The treasury silver handed over to Guangzhou by the prefectures and counties of Guangdong was only 1 million taels, but now Zhu Jinglun already had 40,000 troops in his hands who needed to be paid, 10,000 Xin'an troops and 10,000 Wukeng troops, which were the main forces, and the monthly salary was 5 taels per person. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Chen Quzhi recruited 10,000 villagers from Xin'an, as well as the bannermen who could only serve as soldiers in Guangzhou, and 10,000 people joined Zhu Jinglun's troops, and these 20,000 people were considered recruits, and their monthly salary was only two taels of silver.

Even so, with the supply of grain, grass and necessary clothing, he got 200,000 yuan a month, and after two months of military salaries, Zhu Jinglun's family background has bottomed out again, and now he has to recruit troops on a large scale to deal with the possible suppression of the Qing court, and Zhu Jinglun's pressure is not light.

The New Anli Bureau, which is the largest source of revenue, has now been frozen by Britain and France.

The reason why Britain and France froze the accounts of the New Security Bureau was that the Qing government compensated each country 8 million taels of military expenses, which had to be deducted from the local customs, and the Beijing Treaty stipulated:

“… It shall be divided into the total amount of the customs offices of the trade and trade, and 20% shall be withheld, and the settlement shall be made in three months of the English month, that is, it shall be settled. From the 1st day of October of this year, that is, the 17th day of August of the 10th year of Gengshen (the 10th year of Xianfeng), to the 31st day of the 12th month of the United Kingdom, that is, the 20th day of November of the 10th year of Gengshen (the 10th year of Xianfeng), the total amount of 8 million withheld in succession shall be completed, and the two countries shall each add a number of personnel to inspect the number of items in advance, so as to show prudence..."

According to the provisions of the Sino-British, Sino-French "Beijing Treaty", only 20 percent of the tariff needs to be deducted, for this reason Zhu Jinglun is not guilty of stumbling with the two big hooligans of Britain and France, but it is stipulated that the settlement will be settled once every three months, and it will be settled once last month, and after deducting the indemnity, Zhu Jinglun got 400,000 taels of silver from the bureau, all of which were filled into the arsenal to make weapons and equipment, and ten ships have been ordered.

The next settlement will not be until three months later, but now it is necessary not only to pay for the army, but also to raise the cost of the battle.

This put Zhu Jinglun under great financial pressure for a while.

Therefore, Zhu Jinglun changed the policy of giving five taels of silver to each soldier in the past, hoping to cultivate a soldier's sense of honor, and only gave two taels of silver to recruits.

On the bright side, Chiwan Port has been built into a super port by Hurd, which is currently second only to Shanghai in China, and has left the declining Guangzhou far behind, and has also steadily pressed the emerging Fuzhou Port to the end, and the small and cramped Hong Kong on an isolated island is even more squeezed.

Now many Fuzhou tea merchants are directly transported tea to Chiwan Port to sell, the exchange here is extremely convenient to trade, more and more ships are no longer berthed in Hong Kong, but directly to Chiwan Port trading, just the competition in Shanghai is a little helpless, the location of this port is too good, almost a natural entrepot base, from here to Japan, North Korea and northern China The distance is considerable, and other ports seem to be natural can only be used as a foil for him, is his peripheral satellite port.

Although it can only be relegated to second place at present, it is still full of vitality, and there are already cotton, cloth, and grain, all of which have formed a situation of large trade aggregation here, and once this aggregation is formed, unless there is a war, it is difficult to interrupt, because around this kind of trading gathering periphery is a commercial network composed of merchants, which is not easy to form, and once formed, it has a strong inertia and vitality.

In the same way, it is also the reason why Xin'an's Chiwan Port has never been able to catch up with Shanghai, because the war that began in 1856 made Guangzhou completely lose the opportunity, as early as 1851 was surpassed by Shanghai, inherited the Guangzhou trade of Chiwan, if you want to surpass Shanghai, you must surpass the entire trade network established around Shanghai Chinese and foreign merchants, it is not easy.

