After receiving Zhu Jinglun's letter, Hurd did not hesitate and immediately took action, this is his best opportunity, it is his personal opportunity to realize his ambitions, his identity is a local employee in Guangdong, helping the local government of Guangdong to manage customs, but now he has accepted Zhu Jinglun's appointment, then it means that he personally admits that Guangdong is already Zhu Jinglun's. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

As for the British government, he wrote a letter to the minister in Beijing, Prussia, in which he told the minister in China that the actual situation in Guangdong made him have no choice but to side with Zhu Jinglun, who had taken actual control of Guangdong, otherwise it might damage British interests in Guangdong, and if his behavior caused any trouble to the British government, he was very sorry, and this was his personal act, and Britain could explain it to the Qing government.

At the same time, he also told Pruss that once the entire Pearl River was opened, the benefits would be unimaginable, and he believed that Guangdong's foreign trade could at least double to 40 million taels, and at the time of the American Civil War, with such a trade volume, even as a country, Guangdong would be Britain's largest trading nation.

Long before the war in the United States, in 1860, Britain's most important industrial product, cotton cloth, exports increased to 48 million pounds, of which India accounted for more than half, but also important exports to China, Japan and Java, which together accounted for more than 60% of Britain's exports to the European continent.

With the rise of the industrial revolution in Europe, European countries were either protected by high tariffs, or more advanced technology impact, which greatly affected the export of British textiles to the European continent, which led to Britain's foreign trade becoming more and more dependent on the United States and India, but with the opening of the Chinese market, the scale of British exports to China is getting larger and larger, after 1860, it is greatly increased, Shanghai Port before the Second Opium War in 1855 to 1856 a year, imported a total of 489 foreign ships, The total tonnage was 15,587 tons, and the total value of the cargo was 6492299 taels. In the year after the end of the war, imports swelled to 1,806 ships with a total tonnage of 419659 tons and a value of 33702614 taels.

Hurd compared historical data, that Guangzhou's historical trade volume was huge, and it would definitely not be worse than Shanghai's, but because of a temporary war, which led to a shrinkage of trade, he believed that once the Pearl River was opened, Guangdong would catch up with Shanghai's trade volume in a very short period of time, and at that time, the Guangdong market would probably be comparable to the benefits brought to Britain by the Indian market.

Hurd was using various methods to persuade his country to support his actions in the Pearl River, and his actions in the Pearl River were supported by Zhu Jinglun, and Britain's support for him was equivalent to indirectly supporting Zhu Jinglun.

But the more important reason is that he knew that the Qing court wanted to appease him, so he asked Hurd to go to open the port immediately, and take his order to open the port, on the one hand, let the British acquiesce to the fact that he became the master of Guangdong, on the other hand, let the Guangdong place see, he Zhu Jinglun colluded with the foreigners to open the port without authorization, and then the court not only had nothing to do with him, but also had to add him to the rank of knight, so what prestige did the court have in Guangdong after that, from then on, the Guangdong magistrates could only obey Zhu Jinglun's orders and disobey Zhu Jinglun, Zhu Jinglun would clean them up, Even their court will clean them up, and obeying Zhu Jinglun, their court is indifferent.

But things definitely didn't go that well.

People are emotional animals, not everyone will put the cold calculation of interests in the first place, Hurd did do according to Zhu Jinglun's request, he sent officials from the tax department, took over the old wharves in Dongguan, Xiangshan and other counties, rented a house and listed to open customs.

Zhu Jinglun's orders were also sent to various counties, and these counties were garrisoned by Zhu Jinglun's army, and the main core was a hundred elite musketeers, plus a thousand recruited villagers, such a force could not be fought against by these counties.

Unable to resist does not mean that they can only accept, they can still be passive confrontation, foreigners are called cups, as soon as Hurd's people arrived in the counties, these county orders immediately sent people to contact the squires and encourage them to confront, as soon as the squires heard that the foreigners were coming, they were immediately unhappy, and the nearby squires organized the townsmen to block, and Zhu Jinglun's soldiers began to confront, Zhu Jinglun sent people to persuade in turn, organized a meeting of the squires, and told them that the port was opened to do business and make money from foreigners, and the arrogant squires said that they did not need to make money from foreignersThey don't want to have anything to do with foreigners, and they don't allow any foreigners to come to their county.

Zhu Jinglun sent people to negotiate with them, and finally reached an agreement, as long as the foreigners do not come, they don't care if the port is opened, so good, Zhu Jinglun said, he will only send Chinese, not a foreigner will let them dock.

After the matter was resolved like this, the county commanders were still unwilling, and they also found a way from it, that is, it was really useful to find the squires to hoe, even the arrogant Zhu Jinglun would scruple about it. Gradually, they began to connect in series, not only the counties of the open port, but almost all the counties in Guangzhou Prefecture were connected, and the leader was Zhou Shijun, the county commander of Nanhai County, the first county in Guangdong.

In addition to the six counties that opened the port, Zhu Jinglun was not idle, and he had already sent people to post notices in other counties, telling the people of each county that the Guangfu would never allow any foreigners to come and go to their places.

