port under the name of Christopher Wagner, which conducts two-way trade between New Courland and the East Coast. The scale can only be said to be average.

As the person in charge of the Rodriguez family, Jose has a lot of money on hand, almost as much as 20 yuan. This is the proceeds after the family sold all the farmland, pastures and attached manors under their name to the East Coast government. .However, Jose did not invest a large amount of this money in industry and commerce. In addition to investing in several small and large agricultural and trading companies, Jose invested more than [-]% of the funds in the bond market. One of the largest purchasers of all types of bonds issued.

Dimitro Pisani, Claudio Doria, and Nick Hampton are relatively similar. They are all managers of the branches of their governments or business groups on the east coast. The amount of investment is not large, and most of them are Mainly in the financial and trade industries.Luis Almeida is a bit interesting. They have invested in some tropical crop estates in the Hue area, and at the same time acquired several medium-sized sugar factories and wineries. The market is mainly in Portugal.But he himself is a nationality of the East Coast, and there is no share of the Portuguese family in the company, which seems to be his own asset.But to be honest, who knows if there is any contact in private!

Zhao Ke, the governor of Luoyang, summoned these people today for no other purpose than to call on everyone to actively invest in the East Bank.Although the smoke of gunpowder in Europe has dissipated, the hidden danger of war has not been completely eliminated.The physical condition of King Carlos II of Spain affected the hearts of half of Europe. Everyone knew that if a carve-up agreement acceptable to everyone could not be reached before his death, then war would be inevitable.And this time the scale of the war may be larger than before, because whether it is France or Austria, it is a big country like Spain that wants to annex it. Far more than ever.

Such a situation is undoubtedly extremely unfavorable for businessmen.What they need is a safe and peaceful environment, not wars everywhere, a lot of tax cards, and ordinary people have no spending power, so it is difficult to make money no matter where they go, except selling arms.Looking around the world today, except for the southern New World, where the environment is stable and the people have spending power, other places are not very good.Either war, or simply no money to buy things, the best investment object is undoubtedly the east coast.

And the East Coast government asked them to increase their investment, but it’s not really that they are short of money—well, this is not a small amount, but this is really not the point—they stand on a higher perspective, That is to draw wages from the bottom of Europe, let more money flow to the east coast, weaken Europe's potential, so that even if they end the war and restore peace, they will not have sufficient funds to rebuild and slow down their recovery.For this reason, they did not hesitate to grant some nationalities and liberalize some industries, so that these funds can have suitable investment targets.

It should be said that Zhao Ke's request has been responded by some people.Especially for those in Italy, the success of the forest development companies is in front of them. As long as they can bear the loneliness and are willing to invest in some projects that are not very profitable but have a long-lasting effect, they will definitely achieve satisfactory results in the future.Of course most importantly, they have people!Southern Italy has a huge population. Large cities like Naples have a population of more than 30 (even more if you count the suburbs and rural areas). You can easily recruit a large number of workers who are willing to go to sea. You can make money by farming and logging!

Considering that most of the Brazilian plateau has not been effectively developed - yes, yes, even those counties that have been established for some years, there are still large tracts of wilderness within their borders - if they are willing to enter these areas If so, it will be more beneficial to the East Coast government.

Of course, that is for the Brazilian plateau.Zhao Ke is the governor of Luoyang Prefecture, so naturally he doesn't care about the development progress of the Brazilian Plateau. What he cares about is the development progress of the Sixth District of Luoyang Prefecture.Apart from other things, Shendu District and Mingjing District are planning to set up an agricultural and animal husbandry development company with the help of Italians.As for the other districts, they can only invest in business. Although it is not particularly urgent, if someone is willing to spend money, he is still happy to see it.

In addition, there are many small and large mines in the western mountains, such as copper mines, lead mines, zinc mines, tungsten mines, etc., which can also use these foreign capitals for operation and production.However, it is beyond the jurisdiction of Luoyang Mansion, so he will not pay special attention to it, and will only help and encourage it quietly.

At the end of the conversation, Zhao Ke told everyone with a happy face that after his hard work, the State Railway Administration and the American Railway Company finally made up their minds and "reluctantly" gave up the Shangluo Railway (Luoyang Prefecture-Shanghai County) as a A "big gift" to all investors.He suggested that everyone can follow the examples of the grassland railway and the forest development railway later, and jointly form a consortium to win this "extremely economically valuable" railway.

The group of people sitting opposite Zhao Ke could only look at each other in blank dismay when faced with the "big gift".They are not fools to know that the places where the railway passes are currently sparsely populated and will not be there in the next five to ten years.Such a railway is afraid that it will lose money as soon as it is built. The risk is too great, so no one dares to answer this question.

Zhao Ke looked at these businessmen coldly and knew what they were worried about.But he still taught a trick, which is to let these people package the railway well, publicize it, and then go back to Europe to raise funds and use other people's money to repair the railway!With the current image of the East Coast in Europe, as long as the publicity is in place, tulips can blow up in the sky, let alone the railway with great use value?Amsterdam, London, Bruges, Lisbon, Cadiz, Genoa, Milan, and Florence are full of people with a lot of spare cash. These people can't find investment channels now. If you can attract them , Let them pay willingly, then the matter will be more than half successful.

Don’t need too much money, just raise 1000 million yuan in legal currency in the first phase, and then take your time in the second and third phases, there is no rush.With so many rich people in Europe, they will not be able to spend money for a while.

(End of this chapter)