Zhu Jinglun only hopes that Hong Kong can be completely suppressed, and at the same time attract more businessmen from Fuzhou and Xiamen to Chiwan for re-export, as long as the trade potential of Guangdong and Fujian, two major tea-exporting provinces, can be gathered, if it is still not comparable to Shanghai, at least it can be on an equal footing with Shanghai.

That would allow Zhu Jinglun to receive half of the tariffs on all of China, but the idea soon took a heavy hit.

Hurd rushed to Guangzhou and told Zhu Jinglun that the Qing government required that the customs duties in Chiwan must be accounted for by the Shanghai Taxation Department and deported to Beijing. Yi Xin's Prime Minister, Yamen, has appointed the Briton Li Tai as the chief tax department of the Chinese Customs, responsible for the formation of the customs in Tianjin and Chaozhou, and the management of all customs affairs in China.

Beijing has finally made a statement to Guangdong.

Zhu Jinglun knew in his heart that this was probably Yi Xin's temptation, and at this time Yi Xin should have succeeded in the coup d'état and jointly controlled the government with the little widow Cixi.

Zhu Jinglun said to Hurd: "My friend, please tell me the truth, is there something happening in Beijing?" ”

It was already the middle of November, the eighteenth day of the tenth lunar month, and Zhu Jinglun remembered that the Xinyou coup d'état occurred on the first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar, which means that more than half a month had passed, and Zhu Jinglun had not received the news, but the foreigners were in Hong Kong, and if there were sea ships to contact them, their envoys could easily send the news back from Beijing.

And these Hurds may know, as long as the British government in Hong Kong believes his word.

Hurd hesitated and asked, "My friend, please tell me the truth, if there is a change in the political situation in your country, what will be your position?" ”

Zhu Jinglun secretly thought in his heart, the Xinyou coup really happened as scheduled, and Su Shun's group of people couldn't do anything at all, Su Shun's concept may be very open, but his methods are too inferior, blindly excluding Yi Xin and other powerful factions, no different from Kang Youwei and others later, do you really think that as long as you seize the imperial power in your hands, you can make changes in this country? It's whimsical.

What's more, there is an ambitious little widow in it, although the little widow's international political concept is backward, but she still has a set of power skills, don't think that a woman, just by virtue of being the emperor's biological mother, can really control the government, there are many such women in history, Zhang Juzheng's biological mother Empress Dowager Li of the Wanli Emperor, and Empress Wei of the Li Longji era, are not all characters with the right time and place, but who controls the government.

Cixi's little widow can, in the name of the emperor's biological mother, when she asked Su Shun to listen to the government, Su Shun refused, and Su Shun's political career came to an end.

However, now the little widow is still very low-key, is accumulating strength, and relies on Yixin in the name, so at present, he can only make a move for himself Yixin, he wants to use Guangdong's tariff issue to test Zhu Jinglun.

If you dare to test yourself, then fight back fiercely, and break the claws that he stretched out into his pocket for the first time, and then he will not dare to stretch out his claws casually.

Zhu Jinglun replied: "It depends on whether it is not in the interests of our Guangdong, and you should know that I have actually taken control of the political power in Guangdong, and I have to be responsible for all the people of Guangdong." ”

Hurd then asked, "If your imperial court makes a decision that is unfavorable to the Canton region, can I know what your most drastic response will be?" ”

Hurd is definitely not asking for himself, Zhu Jinglun understands that he is not only talking about tariffs this time, I am afraid that he is here to represent the British government's temptation.

Although a treaty was signed with the Beijing court, but the British were not satisfied, as early as the time of negotiation, they were dissatisfied with the court, mainly focused on the dissatisfaction with Xianfeng, when the negotiations were completed, Britain and France together said that they would support Yi Xin to govern, that is, they hoped that the Qing government could change, but the situation of Chaozhou against the city, let them understand that the government of this country is difficult to change, in order to enter the city of Guangzhou, they spent 20 years, in order to do business in Fuzhou, they spent 10 years, So how long does it take for them to enter into normal communication with this country?

The British didn't want to wait another ten or twenty years, so they were thinking about it, and in history they even sent Pasha Li and the naval commander to the territory of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to discuss with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom the proposal to divide China equally, maybe it was a temptation, but it was not necessarily without this idea, if they could find some separatist forces like the Indian princely states in China, they could use diplomatic means to unite vertically and horizontally, and finally annex all the forces.

