Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 697 East Coast Japanese Company

Kushiro Port thawed as early as early February.

This port is partly affected by the Japanese warm current, and it was an ice-free port in later generations, but this ice-free port is for those big iron ships.In the 17th century, when all wooden ships were sailed, Kushiro Port still had a freezing period of about one month, because the thin layer of ice formed on the sea near the port did not hinder iron ships, but it was a big obstacle to wooden ships. trouble.Even though the ships of the people on the east coast did not use the soft oak and pine as the main ship materials like the Europeans, even the hulls made of red sandalwood in New China did not dare to hit the ice casually. Therefore, In January, the coldest month of the year, Kushiro Port is generally closed.

It is now the end of May, not to mention the thawing of Kushiro Port, even the Amur River has been able to navigate normally.In the middle of this month (May), Yoshinosuke Imamura of the Matsumae Domain sent someone to secretly pick up a sum of money—a batch of copper coins worth 5 kanmon.They are now more daring. Last year, they bought a copper coin worth more than 20 pennies and went back to sell it like a thief. Now they have bought eight times the previous amount in one go. Huang Yi, who is in charge of the business here, can only Say admiration.

But maybe they dragged the house of Ida, the largest army leader in the Northeast, into the water, otherwise they shouldn't have the guts.You must know that the Dongan people have already made a profit of nearly 18 taels of silver in this transaction, and the profit of the Matsumae clan is also 8 to 3 taels (both the profits of the Dongan people and the Matsumae clan are based on the European gold, silver and copper ratio. In conversion, the profits of the people on the east coast are not big, but the real profit of the Matsumae clan is only about 20 taels.) This scale of copper coin transactions is obviously beyond the control of a small lord like the Matsumae clan. Date of Sendai It should be a high probability event that the family is pulled into the water, otherwise the [-] copper coins cannot be sold in a short time.

Of course, since people dare to buy, people from the east coast also dare to sell, for fear of hair!When things get serious, the shogunate will naturally have a tall man to hold them accountable. At that time, the Edo shogunate can only trouble the Date family in the northeast region first.And the Date's family is not a soft persimmon, there will be a lot of wrangling, and it may not be a few years before the matter is transmitted to the people on the east coast.

Kushiro Port is now a distribution center for counterfeit money, nothing else.Naturally, Wei Boqiu, who is in charge of the economy of the entire Heishui area, cannot allow this situation to continue for a long time. In his heart, Ezo Land needs to be vigorously developed.For this reason, a while ago, he also joined hands with Huang Yi to report to Shao Shude, requesting the establishment of Dongan Japan Company and Dongan North Korea Company respectively, absorbing soldiers with a lot of cash on hand to invest in shares, and vigorously developing North Korea and Japan (mainly referring to Ezoji Island).

After Shao Shude's approval, the Japanese company was first established on May 5, and raised a huge investment of nearly 10 silver dollars in the Heishui area.These investments mainly come from the soldiers of the East Coast Army and the Black Eight Banners in South Africa. They have stayed in the Far East for several years, and now everyone has five or six hundred yuan in their pockets, and they are ashamed to talk to others.

The investment of 20 silver dollars is at best only 10% of their total funds on hand, and it is just a drizzle for them to use it as an early investment.And out of trust in the government on the east coast, and because they don't know how to manage money—in fact, the Blackwater area also lacks consumption and investment channels—so they simply hand over part of their savings to their superiors to manage it, and they enjoy it for themselves. Dividends are.

The investment of 20 silver dollars accounted for about 40% of the Japanese company’s shares (30 shares). In addition, the Blackwater development team also invested 10 yuan (approximately 60 yuan received in advance), accounting for 30% of the shares.At present, the general manager of the Japanese company is Chen Shuo, a student of Wei Boqiu, who is responsible for the development of the Ezo Island area - the company has obtained the [-]-year exclusive development right of the Ezo Island issued by the Blackwater Development Team - including farming and fishing and hunting.However, the lucrative Japanese copper coin trade is still firmly in the hands of the Blackwater Pioneering Team. After all, it is impossible for Shao Shude to give up such a large source of income, otherwise it will be impossible to make up for the huge hole in the military expenditure in the Blackwater area.

After the establishment of Dongan Japan Company, the first thing it did was to recruit about tens of thousands of farmers from the Qingzhou area at cost prices (transportation fees, management fees, nutrition fees, etc.), and paid a total of [-] silver dollars to the Blackwater Pioneering Team.There are men, women and children among these tens of thousands of people, and they have all been scattered around Yantai and Dengzhou. The Blackwater Temporary Task Force that has just finished maintenance has also dispatched two flute-shaped ships to help transport them.

In order to reduce wastage, Chen Shuo, the general manager of the Japanese company, paid a lot of money to "hire" several doctors from Shandong to take care of the ship, so as to minimize the death rate of immigrants on the way.After all, these people have signed an employment agreement with the company, and paid a full 5 yuan for them. Every death is a loss for the company, so everyone can't help but care.

