Chapter 135 Promotion, Minister of Shipping, Fuzhou
Chen Shanyuan, who was with Hu Chuyuan, was very puzzled.
As soon as Yan Xinhou left, he couldn't wait to ask Hu Chuyuan, "Dong, are you... stepping on two boats?"
Wu Shuzhen smiled and replied for Hu Chuyuan, "This is not to offend people. As for helping others do business or not, that's the future thing!"
"Oh?"
Chen Shanyuan is still a little unclear.
Hu Chuyuan did not answer. He is still weighing the specific advantages and disadvantages.
After a while, Chen Shanyuan left. Wu Shuzhen and Hu Chuyuan comforted him and said, "Don't think about these brain-consuming things now. You can rest assured and wait until the injury is healed."
"Hmm!"
Hu Chuyuan answered obediently, and looked at Wu Shuzhen carefully. The more he looked at it, the more beautiful he felt.
In the afternoon, when Wu Shuzhen went to rest for a while, Hu Chuyuan called Chen Shanyuan over and asked him to secretly go back to Shanghai to do something and let him go back as soon as possible.
After two days of recuperation in the British Concession Industry Bureau, the imperial court also sent an imperial doctor to prescribe two pairs of medicine for him, one paste and one soup to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis, and remove rot muscle.
Then, he moved to the property under Li Hongzhang's name.
This is a newly built large yard, covering an area of more than three mu. It can indeed accommodate more than 200 people. It is estimated that other merchants bribed Li Hongzhang by taking advantage of the rising land prices of the concession.
I felt that the house was quite good, so he bought the house and named it Zhenyuan.
Li Hongzhang wants to give you a gift. You can't help but accept it. It's just a matter of how much you have to pay back.
The foreign doctor came to change the gauze for Hu Chuyuan every day. He disinfected the wound and handled it very carefully. The imperial doctor's medicine also worked very well. After more than half a month, Hu Chuyuan had recovered, but there was a round scar on his abdomen.
At this time, the Tianjin gunman case was still not clearly investigated, and the government and the opposition were quite angry. Li Hongzhang and the Tianjin British Concession Industry Bureau were under great pressure. Both sides were working hard to investigate, but the group of robbers seemed to suddenly disappear, and there was no news.
This has really become a suspicious case.
Hu Chuyuan understood in his heart that what the robbers said inadvertently looked like people in Ningbo, Zhejiang and Taizhou, and looked more like pirates.
The other party is a pirate, which can basically be determined, but how these pirates entered Tianjin, where the weapons came from, how they escaped, or where they hid... are all a problem.
There are many people who have offended him. Yangxing, saying himself, Ningbo Shangbang, Sheng Xuanhuai... All of them are likely to do this.
Hu Chuyuan believes that this is just the beginning, and the greater haze is still rolling and accumulating. One day he will see who the black hands behind the scenes are, so he is not in a hurry to take revenge.
Just in case, Zuo Zongtang sent a Mr. Qian surnamed Xiao to Tianjin with more than 200 elites of the Hunan army, specially responsible for protecting Hu Chuyuan.
With such a guarantee, Hu Chuyuan officially went to the Beijing Normal University to make a job, and it was naturally a heavy prize waiting for him.
His achievements over the years are obvious, one after another. Although he was not a scholar, the court still promoted him to be the minister of ship administration in Fuzhou and took over the government of Fuzhou ship administration.
At this time, the Minister of Shipbuilding in Fuzhou had no authority to directly control the Fujian Marine Division. The level was downgraded to a third grade official, and he was directly under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister's government of various countries, and was also under the control of the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang.
Hu Chuyuan also met the legendary Empress Dowager Cixi and Emperor Guangxu, and rewarded him with a yellow coat and Lan Ling face to face.
As the Minister of Ship Administration in Fuzhou, this is a good thing, which means that Hu Chuyuan can decide the affairs of the Ship Administration of Fuzhou by himself without having to report to anyone, and there are also some disadvantages... He has to stay in Fuzhou for a long time. Without the order of the imperial court, he can't go anywhere.