It is a pity that China is a unified country, and the local governors are not the princes of the princely states of India, but the servants of the emperor, and in addition to the two opium wars, they understand that the people of this country are not as easy to submit as the Indians, and that one Guangzhou alone will never allow them to set foot in the territory of the countryside, and can only retreat into the city, and a city like Guangzhou has one in every province in China, and it is completely impossible for them to conquer one by one, unless they can find an agent.

Obviously, the strength shown by Zhu Jinglun made them start to consider Zhu Jinglun.

Thinking that the British actually regarded themselves as agents that could be cultivated, Zhu Jinglun felt a strange feeling in his heart, if this was the case, should he think about it and hug the thick leg of the British Empire?

When the British were looking for Hong Xiuquan, how did the guy answer, "I fight for China, and I want to do the whole picture; , things are divided, and the world is laughing; If it doesn't work, it will lead the ghost into the state."

Sect Leader Hong's words are still very courageous, but they buried the future of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, at that time the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was actually in danger, Anqing had just been lost, and Nanjing had become an isolated city.

But this kind of courage, this kind of integrity, often gets less bright results.

Although Zhu Jinglun can't be a traitor, he won't be stupid enough to push foreigners to the side of the Qing court.

He laughed, "I'll do whatever I can." Including military means! ”

Hurd nodded: "Then how will you interact with Britain and Western countries?" ”

Zhu Jinglun said with a smile: "Under the conditions of equality, I myself have always been very willing to trade with Western countries, in fact, I am a staunch freetrader. ”

Zhu Jinglun is a bit of a nonsense, he is essentially a trade protectionist, but in the era when the British are selling free trade theory to the world, if you don't pretend to be a fool to welcome, then you will be condemned as an uncivilized person, disguise yourself as a supporter of free trade, if you can get the support of the first power, a fool will not do it.

But where are the British so easy to deceive, if you don't give some real sweetness, they won't be at ease.

Hurd is about to make a practical difference: "Can you give practical examples? For example, on the open port. ”

Zhu Jinglun said: "I am very happy to open a tea port like Xinhui, if you can guarantee not to interfere with our independent power, I think the entire Pearl River should be open, in every county along the river, open a port for trade." ”

Hurd nodded, obviously he was satisfied with this gift, he knew that Zhu Jinglun said these promises, he was able to fulfill, because the place he said was under his actual control, and there was no truth, in this regard, Zhu Jinglun has always been very different from the Manchu officials, so that the foreigners praised it.

But before it was over, Zhu Jinglun suddenly stood up and walked up to Hurd, and said something to him that made his heart beat:

"My friend. If we open these ports, I hope that you will still be in charge, and in the new Anli model, the whole river should be managed by you. ”

Hurd can't help but be impressed, he manages a Chiwan port, and has already gained a very high reputation among foreigners, and the new Anli Bureau he manages has long had the reputation of the first customs office in the East, and even some big newspapers in London have sent people to interview him, and he believes that his name has entered the sight of the British royal family.

But it's just a new bureau that manages a single port in China, and what if he could manage the entire port on the Pearl River? It was as if he had seen the British merchants who had made countless profits in China chanting him as the King of the Pearl River.

But Hurd knows Zhu Jinglun too well, his leg was blown up by Zhu Jinglun, he knows that this person has a kind of madness that will do anything to achieve the goal, even if the purpose is at the cost of his life, it is definitely not unconditional to give him such a big gift.

He swallowed the unnaturally secreted saliva, adjusted his mood for a moment, and then asked seriously:

"My friend, I am so honored that you can entrust me with the management of the Pearl River, so can I know what you expect from me?"

Zhu Jinglun said with a smile: "If you want to talk about expectations, I hope you can make the entire port on the Pearl River reach the management level of Chiwan Port." But this is a very empty goal. I now want you to immediately withhold all the tariffs of the Xin'an Bureau, these are the wealth of the people of Guangdong, and he should be used for the construction of Guangdong, you can do it, right? ”

Hurd said: "As you wish! (To be continued.) )