Chapter 361 Belgian Borrowing
"Although countries have not yet become the only government in China, they are also recognized as the warring parties to the civil war. As long as we feel victory in subsequent wars, it is inevitable for them to recognize us as the only Chinese government!" Lu Weixiang continued:
"However, in the aftermath of borrowing, the bank group of the four countries still has a very tight talk and insists on holding the previous conditions. As for the Japanese side, our negotiations with them have reached an impasse. The information we have learned from us shows that Japan has provided Duan Qirui several times, which is conservatively estimated that Duan Qi Rui obtained at least tens of millions of yuan worth of military supplies from Japan himself. The interest proposed by the Russians is too high, which is not easy to talk about!"
Zhao Dongyun said: "The American minister Rou Keyi has just come here. Although the requirements are still harsh, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that the four-nation bank group has been cracked. As long as we work harder, hum, I don't believe that we can't break up the four-nation bank group, as long as we break them up. Then, under the competition of all countries, we can have the best loan conditions!"
Lu Weixiang said, "What the president said is that it's not good to delay too late. Although the ministry is not familiar with military affairs, it also knows that our army continues to spend a lot of military money, and it also needs a lot of money on other aspects. If this after-care loan can't be discussed, I'm afraid it will be delayed!"
Zhao Dongyun shook his head: "It doesn't matter. We have survived in the past six months. It's not less than a month or two. Although we can't talk about the loan aftermath, we are also solving the war fee problem through other ways. Although there are many difficulties, we can barely maintain it!"
The current war funds of the Soviet system through the issuance of patriotic bonds and foreign bonds and the allocation of fiscal revenue. Although it seems to be shaky and have an amazing deficit in the past six months, the current Soviet system is still operating normally. As long as there is no major accident, the Soviet system will continue to go south on a large scale to completely unify China. However, it is difficult, but it is not a big problem to maintain the current situation.
However, when the loan negotiations with several major powers have not achieved much success, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported a surprising news to Zhao Dongyun that small countries in Europe, such as Belgium, the Netherlands and even Switzerland, have shown considerable success in China's after-care loans and railway loans. Interests.
In particular, Belgium, which has borrowed money to build the Beijing-Han Railway, so they are also very interested in other railways that China is going to build. This time, in order to express their intention of getting involved in China's sovereignty, they can agree to return the arrears of the Beijing-Han Railway in advance to reduce the operating rights of the Beijing-Han Railway.
In the contemporary Chinese political environment, the word 'right of way' is definitely a political mine. Whoever touches it will die. Especially in recent years, both the people and officials in China are extremely disgusted by foreign investors controlling the Chinese railway. The Guangdong-Han Railway in front is the most obvious example, which was originally built by the United States. The right to travel, but caused great opposition in China, and even set off a wave of resistance to the United States. Finally, the former Qing government was forced to reduce the right to return at a high price and raise industrial and commercial capital to build by itself in the mode of government supervision. However, it was not easy to raise capital in China to build railways until October 1906. After the demise, he didn't come up with a detailed business regulations, and then the civil war broke out in the north and south. Naturally, the railway was delayed again and again. God knows when it will be rebuilt.
In such an era, if Zhao Dongyun can retract the power of the Beijing-Han Railway in advance and nationalize the ownership of the whole north-south artery, it can not only make the Feng army's movement on this railway smoother, but also represent the ability to make Beijing Feng The joint operation of railways and Beijing-Han railways is enough to bring broader economic benefits. More importantly, this matter is enough to bring Zhao Dongyun a huge political reputation.
I have to say that this statement of the Belgians is still very powerful for Zhao Dongyun!
The Netherlands and Switzerland have also put forward more preferential loan conditions, but they also have a special requirement, that is, the interest rate of the loan is generally high, and they also require the mortgage of salt government or local finance.
"With their national strength, it is naturally extremely difficult to take out tens of millions of pounds, so that you can talk to the Belgian countries first. There is not much, but they can always take out millions of pounds. Even if they don't have millions, it's good to have a million!" Zhao Dongyun did not despise Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries because they were not the first-class modern powers. Although their territory is small, they are all countries with huge colonies overseas. The Netherlands has large colonies in the Indonesian Islands and Belgium in Africa. Maybe their national strength cannot be compared with Britain, France, Germany and France, but they have spent millions or even tens of millions of pounds to them. It's really nothing to bankers.
