Zhu Jinglun could imagine what a big backlash he would provoke once he allowed Hurd to establish ports and customs in various counties along the Pearl River, Xin'an, Dongguan, Xiangshan, Shunde, and even Sanshui and Gaoyao counties further upstream. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

But history will judge right and wrong, building ports on their own land, attracting trade, and even attracting investment, this advanced means of economic development, in later generations that it is common knowledge, Zhu Jinglun absolutely believes that what he did is right.

As for letting Hurd manage, this is also a matter of no choice, in the hands of any official who reads the Four Books and the Five Classics, Zhu Jinglun really doesn't dare to rest assured, even if it is a minister like Zeng Guofan who is not greedy for money, he will definitely manage the mess, this is not a problem of their morality, but a matter of culture, because even Zeng Guofan will definitely talk about human feelings, and will definitely install some relatives and friends in the customs, and finally cause all kinds of corruption.

As for whether Hurd will sell out the interests of Guangdong, Zhu Jinglun feels that he still has the ability to discriminate, whether Hurd will take care of the British, this is certain, but it must not be too blatant, at most it is to recruit a few more British staff, it is absolutely impossible to give the British preferential tax rate, or help the British smuggle, this is evidenced by history, and even in the customs established by Hurd in the late Qing Dynasty, there are many German and French senior staff, which can be said to be equally divided.

The most worrying thing is that the British will use the customs managed by Hurd to hold the Guangdong government hostage, which has happened in history, and the British need Hurd's seal to guarantee that they lend money to the Qing government, otherwise they will not lend, which is equivalent to letting Hurd control the debt management of the Qing government.

As for the control of customs finances, this kind of problem also happened, but that was after Hurd, when Hurd was in office, not only always according to the practice of truthfully deporting customs duties to the Qing court, but also always in accordance with the requirements of the Qing government, through the Chinese ticket number to transshipment, not through the British bank, this British bankers are dissatisfied, but Hurd is very insistent, Hurd knows his identity very well, he is an Englishman, but at the same time he is an employee of the Chinese government, if he wants to succeed, You can't make your employer unhappy.

After Hurd took office, the successor General Customs Department was still British, this is the charter they signed with the Qing government, but the successors immediately seized the tariff, and then continued to coerce the Chinese government with the tariff issue, once they did not let them satisfy, they refused to deport the customs surplus, including a series of Beiyang government and the old Chiang government, as for the new China, that can not get used to the imperialist faults, directly even the customs have been accepted, rather than money, can not be shameless.

After negotiating the deal with Hurd, Zhu Jinglun continued to ask: "My friend, since I have entrusted you with the management of the customs in Guangdong, I must know if you can find a way to increase the customs tax rate, especially the tax rate on opium, which I think is very important to my people." ”

Opium has always been the UK's largest export to China, and raising the tax rate on opium will cause significant losses to British exports.

Hurd thought for a moment and said, "I suggest we can levy a stamp duty on opium. ”

Zhu Jinglun said: "This is a good idea, stamp duty is not a tariff, I think this is a treaty between the two sides." ”

Zhu Jinglun was very satisfied, not that he could collect more taxes, but that Hurd was saying "we", at that moment, Hurd's position was on his side, or on his position as a Chinese customs employee, since he was a customs employee, of course, he hoped that he could receive more tariffs, and don't think about anything else, this is a qualified guest secretary.

As for raising the opium tax, Zhu Jinglun has many methods, such as levying value-added tax on tobacco houses, levying windfall tax, etc., the British can even collect the window tax these days, and what else can't be collected.

It's just that once the opium trade is too cracked down, it will make those opium dealers angry, the muddy waters of the opium trade can be deep, involving Hong Kong foot merchants, big conglomerates, and even London's huge financial coulaces, and now in this era, moving the money bags of opium dealers, that is, moving the pockets of Queen Victoria, is not a joke.

Before he stabilized Guangdong, Zhu Jinglun didn't want to see this group of opium dealers fighting hard with him, and when he completely controlled Guangdong, then he wouldn't have to care about the group of filthy goods from hell and their old concubine Victoria Fat Girl.

As for now, the stamp duty that Hurd said is probably the bottom line that this group of opium dealers can accept, after all, the stamp duty tax is generally not high, that is, three or four thousandths.

Historically, Hurd also made this suggestion to the Qing government in this year, Yi Xin asked him how he could exterminate the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Hurd suggested that the opium stamp duty should be levied, and the money should be used to buy warships, and the last thing that came out was the Aspen fleet incident that disgusted the entire Qing Dynasty officialdom, which finally ruined the future of Li Tai, the chief tax department, and let Hurd get the greatest benefits, and since then he has replaced Li Taitai and firmly controlled the Chinese customs.

