The farmland outside Xin'an City has been planted with rice seedlings, and the green seems to have put a carpet on the earth, and the people who harvested the new rice last year transported the new rice to Xin'an for trading. Pen fun and pavilion www.biquge.info

Xin'an City was booming, except for catching up with the rice market after the bumper harvest, all walks of life reopened, and Xin'an under Zhu Jinglun's rule was completely peaceful.

On Hong Kong Island on the ground of the strait, Zhu Jinglun instructed the Wu family to make advertisements in various newspapers, which made the foreign businessmen of various countries in Hong Kong feel itchy, and the newspapers used the Wu family's tea advertisements to promote the trade policy of Xin'an City all day long, but these businessmen went to Xin'an City, and they were often unable to purchase enough goods, and the bulk commodities were controlled by the Wu family and Qichang Foreign Company, and they could only sweep the goods in the hands of those small and medium-sized businessmen, and they could not satisfy their appetite at all.

Seeing that there is no money to earn, these people are going crazy.

Zhu Jinglun is also very anxious, the trade volume of Chiwan is growing upwards, and businessmen from all over Xin'an, and even Xiangshan, Shunde and other places across the Pearl River have rushed to trade, but the real giant is only the Wu family, doing this kind of thing, small and medium-sized businessmen can only activate the market at present, and those giants are indispensable to really let bulk commodities meet the market. Because in many industries, small and medium-sized businessmen can not do what they want to do.

Taking tea as an example, most of the tea in Xin'an is produced in Guangzhou, and Xin'an accounts for a considerable part, but in the traditional tea area, the best tea is not produced in Guangdong, and Fujian is the largest industrial production area before the war.

But to transport the tea from these places to Guangdong, the traditional business route is not to take the sea route, for example, the Wu family has a large tea garden in Fujian, and the high-quality tea produced by his tea garden must first take a mountain road in Wuyi Mountain, rush to the town of Hekou in Xixi, and then transport it to Nan (Chang) through the Xinjiang River and Panyang Lake, and then go up the Shuo Ganjiang River until Nan'an, and then use the porter to transport it across Meiling into Nanxiong in Guangdong, from Nanxiong to Qujiang through Zhenjiang, from Qujiang to Beijiang, change to a big ship and transport it all the way to the Thirteen Lines, and then load the foreigner's sea ship in Huangpu Port. Ship all over the world.

This section of the journey, need to go through countless levels, change more than a dozen different means of transportation, during which it also involves dealing with the government, bandits, dart bureaus and other complex relationships, this is definitely not ordinary small businessmen can be organized, even the Wu family such a wealthy businessman is very difficult to organize alone, they need to use a complete set of business networks to carry out, so the most valuable in the hands of these wealthy businessmen is not their financial advantage, but the business network in their hands.

It was obviously impossible to restore trade to the pre-war level by relying on the Wu family's business network alone, so Zhu Jinglun needed to go to Guangzhou and invite more giants to Xin'an. Among the old thirteen lines, the wealthy merchants who were able to transport tea from Fujian and Chixi to Guangzhou were at least the Pan family, which was not inferior to the Wu family, and the Lu family, which was slightly weaker. These two were also one of the four merchants who were still trading after the Raven War, which was saved from bankruptcy and raiding.

However, before the Yayi War, there were more than 30 merchants in the thirteen trades, and after the war, 20 went bankrupt, and more than 10 were implicated and exiled to Yili. Anyway, they are not short of money, foreigners can't come to Guangzhou, they simply closed the shop, and no one dared to be the first bird at this time, because they all knew that this time the Qing Dynasty was defeated again, and the imperial court was probably already looking for a scapegoat.

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun must go in person, and he must use the power of the government to promote these business giants to trade in Xin'an, otherwise even if they see the huge interests of Xin'an, they will temporarily endure and dare not take a step beyond the thunder pool, until the situation is stabilized, these people are too rich, so they are too timid.

