At the same time as the meeting between the crossers and the observer group, Minister of Foreign Affairs Li Sanjie also met with reporters from the three newspapers accompanying him and answered questions raised by the reporters. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

The observation group came to Tianjin to visit, mainly to negotiate matters, to ask questions to the traverser, just to pay for the band, but the reporters are different, they are all holding back in Tianjin to get big news, so they have prepared a lot of questions, in addition to being interested in the origin of the traverser, but also full of curiosity about the traverser's previous social composition, political system, living habits, etc., in addition to the traverser's plans after returning, The goal, and in this negotiation, the goal of the time-traveler, etc., even led a reporter to ask whether the time-traveler intended to restore the Han dynasty in China.

However, Li Sanjie, who was in charge of receiving reporters, had long been accustomed to the tricky questions of various reporters in the old time and space, and he was naturally handy in dealing with reporters in this era, not only answering all questions, but also answering every question at length, or answering positively, or knocking on the side, or playing Tai Chi pushers, and from time to time making a joke and coming up with a few new words.

In the old time and space, these replies would definitely be labeled as official words, clichés, and kind words, but in this era, they are very new terms. Regardless of the content of the reply of the traveler, he was always smiling and did not look impatient, and this alone greatly touched the visiting reporters. Although newspapers have existed in China for more than 30 years, their social status is not high, on the one hand, because newspapers are a novelty introduced to China by foreigners, and traditional scholars have an instinctive rejection of this, and on the other hand, when newspapers were first introduced to China, people generally regarded them as a disguise of Korean newspapers.

The so-called Chaobao, also known as Di Bao, refers to a kind of ancient Chinese newspaper that mainly reports the emperor's daily life, words and deeds, edicts, court decrees, edicts, and decrees in the form of newsletters, and has the appointment, promotion, deposition, reward and punishment of officials, the memoraries and official documents of ministers and local officials, etc., as well as a small number of occasional social news anecdotes, etc., which have certain characteristics of modern newspapers.

It is generally believed that the morning newspaper first appeared in the Han Dynasty, but at that time, the court newspaper was only used as an official document of the government and circulated internally. When the newspaper began to be distributed by the people, it was in the Tang Dynasty, and by the time of the Song Dynasty, the newspaper had become a printed matter for the public distribution of the people, and until the Qing Dynasty, the government basically acquiesced in the issuance of the newspaper. However, since most of the information of the imperial court is not public in principle, the sources of the news of the imperial court are generally lower-level officials of the central government, the errands of high-ranking officials, and the families of the nouveau riche, and even eunuchs.

The sale of the dynasty newspaper was not high in ancient China, and it was regarded as the profession of Tangyi miscellaneous servants, and the news spread was not very credible, so the society was light, and it was difficult to get into the hall of elegance. Therefore, in the early days of newspaper distribution in China, except for foreigners and Chinese businessmen who did business with foreigners, there were almost no readers, and most of the traditional literati who worked in newspapers were unsatisfactory in the field of science and could not carry out their official careers, and it was difficult to be recognized by Shilin, who paid attention to the background of the newspaper, and the chief writer and reporter of the newspaper were regarded as dishonorable professions, believing that newspapers "often destroy people's reputations, hurt their reputations, and are not a legitimate way out for the children of good families". Although it is prejudice, it also tells the truth of this era.

Since the social status of the newspaper is not high, the difficulty of the newspaper reporter wanting to do a formal interview can be imagined, and Li Sanjie is so happy to accept the interview, and there are all questions to answer, each answer is also rich in content, and the attitude is friendly, it is something that has never been done before, so several reporters have written down a thick book of interview records, and they feel that this time is really worth the trip, and they will definitely be praised by their employers after they go back, and at the same time, they will also have a great increase in their favor towards overseas Chinese.

It took more than two hours to receive reporters, and Li Sanjie answered more than 20 questions in one breath before announcing the end, and the reporters were still unsatisfied, and finally Li Sanjie gave each newspaper a booklet about the traverser, and also promised that during the negotiations in Shanghai, the traverser would also hold a press conference, and all the famous newspapers in Shanghai would be invited to participate, and the reporters ended the interview with satisfaction.

Of course, Li Hongzhang did not participate in these activities, but proposed to the travelers, hoping that the travelers could arrange for themselves to visit more places, with the purpose of wanting to see more and see more, so as to better understand this group of overseas Chinese.

On the morning of the same day, Qin Zheng accompanied Li Hongzhang and his entourage to visit the printing factory and the wood factory, both of which were purchased by the traveler in Tianjin, and the factories were renovated, and now a batch of machines have been introduced, but the scale of these two factories is not large, the printing plant has only 155 employees, and the number of wood factories is more, only 287 people. Qin Zheng's explanation to Li Hongzhang was that in opening these factories, we should not be eager for quick success and quick profits, but should weigh the balance between input and income, so it is not appropriate to blindly expand production at the beginning, but should focus on accumulating experience and training skilled workers, and then gradually expand the scale of production when the conditions are ripe.

