Chapter 432: The Shanghai Head Office

Zhao Yingong was overjoyed, but he still had to maintain his posture. He immediately agreed that not charging rent for the ships in exchange for a share was acceptable. However, since the four large sand ships and their crews were to brave the dangers of the sea, even if Master Shen was righteous, he personally couldn’t fail to provide some assurance to the Shen family. He promptly took out six Delong banknotes of one thousand taels each, offering to pay a deposit for the men and ships upfront. The deposit would be returned upon their safe return.

A brand-new large sand ship, with a carrying capacity of about four thousand shi (approximately five hundred tons), cost around fifteen hundred taels to build. The Shen family’s ships were not new, so paying a deposit based on the price of new ships was a gesture of utmost sincerity.

“This is unacceptable!” Shen Tingyang repeatedly waved his hand, firmly refusing. The two went back and forth for a long time, but Shen Tingyang never accepted the banknotes.

“However, I’ve heard that ships going to Japan must buy a permit flag from Zheng Zhilong. Have you made preparations for this, brother?”

“I have already made arrangements for this matter. Brother Jiming need not worry,” Zhao Yingong said with confidence. Zheng Zhilong’s permit flag? Once the route was open, there would be no such thing as Zheng Zhilong’s permit flag.

The drinking continued until evening. That night, Zhao Yingong stayed at the Shen residence. He returned to Shanghai the next morning.

Upon returning to Shanghai, Zhao Yingong immediately got busy. Now that he had established a connection with the Shen family, the next focus of his work was to build up his operations in Shanghai.

He had already reached an agreement with Shen Tingyang, asking him to secretly prepare the ships and sailors. The specific purpose was to be kept confidential for the time being—Jiangnan was not Old Zheng’s territory, but it was not guaranteed that he didn’t have commercial agents there.

Zhao Yingong’s temporary office in Shanghai was located outside the Baodai Gate, commonly known as the Little East Gate, of the Shanghai county town. This was the location of the waterway docks in the Ming Dynasty. The Shanghai head office of the Qilin Express Agency was located here. The head office was not very large, because according to the long-term plan, the future head office would be moved to the Bund along the Huangpu River. This was just a temporary location.

Although it was temporary, the construction of the building was still very exquisite: a large compound that blended modern and traditional styles. This was not to appear unconventional, but purely because modern architecture was far superior to traditional architecture in terms of usability and space utilization. It was said that the design was from the hand of a female disciple and personal secretary of a certain elder architect from the General Construction Company. However, the other elders were scornful of this—it was just a little trick to build up the reputation of one’s own little secretary for her future fame.

Zhao Yingong had originally planned to build the Qilin head office on the Bund, using it as a starting point to redevelop the area. However, after a field inspection, he found that the development difficulty was a bit too high: the geology here was mostly tidal flats, and the Huangpu River, being connected to the sea, was greatly affected by tides, with a daily tidal range of up to 4 meters. With his current economic strength and the commercial conditions of this time, building a “New Bund” was a “Great Leap Forward” move. So in the end, he still chose to purchase land and build near the already mature Little East Gate docks of Shanghai county.

The Shanghai head office still had the traditional facade of a large Jiangnan business. The front courtyard could accommodate sedan chairs and horse-drawn carriages. A large black lacquered plaque hung above the main entrance, with the three characters “Qilin Station” written on it—a favor asked of Xu Guangqi through the Shanghai church. Walking through the main gate led to another large courtyard, paved entirely with stone slabs, with only two golden osmanthus trees planted in it. In the courtyard were three two-story European-style small buildings. The ground floor was the business hall, and the upper floor was for offices.

The main hall was the freight department, the east wing was the private mail department, and the west wing was the Shanghai office of the Delong Bank. It was now close to noon, the busiest time for business. Zhao Yingong went directly to the back through a side passage.

In the rear courtyard were rows of warehouses for storing transshipped goods and mail. Zhao Yingong passed directly through the passage to the third courtyard.

The three rows of two-story office buildings in the third courtyard housed the “Ren Branch” of the “Sea Route”—that is, the back-end department of the Qilin Express Agency’s Shanghai head office. Zhao Yingong also had an office here.

Mao Sansheng was waiting in the entrance hall. He held two positions: he was both the head of the Shanghai head office and the head of the Qilin Station’s Shanghai branch. In reality, it was one team with two signs. Mao Sansheng controlled the entire “Ren Branch” in Jiangnan and was a very crucial figure. For this reason, both the Political Security General Bureau and the Cheka had placed their own personnel through their respective channels to monitor him and the entire establishment.

Mao Sansheng did not know he was being monitored, but he understood the simple truth that holding great power required demonstrating absolute loyalty. Therefore, since being appointed as the head of the Shanghai head office, he had entrusted someone to move his family from Jiangxi to Lingao.

These days, he had been busy integrating the logistics system in Jiangnan—a very complex task that required not only energy but also a lot of time. For more than a year, he had traveled to almost all the county towns and most of the market towns in Jiangnan and northern Zhejiang. He had been to every place accessible by boat. He was now dark and thin, having preliminarily established a logistics system based on inland river transport, stretching from Nanjing to Hangzhou.