In addition, Zhu Jinglun has not returned to Guangzhou for a long time, and he has to go to Guangzhou officialdom to deepen his relationship with Bai Gui, and at the same time prove his worth to Huang Zonghan and other officials.

visited Bai Gui for the first time, and Bai Gui was in a good mood, because news had already spread from the imperial court that the imperial court had dispersed and dismissed Huang Zonghan, which was the request of the British. In the original history, it was Pa Xiali who captured a Xianfeng secret edict in the hands of Guangzhou Xiangyong, which had the meaning of instigating Xiangyong to attack the city of Guangzhou. At that time, Ergin, who was negotiating the treaty for the aftermath of the trade and rehabilitation, used this secret decree to put pressure on Gui Liang and Hua Shana, who firmly denied that the emperor had such a secret decree. So in the end, Erjin asked the Qing court to investigate and deal with Huang Zonghan, the governor of Liangguang, thinking that if it was not the emperor's doing, then it must be Huang Zonghan himself.

The foreigners are actually just standing up, by abolishing a governor, let the people of Guangzhou see the energy of the foreigners, and at the same time, after a single war, they will ask the Qing government to release those Chinese who were convicted of cooperating with foreigners in the war, not that they care about the life and death of these people, but that they look at the longer term, and they need to let the Chinese dispel their concerns about cooperating with them in this way. It can be said that the foreigners' diplomatic methods are particularly clever, and eventually a large number of traitor helpers have been cultivated for them, and this is still the case in the 21st century.

In this history, because of the appearance of Zhu Jinglun, Pa Xiali was kidnapped early, so no secret decree was found, but Erjin put pressure on Hua Shana and Gui Liang, not for Xianfeng's secret decree itself, but to obtain benefits, so he still put pressure on these two people, and the reason for the pressure was changed to the Anglo-French alliance that the Qing army in Guangzhou attacked Guangzhou without authorization after the treaty was signed.

The corrupt Qing court once again agreed, and wanted to remove from his post to investigate and investigate Huang Zonghan, who had recovered Guangzhou, just like Lin Zexu, who was exiled from smoking, and they only cared about the immediate difficulties, and did not care about the long-term consequences, and did not care whether this would make their officials afraid when dealing with foreigners in the future, and whether they would let their officials rather compromise than fight for reason when dealing with foreigners.

Huang Zonghan has been removed, who will take over? In the original history, it was Lao Chongguang, the governor of Guangxi, because the more qualified governor of Guangdong, Bai Gui, happened to die of illness in 1859 due to internal and external difficulties, but this time because of the recovery of Guangzhou City, Bai Gui has long been without a crisis, he is in a happy mood, where is he half a point to die, so he is the best candidate, and Bai Gui did receive news from the capital, saying that the emperor intends to promote him to replace Huang Zonghan as the governor of Liangguang.

not only got rid of the crisis, but also achieved the feudal officials in one step, which made Bai Gui unhappy, and Zhu Jinglun, who made great contributions, was even more important to Bai Gui.

It's just that the news brought by Zhu Jinglun quickly poured cold water on Bai Gui's heart.

Zhu Jinglun said to Bai Gui: "My lord, the foreigners threatened to send warships to Guangzhou to trade, and this matter has a lot to do with it. ”

Hearing the news, Bai Gui lost his temper and stood up to reprimand Zhu Jinglun.

"Didn't you let you drag the foreigners in Xin'an?"

Whether the officialdom of Guangzhou can be stable, in the eyes of these adults, lies in whether they can stay away from foreigners, and Bai Gui, who has just been promoted to the governor of Liangguang, will be too unlucky if he immediately encounters the approach of foreigners and warships.

