Chapter 1856 North Korean Market

As the most prosperous city under the rule of North Korea in this era, Seoul not only serves as the country's political center, but also plays the role of an economic and trade center. At least half of North Korea's dignitaries live in Seoul and nearby areas. And in

After the war between Korea and the Qing Dynasty, a large number of upper-class people from the northern region fled south to Seoul for refuge, which further increased this ratio.

The direct impact of the influx of a large number of wealthy people into the city has been an obvious inflationary effect. In addition to the impact on the prices of ordinary daily necessities, even fixed assets such as real estate have also risen with the tide. Some civilians simply sold their residences at high prices.

To the rich people from outside, I moved out of Seoul and settled in a place with a lower cost of living.

For example, if the house where Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun stayed was priced at 4,000 taels of silver before the war, no one might be willing to buy it. But if the current owner is willing to sell it for 1,000 taels of silver, the buyers will probably queue up at the door. Of course.

, the owner of this house is neither short of real estate nor short of money. He lent the house purely to please the king and win the goodwill of the Haihan people. He will not sell the house just because of the current rise in prices.

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However, those who have been snapping up real estate in Seoul recently are not all northern dignitaries who have fled here, but also a considerable number of businessmen from foreign countries. These people have relatively high requirements for the area, location, and living conditions of the real estate, but they spend very generously.

, as long as you like it, you won’t care too much about the price, so it will quickly increase the housing prices in Seoul.

Naturally, the majority of them were merchants from the Jiangsu and Zhejiang areas of the Ming Dynasty and from Haihan. Especially the large Haihan merchants who had received the news in advance. Almost all of them managed to purchase real estate in the city for the purpose of opening business stores.

In fact, there were already products from Haihan on the North Korean market before this, but most of them were resold by Ming merchants, and there were only some expensive high-end goods, which ordinary people could hardly afford. From now on, Haihan merchants will directly

By entering the North Korean market, a large number of industrial products will gradually enter the daily lives of North Korean people, and Seoul will become one of the main distribution centers for Haihan products in North Korea.

Sungnyemun Gate in the south of Seoul is the closest city gate to the Han River. Because it is more convenient to transport goods and people from the Han River, the nearby area has become a favorite place for foreign merchants to settle down. Sungnyemun Gate faces the street.

A shop in , was originally a cloth shop, but it was taken over by a large merchant from Haihan some time ago. After being closed for renovation for more than a month, it will finally reopen for business recently.

After a facelift, this shop no longer operates a cloth business. Instead, a large plaque with the words "Haehan Bank" was hung at the main entrance. For most North Koreans, they still don't quite understand what this sign means.

Only a few businessmen and well-informed dignitaries who have been overseas know that this institution is not a shop in the traditional sense, but a bank engaged in financial services. What is different from ordinary financial institutions is that this institution

"Haihan Bank" is officially operated by Haihan and is said to have extremely strong capital, which is far from comparable to similar private institutions.

How rich the funds of Haihan Bank are, which can be seen from the lavish investment of 20,000 taels of silver in one fell swoop to buy this cloth shop. This price has far exceeded the market price of the shop, and even seems to outsiders to be

There is a suspicion of taking advantage of others, but Haihan considered more than just price when bidding.

Haihan Bank's establishment of a branch overseas is a rather complex project. The location alone is extremely demanding. There are corresponding assessment standards for the location, area, structure, and even the materials used in building the shop.

, in many places, because it cannot find suitable shops, Haihan Bank will even buy a piece of land to build it by itself.

According to Haihan Bank, it is not easy to find a suitable store. Spending more money and saving valuable time is a cost-effective deal. As for the funds invested in the early stage, compared with the long-term returns,

It's not a big amount, not to mention that Seoul is the political and economic center city of North Korea, so the number of potential customers is quite considerable.

Although the previous war almost drained North Korea's treasury, the wealth of the people has not been greatly affected. A considerable part of the large amount of money brought to Seoul by the dignitaries who fled south from the war zone is in a state of idle funds, and Haihan

After the bank opens its branch in Seoul, it can try to absorb these funds for its own use - the industrial cooperation plan being discussed between Haihan and North Korea requires a large amount of funds to promote implementation. If North Korea's own idle private funds can be fully utilized,

It can also reduce a lot of burden for Haihan.

