It is not only the Ming family that benefited from the famine in northern China, and broadly speaking, the suffering of the Chinese people, because of the courage of the Ming Dynasty to bear the cost, has become a feast for the great powers. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

The United States has made considerable profits from the export of grain, and even the domestic economic crisis has been slowly reversed, and the railroad of the stagnant North Pacific Company has once again been rebuilt with capital, and Morgan's bank card has raised $100 million for it from the London market, while Morgan has entered the board of directors of the Northern Pacific Railway as an agent of British investors, and has a considerable say.

Because British investors believe that the construction of this railway can develop the northwest of the United States, a large amount of land will be turned into farmland, produce a considerable amount of grain, and the high international food prices will be absolutely good for this railway.

The shipping industry of Britain and France also cut a large piece of the cake from the grain transportation, and the Ming national capital only got a one-third share, and the rest is basically monopolized by these two countries, which is why the Ming government blatantly favors its own enterprises, and does not let the two countries, especially the United Kingdom, which occupies half of the grain transportation market, oppose the reason, because they have obtained a lot of benefits, and the Ming government is their big customer, and no one will throw face at the customer.

But among the great powers, it was undoubtedly Russia that benefited more from this famine.

Originally, the Kyakhta Railway was to Dalian, and then a branch line to Zhangjiakou, but the agreement was written, and the Russians' plan obviously became that Kyakhta to Zhangjiakou was the trunk line, but the branch line to Dalian became a branch line, because the line to Zhangjiakou was obviously a straight line.

The original line is from Kyakhta to the south, through Kulun, West Ult, Uzhumuqin, Tongliao and then Shenyang, and then south to Dalian, obviously a railway extending from the northwest to the southeast, and now it has become from Kyakhta to Kulun, and then it is Nagging Lin, Wude, Pangjiang, Zhangjiakou, almost along the Yuan Dynasty period officially opened up the Zhangku Avenue extended, after the Mongols, the Ming and Qing dynasties have operated, mainly the Qing Dynasty, from the Kangxi time on this road to establish a post station, now in the convenience of the Russians to build the railway.

The Russians knew about the rerouting plan, and raised objections, and Daming was qualified to oppose it, because Daming provided half of the road construction funds, and occupied half of the shares, and also had half of the management rights in the future, but now the Russians changed the route without authorization, and Daming thought that this would make the income of the railway unclear.

The reason is that it is more convenient to take advantage of Dalian's port advantages from Kyakhta. In fact, the Ming government was worried that the line was biased towards Zhangjiakou, which would inevitably allow the Russians to continue to infiltrate south.

But the Russians are very resolute, saying that if the Ming does not support, they can not do the capital of the Ming Dynasty, they will complete the railway alone, the two sides can not negotiate, the Russians were originally dissatisfied with the penetration of the Ming capital, if it was not for the use of the port of the Ming Dynasty, they would not let the Ming take a stake, and they took the opportunity to announce that because of the discord in the business philosophy, they announced that they would return the early investment of the Ming Dynasty, and the railway would be monopolized by Russia.

The change in the attitude of the Russians is confusing, they don't cooperate with the Ming Dynasty, don't they want to take advantage of Dalian? Or did they come to an agreement with the British, who would no longer obstruct them from building the railway to Yingkou? The news from the British was that the British had always opposed the Russian railway. And soon the truth was revealed, Russia persuaded Li Hongzhang to accept a Russian loan to build the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, so that Zhangjiakou would be connected to Beiya, and Beiqi would be connected to Tianjin, Russia had a privilege in the port of Tianjin, and their taxes here were only one-third of that of the other powers, on the grounds that they wanted to re-export from land, and now with the railway, the cost of land transportation was greatly reduced, but this privilege still exists.

So the Russians really don't need the port of Dalian, because they can take advantage of the port of Tianjin, which is located closer, and the Russian merchants have already opened up a sea route from Hankou to Tianjin, so what else do they need to do by detouring from Dalian?

After the news broke, the British reacted quickly, they had no way to oppose the construction of the Russian railway, and there was no reason to oppose the Qing Dynasty to build the railway on their own territory, but they believed that once the railway was built, the Russian power could move south from Tianjin, not only to control the tea trade in Hankou, but also to have the ability to compete with the British for the trade interests in the Yangtze River valley.

For this reason, Britain stepped up its lobbying work for the Qing Dynasty, and Britain hoped that the Qing government would give priority to the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai railway, as long as the railway could be repaired from Tianjin to Pukou, and Britain would be able to use this railway as two ends through the Tianjin-Pudong line, one end of which was connected to the Yangtze River, and the other end of which was connected to Tianjin.

