Zhang Bishi arranged very thoughtfully, chartered a luxury car, not only comfortable, the most important thing is safety, there will be no British police to come up to harass, people of their status, the most do not want trouble, especially this trip is still a secret activity, especially can not be publicized, whether it is discovered by France, or let the British know in advance, it is a troublesome matter. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Zhang Bishi is a native of Lunping Village, Huangtang Township, Xihe Town, Dapu County, Guangdong, and his family was poor when he was a child. In 1858, when he was eighteen years old, Zhang Bishi's hometown suffered a famine, and many people left their hometowns to earn a living. Forced to make a living, Zhang Bishi also crossed the sea with the villagers to make a living, and went to the city of Batavia, the Dutch part of Nanyang. He began to send food to Tai Po Huay Kuan, and was later introduced by his fellow villagers to work as a clerk at Wen's Rice Shop. The boss found that he was diligent, quick-witted, and a rare talent, and that he was loyal and honest, and could be trusted, so he used him as a bookkeeper and promised him his only daughter. A few years later, the boss died of illness, and Mr. and Mrs. Zhang inherited his assets.

After that, Zhang Bishi continued to operate, and in less than ten years, he became the richest man in the region.

Zhang Bishi talked to Rama V from time to time, he is a wealthy businessman in Nanyang, and he is very rich, to become a master, in addition to excellent luck, it is also related to his high emotional intelligence, if it is not to make the boss like, how can he become the boss's son-in-law and inherit the family business.

In the officialdom, he is also exquisite, historically, he served as the consul of the Qing court, and has a good relationship with the Westernists, but he funded Kang Youwei and Sun Yat-sen.

How can this kind of character miss the opportunity to marry the King of Siam, and the King of Siam went to China to ask for help, so he was also willing to hear some news from Zhang Bishi.

Siam has a good relationship with the Ming Dynasty, because there are a large number of Chinese living in Siam, and the trade volume with the Ming Dynasty is very large, at least the Ming Dynasty is the first importer of Siamese rice and the largest trading country in Siam.

The most important thing is that Siam treats the Chinese very well, of course, if it is not good, there are not so many Chinese who go to Siam, and the number of Chinese in Siam is even much higher than that of Vietnam.

Later generations commented on the situation in East Asia, there are only three independent countries here, one China, one Japan, and one Thailand (Siam), saying that China is too big for foreigners to speak, Japan is because it is too strong, the Meiji Restoration was successful, and Siam is because it is too coincidental and good at maneuvering between Britain and France.

Siam's ingenuity is not only in this century, but from ancient times to the present, they have long been very active in developing friendly relations with the Central Plains Dynasty, so the development of the Chinese in Siam has always been very stable.

Siam is also willing to give some preferential treatment to the Chinese who can bring Chinese goods to Siam, so that the Chinese enjoy "reasonable freedom in business, and the kings of the past have been friendly to each other", on the one hand, because for a long time in the history of Siam, trade is monopolized by the royal family, they build ships and trade with the outside world, and obtain huge profits, and the royal family cannot do business on its own, so it is necessary to find someone to help, and the ethnic group with the richest business knowledge in Asia is obviously the Chinese, so the Chinese have long been responsible for the foreign trade business of the Siamese royal family, Even the tribute ships of the Siamese kings during the Ming and Qing dynasties were in fact driven by Chinese, and the tribute envoys of Siam were actually filled by Chinese.

In addition, the areas influenced by Indian culture tend to be more extensively managed, and the taxes are all bought by a certain system, and some wealthy merchants buy the tax revenue of a certain area, and the Dutch colonies also inherited these traditions. Historically, the Chinese were the largest group of tax packers in the region, and in Siam they were also engaged in this kind of business.

Especially in the late 18th century, Zheng Xin, a mixed-race Chinese whose ancestral home was in Teochew, established the Thonburi Dynasty and became the king of Siam after the destruction of the Ayutthaya Dynasty in Burma, and vigorously lured the Chinese to Siam.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the Englishman who sent an envoy to Siam recorded that "the most important import of passengers from China to Siam" and that "a junk (Chinese sailing ship) sent 1,200 Chinese to Bangkok at a time", and the number of Chinese who visited Bangkok every year was at least 7,000. By 1821, he estimated, there were 700,000 Chinese in Siam.

The Chinese have been operating and developing steadily in Siam for hundreds of years, and the number is difficult to count, but the economy has occupied a higher position in Myanmar, especially the long-term cooperation with the Siamese royal family, monopolizing foreign trade, making them naturally a trade link between the Ming Dynasty and Siam.