Many of the employees of the Japanese company are from the wounded and retired veterans on the front line—mainly the volunteer team system. They often arrest immigrants in Shandong, Beizhili, and Jiangbei, so they are quite handy in doing these management tasks.In addition, Chen Shuo also hired some low-level scholars such as unranked scholars and copyists with high salaries, and asked them to do copywriting, financial and some management work.In short, although the East Coast Company has just started, it quickly entered the role.

Wei Boqiu is also quite interested in the management of Japanese companies (according to gossip, Wei Boqiu himself subscribed for [-] shares of Japanese companies), he is really not interested in Shao Shude's way of beating local tyrants and dividing land in Shandong, and he is not interested in the one who claims to be The bosses of "communist members" are also kept at a respectful distance.He still prefers to use a corporate business model to bring in a large number of soldiers to become shareholders, jointly develop the Ezo land, increase local output, and try his best to revitalize the economy of the Heishui area.

On June 6, the first batch of 1 immigrants from Qingzhou arrived at Kushiro Port by boat.They will cut down trees and mine (develop the Kushiro Coal Mine), farm and herd, build houses and ports, etc., in short, do various constructions.In Wei Boqiu's plan, the entire Ezo was divided into four areas, namely: the south of the island, the middle of the island, the east of the island, and the north of the island.

Among these four areas, the conditions in the island should be the best. Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido in later generations, is located here. There are paddy field agriculture (rice planting) along the Ishikari River, coal in Sorachi, and animal husbandry in Hidaka ( Mainly horse breeding), in addition to coastal fishing.

The conditions in the south of the island are slightly worse than those in the middle of the island, because the agricultural conditions here are mainly dry land, and the soil texture is also poor, but it is worse than the mild climate. Later generations here are a mixture of agricultural planting (vegetables, gardening) and animal husbandry .Of course, in this time and space, this place has been controlled by the Matsumae clan, and there are more than 2 Japanese immigrants. They are very busy fishing, farming, and mining in the coastal areas, but for some reason, the animal husbandry industry is not working. It has never been able to develop, perhaps because Japan lacks large livestock.

As for the east and north of the island, the conditions are relatively worse.First of all, these areas are relatively cold in winter, but the temperature is high in summer, so you can only grow some potatoes and vegetables, and occasionally there are some places near rivers and lakes that are suitable for grain farming, provided that you first improve the soil of these wastelands .It should be known that a lot of land here has been in a humid and cold environment for a long time, and most of it is peat soil. The soil itself has less nutrients and is not suitable for large-scale agricultural cultivation.

What's more, in the east and north of the island, especially those where rivers flow into the sea, due to the supporting effect of seawater, large-scale floods often occur.Unfortunately, this is the case with Kushiro Port, which is currently occupied by people from the east coast. The local early immigrants have already tasted the taste of flooding once.

Therefore, in Wei Boqiu's plan, the east and north of the island, which the people on the east coast can develop with peace of mind, will still be dominated by dryland potatoes and vegetables, occasionally mixed with some dryland oats and rye.In addition, a large number of lakes, swamps and floodplains will be temporarily designated as livestock land for raising a large number of livestock.When conditions permit in the future, a large number of people will be organized to build dams and dikes, excavate artificial reservoirs, and transform farmland in these areas.As for now, it's better to engage in animal husbandry first, which can make people see benefits quickly. After all, Japanese companies also need to make money.It is also a lot of pressure for Wei Boqiu not to allow shareholders to see the benefits within a few years.

After the animal husbandry here is established, a dairy factory will also be established, specializing in the production of various cheeses, milk powder, cream and so on.For this reason, Wei Boqiu is even going to persuade Shao Shude to gradually promote dairy products for children in the Heishui area in the future, so that every child can eat them regularly, especially during the critical period of growing their height. Supplementing some dairy products will definitely make them better than their peers in Daming. They grow taller and stronger.

In addition to these agricultural ideas, Japanese companies will also spend huge sums of money to order fishing boats from Heishui Shipyard, fishing nets from Dabo, fishing gear from Yantai, and salt from Jeju, and then spend huge sums of money to train fishermen and organize professional fishing. The fish team goes fishing nearby.Some of the fish caught are marinated or dried in the sun, and some are stored in ice cellars dug underground. Of course, they also sell a large amount of fish to the newly established canned food factory in Dabo for further processing. Make full use of the rich fishery resources in the waters around Ezoji Island.

As Wei Boqiu's proud student, Chen Shuo naturally obeyed his advice, so he carried out Wei Boqiu's intentions to the letter.After the 1500 Qingzhou immigrants arrived here, the first thing they did was to roughly repair some river embankments, and then they felled logs to build houses, and at the same time mowed grass to feed some of the purchased livestock.They are all workers of the company, and they all signed employment contracts ranging from 5 to 10 years, and their monthly salary also ranges from 3 to 5 yuan.

In addition, the second thing they did was to develop the Kushiro Coal Mine near Kushiro Port. This coal mine has good coal quality, shallow burial, and high coal seam thickness. The coal mine has been dug to a depth of -20 meters (200 meters underground), which shows its rich reserves.If this coal mine is well managed, it should be able to provide a solid backing for Japanese companies to develop the entire Ezo region.

(End of this chapter)