To Fumar's question, De Mons only felt depressed, he took a sip of Shaoxing rice wine, which was not authentic, before replying: "Your Excellency, you must know that this time the French ignored the principle of unanimity of the great powers, and I lost a great ......."

He didn't know how many times he had thought about it, but it was true that in the recent adventures of this leading arms dealer in Shanghai and the Far East, he had obtained a charter for the Huzhou-Hangzhou railway from Liu Jiehu, and many Chinese and Western businessmen in Shanghai had publicly demanded the withdrawal of their shares. （_）

This is a fact that is openly laid out there, and by now, De Mons has invested hundreds of thousands of Spanish dollars in this railway, which only exists on paper, and he has not only sent exploration teams, found designers, but even purchased a large number of railway materials.

But the outbreak of this war made his investment come to naught, at least until the end of the war with the French and Russia, the rebel army of the Rainbow Army could not concentrate manpower and material resources to build such a railway, so the railway company of Demons immediately caused a wave of withdrawal.

In the face of the forced debt trend inside and outside the Shanghai Concession, De Mons had to turn around and come to Ningbo, but he was in Ningbo, his heart was in Shanghai, and he was still manipulating Shanghai's large-scale arms trade, and in some ways, his weight increased.

Both the French and the Russians hoped that he would stop the arms trade with Liu, so De Mons's refuge in Ningbo was not without an element of evasion.

And now the sea man is obsessed with Shaoxing rice wine, of course, according to his personal words, he can't find authentic champagne in the Far East, so he has to find a substitute to soothe his soul, but Fumar knows very well that this Deemuns is not drunk at all.

He once again wanted to open a gap on De Mons's side: "Count de Mons, I know that you have suffered a lot, but after the storm, everyone will think of your extraordinary wisdom for the current situation. What do you think? ”

De Mons poured a sip of rice wine, and the other big arms dealer next to him, His Excellency Anrui, could no longer control his anger: "Fairness and freedom are the basic principles of international trade, and now the French and Russians are blatantly trampling on international conventions and declaring war on Britain." We have to react......"

Fumar did not dare to give a clear answer to His Excellency Anrui's impassioned statement, after all, he still represents the British official, and every word must be careful and careful on such occasions, otherwise it will ruin his Fumar's political future and everything.

And now De Mons finally let go of the antique glass goblet in his hand, which is said to be made in Venice, and replied in a dignified manner: "These damn Frenchmen, and those Russian dogs." They made me lose hundreds of thousands of Spanish silver coins, not to mention, but also made me lose tens of millions of silver dollars in business opportunities, this kind of hatred in the eyes of you British, absolutely nine declarations of war, you should not understand my loss, in addition to the investment in the railway company, I also invested a lot of public bonds, the public bonds of the rainbow army......"

De Mons thought Fumar didn't understand his feelings. But Fumar could clearly understand De Mons's feelings, because he felt the same way.

He also suffered huge financial losses, just as De Mons was close to the water. As the head of government of Ningbo Port, he was also able to get many inside information that outsiders could not know at the first time, and investing in public bonds became a natural choice for Fumar.

He not only invested all his savings in public bonds, but even borrowed a sum of money from Shanghai to invest more, and although the discount of the three-year Hongjun public bonds reached 75% at that time, everyone was unanimously optimistic that it would definitely break the bill. ..., but the damned French are coming, and the 87,000 Spanish dollars of Lord Fumar have been dealt a devastating blow, and now if he cuts the flesh out, then Lord Fumar will immediately declare bankruptcy.

So Fumar feels the same way as De Mons. He even dreamed every night that he was not only ruined, but also saddled with a huge debt of tens of thousands of pounds, and finally had to freeze to death on the streets: "Therefore we must protect the legitimate interests of European merchants, at least the legal trade in the port of Ningbo cannot be stopped!" ”

Legal trade, of course, includes materials that can be used indirectly for war, such as military uniforms, and so on, which are absolutely qualified trade. Only munitions and military materials are under strict control, and of course this is only for the sake of protecting the tranquility and neutrality of the port of Ningbo.

And De Mons, a big arms dealer, actually strictly controls the arms trade in Ningbo: "Yes, legal trade must not be stopped, this is the life of the port of Ningbo, of course, illegal illegal military trade We will unanimously recommend that His Excellency the consul strictly control it, and never allow a bullet, a rifle, or a cannon to flow into the hands of the warring parties......

