Among the many trading firms and warehouses in Wuhu, the Four Seas Trading Firm was a very inconspicuous trading firm. Both the storefront of the trading firm and the warehouse inside were considered average in Wuhu. Even if they rented a warehouse by the dock, they could not store large quantities of goods. Outsiders thought that the Four Seas Trading Company's advantage was its relatively large transport fleet. There were more than 90 ships that sailed on the Yangtze River all year round, and half of them were more than 80 tons. The Four Seas Trading Company's transportation capacity accounted for nearly half of the local transportation capacity. The boatmen of the fleet and the people on the dock were almost all from the Qingyang Three Family Village. The Four Seas Trading Company, which existed as a public property of a village, might have been very rare during the Republic of China. During this period, the industries were all owned by the landlord capitalists and bureaucrats. For hundreds of years, the industries in the village had been managed by the Wei family, and the village chiefs of the three families had jointly managed them. No one had ever raised any objections to this because most of the land in Qingyang Zhou was sandy. The soil could not hold water, so only some plants such as flowers, raw potatoes, and so on could be planted. There were very few paddy fields, and rice was the staple food in Jiangnan. The grain produced by Sanjia Village's own fields was not enough for the village's needs, and the commercial firm had to purchase it from outside to make up for it. In the case of famine years, the commercial firm had to bear a huge obligation to solve the village's difficulties for free. The villagers would also receive a certain amount of courtesy from the trading company. For hundreds of years, the existence of the trading company had become a common practice for the villagers of Three Family Village. Over the years, the Four Seas Trading Company seemed to have mainly done two things. One was to provide a guarantee of life for the villagers and clansmen, and the other was to accumulate wealth. These measures seemed to have received the tacit approval of the village elders.
Even though Wuhu Rice Market was so prosperous, everyone in it knew that if you had a good reputation, operated with integrity, and didn't cheat, you wouldn't be able to become a big merchant. In this period, to become a super rich man, there was only one kind of place, which was the developed coastal areas, and there was only one kind of person who could be a bureaucrat. For example, the four great families of Jiang, Song, Kong, and Chen. The Song family was already a part of the country, and Song Ziwen was the Minister of Finance. On the eve of the collapse of the Jiang family's dynasty, Little Jiang fought a tiger in Shanghai and ended up fighting his own family.
Now that the Four Seas Trading Company wanted to expand against the trend, he definitely had his capital and ability. The Four Seas Trading Company had a business that was not eye-catching to the outside world. Jiuhua Mountain was within the territory of Qingyang, and the Buddhist Sect consumed a lot of incense items. Qingyang had an industry that produced tin foil. In the future, tin foil was plated on the tin foil paper on the market. In the Republic of China and for a long time after that, tin foil was made by a craftsman who hammered a small piece of pure tin in a row. A good craftsman could arrange a piece of tin the size of a thumb nail into a thin sheet of tin foil that was larger than a bed. Then, the tin foil was attached to the paper to form a tin foil paper. How much area could a piece of tin foil discharge? The first was the skill of the craftsman, and the second was the purity of the raw material. Under the premise of the same level of craftsmen, the quality of the raw materials ranked first. Even if the impurities in the tin block could be removed by one thousandth, the extension of the tin would be better.
The best process to purify non-metallic metals was to perform an electrolyser because the metal ions were all positive ions. As long as a direct current was connected to both ends of the electrolyser, the metal ions would continuously surge to the negative pole. The purity of the metal obtained was extremely high, and it was commonly known as four nines, such as ninety-nine gold, negative pole copper, and so on. However, such a process had a huge drawback, which was that it required a large amount of electricity. Not to mention the Republic of China period, even now, it was only used for gold, silver, copper, nickel-and other relatively precious metals. Nowadays, the purification of tin blocks could only be solved through smelting. In this process, temperature and the addition of elements to remove impurities were key. However, the Three Family Village had the key secret skill of smelting. It was said that this secret technique had been passed down from the palace in the early years, but this was only hearsay. It was true that Three Family Village had mastered the secret technique. Because it was too noisy to process tin foil, Three Family Village did not process the tin foil themselves. Instead, they handed over the purified pure tin to other workshops to process the tin foil. Qingyang had dozens of small workshops that processed tin foil. The Four Seas Trading Company had to recover the tin foil processed by the pure tin of Three Family Village. These small workshops were just processing on behalf of them for a processing fee. Using the tin raw materials provided by Sanjia Village, the area of the processed tin foil was 30% larger than usual. Because the finished tin foil was not calculated by weight, but by feet, the profit of the tin foil produced by the Four Seas Trading Company was much higher than that produced by ordinary people at the same price. In the beginning, the market was not only used for sacrificial items. About 20 years ago, the Four Seas Trading Company sold the tin foil to Shanghai and sold it to the Shanghai Yizhong Cigarette Company, a subsidiary of the British American Cigarette Company. To prevent moisture, cigarettes were lined with a layer of tin foil in the middle of the cigarette case. The tin foil of the Four Seas Trading Company was thinner and more uniform than other supplies, and