Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 957 Enterprise and Competition ([-])

"Congress has never been selfless, and the 'care' for enterprises and entrepreneurs is also unequal. At that time, the Averyon family specialized in producing weapons for His Majesty, and they were once a monopoly in the industry. However, it is mainly due to the overall decline of the weapons manufacturing industry in other regions..." Captain Couette walked into a certain tavern at the Qingdao Port Wharf, and a familiar loud voice came to his ears.

Mr. John Hill, a British businessman, seems to have drunk too much. I saw him blushing, and while drinking beer, he said to his companions: "Some people are simply 'outsiders' ), do nothing all year round, just go to buy congressmen, pass laws that are beneficial to him, and support his own business by damaging the interests of other businessmen; also, when collecting apportioned military expenses or other shit fees, this Help guys can push and push, don't look at how much they earn, and how much others earn, God should punish them..."

Maybe these words are not appropriate to say in England, so now on the east coast, Mr. Hill confides to his companion with the help of alcohol.And his partner seems to be an old acquaintance who runs business on the east coast, Mr. George Hampton, who has large investments in Virginia and New England.

Mr. Hampton seemed to be quite touched by Hill's words, he just nodded and echoed: "The apportionment costs we bear are really too much, and most of them are used for non-production purposes. , some were used to pay Cromwell's army, some were used to clean up the mess in Scotland and Ireland, some were used for the war with the Dutch, oh, I'm really fed up, I was charged a full 1280 pounds last year Additional costs. Our country is now almost like Spain, run by a fanatical 'monarch', mired in war, and we are all struggling in it..."

"Charge the meal expenses of those two gentlemen to my account, and bring me a price report." After ordering a bottle of Madeira liqueur from the waiter, Mr. Couette pointed to him and was sitting by the window. Hill and Hampton, who were talking intensely, said.

The waiter understood, and quickly brought Mr. Couette a price bulletin and liqueur.

Couette carefully took out a pair of glasses from his pocket and put them on, then picked up the bulletin and read it.This price bulletin is a supplement to the popular "Kommersant" in the East Coast. It is published every five days and basically includes the prices of all kinds of large and small commodities in the nearby market. It is of great reference value, because it saves them a lot of precious time - of course, it also saves a lot of unnecessary economic losses.

It is worth mentioning that the "Price Bulletin" has recently started to be revised after being published for such a long time, that is, while retaining the original price information, the exchange rate between some commonly used foreign currencies and the East Coast silver dollar has been further added. Occasionally, some economic news that is more important to businessmen on the east coast will be released—often brief first-hand instant news, and more in-depth reports will be arranged in the main issue of "Kommersant".

Some of these Sankei news are of little use, while others are great business opportunities in the eyes of interested people.For example, the news about New Courland published in this issue made Captain Couette pay more attention to it. It said that Grand Duke Jacob transported 1500 Latvian immigrants from China to the New Courland colony, and then they returned to the east coast. A large number of wasteland reclamation equipment, medicines and munitions have been ordered, and it seems that they intend to further expand their existing territory.Expanding the territory will inevitably lead to conflicts with the black natives. It is unknown whether there will be a large number of slaves and whether the increasing export of New Kurland tobacco to the east coast will decrease.

"Not enough news!" Captain Couette thought distressedly as he read over and over the mere few lines of the dry report on New Courland.These few words alone are obviously not enough to make up one's final decision - if you do, it will only show that you are a gambler, not a steady businessman.But then again, if you wait until you find out everything, maybe more people will know about it by then, and it's hard to say whether the business is still going well, and this is obviously what Couette The real reason for the captain's difficulty in making a choice, any news is time-sensitive!

"Forget it, tell Alex later, let him pay more attention to this news. If it is true, it may be a good opportunity. There are still many domestic infrastructure projects, and the demand for these captured black slaves The quantity is very large, and it is worth paying attention to." Captain Couette, who is experienced in commercial affairs, turned over the "Price Bulletin" and continued to read other content: "Well, in the past three months, the prices of many commodities on the Qingdao market It is slowly rising. The prices of spiced whale meat, beef and mutton, ham, cheese, butter, and even flour have all risen by 5-10%—but the country has been very peaceful in recent years, and there have been no major disasters. The guarantee of supply should not be a problem. Now it is just a normal price increase caused by the sudden increase in demand in a short period of time. After the subsequent factories and workshops start to expand the production scale, the price should be able to stabilize. The demand for manpower is not too great, and expanding production should not be a problem..."

