Chapter 199 Taking Advantage of Someone's Danger (Third update, please subscribe)
What is the fun of sailors?
Of course it’s a woman!
The sailors who had just left had already found their fun - among the crowd on the shore, many women had squeezed in early, including many decent women. Perhaps their husbands were fighting for the Confederacy in the trenches on the front line, but in order to make a living, they had to show their faces in public.
Anything the sailors brought could be sold at a high price, not to mention high-end goods such as silk and lace. Even a pair of boots or a bottle of whiskey could be sold at several times the price.
In order to obtain these things, women can be said to have used all their talents, but one thing is certain: they will definitely offer their bodies at all costs, especially some women with good looks.
Perhaps after a night of passion, the sailors would not only sell the goods they brought with them, but also leave some "surprises" for the women.
But in the end, the sailors would still exchange their money for cotton near the dock - a pound of cotton only cost 10 cents in the market, but it could be sold for 80 cents in Nanhua, which was several times the profit.
Two days later, when the ship set sail again, everyone returned with a full load. In addition to the captain's "public cargo" of more than 5,000 bales of cotton, even the most ordinary sailors exchanged two bales of 400 pounds of cotton. Everyone can benefit from smuggling to the South. A bale of cotton is only worth a dozen or twenty dollars in the South, but it can be sold for 160 yuan in Europe. The value of a shipload of cotton can sometimes reach nearly a million dollars!
Cotton is a crop.
But before the war, the U.S. cotton industry was the best in the world. At that time, cotton accounted for 60% of all U.S. exports. 77% of Britain's cotton came from the U.S., 90% of France's cotton came from the U.S., and 92% of Russia's cotton came from the U.S. Three-quarters of the world's cotton was produced by the U.S.
The outbreak of the war and the blockade by the North directly led to a global cotton raw material crisis, which not only caused the closure of a large number of cotton textile factories and the unemployment of thousands of people, but also caused a surge in cotton prices. The North's maritime blockade was a golden age for cotton merchants, who could make profits and money through speculation.
Jack James was one of the many cotton merchants in London, and he was as familiar with the industry as anyone else. Although he was one of the bankrupts in the cotton crisis, when cotton mills in Manchester went bankrupt one after another, when he stood in front of the gentleman, his heart, which was already destitute, began to beat again.
That is when he became a trader. As a businessman, he never cared where the American cotton of Hart Trading Company came from, but a stable cotton supply could bring hundreds of thousands of pounds of sales to his company. However, this was not his main business.
What is his main job?
Of course, it is to find suitable targets among those companies that have gone bankrupt or are on the verge of bankruptcy due to lack of raw materials, and to bring a glimmer of hope to the desperate people - by buying their machines.
There is only one problem, and that is that the machines must be the latest spinning machines and the latest looms.
The normal approach is that he would visit those factories, seek opportunities to interview the factory owners, see their situation, and then offer them a lot of suggestions... This is the normal approach.
How can such a way demonstrate his ability?
Since those people are having a hard time right now, of course we have to take advantage of the situation and use the opportunity to lower the price.
"You have to remember that in 1862, the import volume of raw cotton in Britain dropped sharply to 4% of the same period before the war due to the naval blockade of the Northern Federal Army. Many factories in Manchester, the "cotton production center", were forced to close down. Now, one out of every four factories has gone bankrupt or closed down. We must lower the price of factory equipment as much as possible. Remember, without cotton, their machines are just a pile of scrap metal..."
James said, smiling at Hansen.
"We should not only let them know this, but also let the banking industry know this. We should also communicate more with reporters and tell them to write more news about bankrupt factories. Only when the banking industry collects loans will those factory owners go bankrupt. Only when they go bankrupt can we purchase those equipment at the price of scrap metal."
After the factory went bankrupt, equipment that was once worth tens of thousands of pounds was no longer worth even a thousand pounds. If no one bought such cheap equipment, it would eventually rust away in the factory. In Manchester, many of his former colleagues thought that Jack was a very good guy. At least he saved a lot of people. Of course, it would be even better if he could sell cotton to them.
But in today's Britain, the scarce cotton cannot be bought with money. Whenever cotton is declared at the port, those powerful guys will buy up all the cotton, and ordinary merchants can only close their shops and go bankrupt.
"But sir, what are we buying those equipment for?"
Hansen was surprised that in the past two years, they had purchased more than 200,000 spinning machines and a large number of looms.
But even so, the boss is still purchasing equipment in large quantities.
"If those equipment cannot be sold, we will suffer a great loss."
"You don't have to worry about that. Our machines are always in great demand. Hart Trading Company will underwrite the sales of those machines..."
When James said this, he didn't know that "Hart Trading Company" was just a shell like his company. There were dozens of similar companies in the UK. Some companies specialized in "transportation" business to the United States, some companies specialized in purchasing various military supplies, some companies sold cotton, and some companies acquired factories.
On the surface, these companies seemed to have no connection, and even the smartest spies could not find any connection between them. At most, they would find it a little strange that many of the machinery and equipment of bankrupt factories were eventually sold to American companies.
But this is no big deal at all. After all, American companies purchase a large amount of machinery and equipment in the UK every year. It is normal for them to purchase equipment from bankrupt factories.
What they didn't know was that when British textile merchants were caught in the cotton crisis, Nanhua had already built several large textile factories thanks to the government-backed smuggling trade. Cotton textile factories in Britain were unable to start production due to insufficient raw materials. Nanhua's cotton cloth and other products had not only begun to be sold to South American countries, but the shortage of market supply also allowed Nanhua's cotton cloth and cotton textiles to be sold back to Europe, entering the German region and Russian markets...
After all, America is so far away from Europe that anyone would ignore its existence...
(End of this chapter)
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