This may seem strange on the surface, but Ryan, Rusya, and the other arms dealers present actually agreed with De Mons's suggestion: "I strongly support Mr. De Mons's proposal!" ”

"Illegal trade must be stopped!"

"Now is the time for us not to kill each other!"

But no one has exposed the real purpose behind the control, only to sell arms to the Hongjun more efficiently, and at the same time in exchange for higher profits.

However, where there is control, there will be corresponding benefits, and the Ningbo arms trade in the next few months has formed an oligopoly situation, and Anrui is even more complacent to tell everyone: "Recently, the French have purchased a batch of arms from me, and I have delivered all the orders to them." ”

"All orders?" Some people don't understand the mystery of this: "The French don't have a good price!" ”

Although Shanghai was the largest military trading port in the Far East, Shanghai quickly took Hong Kong's place thanks to the presence of the Rainbow Army, with more than 100,000 Western-style rifles delivered to the ports of Shanghai and Ningbo in the past December, and the scale was growing due to the outbreak of war.

The French did not know anything about the arms market in Shanghai and its vicinity, but when they arrived in Shanghai, in addition to the weapons and equipment they carried, they still needed to buy a large amount of weapons and ammunition, especially when they were ready to arm the Qing army, and the purchase volume would reach as many as five figures.

But their prices were very unsuitable, and they even wanted to buy arms in the Far East at European prices, and they also considered themselves shrewd people, who knew the market and were not as easily fooled as Qing officials.

Therefore, the French procurement was almost completely defeated, and the reason why everyone was playing in the Far East was not for the sake of 300 percent profit, but now Mr. Anne Ray actually sold a batch of arms to the French at a price similar to that of Europe.

But everyone is still silent, and everyone knows very well that an old fox like An Rui will never do a loss-making business, let alone a business that clearly corrupts the market.

But De Mons knew his old rival well: "You finally sold that batch of garbage?" That's a reasonable price! ”

Everyone has understood that although Shanghai Tang is a paradise for arms dealers, the second-hand goods that everyone buys from Europe are tragic and tragic, such as dilapidated rifles, artillery, water-soaked gunpowder, five-handed or even six-handed military uniforms, all of which were thrown to the French and the Qing army equipped with Russia.

"That's right, the French will soon understand what a reasonable price is!" Anrui triumphantly announced all this: "In fact, they have already understood, their latest price has increased by 70 percent!" "That's not enough, they have to go up at least one hundred and fifty percent!" ”

"That's it, their price is even lower than General Liu......"

"Hopefully, Napoleon III's treasury will have enough francs and gold coins to pay his bills......"

When they talked about this, the arms dealers all smiled, this was the topic they were happy to discuss, His Majesty the Emperor obviously thought too much about a war tens of thousands of kilometers away in the French mainland, and they did not even prepare much for the silver dollar of Spain, which was the most common in the Far East.

Under these circumstances, the French army, which lacked the ability to pay, found that the China in which they landed was not at all the so-called "El Dora", and in fact they were already on the verge of bankruptcy in a few days, and the bankrupt army had always been the best deal for these conscientious merchants.

In fact, there was not much to trade at all, and Montoban had urgently requested the shipment of large quantities of cash and French banknotes from India and elsewhere, and in his letter back to France, he said urgently: "If no further financial support is provided, the expeditionary force will end this great expedition in the cold and hunger......

These were purely junk sales or even non-existent transactions, which had already saddled the French expeditionary force with millions of gold francs, and even De Mons, who had always had the best dealings with the Rainbow Army, had already made several chaotic transactions with the French quartermaster that existed only on paper.

Therefore, the atmosphere of the whole meeting hall became cheerful because of the purchase of the French, but Fumar still did not find a solution, and he asked De Mons, a key person in the arms dealer, again: "Count de Mons, do you have any good suggestions for the port of Ningbo?" ”

"Yes! Have a good suggestion! De Mons replied, "I heard that the rebels are preparing to evacuate some of the civilians to the north, and I think you should help with a certain amount......

Now the north of Ningbo is Jiaxing and Changzhou, that is the battlefield where the French and the Hong Army are about to start a war, so the so-called "civilians" and "evacuation to the north" are completely lies, and in fact, such lies may not even be deceived by the French afterwards.

Because everyone knows very well that this refugee boat regiment that will fly the British flag is the 11th Marine Regiment supporting the direction of Jiaxing. (To be continued......)