Travel through the Qing Dynasty and become emperor

Chapter 373 Li Hongzhang's Memorial (1)
"Secondly, the three of you can continue to serve as the directors of Sanxin Company. This company can continue to operate the arms business, and I want you to list and operate it, but the Far East Joint Stock Company must hold more than 75% of the shares in this company, and The three of you have no right to decide all the arms sales of Sanxin Company, and the final decision is in the hands of the Imperial War Department."

"Yes, we will do our best to serve the emperor and the country."

"Thirdly, you are responsible for all the troubles in Shanghai these days. I know you are all rich, so I want you to spend some money to make up for the losses of Shanghai citizens. Otherwise, once the truth of the Shanghai incident is announced one day , even if I don’t kill you Shanghai citizens, can I spare you?”

The three of them were terrified and nodded hurriedly.

Guan Xuqing smiled and said, "I asked Nie Jimu to do the calculation for you. Each person should pay 1000 million yuan and hand it over to the Municipal Finance Department."

"Ah! 1000 million yuan!" The three of them grinned, and the three of them added up to 3000 million yuan. This amount of money was almost equivalent to the fiscal revenue of Shanghai for a year. They knew that the emperor intended to take them out of their pockets. Kong, but in order to save his life and dare not say anything else, he had no choice but to agree.

Guan Xuqing continued: "Verbal promises are useless. I will give you an agreement later. As long as you sign on it, what you just said will come into effect. Before that, you should reflect on it here. If you have time in the future, I will call you again."

"Thank you Lord Ron!"

After leaving the reception room, Zhao Bingjun asked, "Your Majesty, are you really going to kill everyone?"

Guan Xuqing thought about it for a while, and said: "Just now, I was in a hurry, mainly to show Huang Jinrong and others. Uh, those military intelligence personnel are the nails of Shanghai, they must be pulled out, and all of them will be killed! As for that Okada Xiaoji Well, it’s just a dismissed diplomat, I believe it won’t pose a threat in the future, so let’s release him after a few days of detention.”

"twitter."

Beijing, Cabinet Office meeting room.

The conference room was lifeless, and all the people present were high-level officials of the empire, but at this moment, everyone's faces were tired and sad.

"Where is the person? Pour water, pour water! His throat is dry." Liu Buchan, who was always calm, was also anxious to curse at this time, knocking on the table loudly.The staff rushed over to pour tea for the adults.

Then there was the sound of drinking water one after another in the room.

Suddenly, the door of the conference room opened with a bang, and Dai Hongci, the director of the Telegraph Bureau, jumped in as if pushed by someone.Before he could speak, he picked up the tea that Liu Buchan had just chilled, and drank it all in one gulp.

"What's the matter? Is the emperor's whereabouts?" Li Zhen asked eagerly.

"Hey, you are talking, you can really make people die." Even Feng Xianghua stood up anxiously.

Dai Hongci obviously ran all the way here. After drinking the water and panting for a long time, he said: "Good news every day."

"What good news?" Everyone stood up unanimously.

"Crack", Dai Hongci slapped a newspaper on the table, and everyone gathered around to watch it carefully.

The big headline in the newspaper read: The Emperor of the Chinese Empire drove Shanghai, turned the tide, and shocked the beach!A large photo of Guan Xuqing is also published below.

"That's right! It's the emperor, really the emperor." Holding the newspaper, several ministers were so excited that they didn't know what to say.

The news of Guan Xuqing's arrival in Shanghai caused a great sensation in Shanghai. Thousands of people gathered in front of the city hall every day, demanding to see the emperor, but Zhao Bingjun and Luo Ming were concerned about the emperor's safety. In any case, they did not agree, so in the end, Nie Jikuo had to come forward many times and explain to the people repeatedly, and the people dispersed one after another.As soon as the common people left, a large number of Chinese and foreign reporters came, and they gambled in front of the city hall for three full days. The head of the Foreign Affairs Department was so busy that he had to answer so many reporters' questions every day, and finally his voice became hoarse. I'm speechless.

Guan Xuqing stayed in Shanghai for a few more days, and told Nie Jiju about all the affairs here, planning to return to Luan soon.

On this day, Zhao Bingjun came to look for the emperor anxiously. Guan Xuqing could tell from the other party's expression that something must have happened, so he asked, "What's the matter? Tell me."