But it's not a big deal. With a perfect telegraph network, he can do his own things anywhere.
Mid-May.
Hu Chuyuan returned to Shanghai from Tianjin.
After all, Shanghai is going back. This is his base camp.
It is already very hot in Shanghai in May, and there will be heavy rain from time to time, but the temperature of Shanghai Concession real estate is surprisingly high. The land prices of the British Bund, the United States Bund, the French Bund, Nanjing Road and Hongkou Square have all broken through the threshold of 150,000 yuan per mu, followed by Ningbo Road and Sichuan Road.
In other words, to buy 10 mu of land to build a Hu family compound in these lots, the cost of land alone is as high as 700,000 taels of silver.
The increase in land prices in Hongkou District and Yangpu District is the most obvious. Under the joint work of Zhongrun Company and Wanqi Yanghang, the section surrounding Hongkou Square has risen sharply with the renovated Huizhou Road, Hangzhou Road and Emei Road. In particular, Hangzhou Road, which is based on the former Nanxun Road, has become a business comparable to Nanjing Road. Business location.
Hongkou Square, located at the junction of Huizhou Road and Changzhi Road, and the surrounding area are designed as the future CBD of Shanghai. From Hongkou Square, along Huizhou Road to the east is the Yangtze River Road on the Bund of the United States Concession.
However, Zhongrun Company and Wanqi Yanghang have cashed out most of the lots, only controlling the golden lots such as Hangzhou Road, Huizhou Road and Changjiang Road around Hongkou Square, plus the bustling shops in the sections of Eme, Wusong and Yangpu, as well as a small part of Nanjing Road and the Bund land in the British Concession. The rest have been sold.
Zhongrun Company's accumulated arbitrage reached 247 million yuan, and Wanqi Yanghang's arbitrage was about 94 million yuan.
These funds were injected into CITIC Bank and Wanqi Bank respectively. The former issued clear baht in China, and the latter lost back to the United States to issue US dollars through Hanhua Bank to further release capital space.
Which market should I invest so much money in?
Do you still need to ask?
Of course, it's the tea industry!
Whether it's losing or making money, Hu Chuyuan always has to gamble.
As soon as he returned to Shanghai, Hu Chuyuan didn't have time to go home. He first summoned all the meeting offices, shopkeepers and management offices of Jiangnan Commercial Bank and Jiangnan Cooperative in Shanghai, and held a meeting in the building of the headquarters of the commercial bank.
He unified everyone's ideas. According to the new Sino-US trade agreement, Fujian and Jiangxi should be the new investment priorities, and invest in the tea industry, porcelain and shipbuilding industry in Fujian, and the hemp industry, bamboo industry, tea industry and silk industry in Jiangxi.
Yes, hemp industry and bamboo industry.
Hemp textiles, bamboo weaving products, hemp mats, bamboo mats... Even bamboo baskets and bamboo baskets can become a part of foreign trade with the United States. The point is not that Americans have bought them before, but whether the United States needs it or not, whether China can make it, and whether only China can make it.
These are the key points.
On the basis of handicrafts, small machine tools should be fully introduced to improve the processing technology and strive to increase the added value of these handicrafts.
There are many ways to make money. It is not necessary to invest in heavy industry and industry. Handicraft industry can also make money, and it is easiest to directly convert wealth to the private sector and improve the purchasing power of the whole Jiangnan market.
Under the control of huge capital, it is easy for Hu Chuyuan to invest in these industries.
While JP Morgan is keen to invest in railways, steel and electricity, Hu Chuyuan is keen to invest in traditional agriculture, tea industry, silk industry, hemp industry... There is still a big difference between the two.
After the meeting, Hu Chuyuan asked the shopkeepers, offices and provincial businesses to follow these ideas.
The steel industry needs to be invested, but we have to wait until Hu Chuyuan goes to Fuzhou.