Therefore, the business dealings between Daming and Siam are easy to establish a comprehensive trade network, Siam's rice, sumac and even various tropical fruit processed products are sold in the Daming market, and it is one of the largest importers of Daming agricultural products, second only to Nanqi in Vietnam, which was developed by France.

Because of the relationship of history, the king of Siam also intermarried with the Chinese, it is a bit far-fetched to say that the king of Siam is Chinese, but there must be Chinese blood in their blood, which is undoubted, I don't know if it is because of this relationship, the king of Siam has always been quite friendly to the Chinese, plus there is no racism in Buddhist culture and Chinese culture, the Chinese are comfortable in this moderate society of Siam, and have won the trust of all classes, if the Siamese national sentiment is strong, Zheng Xin is more capable, Nor could it be enough to attract so many people to follow him and eventually establish a new dynasty.

Rama V did not have any rejection of the Chinese as a peaceful and industrious ethnic group, and had long regarded it as a part of Siam, anyway, the Siamese ethnic composition is complex, there are more than 30 ethnic groups, the largest Thai ethnic group accounts for only 40 percent, the Lao ethnic group accounts for 3 and a half percent, and the Chinese account for 10 percent, and the Chinese are the third largest ethnic group, and it is unrealistic to want to exclude them. Historically, it was not until World War II that Thailand launched a wave of anti-Chinese anti-Chinese under the leadership of nationalist warlords, but it was not actually implemented, and those policies were abolished after the war. Moreover, the general who led the anti-Chinese was himself of Chinese ancestry, and his grandfather all went from China. Chinese exclusion is in Vietnam and has no national base.

Therefore, Rama V has relative trust in China, and this time he opened Bangkok to the Ming Navy, hoping to use the power of the Ming Dynasty to expel France, after France colonized Cambodia, it became more and more unfriendly to Siam, not only forced Siam to sign various unequal treaties, but also created friction on the border many times, and the ambition of annexing Siam was clearly revealed, if they did not send troops to Vietnam first, they might find an opportunity to attack Siam, and once they gained a foothold in Vietnam, the next target must be Siam, Now they are about to lose in Vietnam, but they are not affected in Cambodia, and Vietnam will be protected by the Ming Dynasty in the future, so it is conceivable who France will do in the future.

As for the British, although Siam has always been torn between Britain and France, the British are also not good birds, and they have also occupied a lot of privileges in Siam, and in order to win over the British, the Siamese government has used British advisers for both finance and diplomacy, and has given almost all the mining rights in Siam to the British.

But even so, it may not be able to dispel Britain's ambitions for Siam, Burma is still a British protectorate, taking advantage of the war in Vietnam, Britain also destroyed Burma. The Burmese royal family was abolished and Burma was reduced to a province of India. This may not happen to Siam, but it is very likely to happen to Siam, or even inevitably to happen to Siam. This realization, especially Rama V, who was deeply frightened by the British abolition of the king of Burma, found that Britain and France were unreliable except for the Chinese who were more reliable in dealing with the country and never interfered in internal affairs.

However, although Rama V took the risk to cooperate with the Ming Dynasty, under the impetus of the British, opened Bangkok for the Ming fleet, but he never dared to enter Cambodia, for fear of retaliation by the French, and as a result, he missed the opportunity and did not form a military alliance with the Ming Dynasty to deal with France together, and finally hurriedly joined the war, but he still could not change the situation in Cambodia, and Britain no longer supported Siam, and Britain began to support France, which made Rama V feel that he had no choice.

As long as he can keep Siam, let the Siamese people live in peace, and let the Siamese country be sustainable, he is willing to pay tribute to the Central Plains Dynasty, that is, the Ming Dynasty, according to tradition, and call himself a vassal.

However, Zhang Bishi's attitude towards Rama V seemed to be more friendly than he imagined, and Zhang Bishi told Rama V that the Ming did not intend to seize the territory of the Nanyang region, nor did he intend to bully the Nanyang countries, and the Ming would only show the traditions of his ceremonial state to the Nanyang countries, and in this regard, the Ming Dynasty was fundamentally different from the Western countries.

However, the commercial interests of the Ming Dynasty in Nanyang still need to be maintained, and they only seek commercial interests in the Nanyang area.

Although the great states of the Central Plains often did not look down on the small countries of the South Seas, as Rama V thought, it also worried him that if the Ming Dynasty was not interested in this place, then why should they risk offending Britain and France to protect Siam.

