William Mauser felt that he had hit a big luck and a fat meat pie fell from the sky, he couldn't even believe it, so he went to the Württemberg Legation in France and asked the diplomats whether there was really such a country as the Ming Dynasty in the world, and whether it was a liar. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

The diplomat told him very clearly that this country does exist, but it has not been established for a long time, but its economic strength is very strong, and it is obvious that for a small country like Württemberg, the economic strength of the Ming Dynasty is indeed very strong.

The confirmation of his country's diplomats made William Mauser feel like a dream, and he drove to Belgium overnight to tell his brother Paul Mauser the good news.

Paul Mauser was even more excited than his eldest brother, but the young Mauser brothers were really honest people at this time, and they found their patron Norris, told Norris the news, and promised Norris a copy of their patent, and invited Norris to contribute to the Ming military factory.

The adventurous spirit in the blood of Americans made Norris 100% supportive of this proposal.

After harvesting Mauser, Zhu Jinglun seemed to have opened the door of luck, and he finally saw the name that excited him, Werner Siemens.

Siemens was still a small company at this time, and limited by the small market of Germany, which did not have a unified Germany, they were forced to expand internationally from the beginning, and historically their telegraph entered China in the 70s, and before that they opened branches in France, England and Russia, they were very early in internationalization.

Zhu Jinglun contacted and found that Siemens hoped to get the support of the Ming government to open a company operating telegraph and telegraph lines in Daming, instead of the electric motor that Zhu Jinglun saw at the World Expo.

It took some effort for Zhu Jinglun to contact Siemens, because Siemens consulted at the Berlin Legation, but Siemens himself is Hanover, and Hannover is still an independent principality, and the title of Grand Duke was still on the head of the British king in the past, because Queen Victoria succeeded to the throne, and because Germany was used not to recognize female heirs, Britain lost this territory.

Hanover is now an independent political entity, but in a customs union with Prussia.

Zhu Jinglun asked the minister to negotiate with Siemens, willing to support Siemens to set up a company in Daming, and the Ming government gave priority to the use of equipment they produced, but they had to accept the Ming government's 51% stake, but the Ming government only made financial investment and did not interfere in their operation and management.

After weighing it, Siemens replied that it was willing to accept the shares according to the wishes of the Ming government, and small companies were easy to deal with.

But soon Zhu Jinglun saw the name of a large company, not on the list sent by the legation of a certain country, but the company itself came to it, through the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, because this is a French company, the French Schneider steel company.

The Schneider family immigrated to France from Prussia throughout history, and the family had always been a family of bankers, until the current generation of leaders, Adolf Schneider and Eugène Schneider, began to get involved in industry. The main reason is that the younger brother Eugène Schneider is interested in steelmaking, while the elder brother strongly supports the younger brother's career despite the opposition of the rest of the family. This allowed the Schneider family to get a piece of the pie in the era of great industry.

Eugène only bought a foundry in the eastern French town of Le Quesau in 1836 and entered the steel industry. But he was backed by his family's banking funds, and he waved his checks from the start, poaching talent from all over the world, including Burton, a talented technician from the United States. With the help of this man, Schneider produced the first French railway locomotive.

Obviously Schneider was not a small factory in the beginning, it was fully developed from the beginning, expanding everywhere, this is a company that was born as a giant.

Zhu Jinglun is attracting investment in Western European countries, and he himself is in France, and it is impossible for the French not to be moved, and the Schneider company has long seen the news, they have held meetings to study, and they have more resources at their disposal, and they have asked professional people to analyze the market of the Ming Kingdom, and experts believe that if this oriental country is willing to join in the opening of various modern undertakings, their market will be small for no reason.

So Schneider decisively decided to cooperate with the Ming government immediately, but they would not be like those little miscellaneous fish like Siemens, obediently according to the information in the newspaper to register a name and then wait for the Ming government to choose, they directly contacted the foreign minister to take the initiative to come to the door.

This kind of company is really different from Siemens, especially it is very difficult to speak.

First of all, they are not short of money, they value the market, so they say that they don't need Daming to provide them with loans.

But they were also reluctant to accept investment from the Ming government, and the two sides were very controversial on this point.

They want to set up a steel company in Daming, not only engaged in smelting steel, but also to produce a series of equipment from steam engines to railway locomotives, which is really the kind that Zhu Jinglun envisioned, a company that can represent an industry, but the only bad thing is that they insist on refusing to accept Daming's investment, whether it is from the government or private, they do not accept, they think that their financial situation is good, and they do not need to accept other people's funds.

After arduous negotiations, promised all kinds of conditions, told them that if the Ming government is not at ease with the enterprises from Europe, it is impossible to accept them to invest, and the trade treaties between the Ming and other countries do not stipulate that countries have the right to invest in the Ming Dynasty, especially when there is no diplomatic relationship with France, so as long as the Ming government does not agree, Schneider can not set up factories.