When Li Hongzhang heard this, he couldn't help but sigh to himself, "eager for quick success and quick profit, greedy for perfection" It is one of the mistakes of the Westernization movement, the Westernists set up a business, never care about the balance of investment and income, and regardless of whether the subjective and objective conditions are favorable, but immediately start working as soon as they pat their heads, and do not hesitate to work, blindly seek the big and the perfect, as a result, some factories are set up halfway only to find that the original design problems are many, either additional investment for transformation or halfway, although some enterprises are established, but either lack of raw materials, or no workers, the result can only be solved one by one, not only lead to the factory can not be put into production after completion, and the cost doubles。

Therefore, like overseas Chinese, it is the right way to work steadily, start small, and gradually expand. This is also the lesson that Li Hongzhang has summed up after more than 30 years of foreign affairs.

In the afternoon, Qin Zheng took Li Hongzhang and his entourage to change into civilian clothes and travel, first went around the old city of Tianjin, and then went out of the city to visit a new rural area that had been built.

First of all, they found that the city of Tianjin has changed greatly, the original uneven streets have been filled in and compacted, and the streets are very clean, and the weeds in the corners of the house have also been removed, almost no debris and garbage, and no one dares to litter, not to mention that it is convenient everywhere, except for the narrow streets, this is the urban pattern of Tianjin, which cannot be changed, just looking at the scene of the street, and the concession is basically the same.

The planning of the concession is reasonable, the management is proper, the environment is excellent, clean and hygienic, this is a consensus, so Li Hongzhang was not surprised to arrive in the Tianjin New Area, but now seeing that the old city of Tianjin has also taken on a new look, he has to admire the governance methods of overseas Chinese.

Of course, Li Hongzhang also has a lot of garbage boxes and latrines in the streets of Tianjin, and you can see one almost every hundreds of steps, and there are special guards, and there are also many people dressed in black newspapers, wearing boat-shaped hats, and carrying a short stick in their hands, patrolling back and forth on the streets, Li Hongzhang saw with his own eyes that they arrested two spitting people, and also made Li Hongzhang understand that in fact, the methods of overseas Chinese are not new, and it turns out that foreigners manage the concession in this way. These black-clothed men are probably similar to the officials and messengers, and they are called patrol houses in the concession. When I asked Qin Zheng, I learned that overseas Chinese call them police, and institutions call police stations.

After arriving in the countryside, Li Hongzhang was even more shocked, Li Hongzhang had never been to the countryside, but he had never seen such a neatly planned and clean village, even if it was an ordinary rural household, and there was no such clean and tidy house. Qin Zheng also introduced to Li Hongzhang the new rural construction project of the traverser and the land policy implemented by the traverser in Tianjin.

And after Li Hongzhang listened to Qin Zheng's speech, his face also became a little unnatural, and it took a while to recover.

As the most important official of the Qing court, Li Hongzhang certainly knew that China was still an agricultural country in nature, and the rural population accounted for more than ninety percent of the country's population, and that any ruler who wanted to sit firmly in the country must stabilize the peasants, and if he wanted to compete for the world and replace it, he must also win the support of the peasants. As a result, successive rulers regarded peasant revolts and wars as a major nuisance.

If it is said that in the past, overseas Chinese opened factories and started businesses in Tianjin City, and managed Tianjin City in an orderly manner, including their disdain towards the Qing court, which did not make Li Hongzhang too scrupulous, but the practice of overseas Chinese in Tianjin's rural areas made Li Hongzhang feel a lot of fear, because overseas Chinese divided their fields and cleared their land in the rural areas and built houses for the peasants, which was clearly a practice of buying people's hearts.

Li Hongzhang was quite confident before, thinking that although the overseas Chinese were brave and good at fighting, proficient in foreign affairs, and good at governing the local area, they were not worried, after all, they were outsiders, their roots in China were not deep, and the old country had perished, and there was no successor, so as long as the Qing court could stabilize its own position and control Beijing as soon as possible, then even if the overseas Chinese were temporarily divided into one side, the Qing court could still rely on the 250-year ruling foundation to gradually resolve the overseas Chinese, and finally completely naturalize the overseas Chinese for my use.

However, Li Hongzhang did not expect that overseas Chinese would also know how to buy the hearts of the peasants, and as soon as they made a move, they grasped the root of the countryside, that is, land, which was something that shook the foundation of the Qing Dynasty's rule.

Obviously, it is impossible for the current Qing court to distribute land to the peasants, but once the Qing court does this, first of all, those red and yellow belts will make trouble, because the land is the foundation of those red and yellow belts. However, the overseas Chinese have no scruples in this regard and can let go of it, so whether the Qing court can still rely on the foundation of 250 years of rule to resolve the overseas Chinese, Li Hongzhang's confidence has also begun to waver.