To be honest, it was during the negotiations of the Yantai Treaty that Li Hongzhang first showed his diplomatic talent. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

In this negotiation, the professional Wei Tuma continued to use methods such as evacuation, severance of diplomatic relations, and threat of force to put pressure on Li Hongzhang in many ways, and he was afraid that he would not be able to withstand the pressure and compromise as other Manchu ministers.

However, Li Hongzhang, as a representative of the Qing government, strategized and controlled the overall situation, and inquired, arranged, and deployed the investigation and trial of the murder case of Ma Jiali by Cen Yuying, the governor of Yunnan, to solve the problem head-on, instead of the ruffian methods used in Tianjin before, trying to get away with it.

After discovering that the British insisted on negotiating with the Qing court alone, and that the content of the negotiations was a matter of interests, Li Hongzhang immediately made a series of British arbitrary demands public, and at the same time took advantage of the dissatisfaction of other countries with Britain's attempt to monopolize China's interests, exerted strong pressure on Britain, and tried his best to turn the tide and protect some rights and interests.

Clearly, he has mastered the West's approach to diplomacy and has given birth to his signature diplomatic ideas to counter them.

However, because of the limitation of national strength, Li Hongzhang still made huge concessions, such as at the insistence of Wei Tuma, he reduced a certain amount of gold for British imports, but in exchange for the British to accept the Qing court's request to increase the gold of opium chips, which won a generous profit and tax for the Qing government.

It seemed that Wittuma had won enough benefits for the British, but the problem hurt the interests of the opium interest groups, and as a result, the "Yantai Treaty" was not approved by the British Parliament in the end, and it was only 10 years before the British Parliament ratified it. Therefore, this treaty, except for the Qing government's humiliation again, did not have any major losses in interests.

However, from this incident, the Ming Dynasty used military pressure to seize the privilege of building a railway in Yunnan.

An agreement was signed with Prime Minister Yamen to allow the Ming Dynasty to build a railway in Yunnan, and a 30-year patent was granted that no country or individual could build a railway in Yunnan unless it was approved by the Ming Dynasty. Due to the agreement with the Ming Dynasty, the British acquiesced to this privilege of the Ming Dynasty, and the French have not yet recovered their national strength, they are trying to rearm and restore France's status as a great power in the European continent, and they have not yet been able to compete with the Ming in East Asia.

After obtaining this privilege, Daming immediately launched the railway project.

The construction of the railway was nominally given to the Canton-Kowloon Railway Company, but in fact, the power to build it was actually given to the arsenal, because the Canton-Kowloon Railway Company was also handed over to the arsenal for operation.

In the past, the arsenal was an official institution in the true sense, and in terms of setting up and the psychological identity of the employees of the arsenal, they all thought that it was an official institution, similar to the government-run workshops of the Ming and Qing dynasties. But after Hao Kejiu's restructuring, the arsenal has become different.

Hao Kejiu, the shopkeeper who was born in Rishengchang, is a very strong manager, which is the tradition of Rishengchang. The investor of the Rishengchang ticket number was invested by the Li family, a wealthy businessman in Pingyao, but the Li family did not have any traces in the operation of Rishengchang. What really affects the development of Rishengchang is the big shopkeeper.

The first big shopkeeper Lei Lutai is an extremely tough manager, when Li Jiacaidong thought that Lei Lutai's business mode was too conservative, so Li Jiashao discussed with the second shopkeeper Mao Honghui, hoping to expand the semicolon in the field. As a result, Lei Lutai was angered, and he recalled the semicolons in various places, intending to let Rishengchang close down. In the end, the young owner was forced to kowtow to Lei Lutai in person to apologize, and fired the second shopkeeper Mao Honghui before giving up.

Lei Lutai's strong style was passed on to the later shopkeepers, forming a system of responsibility for the shopkeeper of Rishengchang.

When Hao Kejiu arrived at the arsenal, he also became a strong leader. But there is one point, all his starting point, is not out of self-interest, but for the arsenal considerations, he always takes the interests of the arsenal as the first, this is the quality that a professional manager should have, only in the Jin Shang this stable inheritance of five or six hundred years of business groups, can give birth to this culture, just as the Netherlands was the first to give birth to the trust management of the joint-stock system, this is the power of culture.

Hao Kejiu put the interests of the arsenal first, and expanded the interests of the arsenal everywhere, not only wantonly producing civilian products to compete for profits with the people, but even the brick factory industry, forcing some old brick kilns into difficulties.

In other aspects, as long as the arsenal can do and make money, he will try his best to intervene. This is the case with the railway industry.

When the Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway was just built, no one could confirm that the railway could be profitable, because it was the technicians of the Arsenal who were transferred to manage and operate the railway, Hao Kejiu's plucking personality made him ask the Ministry of Industry for a management fee as the cost of helping the arsenal to manage it.

However, the Guangzhou-Kowloon Railway operated well, and it recovered all its investment in three years, and it became a hot industry, which was a chicken that laid golden eggs in the household, at this time Hao Kejiu felt that the arsenal had suffered a loss, and the railway maintenance, scheduling and even finance were all in charge of the arsenal, and the arsenal was obviously unreasonable to take only a little management fee.

