Chapter 455 The arrival of profiteering and crisis at the same time

@@@@@@@@@The scorching sun has gradually brought New York out of the gloomy and humid spring, and the street flow of people in Manhattan is lively again.

In a hurry, the Wall Street elites in white shirts are in a hurry, which is in sharp contrast to those workers who are still not in a hurry to go to work.

Neither the United States nor them expected that the first half of 1906 would be so painful.

The South American turmoil in March, the haze of the Panama Canal and the San Francisco earthquake in April, and the Caribbean impact in May have all put a layer of uncertainty on the future of the country. According to authoritative predictions, the U.S. economy may have the first negative growth in the first half of the year.

This news aggravates people's worries about the future. The most intuitive reflection is the depressed atmosphere in the stock market and the slowly declining arrow. At this moment, everyone's eyes are on the political axe, hoping that President Fairbanks can solve the current crisis as soon as possible.

Fairbanks in the White House is very clear that it is not a way to continue to confront the Chinese, and compared with the collision with the ship, Panama and Nicaragua's Grand Canal are the core things, so he finally did not hesitate to exert military pressure on the Nicaraguan political axe to forcibly take back the chisel power.

But the effect is not the best. In addition to Xinhua's resistance and the threat of war guarantee the right to dig, the main reason is that Nicaragua's political axe has already sold the right to the Colombian political axe that has a grudge against the United States because of the loss of Panama, and the Colombian political axe originally wanted to take this opportunity to pressure the United States. But I didn't expect that the Chinese came to pick peaches in the end.

Things suddenly become extremely complicated. After all, Nicaragua is not a small Panama. Once it fights against Nicaragua, it will certainly cause hostility to the United States throughout Latin America and South America, and the Chinese may also station troops in Nicaragua to ensure the excavation of this canal. If it eventually evolves into This situation led to the arrival of the Chinese army on the American continent, which is a great disaster for the United States.

A series of pressures such as economic pressure, domestic tough demands and war is not ready, which made Fairbanks miserable, so Ouyang Geng proposed that he was willing to compensate, but the negotiation level must be raised. After resolving the current series of disputes between the two countries, the White House immediately agreed to restart the negotiations.

On May 20, Tang Shaoyi, the Foreign Minister of the Xinhua Empire, came to the United States again, but this time he received not flowers and applause, but endless accusations and insults from American newspapers.

In the face of such overwhelming sarcasm and abuse, the Xinhua negotiating delegation led by Tang Shaoyi seemed to be deaf. Instead, they joined four ocean-going cargo ships carrying disaster relief materials and stayed in San Francisco to help the local Chinese. At the same time, the medical ships sent by the navy also began to help hundreds of injured people, including the United States. The surname provides medical support.

Although the number of Chinese in the United States today is very small because of the huge absorption method adopted by Li Mo, there are still about 50,000 Chinese living in San Francisco and the western United States. They are the biggest victims of this catastrophe.

The care of the motherland from afar made the Chinese people grateful, and the rescue of naval medical ships regardless of nationality finally opened a glimmer of light for Sino-US relations in the haze.

Although Fairbanks was very anxious to restart the negotiations, it was a humanitarian act in San Francisco, and American citizens were rescued, so they could not be urged too much. Finally, after the German maintenance ship arrived off the coast of Cuba on June 5, Tang Shaoyi and his party finally arrived. It has reached Washington.

Every negotiation is a competition of national power, so when Tang Shaoyi arrived in the United States, on the first day of the meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Hay, he put forward a preconditions to allow the United States to stop blocking the port of Havana and allow Xinhua to enter the maintenance ship hired by Germany to repair the Heilongjiang.

John Hay also asked Xinhua Zheng Axe to take the lead in making compensation and promised not to interfere with the Cuban regime and provide military assistance to Cuba, which made the talks full of gunpowder at the beginning.

On June 10, after many negotiations and communication with China, Tang Shaoyi promised to pay a total compensation of $2 million to the United States. After expressing the promise that Xinhua Political Axe would not interfere with the decisions made by the Cuban people, the United States also timely liberalized the port of Havana and accumulated more than a month of Galle. The wind and waves of the sea gradually dissipated.

On June 11, the talks finally entered the core issue of the right to dig the canal, but unexpectedly, Tang Shaoyi suddenly asked to include a series of issues in the negotiations at this time, such as the treatment of Chinese workers in the United States, the revocation of the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the prohibition of the use of Chinese workers in the excavation of the Panama Canal, which made Fair The American political axe led by Banks was caught off guard.

In fact, until the end of the negotiations, many people did not understand why Xinhua Zheng Axe was suddenly entangled in such a small matter, and it seemed that there was no difference between the main and secondary things.

A series of entanglement and various issues have once again reunited the newly dispersed haze. Every competition on the negotiation table and every detail have made the U.S. stock market jump up and down like crazy.

In the end, the American political axe was made a little big by Tang Shaoyi's negotiation method of trembling left and right, which was not getting to the point, and had to agree to all issues except the Chinese exclusion bill.

