At this time, the European company hesitated, although the bureaucrats of the European company have always cared little about the interests of small and medium-sized shareholders, but after all, it is a commercial company, and they dare not ignore the interests of some giants, otherwise the board of directors can fire them. The construction of the Greek railway is destined to be a money-losing cargo, and whether it is compared with the Chinese railway or the British railway, it will definitely not be profitable. Funding such a project, at an ultra-low interest rate of 3%, would be hugely controversial and would lead to the collapse of a large number of people.

After arduous negotiations, Zhou Chenggong finally decided to hand over the gold mines in Halkidiki in Macedonia to European companies as collateral. This gold mine has a long history, it has been mined since the time of Alexander the Great, and it is said that tens of millions of taels of gold have been mined here for thousands of years.

With this gold mine as collateral, European companies felt that the risk was much smaller, so they agreed to raise money from Greece.

In order to get funds for development, Zhou Chenggong almost did whatever it takes, and even the gold mine can be mortgaged, what else can't be done.

After that, he began to forcibly expropriate land, which caused great resentment among the people, but he controlled public opinion through official newspapers, censored private newspapers, strictly controlled the tools of public opinion, and used national righteousness and national interests to unite the people, which greatly reduced the spread of discontent.

The local landlord class spontaneously gathered to resist, and Zhou Chenggong really dared to exclude the army from suppressing it. After taking control of Greek politics, he showed a toughness that was rare among European monarchs.

The forcible push for the construction of the railroad may have been mainly for political purposes. But the construction and maintenance of old ports across the country is mainly for commercial purposes.

Greece has a long coastline with numerous bays and excellent harbors. Zhou Chenggong focuses on building ports with development potential such as Piraeus, Thessaloniki and Volos.

We will continue to vigorously support the establishment of industrial enterprises, on the one hand, introduce British and Chinese capital to develop the wool textile industry in Greece. At the same time, it began to support the development of the cotton textile industry, Greece's own farmland could not be used to grow cotton, but Zhou Chenggong found that Egypt's cotton planting has been quite large, imported cotton from Egypt, processed into cotton yarn, cotton cloth, and then re-exported to the southern European market, Greece has a more advantageous geographical location than the United Kingdom. The freight from Egypt to Greece is much less than that of the United Kingdom, and the freight from Greece to the southern European market is also much cheaper than that of the United Kingdom, which means that under the same level of technology and production costs, the British import cotton from Egypt for processing and export, at least in the southern European market, can not compete with Greece.

Moreover, due to the influence of the Age of Discovery, Western European countries generally experienced a price revolution, and prices rose fivefold in a hundred years. This is why, when the British have already produced on a large scale with machines, they have not been able to beat the Indian handmade textiles from the market, and need to rely on the slanted taxes of the British Indian government to suppress the Indian handmade textile industry. After the beginning of the Age of Discovery, it was the rise of the Ottoman Empire, Greece had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and it had not been able to benefit from the massive amount of gold and silver flowing from the Americas into Western Europe, and there was no outrageous price revolution, so the labor cost in Greece was cheaper, and in the case of the same use of machine production, the cost of Greece would only be higher than that of the British arable land.

In the case of lower raw material freight, lower product freight, and lower production costs, Zhou Chenggong did not see any possibility that the British could compete with Greece around the Mediterranean. Not only could Greece take advantage of the opportunity to grow cotton, a cash crop that the Ali dynasty had vigorously promoted in Egypt, but could even import cotton from India, at a cost that was more expensive than that of the British.

Zhou Chenggong, who received a university education in the United Kingdom, knows that the cotton textile industry is a larger industry than the wool textile industry, and as long as Egypt can successfully build a cotton textile industry, it will basically be enough to feed its millions of people.

As for other industries, there is no need to consider them for the time being, and it is good to develop naturally during the tenure. For example, the shipbuilding industry that relies on the shipping industry, the machinery industry that relies on the railway and textile industries, and so on, but the government has no spare power for the time being, and there is no need to develop these industries. Greece has not even established a military industrial system of its own country, and the reform is more in soft power, such as the establishment of standardized military schools, but all weapons and ammunition rely on imports, because building a military industrial system is too expensive for Greece now.

After the end of the war, these policies were pursued one after another in just a few months. It set off a strong public opinion controversy in Greece, but young people also felt a vigorous and upward atmosphere, loved Zhou Chenggong to death, hated Zhou Chenggong to death, and he became the most controversial monarch in Europe for a time.

But he imposed policies and the shipping industry quickly recovered, the already sizable wool textile industry was reopened, and the cotton textile industry began to hire European technicians to set up a state-run factory, and then used this as a model to encourage local merchants and workshop owners to participate in the industry.

At the same time, Greece signed a preferential trade policy with France, Greece gave preferential tax rates to French silk fabrics and luxury goods in exchange for preferential tax rates given by France to Greek textiles; A trade agreement was signed with Egypt to encourage Greek merchant shipowners to trade in Greece, tax incentives were given to transport cotton, and more cotton raw materials were brought to Greece.

