Two days later, Wu Chongyao, Zeng Yuheng of the Ministry of Public Works, and Cheng Hengsheng, the director, led four foreigners to the palace to meet Feng Yunshan. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

The person at the head is none other than Wu Chongyao's foreigner godbrother, John Forbes, the American godson recognized by Wu Bingjian, the richest man in the Qing Dynasty.

Feng Yunshan looked sideways, and John Forbes also happened to look over, and met Feng Yunshan's gaze without fear.

I saw that he had short blond hair standing straight up, which was really rare in this era. Through his hairstyle, Feng Yunshan speculated that this person should belong to the type with a more anxious temperament.

It is no wonder that he can become the railroad king of the United States in history, and his original character is determined. At this time, the United States has many opportunities, dare to do and fight, and can make a fortune if you have the courage.

Sure enough, before John Forbes could wait for Wu Chongyao's introduction, he took a step forward, bowed to Feng Yunshan, and said politely: "Your Highness the Holy King, please allow me to introduce myself and a few of my friends to you. ”

John Forbes's Chinese (Cantonese) is very authentic, Feng Yunshan can hardly hear any difference from Guangzhou locals, plus John Forbes looks sincere, straight to the point without pretentiousness, although only the first meeting, Feng Yunshan has a good impression of him.

"Your Highness, I'm John Forbes from the United States, and my company has just completed the construction of the railroad from Michigan to Chicago and Burlington." John Forbes said, and introduced the three behind him to Feng Yunshan.

"This is my good friend John Jacob Astor III, well, his name is a bit long, you can just call him Little John, and I'm Big John, his grandfather, John Sr., whose full name is John Jacob Astor, is our richest man in America, the famous fur and real estate tycoon. He's the partner I hired! John Forbes joked, it seems, he has a good personal relationship with the grandson of the richest man in the United States.

The foreigner he introduced, very young and a little shy, first saluted Feng Yunshan, and then spoke in English, because he was a little nervous, and the speed of speech was fast, Feng Yunshan, who was originally fluent in English, didn't understand what he was talking about.

Fortunately, Wu Chongyao, who was next to him, was proficient in English and explained: "Holy King, this little Mr. John said that he has a deep connection with China. His grandfather, the former richest man in the United States, had come to Guangzhou before making a fortune and had a relationship with my father. ”

Then, Wu Chongyao told another allusion. It turned out that there was a foreigner named Astor from Boston, USA, who went to Guangzhou to do business, and bought half a shipload of tea and half a shipload of porcelain from the Wu family, ready to be shipped back to Boston. Unexpectedly, his capital was not enough, and he was still short of more than 70,000 taels of silver, so this foreigner was so anxious that he cried.

When Wu Chongyao's father knew about the situation, he saw that Astor dared to do it, and he admired it very much, so he made the decision to give him 70,000 taels of silver on credit.

But unexpectedly, Astor was unlucky, and the cargo ship sank shortly after leaving Guangzhou. Astor had no choice but to return to Guangzhou, and took the initiative to confess to Wu Chongyao's father, Wu Bingjian, and begged to work for the rest of his life to pay off his debts.

But no one expected that Wu Bingjian took out his IOU, tore it to shreds on the spot, and sent Astor back to the United States for the fare. Astor immediately knelt down on his knees and kowtowed to Wu Bingjian, thanking Wu Bingjian for his boldness and kindness.

Later, Astor returned to the United States, started over in New York, and eventually amassed a fortune of $20 million in the fur business, becoming the richest man in the United States at the time.

His merchant ships were also named after Wu Bingjian. In his study, there are portraits of Washington and Wu Bingjian all the year round, and his motto is: Washington gave me a country, and Wu Bingjian gave me all my life.

Feng Yunshan's eyes lit up when he heard this! Unexpectedly, there are such twists and turns, and I can't help but be fascinated by Wu Chongyao's father Wu Bingjian. What a cow in this era!

No wonder, this time he asked Wu Chongyao to send a letter to invite him, this big John and the grandson of the richest man, Little John, the two of them came upside down. Although the purpose of this foreigner is definitely to make money, their friendship with the Wu family still has some effect.

The other two foreigners were two professionals invited by John Forbes and John Jr., one was an expert in financial engineering accounting, and the other was an expert in railway construction.

After listening to the introduction, Feng Yunshan couldn't help but think: This foreign ghost, even if he still remembers the kindness of the Wu family, is very limited, in the final analysis, he is still here to make money, and even the one who settles the accounts has brought it, and it is clear that he came prepared.

No wonder when Wu Chongyao talked about it two days ago, he reminded himself to be careful of this big John, who is indeed a foreign devil who sees money. However, this is inevitable, think about future generations, is it also the same?

In the end, Wu Chongyao said that this time Big John and Little John were indeed very sincere and wanted to invest in the construction of railways in the Holy Kingdom. In addition to these two experts, a large group of engineers were waiting at the post house, waiting for the two Johns and the palace to reach an agreement, and then went to the field to survey and measure and calculate the data.

Feng Yunshan was overjoyed, it seems that these two foreigners are really a bit of an inevitable posture. However, this is more convenient for yourself.