It's hard to say that this is not Hurd's plan to kill two birds with one stone, as a China expert, how can he not see that the Aspen fleet is impossible for Chinese officials to accept, but he did not organize Li Tai's political suicide, combined with Hurd's performance in his life, that is, he has fought for the interests of the Qing government, and has been working hard to protect the interests of foreigners, and finally got the dual titles of Britain and China, which makes Zhu Jinglun can't help but doubt the position of this guy:

His position is neither Chinese nor British, his position is his own!

But this kind of person is better to use, isn't it?

After sending Hurd away, Zhu Jinglun called his deputy Huang Sangong, this person is old and can't go into battle, but he has read books, can write, and most importantly, he has been a businessman and sold tea for a few years, which means that he can settle accounts.

Stayed by his side and became a bookkeeper.

"Sangong, here is a list, you follow the list, one by one to borrow money for me, no matter how much, as long as you are willing to borrow, write an IOU, this is a beautiful difference, this time I promise you to collect cash, but how much you have received, you have to report to me when you come back!"

That list was sorted out by Wu Chongyao, Pan Shicheng and others for Zhu Jinglun in the past, and they were all businessmen who had business dealings with them, and those who had more powerful businessmen in Guangdong had no business dealings with them, so they generally had no strength.

The last time Zhu Jinglun selected envoys to visit, he went to this list.

As for how much money he can borrow from these big businessmen, Zhu Jinglun really doesn't care, what he wants is a position.

Through the performance of the squires in Xin'an County, Zhu Jinglun knew that the local forces were still waiting and watching, and they were currently helping each other between themselves and the Qing government, so what was the position of these businessmen? After all, everyone can see that Zhu Jinglun's governance has always been relatively friendly to businessmen, and even foreigners can see the problem, and it is impossible for these local businessmen not to see it.

Especially in the context of the children of their families being sent to Europe by Zhu Jinglun, should they be brave and stand up for a regime that is beneficial to them?

At this time, those businessmen's children had also embarked on their return journey.

Their first visit was too long.

In London in May and Paris in June, the trip should have ended, but many small countries saw that the French emperor had invited this delegation, and they sent people to invite them.

These small countries looked at Britain at first, and they saw that the British royal family did not come forward to receive them, and the government only sent officials from the commercial department to contact them, and the British newspapers openly reported that these people were not official Chinese missions, but only missions sent by the local government to apologize to the Americans, so they should not do any formal diplomatic activities with the British government.

The British made other small European countries feel that it was indeed inappropriate to contact the Cantonese mission, and they just looked like who did not imitate the hegemon, but the French emperor suddenly invited this delegation and invited them to a ball in the palace, and then the concerns of other countries were dispelled, and they came to invite them.

Wu Chongyao didn't plan to go to those small countries, he was already a little anxious to return to China, so he told Chen Zhiting that these countries are all small countries in Europe, and there is no need to give them face.

Who knew that Chen Zhiting felt that he should go there, he said that the Qing Dynasty was a kingdom, and Fanbang should be treated equally, but these small countries should not be left out in the cold, otherwise it will make people laugh.

Wu Chongyao couldn't keep up with the sergeant's thinking, so he could only follow.

From France, the first stop was Luxembourg, then Brussels in Belgium, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Frankfurt in Hesse in the south, Munich in the Kingdom of Bavaria, Vienna in the Austrian Empire, Berlin in Prussia in the north, then the free city of Hamburg, then Copenhagen in Denmark, and finally across the Channel to Sweden.

The situation in Germany made Chen Zhiting very interested, and he took the train to a large and small state, many of which had only one city, which made him feel as if he had experienced the situation of ten thousand states in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and finally studied the history here with great interest.

Finally, when he traveled around to Prussia, he suddenly expressed his view of history to the Prussian crown prince who invited him to visit the Prussian military parade, and said that the Chinese theory that the division of time must be combined and the division of time must be divided, and after watching the military parade, he asserted that Germany would eventually be unified by Prussia, and ten years later, his dialogue with the crown prince became the reality of the German region, and at that time Chen Zhiting was also famous, so his words became quotations, became prescient, if he was just a nobody, Then no one remembers.

The reason why the last stop was to go to Sweden, because the Swedes would send a ship to send them home, of course, not a special trip to see them off, because Sweden and Denmark had jointly formed a delegation to visit Guangdong. (To be continued.) )