Training the Heavens

Chapter 373 Shabby Hong Kong

"Brother Wei, we are doing well in Shanghai, why do we want to go to Hong Kong?" A follower asked curiously on the boat.

"Even if I make money doing business in Shanghai, others will say that it is because of my father's reputation. Why should a real man bear such a reputation? I just want to let them see that even without my father and my grandfather, I, Zhang Guowei, can still become a millionaire!" Zhang Guowei acted like a rich young man. Of course, he could not reveal the real purpose of his trip to the south, so he used this excuse to deal with it.

"As expected of him, he's Brother Wei. He's much better than those useless young masters from other families!" These followers had no doubts, because Zhang Guowei's character was indeed like this on a daily basis. They cheered on the surface, but they were jealous in their hearts. If I had such parents and grandfather, I would definitely be willing to stay in Shanghai and live a life of luxury. Why would I go to a poor place like Hong Kong to suffer?

Hong Kong? A poor place? These two words put together may seem quite incongruous to future generations, but it is an indisputable fact that Shanghai is now the most prosperous place in the East. Not to mention Hong Kong, even Guangzhou, Tianjin and even Harbin are more prosperous than Hong Kong.

As the passenger ship entered the waters of the Hong Kong River, a small boat immediately approached. The people on the boat were dressed very fancy and were making a lot of noise with the beating of gongs and drums. Zhang Guowei was very curious and quickly called the sailors to ask.

The sailor didn't answer directly, but kept the question a secret. "Master Wei, if you have any change, you can throw in a few."

Hearing this, Zhang Guowei became even more curious, "Who among you has any change? Give it to me."

He took the change and threw it down as the sailor said. Immediately, a mermaid on the boat jumped into the sea. After a few flaps, he was under the banknote. He raised his neck and opened his mouth in the water, and the banknote fell right into his mouth. At the same time, he clasped his hands together and bowed to Zhang Guowei to express his gratitude.

Only then did the sailor explain the reason: "Hong Kong's economy relies on the entrepot trade of mainland imports and exports, but only foreign merchants can make money from entrepot trade. Most Chinese people rely on menial labor to make a living, and also try to curry favor with passengers in exchange for tips."

"How can we make money here? Are we going to be compradors? Brother Wei, we can't do this!" Even the followers looked down on compradors. They had no good feelings towards these guys who were running dogs for the foreigners.

"Of course not. Don't make a decision in a hurry. Find a good hotel to stay in after getting off the boat, then go to Hong Kong for a few days to understand the situation there before making a decision!" Zhang Guowei appears to be careless, but he is very cautious in his work.

The next day, he took his followers for a stroll around Hong Kong. They visited the two busiest department stores there, Sincerely and Wing On, but felt that compared with the big department stores in Shanghai, they were smaller in scale and had nothing special in their goods. They were simply not on the same level.

Looking at other places, it is indeed no different from what the sailors said. Almost all ways to make money are monopolized by foreigners. Apart from being compradors, Chinese people have few opportunities to make money and can only barely make a living.

Foreign merchants who controlled trade and shipping were enjoying the golden age brought by the entrepot trade. The garden-style European residential communities on the Peak and Kowloon Tong were magnificent, and they also emphasized the "green vision of the British countryside", grandly displaying the wealth accumulated by the entrepot port.

Ordinary Chinese people generally live in crowded "tenance buildings" without separate toilets, shared chimneys and kitchens, small windows with poor lighting and poor air circulation. Living space is extremely compressed. Units of 30 to 90 square meters are generally partitioned with wooden boards, and dozens of people can live in one household.

Strolling along Queen's Road Central, one would find foreigners wearing tweed clothes and leather shoes, while the Chinese were mostly barefoot coolies, hawkers, and rickshaw pullers. The slightly better-off would likely own a small grocery store or restaurant. The main reason for this was the British Hong Kong authorities' entrepot economy, which was entirely tailored to the interests of a small group of cutting-edge foreign merchants.

The re-export economy that made foreign merchants rich started with shipping and trade. Foreign goods from all over the world sailed across the ocean to Hong Kong, and were re-exported to major commercial ports and deep into the mainland using the "inland navigation rights". Local raw materials were then collected in the mainland and re-exported to the world through Hong Kong.

Foreign companies represented by Jardine Matheson not only dominated the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean in East Asia, but also competed for China's inland rivers. They established huge docks, warehouses and shipyards in 15 major inland commercial ports as trading bases, allowing them to fully utilize the low tax advantages created by unequal treaties, spread out a dense distribution network, and dump foreign goods.

From large factory machines to small needles, thread and buttons, foreign goods are all available. Even in the most remote and impoverished villages, one can buy Indian cloth for tailoring clothes and Mobil kerosene for lighting lamps.

The distribution network has changed direction and has become an export base for purchasing local products from all over the country, starting from Niuzhuang in Liaoning in the north and ending in the provincial capital of GD in the south, fully controlling the export of goods from the north and south of the mainland.

Large quantities of soybeans from Northeast China, eggs from North China, tea from the Yangtze River Basin, furs from Northwest China, tung oil from Southwest China and raw silk from Guangdong were purchased and shipped to Europe and the United States. By controlling ocean, near-shore and inland shipping on the one hand and mainland imports and exports on the other, Jardine Matheson became the largest merchant in Hong Kong.

From shipping, trade, dock warehousing, ship repair and shipbuilding, finance and insurance to investment companies, Jardine Matheson has created a complete industrial chain of the re-export economy. The Chinese can only survive by doing hard labor in this industry chain.

Earlier, influenced by Guangdong's industrial development, some people in Hong Kong tried to set up factories. Chinese people in Hong Kong could earn more money working in a factory for a month than they could earn working on the farm in their hometown for a year.

As industry and commerce prospered, the service industry flourished. A person pulling a rickshaw on the street could earn 6 to 7 cents a day, and the agricultural and mineral raw materials needed by the factories came from the countryside. As industry and commerce prospered, farmers also became rich.

However, the foreign trading companies that monopolized Hong Kong's economic policies were not willing to set up factories in Hong Kong. The Chinese were desperately setting up factories in order to drive out foreign goods. The foreign trading companies in Hong Kong made money by importing foreign goods, so setting up factories in Hong Kong would be shooting themselves in the foot.

Therefore, these factories gradually declined. Not only were Chinese not allowed to run them, but foreigners rarely set up factories in Hong Kong. Now, only the products of the Taikoo Sugar Refinery and Watsons Soda Factory are produced in Hong Kong. All others, even a needle, have to be imported.

Zhang Guowei recorded all of this in detail, along with numerous photos, and mailed it to Zhang Xingjiu. Zhang Xingjiu glanced through the notes and shook his head, "The British have occupied Hong Kong for nearly a hundred years, and yet this place remains so impoverished. If China hadn't developed and Hong Kong hadn't taken advantage of this opportunity to become the only window to the outside world, how could it have prospered in the future?"

These photos should really be shown to those who claim that "China should be colonized for three hundred years before it can achieve prosperity". The colonizers don't have any good intentions.

(End of this chapter)