After returning to the Li Shunde Hotel, Li Jingfang, Zhang Peilun, and Sa Zhenbing all gathered in Li Hongzhang's room to discuss the contents of today's talks. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Li Hongzhang said: "What do you think of the attitude of overseas Chinese towards this negotiation?"

Zhang Peilun hesitated for a moment before he said: "Zhongtang, Peilun thinks that although Commander Xia's words just now are a bit excessive, it is because they have lived overseas for a long time, and they are unfamiliar with Chinese etiquette, not intentionally disrespectful to the imperial court, but their words are not unreasonable. ”

Li Jingfang also said: "Yes, father, since the overseas Chinese are full of confidence, then let them negotiate with other countries first when they do not visit, if they can really negotiate no land, no compensation, and no compensation is not a good thing, if the negotiation fails, my father will come forward to ease up and make a slight concession, and the overseas Chinese will have nothing to say." ”

Sa Zhenbing also said: "Zhongtang, the lowly position is still a military general, and he should not be involved in this matter, but if these can really be negotiated without land and compensation, it can be regarded as a blessing for the country." ”

Li Hongzhang nodded slightly, of course he knew that these people actually agreed with the negotiation proposition of overseas Chinese not to cede land and not to pay compensation, which is of course understandable, after all, in the past few decades, there have been almost no treaties signed by the Qing Dynasty with foreign countries that do not cede land and pay indemnities, which is extremely humiliating, and if we can use the power of overseas Chinese to negotiate a peace treaty without land cession and indemnity, it is indeed a diplomatic victory that has never been seen in the past few decades.

After all, a considerable part of the previous peace treaties on land cession and compensation were signed by Li Hongzhang, and he also bore a lot of infamy. Now Li Hongzhang is a 78-year-old man, and he knows that he doesn't have a few days to live, if he can sign a peace agreement that can raise his eyebrows in his old age, it can be regarded as saving a late festival.

However, Li Hongzhang is not comparable to Li Jingfang, Zhang Peilun, and Sa Zhenbing after all, and the reason of overseas Chinese is of course to protect the interests of the Chinese nation, which is upright and irrefutable, but Li Hongzhang knows in his heart that the goal of overseas Chinese is not only this. The overseas Chinese have already achieved immortal military exploits on the battlefield, and if they win another victory at the negotiating table, then the prestige of the overseas Chinese in China will rise to the sky. Li Jingfang, Zhang Peilun, and Sa Zhenbing only paid attention to the first point of negotiation proposed by overseas Chinese, that is, no land ceded and no compensation. However, Li Hongzhang noticed the second point, which is that overseas Chinese demand to take over Beijing. Of course, Li Hongzhang is well aware of the political significance of Beijing, once the overseas Chinese control Beijing, it means that they completely control the lifeblood of the Qing Dynasty, coupled with the strong combat effectiveness of the overseas Chinese, who knows what they will do next. It is not impossible to control the royal family of the Qing court and coerce the Son of Heaven to order the princes to replace him.

Of course, Li Hongzhang is still loyal, so from his heart, he does not want to follow the pace of overseas Chinese, and if he makes some concessions to various countries and negotiates peace as soon as possible, even if it is a land reparation, he will not hesitate to pay compensation, only by not letting the overseas Chinese receive all the credit, and let the empress dowager and the emperor return to Beijing as soon as possible and regain control of the capital, this is the most beneficial result for the Qing court. In this way, the overseas Chinese will become a separatist force at most, and the overall threat to the Qing Dynasty will be much smaller. Moreover, in the future, the Qing Dynasty can also rely on its overall national strength to slowly plan for it, or even gradually eliminate it.

It's just that only Li Hongzhang can understand the truth in this, and of course the old lady who fled to Xi'an may also understand it, but Li Jingfang, Zhang Peilun, and Sa Zhenbing are obviously still a little tender. And Li Hongzhang couldn't explain this truth to them in detail, so he had to say: "It's just that the imperial court doesn't think like this, and you all know the telegram from the imperial court." ”

Xia Bohai can say without scruples that "the interests of the Chinese nation cannot be sacrificed to safeguard the private interests of one family and one surname", but Li Jingfang, Zhang Peilun, and Sa Zhenbing did not dare to say anything to the Qing court, so the current Qing court has been forced to do so, but after all, the Qing court has ruled for 250 years, and it has been deeply rooted.

After a long while, Li Jingfang said: "Father, the matter has come to this point, and it is useless for us to say more, now we should send the content of today's meeting to the imperial court as soon as possible, and the imperial court will decide." ”

Li Hongzhang nodded, he could only do this, after all, it was impossible for him to make overseas Chinese change their attitudes now, so he said: "Youqiao, you can write this telegram." ”

Zhang Peilun nodded and said, "Yes." After a pause, he said, "Zhongtang, the overseas Chinese arranged for us to visit their factories in the afternoon, are you still going?"