Immediately afterwards, the two sides officially entered the negotiation.

Feng Yunshan didn't want to participate in this kind of specific business negotiations, but when he thought that this was the first railway construction in the Holy Country, and the supporting steam trains would be introduced, and these were only known to him, the traverser, he still participated in the formal talks between the two sides.

Feng Yunshan remembered that when foreigners in history came to the Manchu Qing Dynasty to build the railway, they always asked for the rights and interests of mineral and land development along the railway, and of course he would not accept this condition.

Sure enough, the first thing to negotiate was the Shaozhou Dequren Coal Mine to Wushi Town, where the First Iron and Steel Plant is located, as well as the two short, medium and short-distance railways from Dabaoshan Iron Mine to Wushi Town.

These two railways, Feng Yunshan originally planned to build a special freight railway, but considering the large investment in the railway, it can be fully utilized in the future, therefore, the railway from Quren Coal Mine to Wushi Town, Feng Yunshan wants to build a freight and passenger railway.

The foreigners immediately opened the map and marked it on it.

The foreigners are headed by Great John, and the Holy Kingdom is naturally dominated by Feng Yunshan.

For these two railways, Big John proposed that he, John Jr. and Nanyang Company each contribute one-third of the construction of the railway, and the freight revenue from the operation after completion will be divided according to the shares.

John must have heard that these two iron and coal mines had a large amount of storage, so he knew that the volume of goods transported was huge, and he would not lose money. But how could Feng Yunshan let them take such a advantage?

"Mr. John, the King's opinion is that these two freight railways are fully invested by the Nanyang Company, and you have been hired to help the Nanyang Company build them, and no investment from you is required. Of course, as long as there is no problem with the acceptance of the construction project, Nanyang Company will pay the project price in full. ”

Perhaps knowing that this was just an appetizer, Big John didn't dwell on it, and readily agreed, they just acted as the construction party.

This was followed by an offer, which Feng demanded that it must not be higher than the British offer, otherwise he would directly veto the agreement and let the British or French railway builders implement it instead.

John Forbes has repeatedly assured that the cost of building railways in the United States is lower than in the United Kingdom, and his railroad construction company is lower than the average cost in the United States.

In the end, it was directly agreed that the two sections of the railway, with a total length of 71 kilometers, would be built by the Central Railroad Company of the United States, which was established by John and the Great John, and that the Nanyang Company would invest 426,000 taels of silver, equivalent to the price of 6,000 taels of silver per kilometer.

This is equivalent to contracting the two sections of the railway to the Central Railway Company in the United States, and Nanyang Company pays 20% of the start-up capital in advance, and the remaining part is advanced by the Central Railway Company itself. Moreover, it is stipulated that after the acceptance of the railway track bed is qualified, another 30 percent will be paid, and another 20 percent will be paid after the sleepers and rails are laid, and the rest will be paid after the train runs for a month without problems.

John Forbes also asked the financial expert who followed him to take out a document from the bag he carried, which contained a list of the construction costs of the British mining railway, and Wu Chongyao took it and asked the bookkeeper of Nanyang Company to verify that it was true that the British construction cost was converted to a price of about 6,300 taels of silver per kilometer.

In this way, the quotation given by Nanyang Company is quite reasonable, but considering that there are many people in China, the labor cost is much lower, especially the cost of demolition is borne by the Holy State, so the Americans can still make a lot of money. However, Feng Yunshan doesn't care about these anymore, he always has to order soup for foreigners to drink, otherwise how can he help you work?

Feng Yunshan also stipulated that the entire project should last for 10 months, which is very demanding.

Originally, the railway construction experts brought by Big John gave a year and a half, but Feng Yunshan couldn't wait, he only had one trick: for 10 months, every 10 days in advance, 10,000 yuan was rewarded on the 426,000 yuan project payment, and similarly, 10,000 yuan was deducted from the project cost for 10 days.

As soon as the reward and punishment mechanism came out, Big John's eyes lit up, and after a few interrogations with railway construction experts, he agreed.

Immediately afterwards, the railway experts brought by John Forbes talked about some basic parameters of the Quwu Railway, and the gauge adopted the standard gauge of 1.435 meters jointly issued by the United Kingdom and the United States seven years ago.

Next, it was time to discuss the procurement of trains.

At present, Feng Yunshan knows that the machine factory that was just built a while ago is estimated to be unable to produce such a steam engine for a period of time, since it is necessary to purchase it anyway, it is better to directly purchase the entire locomotive driven by the steam engine.

So, through the Central Railroad, three locomotives (locomotives) and 120 ten-ton wagons were purchased from the United States at a price of 265,000 taels of silver.

Feng Yunshan didn't know if these were enough, and whether he could pull out all the minerals from Quren Coal Mine and Dabaoshan Iron Mine, because it also depended on the speed of the train. However, this truck is also very cheap, even if it is not enough, just add it later.

Moreover, Feng Yunshan is also ready to wait for the large-scale start of the machine factory to develop it himself to see if he can make trains.

Sanjiang Koushui said

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