The Rise of the Writers of the Republic of China

After Zhou Hexuan returned to Shanghai, instead of going to the hotel, he went directly to Xu Zhimo's house. Anyway, there are many guest rooms here, and there are still vacant rooms, and there are cooks and servants to serve them.

It was the weekend, and Xu Zhimo was resting at home.

Seeing Zhou Hexuan, Xu Zhimo asked with concern: "Mingcheng, I heard that there was a riot in Nanjing, are you okay?"

"Stop talking, it's hard to explain," Zhou Hexuan said with a wry smile, "I'll introduce you to two friends, Booker, a professor of agriculture at Jinling University, and this is his wife, Pearl, who is also a writer."

Xu Zhimo was warm and hospitable, shook hands with Pearl Buck and his wife and said, "Hello, both of you!"

"Hi Mr. Xu, my Chinese name is Pearl Buck." Pearl Buck smiled.

Xu Zhimo said in surprise: "Ms. Pearl's Chinese is really good."

"We've been living in China," Booker explained.

Zhou Hexuan was just as casual as in his own home, sat down and picked up his teacup and asked, "Where's Xiaoman?"

Xu Zhimo said: "She went to play cards with her friends, and she might come back at night."

Zhou Hexuan didn't inquire any more, just sat on the sofa and drank tea slowly. On the contrary, Xu Zhimo and Pearl Buck had a good chat. Pearl Buck also showed her first draft of "The Great Earth". Xu Zhimo admired it greatly after reading it, saying that it was a romantic epic about rural China.

Romantic epics often mean divorced from reality.

Everyone chatted for a while, and suddenly someone came to visit.

The name of the visitor was Zhang Jiazhu, about twenty-four or five years old, and he had just graduated from Harvard University last year. He is the eighth brother of Xu Zhimo's ex-wife Zhang Youyi. He founded the Crescent Bookstore (major shareholder) in Shanghai at the beginning of the year, specializing in publishing and selling the works of poets of the Crescent School.

Xu and Zhang are strange to say, obviously Xu Zhimo abandoned his wife and divorced Zhang Youyi, but they are very close to each other.

Xu Shenru bought a bungalow in Shanghai for his ex-daughter-in-law last month, and Zhang Jiazhu hangs out with his ex-brother-in-law all day long. These people are not too embarrassed to get along with each other.

"Yu Jiu, why do you have time to play with me?" Xu Zhimo asked with a smile.

Zhang Jiazhu said in a bad mood: "I'm free all day long, so I only have time left."

Zhang Jiazhu is indeed qualified to be idle, and his family is also a big local tyrant.

Zhang Runzhi has a total of 12 children. The eldest is Shanghai Youba, a famous entrepreneur; the second is involved in politics and academics, and is the founder of the National Socialist Party, one of the four King Kongs of New Confucianism; the third is engaged in finance, and later known as the modern Bank of China father of...

Zhang Jiazhu is the eighth child. Although he is not promising at the moment, he has also graduated from Harvard and will become a well-known industrialist in the future.

Xu Zhimo smiled and said, "Let me introduce you, Yu Jiu, this is Mr. Zhou Hexuan Zhou..."

Zhang Jiazhu is a short-tempered person. Before Xu Zhimo finished speaking, he clapped his hands and said, "So it's Mr. Zhou. I've read your poems, and I've admired them for a long time! Mr. Zhou also moved to Shanghai?"

"I'm here to find someone to do business with." Zhou Hexuan said.

"What kind of business?" Zhang Jiazhu patted his chest and said before he understood the situation, "You can find me to cooperate."

Zhou Hexuan took out a sample of underwear in a funny way: "Buddler business."

Zhang Jiazhu picked up the underwear and took a look: "This seems to be a new style of underwear, very beautiful."

Pearl Buck and his wife were also attracted, and Booker observed, "These are snap buttons, which seem to be more convenient than the new American underwear."

"And the style is also good-looking." Pearl Buck added.

Zhang Jiazhu laughed and said, "Younger sister must like it, why don't you bring her in to participate in the shares."

The "little sister" Zhang Jiazhu refers to is Zhang Jiarui, Xu Zhimo's former sister-in-law, who studied fashion design. In a few years, she will become a judge of various talent shows in the Republic of China and a well-known social activist.

Zhou Hexuan rolled his eyes and asked with a smile, "Brother Yujiu, are you really planning to invest?"

"Of course, the new underwear is so fresh, young people should try new things." Zhang Jiazhu said. He has never had to worry about food and clothing since he was a child, he has never experienced the hardships of life, and he does everything according to his own preferences.

"Well, let's go to Uncle Xu now, he also plans to invest." Zhou Hexuan got up immediately.

"Let's go, do what you say!" Zhang Jiazhu quite agreed with Zhou Hexuan's vigorous and resolute actions.

After the two left, Xu Zhimo still hadn't come to his senses—how did they talk about cooperation after only a few words when they met for the first time?

The reason is very simple, Zhou Hexuan is worried about Xu Shenru, and it is enough to bring Zhang's family in. Although the relationship between the two families is good, since Xu Zhimo and Zhang Youyi divorced, there has been a rift, and the Zhang family is full of resentment towards the Xu family.

It's only Zhang Jiazhu, a stunned young man, who runs behind Xu Zhimo's ass.

Zhou Hexuan and Zhang Jiazhu's visit made Xu Shenru a little surprised, and when he figured it out, he couldn't laugh or cry. To be honest, his family has a big business, so he doesn't look down on the apron business at all, and he won't play tricks and dirty hands in it!

Alas, let them young people go to toss it.

Xu Shenru treated Zhou Hexuan and Zhang Jiazhu very patiently with the attitude of treating juniors. It doesn't even matter if you suffer a little bit, it's just as compensation to the Zhang family, who made his son abandon his wife.

The address of the underwear factory is tentatively located in Pudong. Shanghai is backed by the sea and connected to the Yangtze River, which is convenient for purchase and shipment, and it is easier to recruit workers.

Xu Shenru contributed 20,000 yuan and was responsible for raw material supply and production, accounting for 30% of the shares; Zhang Jiazhu contributed 20,000 yuan and was responsible for sales and management, accounting for 30% of the shares; Zhou Hexuan contributed 20,000 yuan and provided monopoly rights, and was responsible for publicizing public opinion, accounting for 40% of the shares.

In fact, Xu Shenru and Zhang Jiazhu don't need to personally ask questions. Both of them have their own professionals, and they can just send a few people to manage things.

For the next half month, Zhou Hexuan and Zhang Jiazhu were running all over the place. They are novices in the business world, and they follow the professionals to fool around, but they spend more time watching the excitement.

Xu Shenru has great powers. Before the factory building is selected, he has already shipped 200 sewing machines, and is busy recruiting and training workers.

In the early years of the Republic of China, Shanghai was a core base of light industry, with numerous factories and companies, especially the textile industry.

During World War I, and in the following years, China's textile industry flourished unprecedentedly, and it was possible to make a lot of money by building any factory. But after 1921, Western and Japanese businessmen came back, coupled with the oversupply of China's textile industry, the market collapsed instantly. Even Zhang Jian’s factory was losing money year after year, not to mention others—the boycott of foreign goods in the 1920s was born against this background.

Zhou Hexuan’s current underwear factory has two advantages at the beginning: one is the fierce competition in the textile industry, which leads to low cotton and yarn prices, and low raw material costs; After a few days of training, you can start working.

Even the factory buildings are ready-made. There is a closed spinning mill under the plate. After simple decoration and layout, it can start work in less than half a month.