It is a pity that Greece is still a poor country, and the state can give policy support, but not financial support. Greece is one of the countries with the most profound commercial culture in the Mediterranean, this country is a commercial country in its bones, the Greeks are a commercial nation, and they can be called the originators of the Dutch and English, as early as the ancient Greek times, their society was driven by commerce.

Therefore, the merchants were willing to invest in new industries, and Greek merchants monopolized the eastern Mediterranean region and mastered all kinds of necessary knowledge and skills to do business, but unfortunately under the Ottoman Empire, their development space was too narrow and they did not accumulate abundant capital. The only thing that affects their investment is money.

The state has no funds, and the poor and white merchant class has no funds, so where does the money come from?

On the one hand, Zhou Chenggong continued to encourage Greek expatriates from all over the country to return to China to invest in various ways, and the Greek diaspora was widely distributed on the Mediterranean coast, the Black Sea region, the Adriatic region, and even France and Spain. Zhou Chenggong's ex-wife, Queen Connie, was an expatriate who went to northern Italy at that time, and she had become a famous family in Italy.

Some of these expatriates are mixed, and some are extremely wealthy who have accumulated huge assets, especially in Russia, where the commercial culture is relatively weak, and there are many Greek expatriates who have made a fortune in business. Zhou Chenggong personally invited these representatives of the Greek expatriate chamber of commerce to come to the talks, inviting them to invest in Greece, and the expatriates who can bring funds to Greece can even be directly given honorary titles and a lord who cannot be inherited.

Within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, there were even more families of the Greek diaspora. In Istanbul, for example, in the heart of the Ottoman Empire, Greeks accounted for forty percent, although many had converted to Islam and were considered Ottomans; But as long as they spoke Greek, Zhou Chenggong still co-opted them as Greeks. These Ottoman expatriates had a hard time, and with the independence of Greece, they were stripped of a large number of privileges in the Ottoman Empire, began to be sidelined in commerce by the Armenians supported by the Ottoman government, and politically suppressed by the Ottoman Turks. Their desire to emigrate was very strong, and the Greek immigrants were basically immigrants from the Ottoman Empire, and they found their place in the Greek government and business without hindrance.

Now continue to increase the attractiveness of these people.

In addition to the Greeks, Zhou Chenggong also vigorously attracted investors from other European countries, whether it was the British, the French, the Italians, the Germans, whether their countries were strong or weak, or even countries that did not have a unified country, they all used Greek culture to attract them.

Taking advantage of the rise of ancient Greece and Rome in Europe, Zhou Chenggong made people formulate various cultural medals, such as making badges with ancient Greek gods, which were awarded to investors who contributed to the Greek economy, investing 10,000 pounds to get a medal of Apollo, investing 100,000 pounds to directly award the Order of Athena, and investing 300,000 to give Zeus and Hera the medals.

Thanks to the unsparing efforts, the inflow of funds into Greece is increasing day by day. However, those investors who are willing to set up factories even use the power of the government to help them get the land in the desired location, and forcibly expropriate and demolish them to the extreme.

In just one year, hundreds of cotton mills were built around Athens, two-thirds of which were built by British and Chinese investors, and even more by British capitalists. There are only one-third of local investors, and they are far less large than Chinese and British factories.

Greek shipowners have also invested in the construction of new shipyards or the expansion of old ones, with substantial funding from the Greek Public Bank and the European Bank of Greece.

In addition to attracting a large number of investors, the boom in industry also attracted a large number of poor people, some of whom were Greek expatriates from all over the world, within the Ottoman Empire, on the Black Sea coast, and even the Greek government opened up a large number of Slavs from Albania, Bulgaria and other places to Greece, as long as they spoke Greek, they were considered Greeks.

These people from the bottom came to Greece to earn a living, brought with them a sufficient labor force, and when they settled down and identified themselves as Greeks, they became part of the Greek nation, and became true Greek nationals.

After the war, Zhou Chenggong succeeded in taking absolute power in Greece, and Greece under his rule was also renewed.

But he was well aware that his crisis was not over, and he firmly believed in his father's judgment that Greece was on the cusp of being willing to be a lackey of the Great Powers or could only fight.

In addition, he subconsciously never gave up his intention to compete with the crown prince, no matter how much the resources in the crown prince's hands were greater than him, but the crown prince's ruling in the Americas still made him feel pressure.

With the arrival of more than 15 million Chinese immigrants in North America, China has become the most populous country in North America, slightly more populous than the emerging United States, and less than British Canada and the Kingdom of Quebec.

At this time, the situation in North America was very complicated, the secret war between China and the United States had been going on for several years, and the relationship between British Canada and the Kingdom of Quebec was also very ambiguous. All four sides tried their best to improve their strength and thus suppress each other.

The crown prince, backed by China's abundant human resources, seems to be gaining the upper hand, but this is not necessarily a good thing, because it means that the balance is upset.