After checking the accounts in the commercial bank for a day and confirming that the operation of each branch was not bad, Hu Chuyuan returned to the garden in his carriage.
It's better to be in Shanghai. It's the same every day.
Looking at the street scenery on both sides of the street, Hu Chuyuan couldn't help sighing. After Wanqi Yanghang introduced reinforced concrete technology to Shanghai and opened Wanqi Cement Factory in Shanghai, the construction speed in Shanghai accelerated significantly.
In the relatively novel Hongkou, Wanqi Yanghang has begun to invest in power plants. The sewer system and water system are being laid in an orderly manner, and there are even large communities.
These factors are also the reason why Hongkou land prices have soared in the past two years.
If it hadn't been considered that the Sino-French war had an amazing influence on Shanghai's land price, the bubble factor in this land price was too big, and Hu Chuyuan really couldn't bear to arbitrage away so early.
After several years of construction, the garden has also changed a lot. After three years, the new Hu Mansion was finally built, adopting the Gothic Revival Victorian style, with a brilliant spirit and a towering dome. The main building has three floors and three auxiliary halls. The third floor of the main hall is significantly smaller than the second floor, and a large number of empty balconies are designed as sky gardens.
The overall color of the whole Hu Mansion is mainly black. A large number of black five lotus stones in granite are used, with agate red marble and white jade. The peripheral part uses reinforced concrete technology to shorten the construction period. The total designed living area is 22,459 square meters.
Seeing this brand-new Hu Mansion, Hu Chuyuan had a feeling of bitterness and sweetness.
After staying up for so long, he finally got through it.
In order to welcome his return, the Hu Mansion has been newly decorated. The antique decorations in it are of great value. There are no fakes or imitations. If you want to play, you can play with it.
The hall of Hu Mansion is very amazing. It can accommodate six or seven hundred people. It adopts magnificent sculptures and combines Victorian Baroque retro style. There are magnificent wall carvings on the four walls and the top. Hu Chuyuan's office is located on the east side of the second floor, with an area of 258 square meters, which is a small The exhibition room is also a library or a conference room, and there is a small lounge connected to the large balcony garden on the east side.
In the office, there are more than 20 works of classicism and realism style loved by Hu Chuyuan. On the wall behind his desk, there is Jacques Louis David's famous painting "Napoleon Crossing the St. Bernard's Path in the Alps".
Hu Chuyuan liked Napoleon, so he took a look at the painting at a glance and paid 160,000 francs for it.
If you do it later, the painting will be re-introduced to the Louvre.
The three deputy halls of the Hu Mansion are located on the left, right and the back of the center. The deputy halls on the back of the center are Hu Chuyuan's personal treasure. The side of the side of the west side is his personal living room, and the east side of the side of the side are the offices of the staff and other attendants. Of course, he can also live in Jinxiu Villa in Nanyuan, or Xiyuanju. Live.
It is natural to have a new atmosphere when moving into a new house. All the furniture is imported from the Philippines. The wooden floor uses two kinds of Nanyang mahogany in dark and light colors. The decorative boards of the wall panels and other parts are mainly made of golden nanmu and red sandalwood. Some special parts, such as the bathroom choose camphor wood, teak and Sandalwood mix and match, moisture-proof and deodorant.
How much did you spend in total... Don't ask about this.
Anyway, I won't tell others. Let the pian see for himself!
Absolutely bigger than the number you can think of. Carpets are imported from Persia, and crystal chandeliers are all imported from France. These are not the biggest expenses. More than a dozen pieces of porcelain arranged in the hall are all high-quality products from the Kangqian period.
Hu Chuyuan said that he had no special fun in his life, just building gardens and buying antiques.
Every year, the amount of money used to bribe officials alone is as much as more than one million taels. Why can't he take out 10 million taels of silver to enjoy himself?
Life?
Who can live a second time?
He seems to be able to... but I can't guarantee that there will be a third time!
(to be continued)