The British united with the United States to launch a lobbying offensive against Li Hongzhang, and after agreeing to many conditions, Li Hongzhang promised to give priority to the construction of this railway, and would hire British and American technicians, mainly using British rails and steam locomotives, and at the same time Britain and the United States would jointly provide loans, and as a way of repayment, they would no longer require tariff collateral, but would be repaid in installments with the profits from the operation of the railway.

The British agreed on the condition that they would not ask for the opening of consulates in cities along the railway, and that they would not be allowed to carry out missionary affairs along the railway without the consent of the Qing government.

Compared with the progress made by Britain on the railway, the Russians can be said to have made great strides, the famine in the north was perfectly exploited by them, and they only had to pay a cost that they would not dare to think of, and they could recruit absolutely sufficient laborers, and with 300,000 laborers, they built more than 500 kilometers of roads in just one year, and they could basically open to traffic in two years.

The Ming Dynasty protested against the recruitment of laborers in Russia, because unlike the Ming Dynasty, the Russians recruited workers and only recruited those strong laborers, and their families never wanted them, and they also gave a large amount of benefits to the intermediaries through intermediaries in order to recruit laborers on a large scale, which was already the nature of the coolie trade, and opposing the coolie trade was an important foreign policy of the Ming Dynasty, so the Ming Dynasty asked to intervene in the investigation, which Britain and France supported.

However, Russia was resolutely opposed, believing that they were only legally recruiting workers and had an agreement with the Qing government, and that the Ming Dynasty had no right to interfere in labor relations between Russia and the Qing state.

The Ming and the British and French also put pressure on the Manchus, and as a result, a large number of coolie leaders who helped to confess were arrested and imprisoned, which aroused the anger of the Russians, but they had no choice but to take advantage of the cheap labor to actually repair the railway, and finally had to negotiate with the Ming, Britain and France.

In the end, they still got workers, but they had to pay a higher price, under the supervision of the three countries, they signed contracts directly with the workers, and they could not be deceived by intermediaries, and they needed to provide reasonable living conditions for the workers, and they were not allowed to do construction in the cold winter, etc., which made the cost high, which led to them only being able to recruit 300,000 workers.

Even if only 300,000 people were used, the speed of railway construction of the Russians was quite amazing, 500 kilometers a year, an average of nearly two kilometers per day, except for the winter when construction could not be done on the steppe, the average daily road construction exceeded two kilometers, such an amazing speed, in addition to the Chinese workers to bear hardships and stand hard work, in fact, it was mainly an objective reason on the grassland, because most of the land here is flat, even if you have to pass through the mountains, there is no precipitous area, and there is no terrain in the south where mountains are connected to mountains. Just like the Great Plains of the United States, it is very easy to build.

With the southward advance of the Russian railway, Britain and France secretly communicated with the Ming Dynasty, hoping that the three countries would remain consistent and block Russia's southward movement.

After the Crimean War, Britain and France surrounded Russia all over the world, blocking Russia's access to the Mediterranean, Russia's access to the Indian Ocean, and now the Russians' access to the Yangtze River.

It cannot be said that France completely followed Britain's diplomatic strategy and obstructed Russia's entry into the Mediterranean because France was a Mediterranean coastal country, and Russia's entry into the Mediterranean directly impacted France's interests, and there were deeper reasons for blocking Russia's southward expansion in the Chinese region.

Because of the financial difficulties of Russia, the reason why it was able to build the 1,500-kilometer Changcha railway was supported by the newly rising Germany.

The Germans not only provided as much as eighty percent of the financial loans for the construction of the railway in Russia, but also sent a large number of technical advisers, and it can be said that this railway was built by Russia with the help of the Germans who spared no effort.

The Franco-Prussian War made France and Germany completely feuding, and France must oppose whatever Germany supports, and this relationship is like the relationship between Russia and Turkey, China and Japan, which is no longer an enemy, but an enemy, and the enemy can turn enemies into friends, and hatred will only grow more and more, and will never stop unless one of them bleeds dry.

The later Franco-Russian alliance has no shadow now, German diplomacy is in Bismarck's skillful hands, playing a lot of flowers, at this time Russia is an ally of Germany, and Germany and Austria-Hungary formed a triple emperor alliance.

And France from the Franco-Prussian War to see isolated, no friends, so closely follow the pace of Britain, after all, during the recovery of France, Britain is their greatest guarantee, under the pressure of Britain, Germany had to withdraw from France, the current French military power is far from recovering, but also need to rely on the support of Britain to counter Germany.

But why did Germany support Russia so strongly?