The success or failure of this is unpredictable, Rama V feels that he needs to find help in the Ming officialdom, and the minister of Nanyang in front of him has a friendly attitude and knows the customs of Nanyang well, which is his best help.

So Rama V and Zhang Bishi began to talk about business, and in Rama V's impression, the Chinese were in business, as long as they were allowed to make money, they were willing to do anything.

But he soon discovered that this Zhang Bishi did not seem to be so easy to buy, at least the cost of buying was high, and Siam might not be able to afford it.

Because this man is too rich.

After Zhang Bishi inherited his father-in-law's family business, he began to show extraordinary business wizards. He took out some of his assets and opened a trading house dealing in liquor from various countries, and undertook the local liquor tax and pawn donations in Singapore, and then contracted the opium tobacco tax on some islands of the Dutch East Indies, and the income was even more profitable.

In the 1860s, due to the large number of islands in the Dutch colony of Indonesia, the Dutch colonists were unable to reach many islands, and when they saw that the profits could not be obtained, they fortunately let the overseas Chinese organize a reclamation company, so that they could grab tax revenues from them.

In 1866, he founded the Yuhe Reclamation Company in the Dutch Gropa Port, which reclaimed wasteland on a large scale, specializing in the cultivation of tropical cash crops such as coconut, coffee, rubber, pepper, and tea, and planted miscellaneous grains in the reclamation area, which achieved great economic benefits. In 1875, he founded a new reclamation company in Aceh, Sumatra. In 1877 and 1878, he founded the Yuye Reclamation Company in Yili, the Netherlands, and the Kawang Reclamation Company, which he founded in Rili, Java, had eight rubber plantations and employed nearly 10,000 people.

While running a reclamation company, Zhang Bishi is good at seizing other business opportunities. He opened the Dongxing Company in Boon Dong Port, Pahang, British Malaya, to mine tin ore and made a lot of money; Opened Rili Bank in Rili, specializing in overseas Chinese savings and exchange and overseas Chinese remittance business, and became an OCBC banking giant; It also used financial capital to build a combination of Chinese and Western residences in Medan and Penang to develop real estate; It has established a wholesale pharmacy of medicinal materials at home and abroad, and most of the domestic precious medicinal materials are sold overseas by Zhang's Pharmacy, and overseas precious medicinal materials and Western medicines are mostly sold back to China by Zhang's Pharmacy, which communicates the medicinal materials market at home and abroad.

No one knows how much money Zhang Bishi has, and he will not easily disclose his property to others, but Rama V is also a human being, and judging by the scale of the business that Zhang Bishi told him, this person has a huge amount of money, which may be higher than the annual treasury income of Siam, how can such a person be bought?

Rama V guessed right, Zhang Bishi's business flourished, and obtained amazing profits, and later generations rumored that by 1869, Zhang Bishi's property had reached 80 million taels of silver, becoming the richest man in China, and this year, the Qing government's financial income was only 70 million taels, and Zhang Bishi's property was higher than the Qing government's annual income, not to mention a Siam.

But in fact, Siam is not poor, and their financial situation is excellent.

After the reforms of his father and his two generations of kings, Siam's financial system was greatly improved, and Siam's abundant tropical resources allowed Rama V to carry out continuous reforms and modernizations, while not having to borrow a dime in debt.

Historically, in the year before the death of King Rama V, Siam's fiscal revenue was equivalent to 39% of that of the Qing Dynasty at that time, and per capita was 17.3 times that of the Qing Dynasty, and several times that of Japan. Siam's tax rate cannot be compared with Japan's Meiji era, which frantically looted the people, so from other perspectives, Siam's reform achievements are not inferior to Japan's.

In terms of affluence, it far surpassed the two major empires of China and Japan, so during this period, a large number of overseas Chinese poured into Siam to make a living. The only flaw is that Siam's reforms did not make the country strong, but Siam's population of only about 6 million people did not in fact meet the conditions to become a great power.

A king who valued finances and a wealthy merchant who was good at making profits soon had some common ideas, such as Zhang Bishi, who believed that if Siam could increase rice cultivation, Siam's economy would be promising, and the country's strength would be greatly enhanced.

Rama V felt the same way, Siam had always been China's largest food supplier until the French carried out large-scale development in Nanqi, but Siam's development was limited to the lower Chao Phraya River delta region, and the middle and upper reaches had not yet been developed, and the biggest limitation was transportation.

Railway!

The two soon realized that the key to the problem was the railway.