The negotiations with Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries, coupled with the loan amount required by China, and the commercial mortgage model adopted during the specific negotiations, so the progress is relatively smooth.
The negotiations with the six major powers have a strong political meaning. The loan negotiations with Belgium are purely for commercial interests. In the face of China's request for a loan of 5 million pounds, although the Belgians did not agree, they still said that they could provide a loan of 2 million pounds and did not attach With messy political conditions.
In the negotiations, the six powerful countries put forward various political conditions, not to mention salt mortgages and the opening of more trade ports, and even put forward the requirements of government financial supervision, while Belgium's requirements should appear more commercial.
Although they also asked for collateral, they did not force salt government mortgage, nor did they need any government financial supervision, nor did they send anyone to serve as the head of the tax department of China's Ministry of Finance. The collateral they wanted is relatively simple: they only asked China to provide enough assets as collateral, the most Later, China was forced to use some shares of the Middle East Railway Company, which is now a joint venture of six countries, and China occupies part of the shares and some shares of Beijing-Feng Railway as collateral.
And the loan period is also very short, which is often different from international loans for decades. Belgium, which is afraid of risks, only provides five-year loans, and it has to pay principal and interest in batches every six months after the loan, with interest as high as 70%, 80% deduction.
It can be said that the interest and repayment conditions are relatively harsh!
However, Zhao Dongyun can't take care of these now. As long as there are no messy political requirements, he is not afraid of anything if he simply lends. Not to mention 7 percent, even if it is 8 percent or even 9 percent, he dares to borrow it. As long as he borrows enough money to arm the army to unify China, he will be afraid of thousands after unify China. Ten thousand pounds of debt will be paid off in three years of natural disasters.
As for losing in the domestic hegemony after borrowing money, at that time, he could only pat his buttocks and go to the concession to be an apartment. Borrowing and repaying money had nothing to do with him, because at that time he was not qualified to repay the money!
With these two million pounds, the financial dilemma of the Soviet system can also be eased a little, at least part of the salaries of government officials that have been delayed for a long time. For middle and senior government officials, the salary arrears for several months is nothing, whether it is their rich family or corruption and bribery, etc. It will never be unable to survive because of several months of salary arrears, but for those low-level government employees, such as those at the bottom-level clerks and clerks, their salaries are the basis for supporting their families. After several months of salary arrears, many of the most basic government employees have complained. Now they are paid Part of the salary is also a little to calm the resentment of those low-level employees.
Belgium and China signed a loan agreement, and the amount involved was as high as two million pounds, which could not be concealed at this critical moment. As soon as the news came out, the British minister came to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China. Of course, he did not protest, but asked about relevant matters and asked to meet Zhao Dongyun.
Obviously, even the British are unwilling to drag on so that the opportunity to make money slips away from their hands. What is the national interest? Making money is a national interest. You British diplomats don't give the bankers of the British Empire the opportunity to win international loans. What else do you diplomats do?
So under the huge pressure exerted by the British banking community, British minister Julian had to enter the Xiyuan Presidential Palace again, but before he arrived at Yingtai, he saw the German minister Rex come out of it. Julden took the initiative to greet him while guessing.
Lex also responded with a smile, but the two did not talk too much. Lex looked in a hurry and seemed to be in a hurry to leave, and Zhu Erdian could not let Zhao Dongyun wait for him. After all, he also knew that Zhao Dongyun was a busy man, and almost every hour of the 24 hours a day was strict. Arrangements, meals, rest, meeting officials, meeting, meeting foreign guests, holding ceremonies, etc., these things are slowly arranged by the secretariats, so Zhao Dongyun's schedule is one by one. Your Zhu Erdian is half an hour late. When you arrive here, Zhao Dongyun has already entered. It's time for the next business.
Not being late is the minimum self-discipline of a gentleman, but as a diplomat in the world's most powerful sunless empire, Zhu Erdian still has his pride, and he has never been in the habit of arriving early to wait for others! So he almost walked into the conference room at 11:15 a.m.