In 1729, the Scottish merchant Colin Campbell successfully persuaded the Swedish Parliament to obtain the privilege of trading in the East, and reorganized the Swedish East India Company into the Swedish East India Company, which specialized in East India trade, in fact, mainly for trade with China, because the Swedish East India Company had a total of 138 voyages in its history, of which 132 came to China. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

At that time, Sweden attached great importance to trade with China, and even for this reason, the Swedish king canonized Colin as a knight, and Colin became a Swedish citizen and moved to Gothenburg, so the name of the first voyage he planned was called Gothenburg.

The Swedish East India Company was once very successful in trade with China, second only to Britain and France for a long time, ranking third in trade with China, and not much different from the second France, and the first Britain is also quite seventy percent of the British, and the profits earned can even be said to have allowed Sweden to complete the primitive accumulation of industry, and the income brought back by each successful voyage is higher than the income of the Swedish treasury, and it is no wonder that their king was willing to knight Colin Campbell even before his departure.

It's just a pity that as the British East India Company took control of the rear base of India and discovered the trade weapon of the crow, it gradually became a standout in the trade with China, and small countries such as Denmark and Sweden gradually withdrew from the trade with China, and even France withdrew from the trade with China for a time.

The Swedish East India Company was also dissolved in 1813.

The Swedish East India Company was dissolved, but many families who made a fortune because of the company's trade are still there, and the dream of making a fortune of these families is still there, and many families still have a Chinese dream in their hearts, hoping to reshape the glory of trade with China again, or hope to make a fortune again.

Adolf Campbell was one such person, his ancestor was Colin Campbell, who opened the first voyage of the Swedish East India Company, and his family has always been a shareholder of the Swedish East India Company, and also inherited the Swedish knighthood.

But just like in England, as Sweden entered the 1850s and the Industrial Revolution began, the aristocracy slowly declined, and the new bourgeoisie became the new aristocracy, leaving the old aristocracy bankrupt one after another.

The Campbell family also suffered an economic crisis, maintaining the luxurious life of the aristocracy left the family in debt, and by the time Adolf arrived, he had reached the end of his rope, either watching the pot-bellied bankers take over their estates, and the mansions disgraced their families, or they were fighting again to make a fortune, just at the end of the road, Adolf saw the diary left by his ancestor Colin, who made a fortune in China during the period of his ancestors' fortunes, and even had the idea of coming to China to pan for gold again.

So the young and ignorant Adolf took a desperate gamble, mortgaged the family property he inherited, rented a second-hand wrecked ship, hired some drunkards with a less clear mind, and went on the road with Robinson's naïve dreams, his ship loaded with shoddy industrial products from Sweden in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, some rudimentary clothing, clocks, and even whimsically made dozens of sets of furniture made of Swedish wood.

It is conceivable that such a trade journey, regardless of the difficulties of the journey, will lose the bottom even if it reaches China.

What is even more tragic is that he came to China, just in time for the British and French forces to launch the Second Raven War, but he did not even enter Guangzhou, and stayed in Hong Kong, and he was finally so poor that he was not even paid to the crew, and even the money for food was almost gone, and the group of drunkards had to beat him several times.

When Zhu Jinglun opened the Chiwan Port Office, Adolf waited for the opportunity, thought that spring was coming, boiled up, brought those nondescript goods, encouraged the last glimmer of hope of the crew, and sailed to Chiwan, the result was of course the deepest despair.

Just at the end of his rope, he remembered the Pan family recorded in the diary of his ancestor Colin and who had helped him many times. He had read through the diary many times during his arduous journey to China, and he had with him some of the letters that the Pan family had corresponded with Colin back then.

With the last glimmer of hope, after making many inquiries, he knocked on the door of Pan Shicheng's fake Tongwen Bank, which had just opened in Chiwan.

For this kind of down-and-out businessmen from small Western countries, Pan Shi's prejudice is not less, he didn't care at first, casually entertained Adolf and his party, and at the same time sent someone back to Guangzhou to confirm with the family to see if these people were liars, but some old people in the family really remembered the incident of the Swedish East India Company decades ago, and confirmed that Adolf was not a liar, and the letters he brought were indeed Pan Zhencheng's handwriting.

Hospitality is the tradition of the Chinese, especially this kind of rich people, at this time, seeing the descendants of the deceased a hundred years ago come to the door, it feels as if it is a poor relative in the poor countryside who came to the door to ask for help, has been transformed into a house of reading, and has cultivated four Hanlin, six people Pan Zhencheng family, kind-hearted, asking fellow Pan Shicheng to help the Swedes.

It was difficult for Pan Shicheng to refuse his family's request, after all, he took over all the other people's business, so he casually pulled it off, spent a little money to accept Adolf's rags, and planned to lock them in his own warehouse and let them rot, and at the same time chatted with Adolf and them.

I know some stories about Sweden, and I know that Sweden was also wide in the Gustav era, and in the years that followed, it also preserved some remnants of the Nordic hegemony, but that's all.

