lied to Kangxi

Chapter 976 Treaty of Equality
The grand welcome banquet was held in the newly completed apartment area.

Dozens of long tables are filled with buffets.

French foie gras, scallops, crispy onion soup, dry fried flatfish, steak tartare, etc., Vienna pork chops, Mongolian boiled whole lamb, Mongolian roasted suckling lamb, Spanish potato omelette, Iberian ham and blood Sausages, Dutch muffins, croquettes and croquettes, Belgian cheese ham lettuce, hairy bear Caspian caviar, etc., etc., there are a variety of food to eat.

Hot coffee, rum from Cuba, served open.

Chambertin and Homane Fanti, in limited quantities, are refilled by the waiter on call, a fifth of a glass at a time.

The huge ice cubes fished out of the cellar were cut into small ice cubes.

In ancient Rome, women were fined for drinking alcohol as frivolity or prostitution.

In Europe, women have never drank pure wine for thousands of years.

For married women in Europe, they can only drink water mixed with wine.And for virgins, only absinthe.

Everyone else was fine, but Xuewei was very distressed, holding a glass of absinthe in her hand.

Really greedy, Xuewei hid in the house, enjoyed a glass of rum, and then came out to help Alice entertain guests.

As the trade volume between China and Britain increased exponentially, appointed by the British Whig government, Lord Hamilton, the cabinet secretary, also arrived at Dagu Port with the boat.

As we all know, during the first Opium War, the commercial supervisor Elliott sent by the British almost completely matched the terms of reference of the consulate in China.

The British cabinet secretary in the 18th century was the highest-ranking official in the UK. In the administrative sequence of the British government, he was far above commercial supervision or consul in terms of real power and status.

In other words, Lord Hamilton is equivalent to a less senior minister of state.

It can be seen that the British attach great importance to the weight of trade with China.

However, Yuzhu didn't bother to pay attention to Hamilton, and simply greeted him, then threw him to Alice to be in charge of reception.

The British people who have been in Dagukou Wharf all know a fact: Mrs. Alice is the spokesperson of Yuzhu's foreign trade, and what she said represents Yuzhu's will.

After Alice became Yuzhu's woman, she always wanted to go back to England at first.Later, with the full expansion of overseas trade at the Dagu Port Wharf, Alice's foreign trade power has also grown.

Power fascinates men as much as it does women.

As a result, Alice was reluctant to leave.

Every British craftsman and engineer is accompanied by a young and beautiful French or Dutch woman.

These women were all arranged by Alice and brought back from Europe.

Yuzhu knew very well how coquettish the British guy was.

British women, to be honest, because of genetic problems, their overall beauty is several levels behind French women.

Within the range of Yuzhu's naked eye, except for Alice, a rare beauty, the rest of the British women are generally crooked and unattractive.

Delicious food and drinks are served, and the beauties are affectionately accompanying her, and the apartment she lives in is also British style.

Well, the pain of homesickness should be lessened a lot, right?

Human nature determines that, apart from making profits, artisans from the UK also have physical and psychological needs.

To be honest, most of the British craftsmen who came here are of third-rate level in the UK, a few are of second-rate level, and none of them are first-rate.

However, developing industry is definitely the right direction and we must persevere.

This is just the beginning, what's the rush?
The third-rate craftsmen have received such generous treatment, are you afraid that the top-notch engineers won't come?

With a glass of Latour wine in his hand, Yuzhu chatted enthusiastically with the mining surveyor (miner) from England.

In France today, Latour wine is about 9 times more expensive than ordinary Bordeaux wine, and it is a luxury drink.

According to the standard procedures of the British, the steelmaking plant must be located in an area rich in coal mines and iron ore, preferably with a river nearby.

In other words, areas with both iron ore and coal mines are suitable places for building steelmaking plants.

Modern steelmaking and modern steelmaking are completely different in terms of equipment, technology and production process, and they are completely different.

However, it is undoubtedly the correct approach to build steelmaking plants near coal mines and iron mines.

The largest coal mine and iron ore production area around Tianjin, do you still have to ask, it must be Tangshan!
The small steel mills in Hebei used to bloom everywhere, and they were banned repeatedly. How could Yuzhu not know?
"Mr. Howard, I heard that there are a large number of coal mines near Luanzhou, where Yongping Mansion belongs. In addition, there are also large open-pit iron mines around Qian'an. I suggest you go and have a look first." Yuzhu pretended to understand Confused, said so on purpose.

Who doesn't know about Kaiping Coal Mine and Malanzhuang Open-pit Iron Mine?
In addition, there are the well-known Hanyeping Company and Maanshan Iron and Steel Company.However, the distance between these two locations is too far to be considered for the time being.

Hanyang Iron Works was actually a joke at first.

Zhang Zhidong and Zhang Xiangshuai, who claim to dare not forget the strategy of managing eight watches, are actually laymen in modern industry.

Zhang Zhidong patted his head and made a decision. He violated scientific and economic common sense and forcibly built the iron factory in Hanyang.

