"Profiteer!"

Sitting on the train, Li Zicheng put down the newspaper in his hand and slowly uttered two words.

Undoubtedly, today is a good year. Except for the disasters in some areas, most areas have experienced a bumper harvest. Coupled with the improved varieties promoted in the past two years, today's harvest is far better than in previous years.

In another time and space, Li Zicheng once heard someone say, "In years of disaster, you are worried, in years of good harvests you are worried." But he never quite understood the reason behind it. In years of disaster, it is easy to understand, but in years of good harvests, the common people are also the same.

worry.

After coming to this era, Li Zicheng finally saw what profiteers are. In this era of China, information cannot be described as "blocked". To be precise, for the vast majority of people in rural areas, they

There is no information to talk about at all, and the so-called information at least comes from the county.

This serious information blockage has directly resulted in grain merchants across the country making profits from it. They take advantage of the people's ignorance of commodity prices to raise the prices of daily necessities and make huge profits in the year of good harvest. On the other hand, they work in tandem with each other.

, to suppress food prices. Their method of suppressing food prices is simple and crude. It is nothing more than listing prices every day, thereby manipulating local prices.

On the surface, this is not a big deal. It seems to be a matter of one county and one place. But in fact, it is the same across the country. Behind this, there are not only the shadows of big and small grain merchants, but also the names of generals in various provinces.

In the past, they had an army in their hands. The army needed to eat food, so they had to buy grain from whom. Naturally, they bought it from the grain store under the name of the general. This monopoly and stable supply relationship made it possible for the army to buy grain.

They earned a lot of wealth effortlessly, and these grain shops, like other grain merchants, bought large quantities of grain during the harvest and then sold it at high prices in winter. But what is different from private individuals is that their purchases

Funds are often allocated from official bank accounts or banks in the province.

It is precisely these reasons that have led to a situation where people are worried about good harvests. However, this time, the agricultural company established a few years ago to promote agricultural technology, improved seeds and small loans related to agriculture is to serve as the largest grain company in the country.

Businessmen try to stabilize grain prices within a reasonable range in good years.

"In Lianyungang, a load of wheat costs RMB 57, and in Shanghai, a load of wheat costs RMB 58. These profiteers can lower the price of grain to less than RMB 2. It's so damn shameful!"

When he uttered a curse word, Li Zicheng noticed that there were other people in the luxury carriage. He smiled at the others and Li Zicheng said with a smile.

"Even if we collect grain at a price of five yuan, and transport it from Shaanxi to Shanghai, the price will not exceed five yuan and two. Any other product can be used to make huge profits, but for things like grain, huge profits are not allowed. This kind of commodity itself is not a huge profit product.

, and it involves the national economy and people’s livelihood. Only when food prices are stable can the country be stable!”

Thinking that he can only use "commercial means" to deal with things that he "cannot understand". Li Zicheng always seems a little helpless, but there is nothing he can do. After all, there is no law that can crack down on "hoarding".

What's more, this also involves other legal factors, such as commercial freedom.

“What the Prime Minister said is absolutely true!”

Chen Chonghui, who returned to Beijing with the Prime Minister, suppressed the smile in her heart and responded in a tacit understanding.

As one of the "core members of the team", he naturally knows that on the surface, agricultural companies give up huge profits to maintain reasonable and stable food prices. In fact, the reason why the company does this thankless task is for another "

The long-term goal is to monopolize the national grain trade.

If you have food in your hands, don’t panic. Food itself is a weapon. Over the years, the company has been looking for opportunities to “control food,” but this year’s nationwide bumper harvest has provided the company with this opportunity. As usual, all regions

Grain merchants will definitely take the opportunity to suppress grain prices and create the illusion of falling grain prices in grain-producing areas. But in fact, in cities, grain prices have not fallen...

While grain merchants in various places are preparing for a "bumper harvest", agricultural companies are just waiting for them to push the price of grain to an extreme price before taking the initiative to purchase grain at a "reasonable price". In this case, even if

It is the grain dealers who have raised prices again, and it is difficult for ordinary people to trust those grain dealers anymore. They will psychologically choose to believe in China Agricultural Company, believing that the agricultural company is a "conscientious company that will not let the people suffer."

In this way, the agricultural company achieved its own goal and took the opportunity to monopolize the national grain trade. These seemingly high-priced grains can still obtain astonishing profits for the company. After all, the main consumer market for commercial grains - cities

Grain prices have not fallen, and agricultural companies have more than ten large-scale flour mills and rice mills. In addition to supplying the domestic urban market, they also produce millions of tons of flour and flour products for export.

