When the United States first became independent, they did not have much strength, but after arriving in Guangzhou, in just a few years, they grew into the second largest trading power after the British East India Company. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 info is because of Wu Bingjian's strong support, Wu Bingjian provides them with a large amount of tea and silk, and Wu Bingjian regards them as the only agent of his overseas investment.

It is said that John Forbes, the major shareholder of Qichang Foreign Company, who came to China at the age of eighteen, is said to have worshipped Wu Bingjian as his godfather in accordance with Chinese customs. Wu Bingjian bought hundreds of thousands of taels of railway shares and bonds in the United States through Qichang Foreign Bank, and also lent money to Qichang Foreign Company from time to time to operate. There are rumors that the Wu family even has equity in Qichang Foreign Bank.

The two sides have such a relationship with Qichang Foreign Bank, of course, they cannot but give face, and this foreign bank has become an American trading giant through decades of operation in China, and to a certain extent, it can influence the foreign policy of the United States, especially here in China, the attitude of the director of Qichang often represents the US government, and the ambassador must consult Qichang before making a decision.

Therefore, when the shareholders of Qichang & Co. arrived, William Li, the US minister to China, rushed over from Hong Kong, which was a matter of course.

No matter how low the official status is in a foreign country and how high the status of a businessman is, the official will never be wrong with the official.

Zhu Jinglun walked straight to the door of the tea shop, stood on the main seat given by Wu Chongyao, and on the left hand side was the American consul, and said hello very well.

"Hello Mr. William. Probably you don't know it, but our negotiations with the British were suspended. ”

"Oh, is it? That's a real shame. ”

William Li said this, but his eyes were full of curiosity, the suspension is not a rupture, it means that the two sides will continue to talk in the future, and it also means that the differences have not reached the point where they are completely impossible to negotiate, and there is always some consensus.

Zhu Jinglun said with a smile: "However, there are some achievements, our side will unilaterally open Xin'an County to trade with other countries, and the United States is very welcome to come to Xin'an to do trade." Just like the tea shop in front of us, there will be countless cargo ships along the Pearl River to transport the tea of the entire Canton here, and the trade volume of Xin'an will continue to grow. ”

William Li said with a smile: "American businessmen are very happy to trade with the Chinese. The United States welcomes your decision. ”

Zhu Jinglun nodded: "But there is one point, at this time, it is still our unilateral opening of trade, so we require all countries to follow our management at present." Unless there is a relevant negotiating charter. If your country is interested, we are also willing to negotiate with you. ”

At this time, there was only one Britain negotiating with Guangzhou, and other countries, such as France and the United States, were waiting, and they planned to wait for the most powerful Britain to negotiate first, and then they were negotiating, they knew that the British could negotiate a better result, and the Qing government was extremely generous in terms of national power, once the British negotiated with difficulty, they would easily agree with the British with other countries, according to the Qing court, it was called a reward.

Later, the Manchu ministers gave this method a beautiful name, "Yi Yi Yi", the name is very beautiful, and the reason is also very beautiful, using the conflict of interests of various countries in China to coordinate and ensure themselves.

This strategy of using razing to defeat razing was very controversial in later generations, and those who praised it were praised to the sky, saying that if it were not for Li Hongzhang and others who carried out these policies beautifully, China might have perished, and those who degraded it were relegated to the ditch, saying that this kind of policy was simply a negative policy that had no protection for national power.

As a professional diplomat, Zhu Jinglun agrees with the latter statement, which is a very negative strategy and extremely stupid.

The so-called razing is like letting go of one's fat body, letting a group of wolves eat openly, and then hoping that each wild wolf will eat different amounts of meat, and finally fight.

But the national power, if you give up one point, you will lose one point, and if you keep one point, you will have one more point, and if you can't beat Britain and France to Britain and France, Portugal and Spain can also get a piece of the pie, is there anything more novel than this?

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun does not intend to carry out Li Hongzhang and others' use of razing to control razing, he has his own strategy, and the general principle is even similar, but he does not intend to fully open up the national power, but tries to preserve it, and he is really forced to open up, and he must also exchange it for reciprocal benefits.

Of course, he introduced the United States this time, not because the United States was stronger than Britain and France, but because he hoped to use the United States to deepen the sense of urgency of Britain and France and force the British to make concessions as soon as possible.

Of course, Zhu Jinglun's authority is limited to before the TJ treaty is renewed, once the two sides complete the agreement, Zhu Jinglun must be implemented in accordance with the treaty, and the time is at most a few months to a year, so the British are not in a hurry, but if they know that Zhu Jinglun has no intention of abiding by the TJ treaty after a year, I don't know what they will think.

It was impossible for the British to think of this, because if Zhu Jinglun did not abide by the TJ treaty, it would mean that Zhu Jinglun would no longer recognize the legitimacy of the Qing dynasty's rule. In other words, Zhu Jinglun plans to rebel, who would have thought of such a thing.

Of course, the Americans could not imagine that William Li did not plan to change the current diplomatic method of following the British, so he did not plan to negotiate with Zhu Jinglun alone, anyway, there were only a few months to a year, and when the exchange of contracts was completed, everyone would implement the treaty in the future, otherwise the British would naturally take the lead in beating the Chinese court. It is the Americans who are most concerned about the fact that they can start trading for the time being.