Due to the particularity of banking business, employees of this institution must undergo professional training and a period of internship before they can start working. Therefore, from top to bottom, the Seoul branch basically comes from Haihan, and only from the local area before opening.

The shop hired a few clever guys to hand out printed flyers at the door to attract customers.

Of course, real big customers will definitely not be brought back from the street temporarily. When the location of the Semicolon was still being selected in the early stage, Mei Baiji, who was designated as the person in charge of the Seoul Semicolon, was already visiting local dignitaries and developing development projects.

Long term customer.

Mei Baiji came from a Han landlord family in Danzhou. In 1630, Haihan marched into Qiongbei in the name of suppressing bandits and successfully captured Danzhou City. At that time, the Mei family wisely chose to quickly defect to the new master and sent the young Mei Baiji to his family.

Mei Baiji was sent to Sanya to study abroad. After a period of study, Mei Baiji gradually showed his talent in finance, and was then selected to be sent to a specialized agency of the Ministry of Finance to receive targeted training.

Mei Baiji was known as a child prodigy when he was in Danzhou. However, after he entered the training class of the Ministry of Finance, he discovered that there were too many smart people in the world. Some children were younger than him but more intelligent.

When it comes to magic, he is only considered to be of average or upper-level qualifications, and is not as unique as he is in the countryside of Danzhou. So he quickly put away his pride and honestly studied the knowledge taught by the Haihan people.

After Mei Baiji received two years of training, he was assigned to work at Haihan Bank. He only worked as a teller for more than two years before he was spotted by Cai Jinmei and was promoted to become a personal secretary. Maybe it was a coincidence, or maybe it was the relationship between the two.

There is a word "Mei" in his name. In short, Cai Jinmei put a lot of thought into cultivating this young man. In the following years, Mei Baiji followed Cai Jinmei around, but he experienced several overseas branch offices of banks from project establishment to implementation.

Throughout the entire business process, I really learned a lot of real skills.

When Haihan Bank was preparing to establish a North Korean office, Cai Jinmei recommended Mei Baiji to Schneider as the person in charge, and successfully obtained Schneider's approval. So Mei Baiji, who was only 25 years old, was sent to North Korea to take charge of the office in North Korea.

The semicolon of Seoul’s preparations to establish Haihan Bank.

Although he has been in this business for five years, it is still not easy for Mei Baiji, who has been in charge of this task for the first time. In particular, North Korea is still a relatively unfamiliar country to Haihan.

, to carry out financial business here, you will inevitably encounter many unknown difficulties.

Fortunately, the special international situation encountered by North Korea created excellent external conditions for Haihan Bank to conduct business. The panic caused by the invasion of the Qing army and the large number of people fleeing south caused the private wealth in North Korea to quickly concentrate near Seoul.

Whether so much idle funds are stored or used, it is a huge problem for many outsiders. Haihan Bank can provide them with the most convenient and safe solution, and can even use money to make money to generate more income.

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The impressive achievements of the Haihan Army on the Korean battlefield also greatly enhanced Haihan's reputation. Coupled with the public opinion propaganda that Haihan deliberately guided, the North Korean people gradually equated Haihan with security.

Haihan Bank, which operates under the banner of Haihan's official bank, has naturally won the trust of some North Koreans. They agreed to open an account at the bank after it opened and deposit some of their spare money into Haihan Bank.

Mei Baiji was busy for more than a month before the opening, visiting hundreds of potential customers, but when it came to the opening, he was still so nervous that he couldn't sleep at night. This was not because of the two soldiers Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun.

General Fang led him to Seoul, but his old boss Cai Jinmei also came all the way from Zhoushan, Zhejiang. Whether his early work can be recognized by his boss will probably depend on his results in the first few days after opening.

