Two days later, the Shanghai New District Business Center officially opened and a grand opening ceremony was held. Almost all celebrities, officials and foreign consuls in Shanghai participated. More than 30 Chinese and foreign media came to interview, and several activities, such as movies, dances, and comprehensive evening parties, attracted a large number of tourists. Such a grand occasion was never before in Shanghai.

According to later statistics, during the three-day celebration, a total of about 200,000 customers participated, and the turnover of the entire commercial center exceeded 600,000 taels of silver. Even Yang Yuxin and others did not expect such a result. Moreover, during these three days, the East China government's enterprises also signed an ordering commercial contract with more than 30 merchants in Shanghai with a total price of about 200,000 taels of silver. This was also the first time that the East China government has sold industrial products to the outside world on a large scale.

After more than a year of development, the East China government has not only established a number of large heavy industrial factories, but also established a large number of small and medium-sized light industrial factories, which can produce a large number of light industrial products, most of which are daily necessities, such as cloth, wood products, hardware products, etc., and because of the use of a large number of machines as power, the East China government enterprises adopt modern management systems. Although there are still shortcomings in skilled jobs and unskilled machine operations, they can still greatly reduce the production cost. This not only greatly enriches the daily necessities market of the East China government, but also sells a batch of industrial products to the outside world. This is also one of the main purposes of the East China government's desperate efforts to get an enclave in Shanghai and establish a Shanghai New District.

After all, Shandong Province has a population of only about 30 million and its market capacity is limited. It is necessary to allow the East China government's industrial products to be sold to the entire Chinese region through Shanghai. Of course, the main markets are concentrated in the Yangtze River Basin and the southeast coastal areas. This is not only for the economic development of the East China government, but also to counter foreign commodity imports and protect national industries.

In fact, since the Opium War to the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, China's biggest loss was not foreign compensation, because before the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, China mainly compensated 6 large amounts of silver, 21 million silver in the first Opium War; 16 million silver in the second Opium War; 500,000 silver in the Ryukyu incident in 1874; 200,000 silver in the Yunnan lesson plan in 1876; 5 million silver in the "Ili Treaty" in 1881, totaling 4,270 silver. Although there are differences between Kuping silver and customs silver, there will be no large errors. The compensation for the Sino-Japanese War of 1895 was 230 million silver. The changes in the Gengzi Kingdom in the old time and space were astonishing 450 million yuan, plus a total of 980 million yuan.

In fact, before the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, China's main damage was land and markets, and most of the land was stolen by Russia, mainly concentrated in the Northeast region. In this era, it was deserted and there was no big loss in terms of real interests. However, due to defeat, it was forced to open its market to all countries, with one-sided most-favored-nation treatment and only 5% tariffs.

Since European and American countries have become modern industrial countries and have long achieved large-scale mechanized production, the production cost is naturally greatly reduced. Taking textile fabrics as an example, in the mid-19th century, the manual production efficiency of a European textile factory was about 15-20 times that of Chinese hand-woven fabrics. In addition, China's customs tariffs were extremely low, even if it was shipped from Europe to China, the price was far lower than that of products produced by Chinese handicraft workshops.

As a result, almost all of China's market is occupied by foreign goods, and a large trade deficit will occur every year, which not only causes a large amount of wealth outflow, but also greatly hinders the development of its own national capital. Although during the Westernization Movement, Qingting also established some factories for producing daily necessities, such as the Hubei Textile Bureau, the number is too small to form an industrial scale; secondly, the management system of these factories is extremely backward and cannot reduce the bottoming out too much. Therefore, although some profits can be obtained in a short period of time, it is impossible to compete with foreign goods as a whole.

The East China government's industrial products have relatively obvious advantages in price on foreign goods. Of course, the current production capacity is insufficient, and the products that can be sold to the outside world are limited, which will not have a major impact. However, this will not have a major impact at the beginning. Before the industrialization of the East China government matures, it will attract the attention of foreign capital.

This time, 10 factories in the East China government rented shops in the commercial center in Shanghai, and all produced daily necessities, cloth, matches, salt, hardware products, wood products, etc., and were both wholesale and retail. Almost all merchants in Shanghai came to attend the opening ceremony of the commercial center. Seeing that the goods of overseas Chinese were cheap, they naturally would not miss such an opportunity. The two parties not only signed a commercial contract of 200,000 taels of silver, but also reached many agreements that were not less than 500,000 taels of silver, and then they would slowly negotiate after the celebration.