Hao Kejiu thinks that the arsenal is a government-run industry, so he is not afraid of a department like the Ministry of Households, otherwise he would not have the courage. And there is also the support of the Ministry of Industry behind him, and he is even more assured and bold to put pressure on the Ministry of Households.

After the Ming Dynasty wanted to build the Yunnan Railway, Hao Kejiu finally found an opportunity again, he once again put forward a request to manage the railway, and asked to put the railway directly under the arsenal and become an industry under the name of the arsenal, and he also told the household department that anyway, whether it was the arsenal or the railway, it was the government's industry, and the railway was handed over to the arsenal, but the left hand was handed over to the right hand.

With the support of the Ministry of Industry, Hao Kejiu got his wish this time.

Hao Kejiu immediately organized an exploration team to enter Yunnan from Guangxi to conduct topographic exploration, collect geographical data, and prepare for the selection of the railway site.

In terms of funds, Hao Kejiu began negotiations with Standard Chartered and HSBC, and entrusted the financing business from Nanning to Kunming to HSBC, but he demanded that the annual interest rate should not be higher than 4%, and it must be repaid after the completion of the railway; The financing from Kunming to Manyun was handed over to Standard Chartered, and the conditions were comparable to HSBC.

Technically, apart from the previous geographical exploration work involving topographic features and mineral resources, most of the other work was entrusted to the British. Because the arsenal is expanding too fast, there is really not enough technical force.

The Guangzhou-Jiujiang railway, which is currently under construction, has been under construction for more than four years, but it has just passed through the Meiling mountains in the Shaoguan area and entered the territory of Ganzhou in Jiangxi. This line almost completely occupies the technical strength of the arsenal, and there is no room for expansion in other areas.

The British, who had already been granted the privilege of building a railway through Burma, had not only occupied Lower Burma through the two Anglo-Burmese wars, but had also frightened the Burmese into not daring to refuse any demands of the British.

So the British planned to build a line from Mandalay in Burma to the south to the port of Yangon, and west into Bengal to Dhaka and Chittagong, and eventually to the railway line in India.

The two countries agreed to complete all exploration work within two years, to start construction within three years, and to complete the opening of traffic within 10 years.

Not long after the Ming and British began to explore the railway line, the occupation of the Yangtze River finally changed.

The Hunan army of Zeng Guofan, which has been recuperating in Anqing for two years, suddenly attacked the Wuwei Prefecture area from the direction of Anqing like a tiger out of the mountain, and in the Chaohu River Basin, a general battle broke out with the Taiping Army Yang Fuqing, and the Taiping Army has been besieging Chaoxian for two years, so that Bao Chaotuo's exhausted Taiping Army was almost a touch of collapse, and in less than a month, it collapsed under the blow of the Hunan army and was defeated in the direction of the Yangtze River.

Almost at the same time, Li Hongzhang's Huai army suddenly went southeast from the mountain, quickly marched along the canal to Yangzhou, and attacked the Taiping army Wang Haiyang who surrounded Yangzhou from the flank, Li Hongzhang's Huai army, in recent years, equipped with a large number of new weapons, equipped with rifled rifles more than half, and has thousands of imitation Krupp rifled guns of various calibers, Wang Haiyang is the Taiping army's miscellaneous army, can not stop the Huai army's thunderous blow at all, only to hold on for less than ten days, just like Yang Fuqing's department collapsed. A large number of soldiers threw away their armor and ran along the canal, hoping to escape to the other side of the river.

After Zhu Jinglun got the news, he didn't feel any surprise, as if this was what should have happened naturally.

Because of the characteristics of the Hunan army of the Zeng family, Zeng Guoquan led his troops to besiege Anqing for two years, exhausting the Taiping army, and finally the Hunan army won. Later, he besieged the city of Tianjing for two years, and if it wasn't for the intervention of the Ming army, the Hunan army would have won in the end.

Now the feng shui is in turn, for the Taiping army to besiege the city for two years, Yang Fuqing and Bao Chao are exhausted by each other, Wang Haiyang and Zuo Zongtang are exhausted, and then Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang Xianghuai Group Tiger out of the gate, and the Taiping army was defeated at once, this situation, with Zeng Guoquan in the periphery of Anqing, let Chen Yucheng frantically counterattack is unmoved, outside Tianjing City, let Li Xiucheng's 300,000 army storm, always able to adhere to the siege, once again proved that in terms of spiritual will, the tenacity of the Hunan army is far better than the Taiping army.

Yang Fuqing's 200,000 troops finally fled to the Yangtze River, and Wang Haiyang's 200,000 troops were also less than 100,000.

When Zhu Jinglun received the specific battle report, he couldn't help but sigh "so ruthless", he lamented not the Xianghuai group's killing of the Taiping army, but the fact that Zeng Guofan's master and apprentice actually left nearly 200,000 people for the Taiping army, and these 200,000 people are 200,000 mines.

It's really ruthless!