Zhu Jinglun also painted a bright future for them, telling them that Daming is planning to build its own railway, and is currently planning to take Guangzhou as the center to build a railway connecting Fujian and Guangxi, connecting the three provinces, the first railway is more than 1,000 kilometers long, if Schneider invests in Daming to set up a factory, the Daming government-invested railway will give priority to the purchase of Schneider's railway locomotives and rails.

But Schneider said they still need to think about it.

Its implementation of Naide is not Zhu Jinglun's real favorite company, what he really wants to win over, in fact, is Krupp, Krupp's steel casting quality needless to say, can make cannons, must be first-class steel, Krupp production of railway equipment, the level is also quite good, in addition to the production capacity of other machinery and equipment, this is also a company that can represent an industry.

But Krupp did not come to the door, the mountain is not just me, I will go to the mountain, Zhu Jinglun did not twist at all, seeing that he could not get along with the French for a while, and he did not like the French very much, so he asked the Prussian minister to visit Krupp directly and put forward the sincerity of cooperation.

However, the news from there made Zhu Jinglun very depressed, and Krupp said that they had no plans to invest abroad, and they neither needed loans nor accepted investment, because they did not plan to set up factories abroad at all.

The Germans are still too conservative, conservative has the advantage of being conservative, that is, they can settle down and do things in a down-to-earth manner, and they can persevere in the face of difficulties, for example, when Krupp was young, he lurked in Britain all the year round and finally stole the British steel casting technology, but conservative and conservative are not good, that is, some lack of imagination, so German companies have always adhered to steady management, their quality can be very good, but it is difficult for them to lead a new industry.

But Krupp said that they were very interested in exporting cannons to the Ming Dynasty, and they had already sent people to visit the Ming ironclad ships, and they thought that they were fully capable of producing the cannons that the Ming needed, and if the Ming agreed, they could immediately sign a contract to produce eight 110-pound breech-loading steel rifled guns for the Ming ironclad ships, and 40 other gunwales ranging from 68 pounds to 40 pounds.

They were equivalent to contracting the cannons on the Ming ironclad ships, which were expensive, with a total price of one million taels.

Money is not a big problem, Zhu Jinglun wanted technology and proposed technology transfer, but even if the Ming was willing to pay an expensive transfer fee, Krupp did not agree, obviously before the Franco-Prussian War, the Germans attached great importance to the secrecy of military production.

Krupp disagreed, Zhu Jinglun still signed the deal, and he still needed these cannons as sample cannons to go back and imitate them.

Since Krupp was reluctant to ask for this opportunity, Zhu Jinglun felt that it was necessary to cooperate with the French.

The good news is that the Schneider family decided to cooperate with the Ming government after the meeting, but they put forward corresponding requirements, first, they asked for patent rights, they asked the Ming government to grant them at least ten years of patent rights, and within ten years Daming could not open another steel plant that competed with them, which Zhu Jinglun could not agree, telling them that there was already a factory producing steel in Daming; Second, Schneider also asked the Ming government to give them a concession to allow them to produce arms, and the Ming government should give priority to the purchase of Schneider's arms, but Zhu Jinglun could not agree, saying that he had promised a German company priority.

After many negotiations, Schneider made an inexplicable request, asking the Ming government to agree to build a railway from the French colony in South Vietnam to the Ming territory.

Well, at this time, Zhu Jinglun had already determined that the French government had stepped in, and this railway was not so much what Schneider wanted, but what the French government wanted.

Is it just that the French government can get the Vietnamese to agree?

At the thought of once he fulfilled this request, the Vietnamese were afraid that they would be in trouble again.

However, Zhu Jinglun still agreed, and in this era, he did not want to be like later generations, when China and all East Asian countries were basically in confrontation, which was simply a failure of failures for him, who was born as a diplomat, and the establishment of a China-centered political alliance in East Asia should be done by China, not confrontation with all East Asian countries.

It's just that the Vietnamese regime at this time has an inexplicable sense of superiority, and in their attitude towards China, on the one hand, they have a cultural inferiority complex, and on the other hand, they feel that China is no longer that China, and they dissolve this inferiority complex by culturally despising China's history of being conquered by barbarians.

In a large number of comments left by the Ming Emperor during the Opium War, there is this mentality, commenting on the defeat of the Manchu Qing in the war against Britain as a strange powerhouse, fortunately this Opium died after the war, otherwise I don't know what kind of mentality he would have when facing the French army.

Zhu Jinglun not only wants to dispel the inexplicable mentality of the Vietnamese, but also wants the Vietnamese to have to lean towards the Ming Dynasty, so using the French to put pressure on Vietnam is simply a benefit and no expense, so why not. (To be continued.) )