Although the Chinese Exclusion Act is still like a piece of psoriasis between the two countries, Li Mo is also very clear that this is not urgent. Historically, the United States has also cancelled the discrimination bill very late.

On August 1, after finally solving all the details, Tang Shaoyi offered a huge price of 200 million US dollars for the transfer of canal excavation rights to the American political axe!

This number shocked the whole world. Once again, it aimed at the madman behind Tang Shaoyi. Perhaps only the young emperor in the world has the courage to offer such a price!

In the face of such a sky-high price, the American political axe certainly will not joke about the taxpayer's money. It rejected the outrageous offer and pressed the price to 30 million US dollars.

In the face of almost ten times the irrecontible price difference, the two sides insisted, but at this time, there came a news that was extremely unfavorable to the United States. The American development company in Xinhua, which had just obtained the right to cut the Nicaraguan canal, used ten cargo ships to pull in the first batch of 8,000 engineering teams under the protection of two cruisers. In Nicaragua, roll up your sleeves and get ready to start work.

The United States was anxious, and even Mahan set out in person. The veteran, the founder of the sea power theory, visited some important members of Congress at the expense of his reputation. As a representative of the U.S. Navy, he elaborated the important surname of the Panama Canal to the United States to Congress. Finally, he dragged the footsteps and visited. A large number of bankers called on all walks of life in the United States to defend the canal.

No one knows whether his lobbying worked, or Fairbanks made up his mind, and finally the American political axe raised the price to 100 million US dollars!

This is the bottom line in Li Mo's heart, but Tang Shaoyi felt that it was not enough. Finally, she gritted her teeth and dug out 10 million US dollars from the American's mouth to recover the loss of paying 10 million US dollars of purchase fees to Colombia.

On August 20, when the world's largest contract was finally finalized for 110 million US dollars, the whole world was in an uproar. While envying and jealous of Xinhua's huge profits, no one expected that the United States would show such determination and determination!

This huge amount of money also stunned Nicaragua. They didn't expect that one had been abandoned by them under extreme disappointment and sold to the Colombian political axe for only 500,000 US dollars. The power to dig the canal as a tool to counterattack against the United States has soared 200 times! So much so that the call for the current political axe to step down almost drowned the whole country.

Although Colombia's political axe was a little disappointed by not being able to rely on Xinhua to take back Panama, the income of 10 million US dollars has actually made them very happy, because they relied on the face of Hispanic descendants. When they bought the chisel from Nicaraguan political axe, they just wanted to disgust the United States from the side. It attracted the United States to buy and recover some of Panama's losses, but in fact, they know very well that Colombia's political axe is unable to dig this canal, whether it is financial or resources.

Now it has exceeded expectations to get 10 million. When I was in a good mood, I immediately bought all four Russian [***] ships in the hands of the Xinhua Navy at the price of two million US dollars. Among them, the Russian flagship Pressure Mountain III is even more powerful than any American battleship at present.

However, this arms purchase agreement aroused a strong protest from the United States. Under great pressure, Colombia's political axe accepted Xinhua's proposal and agreed not to deploy the four warships in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean.

When the agreement was finally settled, anyone could feel that the control of the United States over South America began to decline. In order to recover this loss, President Fairbanks, who gradually stepped out of the gloom, also persuaded Congress to recover Thomas Mining Company at a price of 70 million US dollars. The 40% stake in the Panama Canal is completely in the hands of the Panama Canal in the hands of the United States.

For the United States, this was an extremely disappointing negotiation, especially the right to dig the Nicaraguan canal. In fact, the United States could have bought it for a long time, but because the Colombian political axe suddenly failed to achieve it. At that time, all walks of life in the United States believed that as long as the excavation of the Panama Canal was accelerated, the Colombian political axe would be cut. The power will continue to depreciate. After the canal is opened, it will only take down with tens of thousands of dollars, but they didn't expect that because of their slowness and dullness, they would eventually pay such a high price.

For the United States, compared with paying money, this crisis has also made them see their own weakness. They understand that a strong economy does not mean that the country is strong. Especially after seeing the power of Xinhua's visiting fleet, they have a deeper understanding of the power of the new battleships, so the U.S. Congress passed it again at a lightning speed. In the allocation budget, two more were added when the first two South Carolina-class battleships had been built, and the concept of a two-ocean fleet was put forward for the first time, and the navy was required to immediately start developing the next generation of battleships.

But technical shortcomings, especially serious power defects, made the four South Carolina-class battleships full of various problems from the beginning, but in any case, the United States finally embarked on the road of accelerating armaments!

The huge economic power of the United States finally began to exert its power. A crisis highlighted the embarrassment of the inability to connect the two oceans of the United States, which made the United States understand that it must accelerate the Panama Canal Project. In the case that it is no longer possible to continue to use Chinese workers, Fairbanks learned from Li Mo and proposed to use 100,000 workers to offset part of the debt. The decision.

On September 25, when 10,000 people worked in the Panama Canal and the political axe promised to arrange work for them in China, they arrived in Shanghai with 15 cargo ships and the returning Tang Shaoyi at the same time, it immediately caused a fierce response.