This system had already begun to turn a profit, especially the “private mail” business. The industry, commerce, and agriculture in Jiangnan and northern Zhejiang were all prosperous. There were many resident landlords in the cities and also many commercial practitioners, creating a high demand for mail services.

In the past, these letters were sent through entrusted boats. The postage was high, the fees were arbitrary, and security was poor. Moreover, they could generally only be sent over short distances; slightly farther or more complex routes were not served. The Qilin Station’s private mail business, on the other hand, operated on the model of a modern courier company. It was not only more efficient but also had a wider coverage. Generally, letters sent within Jiangnan and northern Zhejiang could be delivered within a week of posting. They also offered a special “express service,” delivered by dedicated personnel and boats, which could cut the time in half.

It was thanks to this system that Zhao Yingong could conveniently direct the activities of the Hangzhou Station in various places while he was active in Hangzhou, Shanghai, and Nanjing.

Zhao Yingong exchanged a few words with Mao Sansheng, asking about the recent business operations of the Shanghai head office. Then he went to his private office. He had dedicated offices in all the external counters and branches under the Hangzhou Station. They were usually locked, and only he had the key.

He had just entered his office when Fenghua brought in letters from the various branches. His itinerary was circulated by the local branch to all other branches under the Hangzhou Station, ensuring that everyone knew his whereabouts and could send reports to him in a timely and accurate manner. This way, he could stay on top of the situation in all locations and issue instructions promptly. This was crucial for Zhao Yingong, who had to manage multiple projects simultaneously.

The first letter Zhao Yingong opened was from the Hangzhou Station, a report written by Fenghua about the silkworm breeding farm at Phoenix Mountain Villa.

Since buying the Shen family’s property, Zhao Yingong had started experimental sericulture at the Wanbi Villa. A dedicated mulberry garden was opened and managed by the Shen family. Wanbi Villa had a lot of hilly land suitable for planting mulberry trees. Zhao Yingong had transported several hundred high-quality mulberry saplings and a batch of silkworm eggs from the Agriculture Committee, preparing to establish high-quality mulberry cultivation and silkworm breeding in Hangzhou.

In the Edo period, the largest share of Sino-Japanese trade was raw silk. Japan needed a large amount of raw silk every year. Apart from a small amount for domestic use, most of it was made into export silk and velvet for the Dutch, which was essentially a processing industry with both ends of the supply chain abroad.

The amount of raw silk that Lingao could provide was not much. The raw silk purchased from the Pearl River Delta through the Wanyou Company and its business partners was mostly sold directly to the Dutch and the English. Therefore, Zhao Yingong had to rely on purchasing Zhejiang raw silk locally.

Zhejiang had an abundant supply of silk. As long as one had silver, it was easy to obtain enough raw silk for export. But Zhao Yingong was not satisfied with the quality of the local silk—or rather, he had been incited to dissatisfaction by Wu Nanhai and Si Kaide. Zhao Yingong actually knew nothing about sericulture and the silk industry, but he had often heard these two express their contempt for domestically produced raw silk. So as soon as he got Wang Siniang and her daughter in Hangzhou, he ambitiously started to work on the silkworm breeding industry.

Although China was the origin country of sericulture, its sericulture and silk industry had fallen behind by the Qing Dynasty. Due to the neglect of breeding, the local silkworm breeds had continuously degenerated, and the output and quality of raw silk had also deteriorated. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan, in order to expand its exports, invested heavily in silkworm breeding, sericulture guidance, and reeling equipment improvement. As a result, it quickly rose to prominence, snatching the main share of the international market from Chinese local silk. And from then on, Japan always held a leading position in sericulture: high yield and good quality. So much so that by the 1920s, when knowledgeable people like Fei Xiaotong hoped to revive domestic silk production, they had to import silkworm breeds, technology, and equipment wholesale from Japan. The first batch of professional teachers in the modern sericulture industry were almost all Japanese-educated students. Japan’s advantage in sericulture even continued into the 21st century.

The temperature- and humidity-controlled breeding farm of the Agriculture Department’s silkworm breeding station housed dozens of superior silkworm breeds brought from the old time-space. Among them were special varieties used for making export ties, kimonos, evening gowns, and chiffon fabrics. Most of these varieties were bred in Japan and raised in Brazil and Southeast Asia. The export of these silkworm eggs to China was originally strictly controlled, but fortunately, due to Japan’s prolonged economic downturn in the first decade of the 21st century, they were obtained with a little maneuvering. At Wu Nanhai’s request, the North American branch even managed to obtain transgenic silkworms containing spider silk protein genes, which were currently undergoing selective breeding at the Agriculture Committee’s silkworm farm, in the hope that they could one day be used to make bulletproof vests.

Lingao’s climate was not suitable for promoting large-scale sericulture. Therefore, as soon as the silkworm farm at Phoenix Mountain Villa was established, the Agriculture Committee transported most of the silkworm breeds to Hangzhou. With a stable breeding base, all these silkworm breeds, including adaptive hybrids with ancient local breeds, could be mass-produced. As long as there were orders, the breeding could be outsourced to silkworm-raising households.