Zhao Bingjun said worriedly: "Do you still remember that a few years ago, Mr. Li wrote a report about the abolition of mulberry and agriculture in Southern Province?"

Guan Xuqing nodded. He knew that the Li Gong Zhao Bingjun was talking about was the deceased Li Hongzhang.

Zhao Bingjun went on to say: "At the beginning, this paper was approved by your majesty. At that time, due to the complicated state affairs, this matter was not fully pushed forward."

Guan Xuqing said leisurely: "Yes, the man has gone, and his book is still on my desk, how can people not miss it."

"After the Sino-Russian War, the abolition of mulberry and agriculture was officially promoted in the southern province, but now something has gone wrong."

"Oh? Let's talk about it, what's wrong?" Zhao Bingjun said in a nutshell.

Since the end of the Ming Dynasty, Jiangnan has been the center of the textile industry in the country. The so-called "thousands of silk at sunrise, the clothes covered the world" describes the prosperity of the textile industry in the south of the Yangtze River.However, with the outbreak of the Western Industrial Revolution in modern times, since the Opium War, the handicraft textile industry in the south of the Yangtze River has ceased to be prosperous and began to face a major crisis.The technological innovation of the western industrial revolution started from the textile industry. Its production efficiency and quality were far beyond the competition of traditional Chinese handmade textiles. Under the impact of Western machine textiles, the textile industry in Jiangnan gradually fell into the brink of collapse.

Among them, the situation of the silk reeling industry is particularly severe and special.On the one hand, after 1860, the British and American countries set up machine-made silk reeling factories in Shanghai one after another, and the silk reeling industry flourished day by day, while the original hand-made silk reeling industry in the south of the Yangtze River declined rapidly.On the other hand, the price of raw silk fell again and again, from 1868 taels of silver per load in 517 to less than 200 taels per load.The reason is that foreign merchants kept suppressing the price of raw silk and raising the price of factory silk, while the merchants in Jiangnan fought on their own, like scattered sand, and the price was controlled by foreign merchants.

Before Guan Xuqing came to power, there was an extremely tragic raw silk war.Hu Xueyan, a red-top businessman, has invested 1500 million taels of capital on his own, and contacted his silk industry counterparts to collect all the raw silk from all over the world, forcing foreign merchants to buy at high prices.

However, after all, Hu Xueyan was single and weak, coupled with bad luck, just happened to meet the outbreak of the Sino-French war.The French ship arrived at Wusongkou in Shanghai, and the situation was tense. Foreign banks and Shanxi Banks withdrew their short-term loans one after another.On the other hand, because he belonged to Zuo Zongtang's family, he was suppressed by Li Hongzhang, Sheng Xuanhuai and others. At the critical moment, he took the opportunity to ask Hu Xueyan for the official salary of his bank agent.Hu Xueyan's funds were unsustainable, so he was forced to sell the raw silk, and the raw silk war ended in failure.

At that time, Guan Xuqing was busy with the Sino-French war, and had no time to take care of these Sino-foreign commercial wars. After all, Hu Xueyan could not get the support of the court, but suffered from others, almost crazy gambling-like adventures, and lack of luck, which eventually led to this tragedy. fiasco.

Guangxu, who traveled across the world, knew about this matter, Lin Qizhao, who was in Shanghai's ten-mile barracks, knew about it, and Li Hongzhang naturally knew it too.

In mid-October of the 16th year of Guangxu, Li Hongzhang, the governor of Zhili and Beiyang Minister, asked the imperial court to change mulberry and promote agriculture. Undoubtedly, it spread quickly all over the south of the Yangtze River in a thunderbolt.The ambiguous attitude of the court and the unusual silence of Liu Kunyi, Governor of Liangjiang, all make people feel that this matter is becoming a reality.

From the officialdom to the private sector, everyone was instantly enveloped in an inexplicable panic, especially the executives of foreign firms in Shiliyi, Shanghai, who were even more nervous.The mulberry trees were all cut down, and without the mulberry leaves, there would naturally be no raw silk.The compradors, street runners and brokers in foreign foreign firms became busier than ever. Instead of purchasing raw silk in large quantities until the end of the year in previous years, they began to purchase raw silk from merchants in various places in the south of the Yangtze River.

(End of this chapter)