A crisis that began in South America and spread to the Caribbean finally ended with a huge amount of money spent by the United States. With Xinhua's victory, Tang Shaoyi returned with tons of gold (in the era of gold standard, gold is the only settlement unit for international bulk transactions in the era when the currencies of various countries could not be freely exchanged). When he returned to China, all walks of life in Xinhua immediately praised the foreign minister, which also raised his personal reputation rapidly.

Although the 70 million Thomas received still needs to be slowly transferred back through the bank, this can no longer stop Li Mo from starting a new round of military expansion.

However, the aftermath of the matter is far from over, and Xinhua, which has just made huge profits, has suffered a sudden blow.

On October 1, 1906, on the National Day of Xinhua, news came from the United States that in order to curb the development of Xinhua, the American political axe made a decision to restrict the export of important machinery, including large machine tools, complete sets of processing equipment, to Xinhua.

Because the United States has always been the most important source of machinery imports from China, especially more than half of the equipment of private industrial and mining enterprises need to rely on the United States, so even Li Mo has not restricted the import of American machinery. Although he pays great attention to the diversification of international procurement of large national enterprises, he generally does not care about private procurement. Therefore, the United States is also the largest importer of industrial equipment, accounting for half of the total import of Xinhua machinery.

This news undoubtedly had a huge impact on the emerging private industry. Just a few days after returning to China, Tang Shaoyi went to Europe again and began negotiations with Germany to increase machinery export quotas.

For Germany, which is close to Britain, any income is extremely important. This unexpected huge pie has encouraged the German business community. In the case of running out of time to produce in China, it even pulled the Austro-Hungarian Empire in and increased its efforts to export to Xinhua.

And this quiet change has brought Germany and Austria-Hungary closer more quickly. In addition, the relationship between Britain and France has begun to ease, and the confrontation between the cores of the two groups has begun to take shape.

All walks of life in Xinhua are naturally strongly dissatisfied with the decision of the U.S. political axe. They believe that the United States continues to take hostile actions. Many people even think that they should not have sold the right to dig the canal if they had known it.

In this case, business leaders from all walks of life in Shanghai and emerging guild organizations, one of the core of Xinhua's domestic economy, have issued statements announcing that they will boycott American goods from now on.

Driven by some departments, newspapers began to publicize the hostile behavior of the United States, causing this trend to spread rapidly to the whole country. Nanjing, Yanjing, Dalian, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Changsha, Wuhan, and even Luzon, Hong Kong and Singapore. A huge boycott of American goods.

As of January 1, 1907, U.S. exports to China fell by 40% in just two months, which made domestic manufacturers in the United States miserable, and Li Mo did not expect that the wave of boycott that originally occurred in history due to the ban on Chinese workers in 1905 would appear more than a year later.

The huge gap left by American machinery manufacturers cannot be made up by themselves and Germany in a short period of time. The economic downturn is almost certain. For the United States, this is just a fur number, but for Xinhua, it is undoubtedly a heavy hit.

However, there is another side to any crisis. Although it has temporarily suppressed the pace of domestic industrial construction, Xinhua's own machinery manufacturers have gradually grown up with the efforts of ten years, and most of the civilian goods have been able to produce by themselves, but because of the suppression of cheaper American goods, the production has been Not much. On the contrary, this crisis has promoted domestic products to quickly seize the gap after the departure of American goods.

On January 2, Li Mo, Emperor of the Xinhua Empire, broke his silence for the first time and published an article "National Self-reliance, National Self-improvement of Chinese Products" in the newspaper, saying that he and the Prime Minister's Office will do everything they can to meet the needs of domestic construction. At the same time, he hoped that all walks of life in China will carry out independent research and development. If private enterprises encounter a lack of technical strength. Lack and financial problems can be supported by the political axe.

At the same time, Li Moyan ordered Huang Zichen, Minister of Industry and Commerce, and Tang Xiao, Minister of Equipment and Security, and finally mobilized the Ministry of Science and Technology to start accelerating the progress of domestic machinery manufacturing research and development, cooperate with the pace of domestic enterprises' own research and development, and actively asked large heavy industry groups under his control and large state-owned enterprises to local private enterprises. Provide technical and talent assistance.

The remarks and actions of the emperor, who has established great personal merit and charm, undoubtedly poured gasoline on the boycott of the wave. At the same time, Li Enfu also launched a new economic stimulus policy while organizing to increase procurement efforts from European countries, he began to provide a large number of loans to domestic private manufacturers. And technical support to help them grow rapidly.

Like the increasingly fierce arms race in Europe, the economic confrontation between the two sides of the Pacific is also full of smoke. Both sides have been hit hard in a short period of time, and the whole world has been intentionally or unintentionally involved in a big competition that no one knows the future.

At the same time, the world has once again seen the decisive ability of Li Mo and Xinhua's political axe to deal with the crisis. At this time, the American political axe did not realize that after paying nearly 200 million US dollars in a row, coupled with restrictions on manufacturers' exports of ** equipment and other actions, the domestic funds in the United States began to shrink, which was a crisis of being caught off guard. The machine has arrived quietly

(to be continued)