During the celebration, Xu Jichao and Ye Yanfu held talks with business representatives in Shanghai, answered the questions of the merchants, and made detailed prices on the East China government's business policies, taxes, preferential conditions, etc., and on behalf of the East China government, they assured the merchants that the government would definitely protect the private interests of the merchants, and at the same time they tried their best to invite merchants to form a group to Qingdao, Tianjin for inspection, etc.

In fact, the East China government's attitude towards business and preferential policies for investors have been promoted in detail before. The merchants in Shanghai basically knew it, but they didn't dare to believe it, because these conditions were too generous. Even merchants who were so generous to Shanghai could not imagine it. However, with Xu Jichao and Ye Yanfu made a guarantee, the merchants believed it a little. Zhang Jian made a promise on behalf of the merchants in Shanghai that after the New Year, a businessman examination group would definitely form to Qingdao and Tianjin for actual examinations.

The celebration ended perfectly, but the popularity of Shanghai Commercial Center did not decrease. During the five days of the celebration, the number of customers per day reached about 15,000. A considerable number of people naturally came for the movie, but a considerable number of people came to find business opportunities, or planned to rent shops in the commercial center, or rent a piece of land in the Shanghai New District to build houses, so it also showed good development momentum.

This situation also made Yang Yuxin very happy, proving that the cost of the celebration was completely worth it. At the summary meeting of the celebration, Yang Yuxin made three suggestions to Xu Jichao and Ye Yanfu. The first was to build a large power plant in Shanghai. The Shanghai New District now relies on 2 200kw diesel generators and 2 100kw diesel generators to generate electricity, and daily power generation is 300kw. However, with the expansion of the infrastructure construction of the new district, the demand for electricity must also be greatly increased, so it is completely necessary to build a large power plant.

Moreover, although the location of the Shanghai New District is remote, its scope is larger than that of the French Concession and the public Concession. It can accommodate a large power plant, and coal for power generation can be purchased directly from the Hanping Coal Mine.

Moreover, Yang Yuxin discovered that although the French Concession and the public Concession were powered, the power plants built were very small. After all, the investment in building large power plants was extremely large and not something that individual businessmen could accomplish. In 1882, the British Lidler (r.w.little) and others raised 50,000 taels of silver to establish Shanghai Electric Company, purchased power generation equipment from the United States, and founded Shanghai's first power plant in the northwest corner of Jiangxi Road, Nanjing Road (now No. 190 Nanjing East Road), with a power generation power of only 12kw. A line was set up along the Bund to Hongkou China Merchants Terminal, connecting 15 street lights in series.

On November 1, 1888, Shanghai Electric Company was reorganized and established the newshanghaielectriccompany circuit lights to 72; on August 20, 1893, the Industrial Department of the Public Concession acquired all the industries of Xinshen Electric Company for 66,100 taels of silver and established the Electrical Department of the Industrial Department. Only then did three central power stations with equipment capacity of 197kw to provide lighting for 123 arc lamps and 6,325 incandescent lamps. Later, due to the increase in users, a new central power station with equipment capacity of 298.5kw was started at No. 30 Feilun Road (now Jiulong Road). The power station was completed on May 21, 1896. In June 1901, the power station began to supply power day and night.

By this time, the power generation of the entire public concession was less than 300kw, which was not as large as that of the Shanghai New District, and could only supply public lighting. Therefore, if a 1,000kw power plant could be built in the Shanghai New District, it would not only meet the electricity consumption of the Shanghai New District, but also provide electricity to the Shanghai Concession and charge a fee.

The second is to establish a construction engineering company in Shanghai. Because the infrastructure construction project in Shanghai is now extremely large and cannot be completed in a short period of time. If you still send construction engineering personnel from Qingdao, it will be too troublesome in terms of procedures, tax payment, etc. It would be much more convenient to establish a construction company directly in Shanghai or a branch in Shanghai. And for the Shanghai New District Government, it is easier to command.

The third is that Yang Yuxin hopes to set up a garment factory in Shanghai to produce clothing according to the fashion styles of the old time and space, as the next flagship product of the Shanghai New District, and to lead Shanghai's fashion.

The East China government has garment factories in Qingdao and Tianjin, but it mainly sells internally, that is, produces military uniforms, work clothes, student clothes, etc. There are not many clothing that are truly introduced to the market. In addition to insufficient production capacity, another important reason is that the market is limited. After all, in this era, China's self-sufficient natural economy still accounts for a large proportion. Most Chinese families are accustomed to tearing cloth and making clothes. Although it takes effort, it is the cheapest. Therefore, making clothes is a technology that Chinese women in this era must master, just like Chinese women in the 1980s had to knit sweaters.
Chapter completed!