Chapter 74 The ambition of the Li family

The father and son of the Li family are both smart people. Hearing Zhao Dongyun directly changed the topic, they knew that they might have done something wrong or said something wrong, but for a moment, they still didn't expect Zhao Dongyun to be disgusted with the four words "young and successful".

After all, according to the concept of normal people, praising others for being young and successful is a compliment, praise and so on. Not everyone can worry about the impact of promotion at a young age like Zhao Dongyun.

Gengzi was affected by the general trend of expanding the Beiyang army. In the past two years, the promotion of the main officers in the north can be said to be rapid. In Duan Qirui's case, although he was heavily used by Yuan Shikai before Gengzi, his grade and official position could not play a role in the whole Qing Dynasty, until the Yihe regiment. After the chaos, Duan Qirui was promoted to alternate governor and added three titles.

In the Guangzong People's Reveh turn, Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun took credit together, which earned him a second-grade official title.

That is to say, Duan Qirui's official position only rose rapidly in the past two years, and this is not Duan Qirui's personal special case, almost such as Feng Guozhang, Wang Shizhen, Wang Yingkai and others.

As a member of Beiyang, Zhao Dongyun is naturally not immune to vulgarity. He also took advantage of the Guangzong People's Uphism to become a candidate magistrate and added three grades.

However, this official title may be very high for ordinary people, and the speed of promotion is fast enough, but it is still too slow for Zhao Dongyun.

He is now the leader of the mixed association of the new army. If he wants to continue to climb up, it is a town control. To be a control, he needs the title of general soldier or a second-grade Taoist officer, but it is not said that the third-level magist governor or deputy general or general can sit in this position.

Although the official positions in the late Qing Dynasty were chaotic, the Beiyang New Army also had a very chaotic combination of positions and official ranks. For example, in the same standard and unified position, there were many official positions that were qualified to hold this position, and military officers were first or supplemented by garrison, metropolitan, guerrilla, generals and deputy generals. There are candidate prefectures and candidate magistrates in the civilian system, and the grade ranges from six grades to two grades.

The combination of official titles and positions is so chaotic that there will not only be a garrison and vice general as a unified level, but also a low-level official as the boss of a senior official.

For example, there will be a guerrilla from the third grade as the leader of the first association, but the vice general of the second grade can only serve as the first standard leader. This vice general has to respectfully shout "Lord!" when he sees the guerrillas.

This is the relationship between Zhao Dongyun and Meng Enyuan. Zhao Dongyun is the candidate magistrate plus the third rank, while Meng Enyuan is a supplementary vice general. From the second rank, it is higher than Zhao Dongyun in terms of official rank, but Meng Enyuan is Zhao Dongyun's subordinate.

This situation generally occurs below the association, among which the position of standard leader is the most chaotic. However, the above cooperation has become very strict. Those who can serve as the commander of the association, the rank of military officer is also a guerrilla, and the civilian rank is generally a candidate magistrate.

When it comes to the position of a town wing chief\ control, the general military officer has the lowest rank of a general soldier, and the deputy is a regular match, and all of them are a high match. For civilian titles, they are usually candidates for the second grade.

Zhao Dongyun, like Duan Qirui, is on the route of civilian rank, from candidate Zhizhou to candidate magist priest and then to candidate Taoist. This is different from most of the senior officers in the Beiyang New Army, but this distinction has nothing to do with the Beiyang New Army, because Your position is at home, and you rarely pay attention to what other people's official title is.

With Zhao Dongyun's current three-grade magistrate, it is impossible to hold a control position in the first town. However, it is very difficult for the court to promote him to a second-grade Taoist.

It is not a special period of war. It is not easy to get the official title of second-grade Taoist without war achievements in peacetime. In addition, Zhao Dongyun's age has also become a great obstacle for him!

The 25-year-old second-grade Taoist is impossible to appear according to the normal way. No matter who sees it, he will have an idea, which is to press Zhao Dongyun again, sharpen it for a few years and then lift it for reuse.

In this case, Zhao Dongyun will be so** about his age!

Of course, it's just **. Zhao Dongyun just changed the topic before others said he was old.

Although Li's father and son couldn't figure it out for a while, they also changed the topic following Zhao Dongyun's words: "Lord Zhao's words can contribute a modest contribution to the heavenly army of the country, which is the honor of my Li. And Lord Zhao can not dislike the humble and humble house and condescend to stay, which is also a blessing for our wait!"

Zhao Dongyun doesn't care about the humility revealed in Li Yijian's words. Although Li's father and son are rich, in the official-oriented China, the Li family is just a rural rich man, but it is far from being compared with those official eunuch families. Any strong official can trample them under his feet. It is normal for Zhao Dongyun, who holds the 7,000 army, to remain humble.

Otherwise, Zhao Dongyun would not have directly sat first at this banquet.

This is another compliment between you and me. After pushing the cup and changing the cup, these people gradually let go. Lin Yongquan, who came with Zhao Dongyun, was even more drunk and speech was a little confused.

"Brother Li, when it comes to the ability to fight, you are naturally not as good as me, but we are far less than you in this ability to make money. Look at your yard, there are more than ten small courtyards in the three courtyards, with more than 100 houses, covering an area of dozens of mu, and can also attract living water, erect rockery and plant strange flowers in this land of Liaodong. Yicao, I'm afraid this is not much compared with Jiangnan Mansion!"