However, the iron ore needed for steelmaking is in Daye, 120 kilometers away.

At that time, there were two steelmaking methods in the world, one was the acid method and the other was the alkaline method.The acidic method can only smelt iron ore with low phosphorus content, while the alkaline method can remove the phosphorus content in iron ore.Obviously, different iron ores require different steelmaking furnaces.

When the British asked about the nature of the ore and coke so as to use which kind of steelmaking furnace, Zhang Zhidong said arrogantly: "China is so big, what type of ore and coke is not available, why bother to ask?".

Therefore, the British provided Zhang Zhidong with the most advanced acid steelmaking furnace in the UK.

However, after the completion of the Hanyang Iron Works, it was discovered that the iron ore in Daye, Hubei had a relatively high phosphorus content. As a result, the steel produced by the iron and steel plant had excessive phosphorus content and could not be used for railway construction.

As a result, the coal used by Hanyang Iron Works was purchased from Kaiping Coal Mine, and even high-priced coke from Germany and Japan. The coal price of the iron works alone was more than three times that of foreign iron plants, not including the transportation cost of iron ore.

As a result, the iron and steel products of Hanyang Iron Works completely lost its cost advantage.

The so-called Hanyang Iron Works, which boasted so much, served no other purpose than whitewashing Zhang Zhidong's political achievements.

Yuzhu was originally the vice president of the Iron and Steel Group, so he must know what to do.

Therefore, Yu Zhu only suggested Howard to go to Tangshan to look for ore, and did not intervene in any other way.

Of course, modern Tangshan City, at this point in time, is under the jurisdiction of Shuntian Mansion, Yongping Mansion, and Zunhua Prefecture.

Howard asked Yu Zhu strangely: "Mr. Yu, your blast furnace is only over 1100 pounds. Is it necessary to explore large coal and iron mines?"

Yu Zhu laughed and said, "To tell you the truth, Mr. Howard, I, the Holy Mother and Empress Dowager of the Qing Dynasty, like to do big things the most. Big things are beautiful, and the bigger the better. As long as the scale is big, I will You have made outstanding political achievements." The british people were fooled by talking about running the train.

Alas, Empress Dowager Cixi, I'm sorry, I'm sorry to pull you out to show my eyes.

Howard is just a miner. How did he know that Yuzhu's plan is to gradually expand the scale of steelmaking, starting with a half-ton blast furnace and upgrading to a hundred-ton converter in the future.

After Yu Zhu walked around among the technicians, Alice took the initiative to find him.

"Darling, Lord Hamilton said..." Alice relayed the request made by the senior British officials.

The British side hopes to establish new diplomatic relations with the Qing Dynasty and reach the following agreement:
Britain hopes to send an ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the capital. If China is willing to send an ambassador to London, the British royal family will definitely treat them with the best etiquette.

The British were allowed to trade in Zhoushan and Ningbo, and followed the precedent of Macau, designating a small island near Zhoushan for merchants to live and store goods.

British businessmen stationed in Macau were allowed to live in Guangzhou.

When British goods are transported in China's inland waterways, they strive for tax exemption or tax reduction. At the same time, they hope that China will have a fixed and open customs tax collection standard.

These conditions are actually roughly similar to the requirements put forward by the Macartney mission when they visited China.

In the eyes of modern people, these terms of trade do not imply any discrimination or inequality.

There is a precedent in Macau for storing goods in Zhoushan.

As early as the pre-Ming period, the Portuguese bribed local officials in Guangdong to obtain the right to dock ships and conduct trade at the Macau wharf.

After the Qing army entered the customs, they followed the Ming system and acquiesced in the fact that the Portuguese were permanently stationed in Macau.

Yu Zhu took a sip of his wine, smiled slightly, and said, "Based on the trade standard of reciprocity, it's perfectly fine for Zhoushan to give them a small island. However, near London, we should also be given a small island for storing goods. Others Nothing, everything can be promised."

"However, we can negotiate with Hamilton, and the British will send an honest and honest lord to help us establish a customs system." Yuzhu admired Mr. Hurd, the chief tax officer of the customs, for his fruitful work and efforts.

Hurd, the general taxation department of the customs, has worked in China for decades. As a result, the entire taxation department became the cleanest department in the Qing Dynasty at that time, not one of them.

Ever since the logistics system of the new army had a big rat like Liu Zishan, Yu Zhu had almost lost confidence in the old anti-corruption system.

It is impossible to solve the problem by massacre.

As we all know, under fertile soil, rats will inevitably be born.

Especially for departments like the tax bureau, which are prone to corruption, instead of believing that the old subordinates are not corrupt, they will be forced to kill people on a large scale in the future.

It's better to simply ask the British to help build a complete customs system.

As for the issue of competing with the British for hegemony, alas, the largest warship of the Qingshui Division weighed more than 300 tons, and the artillery only weighed a few pounds.

How can this kind of weak sailor fight against the [-]-ton sailing battleship of the British Navy?
There is no way to fight for the time being, so we can only become an ally with Britain first!

(End of this chapter)