Chapter 146 Unloading the mill and killing the donkey is a dream

In Nanyang, it is not a good thing to break up with the British too early.

Hu Chuyuan is not in a hurry to fully read Sarawak. As long as he can retain the right to fight independently in Borneo, the diplomatic power is of little significance to the current Sarawak.

Therefore, Hu Chuyuan's plan is to obtain a separate national qualification first, just like the relationship between Australia and the United Kingdom, stay under the banner of the British Empire, steadily develop the strength of Sarawak, slowly develop to Borneo, and then after ten years of complete construction, and finally obtain the diplomatic right to read.

After reaching this series of agreements, Hu Chuyuan was hired by Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of the Special Autonomous State, as a state adviser, arrived in Kuching, and designed a new national development strategy for this brand-new Special Autonomous State of Sarawak.

Rockefeller once said that even if he was left in the desert, he could create a new empire without a penny.

Now Hu Chuyuan can also do this.

Because his knowledge and ideas are different, beyond this era.

He made a very complete plan for the Sarawak Autonomous State, giving priority to the development of rice and plantation sugar cane and rubber economy, the development of sulfur mines, iron mines, gold mines, copper mines and coal mines, the construction of railways, the construction of ammunition supply factories, and the use of existing timber advantages to develop shipbuilding, paper and other wood processing industries.

The whole core idea is to transform cities and ports, improve living conditions and agricultural production conditions, implement some free policies for medical care, education and housing, and cheap supply of fields. At this time, we will attract immigrants from southern Fujian and Guangdong through hometown relations and signing labor agreements.

In the ancient Jin Dynasty, Hu Chuyuan found a new space to use. Because the domestic funds were blocked by the Qing court... At this time, the Qing court really consciously wanted to annex his assets, and he could only withdraw six million dollars from the North American Wells Fargo Investment Bank to continue to support the cause of Zhang Lingpu and others.

This money is really a drop in the bucket, but when the news of the establishment of the Sarawak Autonomous State spread, other Nanyang Chinese businessmen helped one after another. Zhang Bishi, the real richest man in Nanyang, finally appeared and donated 3 million taels of silver to the autonomous state at a time, and was willing to take out 7 million taels of silver to invest in the sugar industry of the autonomous state.

Hu Chuyuan had his first meeting with Zhang Bishi, the richest man in Nanyang, in Changchun Garden. The two soon decided to establish a joint venture into Nanyang Sugar, Mining and Tobacco to make a comprehensive investment in Sarawak.

For the time being, Hu Chuyuan is a little inconvenient.

After returning to Singapore again, Hu Chuyuan began to concentrate on dealing with the Qing court to take back his money.

His industry is mainly concentrated in the Shanghai Concession, and the Qing court did not dare to embezzle it. At present, it is in a very anxious state. The Qing court is also trying to take away his wealth. Cixi's meaning is still the same - he did not hesitate to borrow money from foreigners, but also bought Jiangnan Commercial Bank and CITIC Bank.

She was really generous. She was willing to take out eight million taels of silver to buy Jiangnan Commercial Bank, and asked Li Hongzhang to find a way to raise money to buy CITIC Bank. She also said that the household department could also pay, and several million taels of silver could still be taken out.

Bah.

At this time, Cixi may have understood that it is difficult to annex Hu Chuyuan's property in China. Now, what she thinks, this needs to be figured out.

Hu Chuyuan may not be able to figure it out, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, Yan Shizhang... These people can definitely figure it out.

Just when Hu Chuyuan was concentrating on the operation of Nanyang Company, Li Hongzhang had appointed Zheng Guanying to take over Jiangnan Commercial Bank in the name of official stock supervision. Without waiting for Li Hongzhang to do it, under the planning of Yan Shizhang, "Declaration" and "Guardian" announced the total assets of Jiangnan Commercial Bank and CITIC Bank at the same time.

In the years when Hu Chuyuan served as the general office of Jiangnan Commercial Bank, Jiangnan Commercial Bank has never officially disclosed its total assets, and even the dividends have not been divided. It has always been the rolling and investment of profits.

Zuo Zongtang and He Jing also agree that they want to use money. They all use dividends as collateral to borrow money from Hu Chuyuan.

The problem now comes. After five years of operation, the total capital of Jiangnan Commercial Bank has grown to 230 million taels of silver, including the shares of many foreign banks such as Wanqi Yanghang, including 30% of the shares of Jiangnan Agricultural Cooperative, as well as the total assets of its branches, and the factories invested in Shanghai. The floor shops held by the concession are railways, factories and mines held in the five provinces of Jiangnan.