Lin Yongquan's praise is not a lie. This Li's manor is really good. The large scale is only one of them. What's more rare is that it is like a garden in the south of the Yangtze River, which makes people feel the tenderness of Jiangnan in the bitter cold place in the northeast. The gold and silver needed to build such a large-scale garden is not a small amount, which also proves from the other side that the Li family has rich financial resources!

Li Yijian also laughed and said, "It's just a yard, and it's not worth a few money!"

Lin Yongquan said, "Mr. Li is bold enough. I have heard that the Li family has 10,000 mu of land and warehouses all over the three eastern provinces. It is said that it is not too much to fight gold every day. When I saw Mr. Li today, I knew that it was not a false rumor!"

Li Jian couldn't laugh or cry after hearing this. His words are just modest, but it is not easy for him to refute Lin Yongquan's words, because people in the whole three eastern provinces know that the Li family in Jinzhou are rich. The land industry is only a part of it, and the main business is the export of Northeast soybeans. And the sale of imported foreign goods now has to add the silk industry and other investments opened in Shanghai.

How can we build a huge manor like Li's Manor without thick capital!

So you can't refute Lin Yongquan's words. It's also disgusting for rich people to talk about their money every day.

However, he looked at Zhao Dongyun and then showed an envious tone and said, "My Li family still looked at that bean cake business, but it is not as rich as Lord Zhao. Fuyuan Textile Factory is the largest textile factory in several provinces in northern China. What impressed me more is Fuyuan Machinery Factory. The factory has millions of assets and is employed. Thousands of workers have received a large number of orders before they are fully completed. We are not looking forward to it!"

Zhao Dongyun smiled bitterly when he heard this. The scale of Fuyuan Machinery Factory is large, but millions of investment is so easy to recover. Even if the construction is smooth, it will be years before the design output can be achieved for large-scale production next year. I'm afraid it will be many years before the cost can be fully recovered.

However, the significance of this Fuyuan Machinery Factory cannot be used for ordinary business. Although this enterprise also makes money, making money is not the first priority. Its first priority is to supply Beiyang with weapons and ammunition, and the second is to make money.

When it comes to making money, in fact, Fuyuan Yarn Factory, the parent company of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, makes money!

Since Zhao Dongyun accepted Fuyuan yarn factory in 1901, it has been affected by the new policy of the Qing Dynasty. Many domestic textile factories have opened, and the large number of cotton yarn needed by these textile factories has further stimulated the production capacity demand of Fuyuan yarn factory. The cotton yarn produced by Fuyuan yarn factory every month has always been in short supply, in order to Zhao Dongyun continued to expand production capacity with his own funds in the early stage, but since 1902, the expansion of Fuyuan yarn factory has been mainly based on borrowing, because it is difficult for the Zhao family to provide expansion funds for Fuyuan yarn factory with assets of hundreds of thousands of taels of silver.

After having the funds to purchase machinery and expand production, Fuyuan yarn factory has even encountered a shortage of cotton supply. On the one hand, the Fuyuan yarn factory collects cotton from various parts of the country, and on the other hand, it also imports a large amount of high-quality cotton from India.

Since 1901, Fuyuan Yarn Factory has been seeking expansion funds, * cotton, and spent in an expansion. It can be seen from the increase in the number of hired workers in Fuyuan Yarn Factory. At the beginning of 1901, there were only a few hundred employees in Fuyuan Yarn Factory, and more than 1,000 were hired in 1902. Now it has reached the scale of nearly 3,000 people.

In the second quarter of 1903, Fuyuan Yarn Factory already had 30,000 yarn ingots, and there were hundreds of looms. It is a large textile enterprise with spinning as the main industry and weaving as its subsidiary industry. The fixed assets of the single yarn factory has exceeded 500,000, not to mention the intangible assets of Fuyuan Yarn Factory.

In addition, Fuyuan Yarn Factory is not just a yarn factory. In fact, it is also a major shareholder of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, owning 43 percent of the shares of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but these shares have little to do with the yarn factory itself. Zhao Dongyun only uses Fuyuan Yarn Factory to control Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

If the yarn factory itself and the shares of the machine factory are added up, the market valuation of Fuyuan yarn factory should be about 1.5 million taels of silver. Of course, this calculation of visible fixed assets does not calculate invisible intangible assets.

Of course, this 1.5 million taels of silver is not all the Zhao family. In fact, a large part of them are debts. In order to expand production and purchase machines, and also to invest in Fuyuan Machinery Factory, Fuyuan Yarn Factory has borrowed many times, with a total amount of more than 400,000 taels of silver.

However, even after deducting these loans, Zhao Dongyun is still worth millions!

Although the Li family has more money than Zhao Dongyun, their money has been accumulated for hundreds of years. It is not like Zhao Dongyun who doubles their assets in a few years.

Li's father and son did not talk about Fuyuan yarn factory for no reason. He quickly turned the topic around: "Some time ago, I heard that your General Office of Zhao said that it would expand a weaving factory and prepare to sell weaving in the three eastern provinces. Although Li is not talented, there are some ways in these three eastern provinces. * There is no problem with soil cloth. In addition, my Li family also has some spare money. It would be better if we could invest in a new weaving factory!"

Zhao Dongyun smiled bitterly in his heart, and Li Jian's banquet today was indeed purposeful.