Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 125 His Highness’s New Toy (Part 3)
"Damn you prodigal son! Cannonballs don't cost money? Is it necessary for the entire fleet to fire at once? Isn't it enough to fire a few rounds to shock people? You are a bunch of idiots who don't know the value of firewood and rice! That shipload of silver sank, how much is the loss? At least five thousand taels!"
On June 11, Cao Sanxi, who had received the news of the successful robbery, uh, anti-smuggling, rushed from Nanjing. But after learning the details of what happened on the sea that day, the smiling Cao immediately turned hostile and roared at Li Guozhu and others.
Cao Sanxi couldn't help but get angry.
Most successful businessmen have a natural sensitivity to money, and Cao Sanxi is particularly sensitive to this.
Although he is not the boss now, but only Zhu Youdong's personal financial manager. But even if it is not his own money, which financial manager does not want to see a constant surplus in his account book, and does not like the balance in the account book to increase?
In the hospitals of later generations, almost every financial section chief looked down upon those departments with poor performance or even those that required the hospital to pay for their services. Once they had the opportunity to make suggestions to the hospital leaders, they would often persuade them to reduce the size of or even eliminate departments such as pediatrics and emergency departments. Although the hospital leaders would never adopt such opinions due to social responsibility and other reasons, there is no doubt that such financial section chiefs are qualified.
As for Cao Sanxi, he was very fond of departments like Honghe Industry, Fangshan Grocery, and Mubang Jade Mine, and he was always smiling at the employees and managers of these departments. However, when facing the managers of Fangshan School and Fangshan Laboratory, he might not be unhappy, but the employees of these two departments should not expect Cao to smile at you.
In the past few days, Jinling Daily was also a department that Cao Sanxi had the cold shoulder to. But after Jinling Daily started to make a profit, although the monthly surplus was not much, as long as he did not lose money, when the editor-in-chief of Jinling Daily, Zhang Yicheng, came to do business, he would greet him at the door and personally serve tea.
In a word: Those who can make money for our group are good men, and I admire them. Those who always cause losses, although they have to pay various fees due to the high pressure of His Highness, but you don't have to think about getting a good face.
However, Fangshan School and the various laboratories have clearly felt since the second half of last year that although Cao Dashi still has a bad attitude towards them, it is much better than before.
Because Manager Cao has a newer and bigger target of resentment - Changsha Shipyard.
As mentioned above, the Yangtze River estuary of this era had not yet formed Chongming Island with a land area of 1,000 square kilometers. There were only four sandbars with an area of about 30-50 square kilometers, namely Chongmingsha, Changsha, Sansha and Nansha, and more small sand dunes. Among these four main sandbars, Changsha has the best location: it is surrounded by the other three large sandbars from the north, east and south. The water depth on the west side facing the land is more than 15 meters. It is really a deep-water port given by God. Therefore, after gaining control of these four sandbars, Zhu Youdong built a new shipyard here. And quickly recruited thousands of shipbuilding craftsmen-the early stage was to build port settings and slipways, and after the drawings were finalized, they directly started to build ten warships in one go.
So Cao Sanxi became completely depressed.
The current income and expenditure situation of Manager Cao is as follows: after deducting the dividends from various shareholders and the costs of Honghe Industrial, Fangshan Grocery, and Jinling Newspaper, the total annual income of Nanhua Palace is close to two million taels.
In terms of expenditure, Fangshan School currently spends about 40,000 taels. With the addition of 1,000 students and newly hired teachers each year, the school's annual expenditure will increase by 10,000 to 15,000 taels. Although the investment continues to increase, Cao Sanxi knows that this is Zhu Youdong's foundation, and the expenditure is controllable. So he doesn't have much objection.
In terms of expenditures, Fangshan Laboratory suffered a loss of 420,000 taels in the 35th year of Wanli (1607). It is estimated that the loss will reach 500,000 taels in the 36th year. Although the loss is huge, the laboratory produced mass-produced sulfonamide and nitroglycerin lozenges last year, and the market response was very good. The profit of Fangshan Grocery Store has also increased. Moreover, since the first half of this year, human trials of penicillin have also had excellent therapeutic effects. Once it is on the market, it will definitely make a lot of money. In addition, in the 35th year of Wanli, the laboratory also tinkered with new mirrors (silver mirror reaction) and table clocks, and achieved results in miniaturization of clocks. Therefore, Fangshan Laboratory suffered a huge loss on the surface, but Cao Sanxi knew in his heart: without Fangshan Laboratory, Honghe Industry and Fangshan Grocery would not make any money at all. Therefore, although he repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the application for funds from Xu Guangqi, Wu Youxing and others, he was actually very happy to allocate funds.