This is a struggle between Zhu Jinglun and the stubborn officialdom in Guangdong, Zhu Jinglun does not intend to forcefully suppress the blind xenophobia of the common people, everything is mainly to soften the struggle, he believes that as long as the bottom line of the local gentry is not broken, they will always remain neutral, just like the Qing court did not reduce the discernment, they will not rise up to fight.

The county magistrates found that they had failed to mobilize the people, and saw that one by one the customs officers boarded the wharves of the counties, rented houses nearby, hung up customs signs, announced the customs system, and sent personnel to collect taxes from various ships, and all of Zhu Jinglun's goals were achieved.

The civil officials found that Zhu Jinglun could not stop Zhu Jinglun's unreasonable order, and they were immediately a little angry, and the doctor's temper came, and they threw up their sleeves.

Nanhai County ordered Zhou Shijun to take off his official uniform, and then let the official sound the gong to open the way, walked from the county government to the city gate, carrying a burden in his hand, under the lively crowd of onlookers, walked to the Guide Gate, let the official set up a ladder to climb up the city gate hole, hung down a red cloth, he opened the baggage, and hung an object on it.

Then he took out a white cloth with blood letters, pasted it next to the city gate where the people entered and exited, counted the evidence of Zhu Jinglun's crimes, and portrayed Zhu Jinglun as a heinous rebellious minister and thief.

Then he walked out of the city gate, dressed in green clothes and cloth shoes, with his head held high, and got into an ox cart prepared by the old servant outside the gate, and went out of the Guide Gate into the crowd of people in the small city street, and slowly disappeared.

"Hung up?"

Every move of all the county orders is under Zhu Jinglun's monitoring, Zhou Shijun's actions were reported to Zhu Jinglun as soon as possible, Zhu Jinglun couldn't help but feel a little funny, Zhou Shijun hung his big seal in the city gate hole, hanging the big seal means abandoning the official, it means dissatisfaction with the superiors, and it means resistance.

Liu Bei hung up the seal, and after beating the superintendent sent by his superiors, he hung the seal and abandoned the official, and now Zhou Shijun also hung the seal and abandoned the official, but he always felt a little indecent.

"It's still a literati's stinky problem!"

Neither dare to stand up and resist, but also to show their awe-inspiring justice, except for hanging a seal in the downtown area, there is no good way, or that set of up to help the world, poor is good alone, it sounds good, isn't it just the icing on the cake in the prosperous times, and the troubled times hurry up to protect themselves, a typical literati doctor has a reluctant concept, and he simply does not have the courage and courage to come out and turn the tide when Daxia is about to fall.

Countless literati in history, when the troubled times came, hid in the mountains, boasted of hermits, and after the country was stable, they were invited out to ******** by the rulers, and most of the so-called rural relics were like this.

In Zhu Jinglun's view, the seals of Zhou Shijun, these civil officials, are more like a spoiled young master's lamb, a manifestation of losing his temper and not caring about anything, if they really want to be loyal to their emperor, then they should be desperate to find any way to fight with Zhu Jinglun, Lu Xiufu and Wen Tianxiang are the kind of people who can be big husbands.

But Zhu Jinglun believes that these actions of theirs will definitely enter the history books in future generations and praise their high style and bright festivals, but in fact their actions are completely irresponsible, as a scholar class, the social elite of thousands of years in ancient times, they have no responsibility at all, but they will be praised by generation after generation of history books, because history books are written by them.

They refuse to cooperate, choose to hang the seal, there is no practical significance, their history books will praise them for doing a very elegant job, but will not say that they abandon the official is equivalent to handing over power, their history books think that they are not afraid of power, in fact, the power is not as knowledgeable as them, in exchange for a brutal warlord, this kind of passive confrontation behavior, can completely cut off their heads.

They don't dare to use knives, they say that they are elegant, they are not responsible, they say that they are clean and self-conscious, and they are not in the same way, history has influenced everyone's world view from generation to generation, Zhou Shijun is already a good official, but it is still like this, it is conceivable how far China's scholar class has degenerated.

After Zhou Shijun hung the seal, the next day, Zhu Jinglun received other information.

The civil officials of the 14 counties of Guangzhou collectively hung up their seals in the downtown area within one day, abandoned their officials, and caused a sensation.

Seeing Fang Shan's worried look, Zhu Jinglun comforted him instead:

"It's just a seal, if they have a kind, they all hang themselves in front of the county office, then they can cause me some trouble, now, there is no."

Then he said: "Write a letter of appointment, find the richest and richest businessmen in the local area, and let them come out as county magistrates." ”

Fang Shan frowned: "Shangjia? ”

Zhu Jinglun nodded: "Yes, it's time for them to stand in front." ”

The unprecedented situation of the businessmen of the fourteen counties as officials has put the businessmen on the cusp of politics for the first time, and they have collectively owned power for the first time, and they should also assume the corresponding responsibilities.

"Notify the fourteen counties to exempt the money and grain per mu in the coming year!"

Replacing agricultural tax with commercial tax is the responsibility of businessmen, power and responsibility are always inseparable, and the integration of power and responsibility is the contract law of society. (To be continued.) )