Although Jiangnan Commercial Bank is not listed, the factories controlled by the commercial bank are generally listed in Hong Kong, plus the market value of Taigu, Marlboro and Zenchen in the Hong Kong, London, Berlin and Paris stock markets.

The total accumulated wealth directly scared Zheng Guanying.

It's really scary.

Zheng Guanying has never seen so much money in his life. Immediately after him, Li Hongzhang was also scared and speechless... To be precise, Li Zhongtang finally understood how terrible Hu Chuyuan was, and there was no way to swallow Hu Chuyuan's assets left in China, especially when foreigners were also involved.

In the process of rapid expansion, Jiangnan Commercial Bank left a large amount of debt to the Bank of America. Bank of America is not only the largest creditor bank of Jiangnan Commercial Bank, but also the first debt bank of the Qing Dynasty.

The debt of Jiangnan Commercial Bank is 79.7 million taels of silver, and the debt of the Qing court is 57.99 million taels of silver.

Come on, buy it.

Hu Chuyuan did not believe that the Qing court had the courage to default with American banks.

The loan interest of these debts is relatively low, with an average of only 10% per year. However, before Hu Chuyuan left, he had signed a supplementary clause, that is, when he no longer bears the debt of Jiangnan Commercial Bank and the debt guarantee responsibility of the Qing court, the Bank of America has the right to renegotate the loan interest and debt guarantor.

Just as Mr. Robert Russell, President of Bank of America, and Feist Delano, President of the North American Wells Fargo Investment Bank, arrived in Tianjin in person and discussed the new loan interest with Li Hongzhang, Hu Chuyuan also transferred the opportunity to the Prime Minister's national affairs through Yan Xinhou, stating that he could not operate Jiangnan Commercial Bank. Unable to bear the debt guarantee, and also reached an agreement with the United States to no longer guarantee all debt liabilities.

Poo.

Spit blood.

The price of tearing up with Hu Chuyuan is huge, and the Qing court now understands it.

February in Singapore is warm, like early summer, sometimes cool and sometimes warm.

Hu Chuyuan lives in Changchun Garden and doesn't care about anything. He calmly follows Cheng Tinghua to practice palms and legs.

What does he have to worry about?

He still has a lot of wealth in the United States, enough for his life.

If the Qing court wants to unload the mill and kill the donkey, then kill it. Who is the mill and who is the donkey? It's hard to say.

Controlling the two concession newspapers, "Declaration" and "Guardian", he began to disclose that Zheng Guanying embezzled machines to weave and layout of public funds, and Sheng Xuanhuai and Li Hongzhang mercilessly exposed the rebates in Beiyang military purchase. Even Sheng Xuanhuai and Zheng Guanying's rebates for the purchase of machinery and ships were also exposed. The news is conclusive and vivid.

They also don't think about how Hu Chuyuan could not collect this information. What's more, foreign banks must know that they collect kickbacks for military purchases with foreign banks, and Hu Chuyuan holds shares in these foreign banks.

The sales volume of the Guardian is not high, and the average order volume is only 3,000 copies, but it has a large number of copy newspapers circulating in Beijing and Zhili, and the news is spreading more and more widely.

The news that the Qing court would forcibly acquire the merchants' 172.5 million taels of silver share capital for 8 million taels of silver was also widely circulated. The news that the Qing court would kill the donkey and recycle all the commercial shares of all the official stock merchants at a low price was even more widespread.

For a moment, everyone was in danger, and Qiao Zhiyong, Xu Run and others felt shivering.

On February 7, 1883, merchants in the south of the Yangtze River went on strike to resist the Qing court's blackmailing merchants and benefiting the people.

Liangguang Commercial Bank, Shandong Commercial Bank, Sichuan Commercial Bank, Huguang Commercial Bank and Shanxi Commercial Bank followed suit. On the third day of the market strike, they stopped supplying all rice, salt, sugar and oil groceries.

Liangguang Commercial Bank and Shandong Commercial Bank are leading the way. The former is held by Hu Chuyuan, and the latter is simply controlled by Hu Chuyuan. Among the two commercial banks in Sichuan and Huguang, Hu Chuyuan also controls their capital circulation through the ticket number business and holds certain shares.

Now, Hu Chuyuan is going to make a big deal out of the matter, and he personally wrote to the Times and the New York Times to ask them to report the matter.