In addition, Mubang can make money, but Liaodong Kuandian still has to keep throwing money away. As the money becomes more and more abundant, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who has always been generous with money, has increased the funding for Kuandian from 100,000 taels per year to 200,000 taels per year!
However, Cao Sanxi thought that the two hundred thousand taels should be given. After all, he had been with the crown prince for so long and had learned a lot of new things. He knew that the northeastern border defense was always an important guarantee for maintaining national security. With this understanding, no matter how stingy the shopkeeper was, he would never save on this expenditure.
What has been making Cao Sanxi most unhappy lately is this shipyard and fleet.
Originally, Cao Sanxi thought that the profits from sea trade were very high, and he should have a share of it. But Your Highness, you are the grandson of the emperor. Wouldn't it be easy for you to get a bunch of boats from Yuegang? Since you have already recruited Li Dan, Yan Siqi and others, after you have the boats, can't you just go out and run with Li Dan's sea ships ? Why do you have to lay the foundation from scratch, build ports, shipyards and build new large ships?
Now, there are more than 1,000 people brought by Li Guozhu, more than 500 newly recruited sailors, more than 1,000 shipbuilding craftsmen, and logistics personnel who provide various services to soldiers and craftsmen in Chongmingsha, Changsha and other sandbanks. The total number has reached more than 4,000. His Royal Highness the Crown Prince stipulated that the food and clothing of these people should be provided by Nanhua Palace. Therefore, these people have to eat and eat all day long, and they will lose nearly 5,000 taels of silver every month, which is 60,000 taels in a year.
Eating and dressing are trivial matters. The key is that the soldiers here need to receive military pay and the craftsmen need to receive wages. Moreover, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince has never changed his extravagant habits, and he has set the salaries of these guys very high: Li Guozhu, the guerrilla, receives 250 taels of military pay per month, and the lowest ordinary soldiers receive 2 taels of military pay per month. And what about the craftsmen? The Portuguese shipbuilder also receives 250 taels of military pay per month, and the lowest apprentice receives 1 tael of military pay per month. Calculated in this way, these people's salaries will lose tens of thousands of taels of military pay per year!
This is the amount of money these soldiers can earn just by sitting there without going out to sea. According to the regulations of His Highness, the navy officers and soldiers will receive a subsidy for each time they go out to sea. The subsidy is calculated based on the number of days, half a cent per person per day. If they are sick, they will be treated, and if they are killed in battle, they will receive a pension... In a year, it will be tens of thousands of taels.
Last year, the ship test cost nearly 30,000 taels.
Two hundred thousand taels of silver were invested in building large ports and shipyards.
Building ten new warships, along with artillery, shells and other items, would cost nearly three hundred thousand taels!
One hundred thousand taels of wood were purchased from deep mountains in Yunnan, Jiaozhi and other places in preparation for the subsequent construction of warships!
Even if he spent all this, Cao Dazhang still had a lot of money left every year. But that's not how the accounts work!
In Cao Sanxi's opinion, the currency reform of the Ming Dynasty must be carried out: how could most parts of the country use silver for settlement, but silver is not the official currency?
The emperor is in his prime at this moment, and there is a crown prince before the crown prince. In Cao Sanxi's plan, the crown prince may ascend to the throne in thirty years. Therefore, his goal is to accumulate at least 50 million taels of silver in these thirty years. Then, after the crown prince ascends to the throne, he will have enough silver reserves to promote the national currency reform!
Yes, if Cao Sanxi wanted to be his own boss at the beginning, his idea has completely changed now : to be the designer of the national fiscal reform and to achieve more than his predecessor Sang Hongyang, this is the pinnacle of life for a business genius like him.
But according to the way the prince is spending it, fifty million taels? When will it end?
As the crown prince, His Highness's food and clothing are really simple compared to other royal family members . But... hey, he is still a child after all. When he sees things like big ships and big guns, he probably treats them as new toys, right?