William Li was a little worried: "I don't know how you will deal with the tariff rules?" We expect you to strictly comply with the relevant treaties. ”

The old treaties were the unequal treaties signed by the Qing government with other countries after the Raven War, such as the Sino-British Southern (Beijing) Treaty, the Sino-American Wangxia Treaty, and even treaties with Belgium, the Netherlands, Prussia and other countries with similar contents.

Breaking these treaties will provoke a large group of wolves, small countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, a country may not be able to do anything to Zhu Jinglun, but if it follows behind the British and French coalition forces, it will still be a headache, so Zhu Jinglun does not plan to break these treaties for the time being, not to mention that these treaties are relatively better in content than a series of later treaties.

So Zhu Jinglun said: "Of course, we will abide by the provisions of the legal treaty." ”

After finishing speaking, Wu Chongyao came to ask if it was okay to start.

The opening ceremony has been waiting until now, just to wait for Zhu Jinglun, and now that Zhu Jinglun is here, everyone else is a little impatient, especially those American businessmen, who can't stop complaining.

Zhu Jinglun nodded, Wu Chongyao immediately ordered to go down, and immediately crackling firecrackers rang out, the sound of gongs and drums also sounded, and the dragon and lion dance team also rushed to the excuse of the archway.

In the end, a team of lions from Longgang won the lottery, and Wu Chongyao rewarded them with a big jackpot of 100 taels.

A gong sounded, and the tea shop opened.

One by one, the guys are skilled in greeting guests, but there is only one guest at present, and that is the American Qichang Foreign Company.

I saw that the guys kept moving the goods out of the warehouse, and under the eager eyes of the American merchants, they were transported to the dock and loaded onto the American merchant ships.

The interruption of several months of bulk tea trade has caused the price of tea in the international market to soar a lot, while the price of tea produced in China has dropped a lot, and this space will be shared by the Wu family and Qichang Foreign Company.

This 10,000 pounds of tea is only the first batch, it is a trade used to prove the strength of the Wu family, you must know that during the occupation of Guangzhou by the British and French forces, the monthly trade volume was 8 million pounds, which is still in the case of shrinkage, and the peak before the war was more than 10 million pounds.

Now that the Americans have done their first business, it is impossible for other countries not to be tempted, so one after another customers have come to the door, some are old customers of the Wu family, such as the Hong Kong businessmen in the past, and there are also some new customers.

The foreigners signed the order, and the Wu family organized a fleet to transport tea from all over Guangfu through the Pearl River, and even transported FJ's tea from the sea, processed it, and sold it to the foreigners, which was very profitable, and soon opened the scene in Chiwan.

In the remaining ten days of November, the trade volume of the Wu family tea shop miraculously exceeded one million taels. In the eyes of outsiders, this is unimaginable, but for the Wu family's previous business, it is not a great thing, and their trade volume with foreigners in previous years has been as high as millions of taels of silver. What's more, due to the closure of the coasts of Guangzhou and GD, Macao and Hong Kong have long gathered a large group of merchants with cash in their hands but no goods, and sporadic smuggling alone cannot satisfy their appetites, so this explosion of trade can be said to be the result of a long-term gathering of energy release.

But the problem is that the energy of American businessmen has been overreleased, while businessmen from other countries are still unable to purchase goods on a large scale, and the Wu family's business as before, priority is given to their American business partners, and Qichang Foreign Company can get goods first. This situation makes the merchants of other countries quite dissatisfied, even if the merchants of small countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium are dissatisfied, it is just like that, but the British merchants are dissatisfied, and something will happen.

The British felt that the reason why their trade volume in Xin'an was surpassed by the American merchants was that their main foundation had always been in Guangzhou, which was an advantage laid down from the days of the East India Company, so under the pressure of the merchants, the British had an unstoppable desire to open up the trade in Guangzhou.

Of course, the negotiation is still with Zhu Jinglun.

Zhu Jinglun expected it to be right, after Fang Shan reported to Guangfu the issue of Zhu Jinglun's authority raised by the British in the last negotiation, Huang Zonghan and Bai Gui agreed to stamp the big seal of the governor and governor on the power of attorney handed over to them by Zhu Jinglun, and wrote again, repeatedly telling Zhu Jinglun to stop the foreigners in Xin'an.

Only this time the attitude of the British was particularly strong, demanding that trade in Guangzhou must be opened, otherwise they did not rule out sending warships to Guangzhou to deter.

Faced with this situation, Zhu Jinglun couldn't delay, in fact, this was his intentional situation, otherwise he could have put pressure on the Wu family to let the Wu family not care so much about the Americans, and if it was balanced, there would be much less trouble.

The reason why he acquiesced to the Wu family's behavior was to provoke the British and make the British threaten, Zhu Jinglun knew that as long as the British threatened, then those officials in Guangfu would panic, and they would agree to any conditions in a panic.

This time, Zhu Jinglun planned to go to Guangzhou in person, because he planned to get greater benefits from Guangzhou.