It's not good for Hu Chuyuan to tear his face. Unfortunately, things have already reached the point of not tearing up.

On February 14, The Guardian and "Declaration" continued to disclose that Beiyang Bank used a large number of Japanese round technology and paper. All paper and pigments were imported from Japanese paper, and the machine and plate making were also the responsibility of the Japanese. Once the Japanese decided to plot in East Asia and Taiwan, it could be disrupted by forging a large number of Beiyang Bank banknotes. Daqing economy.

On February 15, the Guardian was blocked by Zhili Yamen and could not be spread outside the concession.

On February 17, the "Declaration" comprehensively reported on the cooperative relationship between Sheng Xuanhuai and himself, and speculated that Sheng Xuanhuai might be one of the masterminds of the Tianjin attack, marking Sheng Xuanhuai as "Japanese anniper anniper".

On February 22, the Qing court dismissed Zheng Guanying and Sheng Xuanhuai, and all the banknotes of Beiyang Bank were invalidated and exchanged at Beiyang Bank within a time limit.

At that time, there was a run on Beiyang Bank.

On March 1, Beiyang Bank went bankrupt, and the total amount of banknotes was 14.85 million taels of silver, which was only exchanged for 3.74 million taels of silver.

In the scolding of the whole country, the Manchu people who relied on Li Hongzhang to contain the Xiang army continued to protect Li Hongzhang and only gave him a small punishment for second-level relegation. However, the title of Zhongtang was withdrawn first.

Hu Chuyuan finally got angry and set off for the United States to meet his wife Wu Shuzhen in Auckland.

At this time, he had no intention of returning to China at all. He was not an idiot. After such a disturbance, his assets were saved, and he and the Qing court completely turned against each other.

The world is so big that it is not his stage.

Why?

It can't be committed.

He is always changing the world. In Auckland, he also runs a world that belongs to him.

A large amount of land in Auckland, Berkeley, Hayward and Richmond has been bought by the San Francisco Bay Company, focusing on the construction of the two towns of Auckland and Richmond.

In Merit Hunan District, the San Francisco Bay Company has settled about 27,000 Chinese through its own land project.

According to the new Regulations on the Administration of Chinese Workers, Wanqi Foreign Bank has the sole right to operate the introduction of Chinese workers and labor services, and other American companies are not allowed to introduce labor from China and Nanyang.

Wanqi Yanghang specially set up a Chinese labor management company, and reached an agreement with 17 major Chinese workers such as the United Railway Company and the San Francisco Bay Company to give the salaries of Chinese workers and other American workers, which will be paid by Wanqi Yangxing.

Hu Chuyuan is a master and a fan of gardening.

Not long after arriving in Auckland, he chose to rebuild the garden on the triangular peninsula on the north bank of Lake Merit, with more than 120 mu of land, all of which were used for the construction of private mansions.

Recently, he can only stay in a hotel in the center of Auckland Town. Wu Shuzhen has bought the hotel as a temporary residence for her and Hu Chuyuan.

Soon, she plans to rebuild the hotel into a twelve-storey luxury hotel for business.

Her business acumen doesn't need to be questioned.

After a few days of rest in Okra, Wu Shuzhen asked Hu Chuyuan about her surname and didn't plan to return to China.

Hu Chuyuan's answer is that he doesn't want to do it for the time being.

He has handed over the right to dispose of his property in China to the Bank of America, and asked Robert Russell, Foster Delano, and John Yang, the U.S. Minister to China, to negotiate with the Qing court. He was too lazy to deal with Manchu people.

Isn't it good in Auckland?

Just as Chen Lanbin was ordered to try his best to contact Hu Chuyuan, Hu Chuyuan had left Auckland with Wu Shuzhen and returned to the Manhattan Imperial Hotel.

Here, Hu Chuyuan continued to live a low-key life and often met with Albert and Pulitzer to discuss the problems of the American Newspaper Company and Wanqi Laboratory.

At this time, Hu Chuyuan decided to publish a newspaper "American News" distributed nationwide in the United States, similar to the positioning of "Today is America", the largest newspaper in the United States, and set up three branches in the western, central and eastern parts of the United States at the same time to publish American News.

In his design, American News is a double-page medium-sized newspaper. The content of the first page is transmitted by telegraph, unified throughout the country, and the second page is composed of local news.

At Wanqi Laboratory, Albert has hired more than a dozen well-known scientists in the United States, and further merged Bell Telephone Company, inviting Bell to serve as the director and chief scientist of the laboratory.