the price was slightly lower. It was very popular among the tobacco companies. The settlement with the tobacco company was offset by the ex-factory price of the Lao Dao brand and Da Qianmen cigarettes produced by the tobacco company. After they were transported back to Wuhu, they would be sold directly to the second-tier sellers. Moreover, the Four Seas Trading Company would also give them a portion of the profits. They would sell them in the territory of Wan Province. There were so many people who smoked, so the market demand for cigarette sales was stable. Ever since the Four Seas Trading Company started this business, their profits had increased exponentially every year. For the tobacco company, it was not only selling products but also earning market share. The cooperation between the two sides had always been stable. From the supply of tin raw materials to the wholesale sales of cigarettes, the Four Seas Trading Company basically operated on a zero warehouse basis, greatly saving operating costs. Because the processing of tin foil was scattered, the sales of cigarettes were directly wholesale. Other than their own fleet transporting them, the outside world did not seem to have access to such a large business volume of the Four Seas Trading Company. This was the biggest source of profit for the Four Seas Trading Company. The Four Seas Trading Company had also accumulated a lot of wealth. Later, the Four Seas Trading Company expanded its business to Qingdao. The Sanpaotai cigarettes of the Qingdao Cigarette Factory also entered the market of the province. This time, the expansion of the Four Seas Trading Company was mainly to strengthen the strength of the source in Shanghai. The wholesale in the province was transferred from Wuhu to various distribution points. This time, Nanjing was added. The next step was to enter Jiangxi and Hubei along the Yangtze River. The Four Seas Trading Company seemed to be developing its business, but behind its existence, it wanted to establish an independent and effective military and commercial intelligence network. Of course, it mainly focused on commercial intelligence. Murong Yao and Wei Wuji did not know the reason behind this.
The next day, after everyone had breakfast, people who wanted to apply for the job arrived one after another in the back hall of the commercial house. Originally, the trading company had chosen five people. Today, two more were added. The two added were the children of the old men in the trading company. One of them caught Murong Yao's attention. His father was actually a boatman. His name was Wei Guoning. He had been living on the water since he was young and was good at swimming. He was the same age as Murong Yao and was also 13 years old. He didn't look very strong. According to his father, this child liked to read and was also smart. Three years ago, he was sent to the trading company as an apprentice. This year, he had just finished his apprenticeship. When he heard that the trading company wanted to hire a steward, he was still young and just wanted to give it a try. Murong Yao saw that this child's eyes were very lively and quick-witted, so he asked him what he had studied. Wei Guoning replied," I learned math at the counter. I don't know much about words, so I only learned a little in the shop. I can roughly understand the contents of the newspaper!"”Murong Yao secretly nodded.
After a while, Zhao Mingyuan also brought the five people he recommended over. Wan 'er and Tong' er also came to watch the show.
Other than Wei Guoning, everyone else was over 20 years old. As for how to choose the candidates, they had discussed it last night. Since loyalty wasn't considered, it was a matter of business. On the one hand, it was about how to deal with the problems encountered by the store rules, including special issues; On the other hand, it was to see if the standard of an individual's accounting skills was as good as Yu Yue. Finally, they did some calculations and checked their proficiency. Wei Yiqu, Zhao Mingyuan, Wei Wuji, and Manager Li of the trading company were all experts and were very familiar with them. Everyone asked questions on the spot and judged them. At this moment, Murong Yao had nothing to do. With the mentality of watching from the sidelines, he also familiarized himself with business and learned.
Wei Yiqu first said a few words to the applicants,""The trading company needs to expand and needs to add some stewards. Everyone here is recommended by everyone. Don't be nervous, everyone. We'll just ask a few questions. We'll ask about what you usually do.”
Time passed very quickly. Everyone had asked most of the questions in the morning. There were two people who had aroused Murong Yao's interest. One of them was called Wu Qing. He was in charge of the warehouse in the Four Seas Trading Company. Because the warehouse was usually relatively empty, Wu Qing was mostly doing odd jobs in various places. Murong Yao felt that this Wu Qing was a thoughtful person. He was extremely familiar with the various operational links of the trading company and could help out in various departments. The other one was recommended by Boss Zhao. He was about 40 years old. He was a tall and lean man called Yin Degong. This person seemed to be especially sensitive to numbers. In the middle of the conversation, both parties mentioned numbers more than ten times. Some of them were even five or six digits. When it was over, Murong Yao suddenly asked him to repeat the numbers that they had just talked about. In the end, this guy said everything without missing a single one. How correct! Murong Xiao felt that this person had a good memory, especially when it came to numbers. Murong Yao estimated that the possibility of that little guy getting it was not high. His shortcoming was that he had not learned it for long and lacked experience. Many things were difficult to do without a certain amount of time to accumulate. There was still the abacus left. He would not be able to make it in the morning and could only do it in the afternoon. Fortunately, everyone already had a preliminary impression of the person they were going to hire. Anyone who had done an abacus on the counter knew how to do it, but it was nothing more than a matter of proficiency and unfamiliarity.
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