Li Hongzhang said: "Of course I want to go." ”

The factory that the traverser arranged for Li Hongzhang and his entourage to observe was a textile factory that had just been established.

The textile industry is an important basic industry related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and it is also the pillar industry in the early stage of the first industrial revolution, a large number of early steam engines are used in the textile industry, so that the textile industry from the individual handicraft industry to the direction of mechanized production, and created a large number of industrial workers, and the development of the textile industry, in turn led to the development of machine production, steel, coal mining and other industries, forming a virtuous circle, and promoting the rapid development of the capitalist economy.

Although the textile industry is no longer an emerging industry, profits have dropped sharply, but cloth is a necessary daily necessities in every country, and the threshold of the textile industry is low, the technical difficulty is not high, easy to get started, and the social demand is huge, even if it is a small profit, but it is still profitable, the proportion of female workers in the textile industry is large, to improve the social status of women, the liberation of social labor also has a great role in promoting, so in the later development of the country, the textile industry is still the main industry in the early stage of industrialization.

The Meiji Restoration, which began in Japan at this time, listed the textile industry as the main industry to promote the country's economic development, and until the Meiji Restoration lasted for more than 30 years, textile products were still the main source of foreign exchange earnings for Japan, and by 1900, the export volume of raw silk had reached the first place in the world. However, the development of Japan's textile industry did not rely on technological progress or corporate management, but on the basis of brutal narrowing of domestic workers.

In China, cloth, grain, and salt are known as the three major daily necessities related to people's livelihood, and for a long time in ancient China, cloth, grain, and salt could be used as currency. And Tianjin's geographical location determines that Tianjin is not suitable for the development of heavy industry, such as the textile industry, which is not high in technical requirements, and is related to the light industry of national economic life, is more suitable for building factories in Tianjin, the traverser itself, it needs a large amount of cloth, so in the planning of the traverser, the textile mill will be used as a key development project in Tianjin.

The location of the textile factory is the original Zizhulin barracks, when the traversers just occupied Tianjin, the army was stationed here, and now the army has been withdrawn, and the building of the barracks is relatively large, it is more suitable to be used as a textile factory, and there are many vacant land around, leaving enough space for the future expansion of the textile factory.

However, although the machinery and equipment of the textile mill have been installed and debugged, it has not yet been officially opened, and there is not even a formal factory name. But this is so far, the traverser has invested the most machinery and equipment in a factory, and it is also the first factory created entirely by the traverser himself, like other such as timber mills, vehicle factories, glass factories, brick and tile factories, printing factories, etc., all of which were rebuilt after the traverser acquired local factories, so let Li Hongzhang and other people visit this textile factory that has not officially started, which can better show the attitude and ability of the traverser in starting an industry.

The director of the textile factory is called Tian Zechu, who was one of the first batch of project leaders to participate in the construction of the new countryside, because according to the principle of giving priority to those with grassroots work experience, the directors of these factories in Tianjin are all people who have participated in the construction of the new countryside, and Tian Zechu was appointed as the director of the textile factory because he worked in a textile factory for a year when he was young.

It turned out that Tian Zechu's parents were employees of a state-owned towel factory in the old time and space, and they had worked for more than 30 years, after Tian Zechu graduated from university, his parents entrusted him to work in the towel factory, but Tian Zechu studied in college with the major of industrial and civil construction, and the major of the towel factory was completely incompatible, so he could only do some manual work, and Tian Zechu couldn't stand the working environment of the towel factory, so he left the towel factory after only one year, went to a private construction company, and then gradually became the engineering management personnel of the previous construction project.

Although Tian Zechu has only worked in the towel factory for one year, and it is not a technical job, but the towel factory is the textile industry after all, and Tian Zechu's parents are workers who have worked in the textile industry all their lives. In addition, 15 traversers were arranged to work in the textile factory, serving as managers at all levels and technical jobs, which was also the largest number of traversers in each factory.

Tian Zechu is also very satisfied with this appointment, although the textile industry is not an emerging industry, but it is an important basic industry related to the national economy and people's livelihood, and will never be outdated. And the textile factory is also a state-owned enterprise, which has an administrative level, even if the textile factory is not a state-level state-owned enterprise in the future, but it can also be regarded as a provincial-level state-owned enterprise, which factory director's administrative level is estimated to be the bureau level, which is already quite a good result, in the old time and space, they can do a project leader by breaking the sky, and bureau-level cadres are almost impossible to achieve the goal.

When Qin Zheng led Li Hongzhang and others to the textile factory, Tian Zechu led them to visit the factory.