As for the smokeless gunpowder proposed by Hu Chuyuan, it has been studied in the laboratory. The manufacturing process is very simple, just using nitric acid and cotton. Now the problem is the fine fibrosis of cotton and the purification of nitric acid, so as to obtain very pure nitrocotton.

There is still a long way to go from large-scale industrial production, but in the expected time, this is indeed a good propellant.

When inspecting the experimental results of nitrocotton and new telephones in Wanqi Laboratory, Hu Chuyuan met Alexander Graheim Bell, the legendary inventor of the telephone, who was only 36 years old.

Out of trust in this person, Hu Chuyuan decided to stay a while and talked for a moment in the office of Alexander Bell's laboratory director.

Mr. Bell also has many problems. On the one hand, Edison invented the carbon box technology and applied for a new patent, which greatly improved the sound quality of the telephone. However, Edison sold this technology to Western United Telegraph Company.

JP Morgan is the main investor of Western Union Telegraph Company. He not only does not plan to continue to transfer patented technology, but also prepares a long-term tug-of-war with Bell Telephone Company.

This is cheaper for Wells Fargo Investment Bank in North America. Wells Fargo Investment Bank quickly invested in the purchase of 50% of the shares of Bell Telephone Company and jointly set up a new laboratory with Bell to continue to invest in the research of telephone technology.

Bell Telephone Company also operates the production and operation of its own telegraph devices. All telegraph devices of Jiangnan Telegraph Bureau are purchased from here.

In order to win this huge contract, coupled with the shortage of funds, Mr. Alexander Bell sold part of the company's shares to Wanqi Yanghang at that time. Subsequently, these shares were transferred to Wells Fargo Investment Bank, so that Wells Fargo Investment Bank actually held 63% of the shares of Bell Telephone Company.

Hu Chuyuan listened to Mr. Bell's prison in silence. It seems that there are too many problems in this emerging industry. Competition is always ubiquitous, and it is all capital competition that makes Mr. Bell feel painful.

After listening, Hu Chuyuan stood up, picked up the phone, and asked the operator to plug the phone into JP Morgan's office.

Soon, the phone was connected.

Hu Chuyuan didn't say too much nonsense. He put forward a condition to exchange 1.5% of the shares of United Railroad in exchange for Edison's technical major. At the same time, Western United Telegraph Company should not get involved in the telephone business.

JP Morgan was silent for a moment and said, "Since you are in New York, we can make a deal."

The transaction between oligarchs is so simple.

JP Morgan can bully Bell Telephone Company, but if Wells Fargo Investment Bank and Bank of America stand behind Bell Telephone Company, the problem will be complicated.

It can't be committed.

Yes, all businessmen understand this truth.

Hu Chuyuan put down the phone and said to Alexander Bell, "Look, the problem has been solved. We will continue to invest. Please build your phone company into the largest phone company in the United States!"

Mr. Alexander Bell couldn't believe what he had seen.

Hu Chuyuan solved the problem that he had been bothering him for a whole year with only one phone call.

Yes, 1.5% of the shares of United Railroad are also worth millions of dollars.

Hu Chuyuan was about to leave the laboratory, but at this time, a young man came to apply for a job with a letter of recommendation from Charles Bachler, the manager of the Eastern Telegraph Company, which was written to Edison.

Bell looked at the thin dark brown-haired young man curiously and asked, "Then why don't you go to Edison Company?"

The dark brown-haired young man replied in strange English: "His salary is too low. I heard that Wanqi Company is willing to offer a monthly salary of $55 to recruit technicians!"

Bell nodded silently and said, "Then you can have an internship here for three months for the time being. If everything is satisfactory, we are willing to pay you this salary."

The dark brown-haired young man nodded in agreement, and then followed Bell's secretary to the laboratory.

Hu Chuyuan casually asked, "Who is he?"

Bell left the letter of recommendation indifferently and said, "Nicolas Tesla, an Eastern European, doesn't know what kind of ability he will have, but I'm happy to fight with Mr. Edison."

"Oh!"

Hu Chuyuan's heart trembled slightly.

He laughed secretly that the business was a good deal. He could recruit Nikola Tesla with a monthly salary of $55. It was very wise to formulate this high salary policy at the beginning.

He thought for a moment and told Alexander Bell, "This may be a very unique person. I'm very interested in him. Please tell me everything about him in advance."

"Oh, I'll do that!"

Alexander Bell nodded cautiously and thought to himself that this Eastern European youth named Tesla was really lucky.

(to be continued)