Coincidentally, after Zhu Jinglun decided to repair the fort, he secretly consulted with these merchants, originally mainly looking for the Wu family, because of the relationship between the Wu family and the Americans, Zhu Jinglun knew, and also knew that through Qichang Foreign Bank, the Wu family was quite energetic in the United States, but as a colleague, Pan Shicheng heard the news.

He also learned that the Swedes are good at making artillery, they have always been good at drilling camps, and Pan Shicheng, who has not yet survived the crisis caused by Qiying's crime, urgently needs to find a new backer, and he naturally looks down on a petty official like Zhu Jinglun, but he knows that behind Zhu Jinglun is Bai Gui, who has been promoted to the governor of Liangguang.

Out of the mentality of stammering with Bai Gui, he took the initiative to find Zhu Jinglun and recommended the Swedes to Zhu Jinglun.

As a result, Zhu Jinglun was very interested in Sweden, and had a secret conversation with Adolf and others, and it was determined that the Swedes would be responsible for helping to build the fort and cannons.

After that, things are logical, as for the so-called guarantee, it is nothing to Pan Shicheng, he has been up and down in the shopping mall for many years, and his vision of seeing people is very accurate, and he can see at a glance that the young man named Adolf is the age when he is ambitious to break into the world with a dream, and he knows that this kind of person will not be willing to make a small fortune and stop the precipice, so he happily guarantees Adolf, besides, even if Adolf is gone with those goods, it is only 300,000 taels of silver, and it is not in Pan Shicheng's eyes.

But Pan Shicheng didn't know how much Zhu Jinglun had high hopes for these Swedes, and it can be said that these people are the most reassuring objects for Zhu Jinglun at present - although they are not very reassured, but there is really no other choice.

Zhu Jinglun paid 300,000 taels worth of goods to Adolf, and at the same time secretly signed an agreement with Adolf, what he needed these people to do, in addition to helping him order the corresponding main guns in Sweden, the most important thing was that he asked Adolf to help him recruit a large number of skilled workers from Sweden.

By employing these skilled workers, Zhu hopes to build a factory, an arsenal capable of casting cannons and producing rifled rifles, which are currently the mainstay in Europe. He also planned that, in addition to the main guns, which required relatively high technical accumulation, the huge number of secondary guns on the turret would be cast by himself.

To this end, he even sent people to purchase more than a dozen tons of pig iron produced in Foshan in Foshan, the steel center of Guangdong, and asked Adolf to bring it back to Sweden, and asked the best local factory in Sweden to help test a method of casting excellent cannons from Chinese pig iron, which must include how to improve the quality of pig iron.

Zhu Jinglun hopes that when Adolf returns to China next year, he will bring not only the main cannon cast from high-quality steel smelted from high-quality iron ore in Sweden, but also a complete set of processes using pig iron with a lot of impurities in China to cast a fine cannon. Adolf said that although the overall level of technology and industrial strength of Switzerland is not as good as that of the United Kingdom, it is no worse than any European country in terms of steel processing technology.

Zhu Jinglun didn't know much about the technical level of the Swedes, but when he thought that Nobel was a talent cultivated by the Swedish education system in this era, he was full of confidence in the Swedish talent.

What Zhu Jinglun didn't know was that Little Nobel was already in his twenties at this time, and had already started his invention and had already started the research work on nitroglycerin, which made him famous.

What Zhu Jinglun didn't know was that the little Nobel was 26 years old at this time, his father's factory in Russia had just gone bankrupt, and the family had just left Russia, where his career had failed, and returned to Stockholm, Sweden, which was the most difficult moment for the family.

At the end of February 1859, Adolf's shipwrecked ship Hope returned to Gothenburg, Adolf Campbell did not intend to make a hammer deal as Pan Shicheng thought, just thought, this time after a difficult success, he saw the opportunity to restore the glory of his ancestors, through the auction of a shipload of Chinese goods, he earned a profit of 600,000 taels of silver, after paying off the huge debts owed by the family, he did not intend to stop, planned to set off again, to make a fortune in China.

Of course, before that, he had to complete the task given to him by Zhu Jinglun, otherwise he knew very well that the Chinese's threat that he would not be able to move an inch in China would soon come true.

So as soon as he returned to Sweden, he acted with unprecedented energy, and did not hesitate to mobilize his family's influence, and moved the Swedish officials to let the Swedish National Arsenal help China secretly produce fortress cannons, and at the same time help test the process of casting excellent cannons using Chinese steel.

Let the Swedish king help the Chinese train their troops by secretly sending advisers, thereby opening the door to China again and opening a channel for Swedish merchants that could bring great benefits.

At the same time, Adolf visited many Swedish factories to help recruit excellent skilled workers, promised good treatment, and recruited talents for Zhu Jinglun's future arsenal.

Adolf's actions were relayed to old Nobel by a friend in a machine shop, an ambitious, adventurous, and clever technician from a family.

He decided to take his family to China to resume an adventurous journey, just as he had done in Russia for more than 20 years.