In this invisible battle, neither the traditional grain merchants who suffered losses nor the ordinary people who seemed to have taken advantage are the winners. The ordinary people may barely be regarded as winners, but the real winner is the company.

In front of the Prime Minister, the company took the opportunity to monopolize the domestic grain trade, and the Prime Minister has another seemingly invisible "killer weapon" in his hands!

As for this invisible "killer weapon", no one can see its power now, but once its power is revealed, the whole world will be shocked by it. After all... While sighing at the Prime Minister's scheming, Chen Chonghui

On the contrary, I admire the Prime Minister more and more. The more time I spend with him, the more I admire him. There are always seemingly "weird" ideas popping up in his mind.

Especially some of the so-called "soft power" in his mouth, which may not seem very impressive, but once implemented, they are frightening and even very lethal, far more powerful than a million-strong army. But it is even more terrifying.

What's more, in the process of acquiring those "soft powers", he can also make others applaud and applaud his decisions.

In contrast,…

Thinking of the great president in Beijing, Chen Chonghui couldn't help but sigh in her heart, that Yuan Shikai, who has no talent and skills, is not the opponent of the Prime Minister after all!

"What, what are you thinking about?"

Looking at his Minister of Justice with a smile, Li Zicheng chuckled and put down the newspaper in his hand. Naturally, there was no need to read any more half-hearted praise of the agricultural company in the newspaper. There was nothing particularly impressive about that kind of praise.

Places to pay attention to.

Chen Chonghui, who would never expose the thoughts in his heart, quickly found an excuse for himself.

"I think food prices are stable now, but department store prices seem to be a little unstable!"

"Um!"

Li Zicheng nodded and said with great agreement.

"This year's harvest has been great. People have money in their hands, so they naturally want to consume. Those vendors raise prices, and they benefit personally, but the country and enterprises do not benefit from it. The greater the market demand, the more people will be willing to invest in industry.

However, high prices will only curb industrial development, so we need to put the brakes on it!"

After thinking for a moment, Li Zicheng picked up a pen and wrote a few words on the paper.

"Look, what about this? Make appropriate adjustments to foreign exports, put some consumer goods into the domestic market, and distribute them to various provinces and regions to impact the market. Although the central government bans donations, there are still a lot of donations from various places.

You can do something, just a little! In the end, politicians must benefit the people! When doing things, they must be worthy of their own conscience!"

But when he said this sentence, another sentence came to Li Zicheng's mind: "Evil people are stronger than moralists in every aspect." Is he a moralist?

Moralist?

Although my father often holds himself to the four creeds of good learning, good thinking, good words, and good deeds, it seems that he has never thought of becoming a moralist. Moralists may be admirable, but in fact, this world is in another world.

On the one hand, it is not suitable for a moralist. Obviously, I have always thought of myself as a "moralist", but in fact I am a real... hypocrite!...

Suddenly, the moment those three words appeared, Li Zicheng laughed. The laughter was loud, even a little helpless, completely ignoring the other people around him. This belated discovery may have answered a question that has been bothering him.

His thing - what kind of person he is!

It seems that he and Yuan Shikai are evenly matched, no one is better than the other!

While sighing in his heart, he looked out the window at the trees and villages that were moving rapidly backwards as the train ran. Li Zicheng raised the corner of his lips and turned to give instructions to his subordinates.

"After arriving at Lianyun Station, notify others and prepare to return to Beijing! Well... I'll go back tonight!"

Back to Beijing, it’s time to go back!

The capital is the real battlefield! I came out this time just to prepare enough ammunition. Now that I have enough ammunition, it is time to return to the capital.

Yingyoumen, this former small strait, has become the largest wharf in China after four years of development. But even so, the artificial wharf is still expanding. Compared with other ports, this port has unique advantages.

In addition to the natural port conditions, the more important thing is probably the special geographical advantage of the Longhai Railway, a large-capacity heavy-rail railway that runs through central China. Of course, the developed industrial zones along the line are also the lifeline of this port.

.

Four years ago, this place was a deserted beach. Four years ago, with the opening of the port, the shipping industry of Lianyungang was created. With the large-scale construction of Lianyungang and Longhai, merchant ships entering and exiting here were

The fleet began to increase sharply. At the same time, with the development of industries along the line and the urban market in station areas, coupled with the improvement of land transport advantages and port management systems, shipping-related facilities such as lighthouses, typhoon shelters, signal lights, observatories, etc. have also been continuously improved.

