Chapter 30 Sino-Japanese Silk War

After visiting some factories in Nagasaki, Hu Chuyuan soon went to Kyoto with Pan Rong.

Their first stop is Osaka, known as the "water capital". It is not only the most prosperous city in the Kansai region, but also the ancient capital of Japan. Four years ago, a railway was opened here, which can easily lead to Kyoto and Tokyo, and the railway to Hiroshima is still under construction.

In Hu Chuyuan's eyes, Osaka is still a poor place, not as good as Hangzhou. However, on the harbor along the coast, you can already see a large number of wharves and docks. Black coal is parked in the cabins and fire cars, piece by piece, like countless black squares.

There are a large number of chimneys in the industrial zone southwest of the dock, burning black smoke.

Hu Chuyuan has changed into clothes, wearing a loose hat, while Pan Rong is more like a new Japanese rich businessman, wearing a suit. He also invited two local Japanese friends to make up the number.

Hu Chuyuan knew very well who his opponent was. His first stop was to choose the Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce. At this time, Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of the Mitsubishi chaebol, was just 43 years old. He had become a Hongding merchant in the Meiji era, exclusively operating the Japanese shipping industry.

Three years ago, he only had three sea ships, but now he has 37 large cargo ships and more than 300 small and medium-sized cargo ships.

In the 7th year of Meiji, Japan attempted to occupy Taiwan. It was his Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce that was responsible for the delivery of military supplies. In the Southwest War that broke out last year, he made a lot of money by selling arms to the political axe.

Osaka.

is the place where this person dug the first bucket of gold.

The similar surname of this person and Hu Xueyan is not one or two points, but almost the same. However, Hu Xueyan collapsed, and the family business failed to become a chaebol that affects the fate of the country, and this person's family business has been passed on and has become the soul of the military industry.

Fortunately, Hu Chuyuan has the opportunity to change all this. He also firmly believes that he will do better than Yataro Iwasaki, or even much better.

Hidden identity, Hu Chuyuan visited the dock of the Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce in Horie, West District, Osaka. Although it is not so advanced, the overall level is almost the same as what he saw at the Shanghai dock, but the key is that this Chamber of Commerce has monopolized the entire Japanese shipping industry, and even Qichang, Yihe and other foreign banks in Asia can't. I'm involved in the shipping industry.

Because of the excuse of negotiating business with the other party, Hu Chuyuan roughly made a calculation through the information translated by Pan Rong, which shocked him - the annual income of the Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce in the shipping industry is almost the same as his income as his general salt merchant in the five provinces of Jiangnan.

You should know that the Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce itself also has banks, real estate, raw silk exports and other industries. In the end, it is the shipbuilding industry that has established its position, and the steel industry and military industries that have been extended accordingly.

Is it terrible?

Terrible.

Although it can still be regarded as the same level at present, Hu Chuyuan is really worried about whether he can catch up with Mitsubishi. In addition to Mitsubishi, he also has to deal with the more hateful Mitsui and Sumitomo, which are not fuel-efficient lamps.

Fuji chaebol may be easy to deal with. At present, it can only be regarded as a small bank. What about the future...?

Anyway, work hard!

Hu Chuyuan is also very clear that as long as some strange tricks are used, it is not difficult to defeat the Japanese in the military, but if you can't defeat these chaebols and make the Japanese economy completely collapse, then... Even if you defeat the Japanese political axe in the military, it cannot be regarded as a real victory. It is impossible to suppress the development of Japanese capital.

If you want to completely eradicate this cancer, the key is to deal with the Japanese economy. If you want to defeat the Japanese economy, you must first defeat its chaebols.

Hu Chuyuan hopes he can do it.

After visiting Mitsubishi's shipping terminal, Hu Chuyuan found an excuse to continue to look at the Mitsubishi Osaka Shipyard. Relying on the profits obtained from monopoly shipping, the Mitsubishi Chamber of Commerce has decided to build the largest shipyard in Osaka - later, they acquired the state-owned Nagasaki Shipyard, plus the establishment of Shinsan in Yokosuka. Ling Shipyard did not make a profit, because the shipbuilding industry needed a huge capital investment from the beginning and could afford to bear the loss.

In short, relying on the huge profits of the big chaebol group in other aspects, Mitsubishi finally persisted and waited for the spring.

But for a long time, Mitsubishi chaebols are not the largest shipbuilding companies in Japan, because the more qualified Mitsui consortium firmly occupies this position.

"That's it. The opponent is here. The real victory... is to step on the opponent's bones and become a strong man!"

After visiting Osaka for two days, Hu Chuyuan hurried to his next stop, Kyoto, in such a mood.

This time, he wants to observe at zero distance how the raw silk industry has developed.

In fact, this is not a secret. Japanese newspapers are always reporting these things.

The Japanese silk industry can gradually develop and defeat China's silk industry. The credit of the First Sino-Japanese War accounts for half, and the other half belongs to Kyoto Prefecture.

Ten years ago, that is, the second year of Meiji (1868), Kyoto Prefecture established the Xizhen Property Company, which was responsible for the relief of poor silk farmers and weavers. In the third year of Meiji, a secret bureau and a production center were established, which is equivalent to a chemical research institute and a technology promotion institute.

In the fourth year of Meiji, a silkworm farm was set up to promote new silkworm species and new technologies; in the fifth year of Meiji, livestock farms were set up to promote new cattle and sheep, and people were sent to France to learn new silk weaving technology and Western dyeing technology, and new machines were purchased... For seven years, weaving workshops were set up to promote new manual silk weaving machines and processes.

These "fields" all focus on technical collection, research, improvement, promotion and other work, quickly turning Kyoto's silk industry from decline to prosperity, and extending the successful experience to the whole Japanese.

Kyoto Prefecture has also taken a lot of detours, but compared with the "doing nothing is no wrong" policy of the Qing court, it is really much more positive.

......

Entering the Kyoto Plain and looking at the scenery along the way, Hu Chuyuan has already seen a large area of mulberry forest.

Even here, mountains can still be seen everywhere. In order to develop the silk industry, they cut down a large number of trees and planted mulberry forests.

Due to the confluence of the Pacific warm current and the Cialia cold current here, there is abundant rain, which makes the mulberry leaf resources in Japan extremely rich.

This is the key to the rise of the Japanese silk industry.

With the development of the Kyoto silk industry, the more powerful chaebols quickly used this as a template, using the support of the political axe and their own financial resources to promote the whole.

In 1878, the export volume of raw silk was 726 tons, and the total output was 1,226 tons (2.05 million catties), which was less than 1/3 of the annual output of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

In 1883, the export volume of Japanese silk was 1,347 tons, and the total output was 1,682 tons.

......

In 1903, in just 15 years, the total export volume of Japanese silk reached 6,750 tons, which officially surpassed China in terms of quantity and average quality.

In 1910, the export volume of Japanese raw silk was 10,462 tons, reaching 3/4 of the world's total raw silk exports, six times that of China. This is the most critical export material of the Japanese economy, in exchange for a large amount of foreign exchange and gold.

In fact, the raw silk determines the life and death of the two countries.

The decisive battle between

is to start with raw silk!