"Sir, thank you for your hospitality." Just as he was thinking, he saw John Hill and George Hampton walking over with huge beer glasses and thanked Couette.

"It's nothing, you are all my friends." Captain Couette put down the bulletin in his hand, picked up the Madeira liqueur on his right hand, and gestured: "Cheers, for the lovely silver coins."

"For the lovely silver coins." The two laughed loudly and drank the snow mountain beer in their hands.

"To be honest, in England, you can't see that the various factions coexist so harmoniously, you know what I mean. Speaking of which, maybe this is also an advantage of the east coast?" Hill and Hampton obviously haven't finished yet The conversation between them continued after they walked to Couette.

"Yeah, damn the Jews, the Catholics rarely work with us, they have a deep prejudice against us, and they only want to trade with their own small circle of partners, which is really bad." Hampton echoed He said, "In fact, it is similar in Holland and France. Catholics, Huguenots, Jews, Reformed, Lutherans, etc., just like the Quakers in our country and other Christians, have deep prejudices against each other. , the society is like being artificially divided with a sharp knife, which obviously hinders the orderly development of commerce. On the contrary, if you look at the unified national market established by the people on the east coast, there is no division, no barriers, and no place With protectionism and non-discriminatory taxation, a unified market has been formed across the country, which is really the ideal market that businessmen dream of..."

Captain Couette sighed softly when he heard the words. These two Britons have not lived on the east coast for a long time, so how can they understand the oppression and suffering of the Catholics and Protestants in the East Coast Republic?In this country, traditional oriental religions such as Taoism and Buddhism are "first-class citizens", supported by state-level funds, policies, and publicity, and are developing at a rapid pace; on the other hand, the development of Christianity is not satisfactory. The office has only approved a total of 312.83 yuan of appropriation. What can this money do?And how can religion be promoted without money?

But there is no need to tell these two British guys about these bad things. Captain Couette took a sip of his wine and smiled at the two without commenting.However, what the two of them later said about establishing a national unified market is true. Because of the infrastructure construction in the east bank all the year round and the strong control of the executive committee over all parts of the country, dozens of towns in the east bank republic have formed a large-scale A large unified market, unified tax rates, unified laws, and unified policies are indeed crucial to the development of industry and commerce on the east coast. On this point, these two British people have some insight.

To form a unified market, the most important point is undoubtedly to invest heavily in the field of infrastructure-this is actually closely related to the government's financial resources.Today, the construction of logistics facilities such as docks, stations, and freight yards in the settlements on the east bank is very complete, and the construction, maintenance, and maintenance of roads, canals, and railways of all levels are also in full swing.Don't you see that the largest company on the east coast is a building materials company?Almost more than half of the bricks, cement, lime, and sand produced by this company are used on roads, and people across the country are confiscated to build roads whenever they have time (free, 15 days per adult male per year). To get rich, build roads first" is not just a joke, but has its practical considerations.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the current roads and other infrastructure on the east coast have surpassed most European countries. The road network extends in all directions, the promotion of new long-distance transportation methods such as railways, and the continuous improvement of the canal system. China's new country and new system have allowed the East Bank to form a national unified market from the very beginning of the founding of the country.And as this market grows bigger and bigger, companies large and small on the east coast will grow stronger under the nourishment of this market, and then use this as a backing to participate in international competition and win more for the east coast republic. Benefit.

The competition between countries, in the final analysis, is the competition between enterprises to complete the final link.The most important constraints on production scale and enterprise growth are not only production costs and investment, but sometimes high sales costs, that is, troublesome traffic conditions-but this problem does not seem to exist on the east coast; coupled with the unified national A market, a single law, a stable monetary policy, regulated business conduct and ethics, and a stable domestic situation (the success of the Netherlands and England in Europe has proved the vital importance of a stable situation to the economy), and businesses on the East Coast want It's hard not to grow.

(End of this chapter)