This is a southerner with gentle appearance and stubborn heart. His brother Fan Yuanlian is the education director of Yuan Shikai's government. His family background could have embarked on a broad career, or become a relaxed official businessman, but he is willing to devote himself to the arduous national industry as a scientist. When his family sent him to Japan to study in his early years, a Japanese headmaster said to him, "China will die as soon as he studies." This sentence stimulated his life. After graduating from the Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Imperial University of Kyoto, he immediately returned to China, determined to revive the salt industry in China.
Since Qin and Han Dynasties, the central government monopolized salt and iron. Although the people of China are guarding the rich marine resources, the edible salt is still crude salt produced by indigenous methods, with low efficiency, low purity and many harmful substances. At that time, western developed countries had clearly stipulated that salt with sodium chloride content below 85% was not allowed to be used as feed; However, in many parts of China, salt with sodium chloride content below 50% is still used for human consumption. Therefore, some westerners laugh at China as a "nation that eats soil". In fact, it is not difficult to make refined salt, and the cost is not high, but there was a lack of chemical talents in China at that time, and no one set foot in it. The refined salt market has long been monopolized by British and Japanese businessmen.
19 14 After returning from Europe, Fan Xudong decided to develop refined salt production first. He actively studied the production technology of refined salt and set out to set up Jiuda refined salt company. At that time, in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China, such as Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, southern Jiangsu and other places, salt distribution was monopolized by officials and businessmen. With their wealth, salt merchants colluded with the government to control the salt policy and harm the people. High-quality refined salt is imported from abroad, which is expensive and can only be bought by dignitaries. In order to innovate and invigorate the economy, Fan Xudong is determined to make its own refined salt and sell it to trading ports such as Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhu, Jiujiang, Hankou, Changsha and Yichang and other places. He cooperated with the former director of salt affairs, Jing Benbai, and applied to the government for the establishment of Jiuda Refined Salt Company. The news spread and was opposed by the old salt merchants, but the public opinion strongly supported it and the authorities had to approve it.
19 15, Fan Xudong founded Jiuda refined salt company in Tianjin, and Fan Xudong personally designed a pentagonal trademark named "Neptune".
Jiuda refined salt was quickly besieged by salt merchants at home and abroad. Japanese businessmen spread rumors in newspapers that Neptune was poisonous. The British envoy to China even tried to block Tianjin port with warships to prevent salt carriers from leaving the port. Domestic salt merchants even attacked it. For hundreds of years, the national salt production and marketing has been monopolized by officials and businessmen, and Jianghuai salt merchants control the salt price. They have formed a huge and complex interest group, and neither foreign countries nor China government dare to reform lightly. Fan Xudong will obviously turn things around. Jiuda refined salt can't be sold in Jiangnan for a long time. 19 17 The sales of nine refined salts 10000 tons, 1923 increased to more than 40000 tons, and 1936 reached its peak, about 500000 tons.
Jiuda Refined Salt Company (changed to Jiuda Salt Company after 19 19) began to prepare to issue shares to raise funds on 19 14. 19 14, with Jing Benbai as the chairman and Fan Xudong as the general manager. It officially set up a factory in Tanggu, Tianjin, to process brine by drying salt on the beach and evaporating it in a steel pot. At the beginning of its establishment, it raised * * * 50,000 silver dollars, and after 10, its share capital expanded to 2.5 million silver dollars.
After the advent of Jiuda refined salt, it was well received by consumers and its business developed rapidly. Distribution outlets around the country only do wholesale, not retail, and use it to sell, with considerable profits. Within two years after the opening of the business, in addition to receiving dividends, shareholders also receive dividends equivalent to 20% to 30% of their share capital. Therefore, Fan Xudong won the trust of shareholders, became a prominent figure in the national industrial and commercial circles, and laid the foundation for the establishment of Wynn Soda Factory in the future. But at the same time, the old salt merchants gathered the ruling and opposition forces, and after years of disputes, they initially tried to uproot them for a long time in order to make a comeback and monopolize the salt industry; Secondly, relying on its strong economic strength, it forms a "quasi-south office" with the joint transportation and marketing industry to compete with Jiuda for the market. Fan Xudong and his colleagues who deal in refined salt formed the refined salt association to fight against it. Inomoto became the president of the first "refined salt meeting".
The development of Jiuda Company has also attracted the attention of bureaucrats and warlords. At that time, Li Zeng, the leader of Tianjin warlord, demanded a ransom of 200,000 yuan in the name of raising wages. After being sternly rejected, Li ordered detention and sent people to nine major threats to life. After Fan Yuanlian found someone to mediate, Jiuda Company raised 80,000 yuan behind Fan Xudong's back and sent it to him before he returned from danger.