In particular, the railway land along the line and the radiating industrial belt have grown in size after several years of development. All of this provides a broader development space for the expansion of the port.

However, the real great development occurred after the outbreak of the European War. In this specific environment, in addition to the past exports of agricultural products and a small amount of industrial exports, companies along the line that had developed for several years began to export industrial products abroad.

In addition to the non-railway land along the line, a number of enterprises engaged in the production of low-tech consumer goods such as textiles, flour processing, toys, and light bulbs have also been established. The development of industry has caused the rapid growth of domestic industrial productivity, while the war has led to a sharp decline in the production of consumer goods in various countries.

The commercial power of powerful countries has completely retreated around the world, and the supply of consumer goods in the market is insufficient. Chinese businessmen are taking advantage of the golden opportunity that European countries have no time to take into account when the economies are weak. In addition to actively exploring the Asian market, they are also exploring the European, American and African markets.

The expansion of external market demand has driven the development of foreign trade. China's export trade has begun to enter a period of rapid expansion. Affected by this, the shipping industry of Lianyungang, the leading home port in China's first industrial belt, continues to grow.

The foundation for the great development of the shipping industry is the port. Four years ago, the Yingyoumen Strait was just a barren beach, but soon a port area was developed and expanded. The northern part of the port stretches from Haitoujiao to Yingyoumen.

Now the port area continues to extend to the open sea. While the port area is expanding, with the development of export trade and shipping, infrastructure such as docks, docks and warehouses have also been greatly improved and developed. The construction of deep-water terminals has developed rapidly

As early as two years ago, the port received an average of 40 cargo ships per day, half of which were berthed at the dock for loading and unloading, and the other half were loaded and unloaded in the "mid-flow operation" with buoy transfer. Now, the fourth phase of the planned port project has been completed.

Later, the number of ships accepted will reach 150.

Correspondingly, with the rise of the shipping industry, the shipbuilding industry has also naturally emerged. The Yingyoumen Shipyard located in Haitoujiao is the core foundation of "building a large port" and serves as a supporting engineering construction for the port to operate passing ships.

Provide maintenance and shipbuilding business. As one of the six key points of the company "sea, port, road, industry, city and mine", Yingyoumen Shipyard has developed rapidly with sufficient financial and technical support.…

.

However, due to the prosperity of shipping, especially the rise of the European War, China, as a participant in the war, was also involved in this war. After the outbreak of the war, the European governments participating in the war have requisitioned merchant ships to serve the war. Worldwide, due to the shortage of merchant ships, ocean-going

The transportation business has basically come to a semi-standstill, and with the war losses of merchant ships. Merchant ships are being ordered around the world, and Yingyoumen Shipyard, as the largest shipyard in China, naturally receives a large number of domestic and foreign orders.

After Yingyumen Shipyard went all out to build ships, the ship repair business of this port, where exports continued to surge, was naturally tense. Not only was it far from being able to meet the normal ship repair and maintenance needs, it even caused merchant ships to have to go to Shanghai and North Korea.

Even Japanese ships were repaired and then returned to Lianyungang to load cargo. Although Yingyoumen Shipyard continued to expand, compared with the ship repair business, the shipyard's ever-expanding shipbuilding business still restricted the increase in its ship repair business.

Shipbuilding can certainly make huge profits. However, the technical requirements are too high, but ship repairing is also very profitable. Faced with the tight situation of ship repairing, some domestic businessmen naturally joined the ranks of building shipyards and repairing ships. In the fourth year of the Republic of China, from Shanghai

Tianwan Shipyard, led by industrialist Zhu Zhi and co-founded by Zhang and a group of local gentry from Jiangsu and Anhui provinces. Feng Guozhang, Duan Qirui and Anhui generals participated in the project and was completed in Tianwan on the southern edge of the Lianyungang railway land.

The port was built in the same way, using blasted mountain land reclamation to build the factory area. The entire factory area covers an area of ​​180 acres. The entire project includes three large dry docks and two tidewater docks. The Tianwan dock may be far smaller in scale than the same.

Compared with Yingyoumen Shipyard, it was one of the most advanced shipyards in the Far East at that time. The shipyard could not only undertake the repair business of 20,000 to 30,000-ton cargo ships, but also build 10,000-ton ships and produce engines.

kind of machine.
To be continued...