Cai Jinmei did not come to Seoul empty-handed this time. Shi Diwen specially sent an expedition-class warship to bring her here. Such grand treatment was not only due to Cai Jinmei’s prominent position as the president of Haihan Bank, but also

Part of the reason is that her trip brought a large amount of funds needed for the operation of the Seoul branch-Haihan Bank's business projects are not only to absorb deposits, but also to lend money.

Considering that Haihan Bank had just arrived, there might be insufficient local deposits in the early stage, so Cai Jinmei shipped a large amount of gold and silver from Zhejiang. In addition to serving as working capital in the early stage of opening, it was also to provide some financial support to Haihan Bank.

Large customers who lack confidence show their strength, allowing them to put money in the bank with confidence.

Although there are no taboos for female officials in Haihan, in order to avoid unnecessary trouble, Cai Jinmei did not take the initiative to visit local dignitaries after arriving in Seoul. She still left all the social tasks to Mei Baiji. And she herself

Sit in the semicolon, review whether all preparations are in place, and study the local market research report and work plan written by Mei Baiji.

Cai Jinmei and Mei Baiji are both superiors and subordinates, as well as mentors and apprentices. She took the initiative to recommend Mei Baiji to the Executive Committee and Schneider. Naturally, she also hoped that the apprentice she brought out could make great achievements in North Korea.

, she will also have light on her face by then.

Cai Jinmei is quite satisfied with the preliminary preparations for Mei Baiji's organization and command in Seoul, especially this house located in the most prosperous area of ​​​​the south gate of Seoul. It has a large yard with three courtyards, and the base of the walls is made of bluestone.

It is very solid and has a street-facing storefront, so it is relatively easy to transform it into a structure required for bank operations.

Even buying a house and renovating it, Mei Baiji spent nearly 30,000 taels of silver here, but in Cai Jinmei's view, this was not a waste. Years of work experience made her very clear that the more glamorous and wealthy the bank's hardware environment, the more customers

The more peace of mind you can handle various financial services here, the more wealthy you can attract truly wealthy people.

Of course, the environment alone is not enough. It is only part of the bank's operating methods. In order to get the Seoul Branch off to a good start, Cai Jinmei has actually done a lot of work in advance, and part of it was left to Mei Baiji to complete.

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"In the arrangement of the reception work, you must take the people below to go through the process several times, especially those North Korean employees. There must be no mistakes. How many people can be invited to support this time? Are these big shots interested in our business?

, is likely to directly affect our early operating conditions, so no matter how much effort we put into preparing for it, it’s not too much.”

While drinking tea, Cai Jinmei told Mei Baiji to pay attention to things. In fact, she did not need to emphasize these things again and again. Mei Baiji also understood their importance, but she still bowed her head very respectfully and listened to her boss's instructions, just like she had done in the past few years.

This time the Seoul Branch is opening, Haihan has sent invitations to many prominent people in Seoul through official channels, asking them to come to watch the ceremony. However, Mei Baiji does not have an exact estimate of how many people will come.

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Most of the invitees accepted the invitation for Haihan's sake, but did not make it clear whether they would show up at that time. This caused a lot of trouble for Mei Baiji's reception preparations.

, he was not even sure how large a reception area would be on the nearby street. And if few guests were invited to come, and it failed to warm up the atmosphere and attract attention, then he would be

It’s hard for organizers to deliver.

So far, the only North Korean official who has explicitly promised to be present is Kim Sang-jiu, who has interacted with Cai Jinmei several times. However, Kim Sang-jiu's official position is only the envoy of North Korea in Dinghai Port, Zhoushan. Even though he is

He is not a prominent figure in Seoul, so as the main guest participating in the ribbon-cutting, it seems that he does not have enough weight.

Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun, who are originally in Seoul, will definitely come to support them, but if there are no officials of equal status in North Korea, the effect of this official endorsement of the bank's credibility will inevitably be lacking. So stand

From Cai Jinmei's point of view, she still hopes to invite officials of Kim Sang-heon's level to attend the opening ceremony. If several senior North Korean officials can support Haihan Bank, the daily operations and market development after the opening will be easier.

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Chapter completed!