Zhu Jinglun sighed: "My lord, forgive me, it's not that the lower officials are slacking off, the lower officials have already done everything they can to appease the foreigners." The current trade in Xin'an is very popular with Meiyi, but Yingyi is extremely dissatisfied. Yingyi believed that only in Guangzhou could Yingyi make great profits. Yingyi decided that they were doing better business in Guangzhou. ”

Bai Gui also felt that his words were serious, and softened and said: "This official is not blaming you, but Guangzhou has a lot to do with it, and you must not let foreigners come to Guangzhou." ”

Zhu Jinglun said: "The opening of Guangzhou's trade was originally promised by the imperial court. The lower officials can get rid of it for a while, but they can't get rid of it for a lifetime. Once the Sino-British, Sino-French and Sino-French treaties are exchanged in the coming year, the foreigners will definitely demand to trade in Guangzhou in accordance with the treaty. ”

Bai Gui sighed: "If the foreigners come according to the agreement, it is a matter of the imperial court, and it is not your business with me." If you let foreigners come to Guangzhou before the contract change and cause trouble again, you and I won't be able to eat and walk around. ”

Zhu Jinglun said: "The lower officials are taught. But Yingyi is arrogant, and if you can't do trade in Xin'an, you have to come to Guangzhou, how can this be good? ”

Bai Gui pondered for a moment and said, "Then let them do a good job." I'd rather suffer a loss than have an accident. ”

Zhu Jinglun sighed: "This is not easy to say. At the beginning of Xin'an trade, no matter what, all Yi people can not be satisfied, Yingyi is satisfied, Fayi may not be satisfied, Fayi is satisfied, Meiyi may not be satisfied, if anyone is not satisfied to come to Guangzhou, how is this good. ”

Bai Gui sighed again and again, and at the same time couldn't help but wonder: "In the past, they were able to buy and sell with peace of mind, why are they so arrogant now?" Could it be that they didn't come for trade? ”

The main fear of Manchu officials was not that foreigners would seize commercial interests, but that they had other ambitions, such as wanting to cede land.

Zhu Jinglun explained: "In the past, there were thirteen public banks, and both Yingyi and Meiyi could buy enough goods, but now the thirteen banks are all wasted, and there is not enough commercial goods in Xin'an to sell to foreigners, because foreigners want to come to Guangzhou to trade." ”

Bai Gui's eyes lit up: "You mean they want to come to Guangzhou, just because they can't buy goods in Xin'an?" ”

Zhu Jinglun affirmed: "Foreigners come from afar, what they do is just a good word, they can't make money, they can do everything." ”

Bai Gui already had an idea in his heart, and he was a lot easier.

"If only they could buy enough commercial goods. You might promise to let them stay in Xin'an and not come to Guangzhou? ”

Zhu Jinglun said: "Of course, the lower officials can guarantee it, but the Thirteen Lines of Public Bank has been abolished, where can I find enough goods to sell to foreigners now?" ”

Bai Gui laughed and said: "The public bank is abolished, but those merchants are still there." ”

Although it was obvious that he had led the flustered Bai Gui step by step to hit the head of the Guangzhou businessman, Zhu Jinglun had to pretend to be innocent.

Puzzled, he asked: "But as far as I know, there are only four of the thirteen merchants left, and they can really purchase enough commercial goods to trade with foreigners in Xin'an?" ”

Bai Gui smiled and said, "Don't you know, among those merchants, the Pan family is the first leader, and then the Wu family is the leader. The combined trade of the Wu and Pan families is larger than that of all the other merchants combined, so as long as the Wu and Pan families are there, they can ensure that the foreigners can buy as many goods as they want. In addition, the official could also post notices in the city of Guangzhou, encouraging merchants to go to Xin'an to trade, so that foreigners could buy enough goods and not always think about coming to Guangzhou. ”

Seeing that Bai Gui planned to do more than he wanted, Zhu Jinglun couldn't help but praise: "My lord is wise! ”

Zhu Jinglun can already imagine that once Bai Gui does this, how the merchants of Guangzhou will flock to Xin'an, which is equivalent to a large migration of Guangzhou's commerce to Xin'an to a certain extent.

After getting this, Zhu Jinglun was satisfied, and he could seriously negotiate with the British.