"Oh, Chongyao, you know this place, it's a copper mine?" Feng Yunshan is a little strange, this place in the future is obviously a large iron mine, it should not be wrong. The only possibility www.biquge.info pen fun pavilion is not the same place.

You must know that it is full of deep mountains and inaccessible, even this map is only drawn in a rough place, and it is not so accurate.

"Holy King, it is indeed a copper mine! The people of the neighborhood knew about it. Wu still thinks that the Holy King wants to re-mine? Wu Chongyao replied.

"Hmm...... The king is thinking, there are deep mountains and old forests in this area, and the roads are difficult to pass, if there is really a large number of minerals here, it will be a headache to mine them and how to transport them. Feng Yunshan revealed his true thoughts.

"I see! It is no wonder that the Holy King asked Wu to set up a special boat line on this section of the water. The Holy King's headache is the thirty-mile journey from the mining area to the Wujiang River, right? Wu Chongyao thought for a while and said, "Holy King, Wu has an idea, I wonder if the Holy King has ever heard of the railway as a way of transporting goods?" ”

Railway? How could you not have heard of it! In later generations, when I went home for the Spring Festival every year, I had to take the train by railway.

Railway! That's right! Why didn't you think of the railway? This word came out of Wu Chongyao's mouth, and Feng Yunshan felt that he was a failure.

Seeing Feng Yunshan's stunned appearance, Wu Chongyao thought that he didn't know what a railway was, so he explained: "Wu also heard an American friend talk about it. When my father was alive, he borrowed a large sum of money from an American to support him in building a railroad in the United States. That's a great way to ship goods! Therefore, Wu has some understanding! ”

So that's it! Feng Yunshan understood. He knew that Wu Chongyao's father, Wu Bingjian, was once the richest man in the world, not only the largest creditor of the British East India Company, but also the major shareholder of the American Qichang Foreign Company. Moreover, Wu Bingjian once recognized a young American as his godson, which was widely circulated, so Feng Yunshan also had an impression.

So, Feng Yunshan's heart moved and asked, "Chongyao, it is rumored that you have a godbrother of an American foreigner. Did you learn about this railway through him? ”

"The Holy King is wise! Exactly! Wu Chongyao replied, and then, he explained the cause and effect in detail, which made Feng Yunshan sigh, no wonder these foreigners gave the Wu family face!

It turns out that Wu Bingjian has always been generous and sincere. Especially for a Boston businessman who was in distress, Wu Bingjian personally tore up the IOU of 72,000 taels of silver that the businessman owed him, so that the businessman could return to China and make a comeback, and American businessmen praised Wu Bingjian.

At that time, in the Thirteen Hang Yangguan District of Guangzhou, there was an American Russell company that mainly sold opium, whose Chinese name was Qichang Yangxing, and was a man named Samuel? Russell and Thomas? Parkinson's two founded.

Thomas? Parkinson has two nephews, Thomas? Forbes and his brother John? Forbes, then joined Qichang Foreign Company and came to Guangzhou. Because of the relationship between business, Wu Bingjian has a lot of contact with the two Forbes brothers. Wu Bingjian's younger brother John? Forbes was very fond of him and recognized him as his godson.

Through this relationship, in the following years, Qichang & Co. crushed all the other American firms in Guangzhou and became the largest American firm in Guangzhou with 13 firms.

In the sixteenth year of Daoguang, Samuel, the owner of the foreign bank? Russell made enough money in the opium chip business, so he was ready to sell the shares of Qichang Foreign Company and return to his hometown to retire. Under the persuasion and support of Wu Bingjian, he gave 500,000 silver dollars to his godson John? Forbes allowed the Forbes brothers to take over Qichang Foreign Bank.

Since then, John? Forbes treats Wu Bingjian as his own father.

Twenty-six years of Daoguang, John? Forbes heard that Samuel, the owner of Qichang Foreign Bank? Russell's nephew William? A piece of news provided by Russell: he has a name named Alfonso? Taftto's classmates, the Sherman family, are looking for a partner to take over the Central Michigan Railroad, which is owned by the state of Michigan in the United States. Because there was no money to maintain and continue the construction of the railroad, Michigan sold it, and with the help of the Sherman family, John bought the railroad that Michigan had bought for five million dollars nine years earlier.

"Three months ago, I received a letter from John saying that the Central Michigan Railroad had been completed in August of last year. It seems to have been repaired to a place called Chicago. The next step is to continue from this Chicago to Burlington and somewhere. The place name of this foreigner is very awkward, fortunately there is a brother or uncle, otherwise, Wu would not be able to remember. Wu Chongyao told the ins and outs of knowing the railway.

"However, I heard from John's letter that once the railroad was repaired, there were burning cars on it, pulling a lot of goods, and it could travel hundreds of miles in an hour, and what was even more incredible was that it could run all day without resting." Wu Chongyao frowned, and said in disbelief: "How can there really be something that can run so fast without stopping?" He also said that he wanted to invite my Wu family to partner in the construction of this railway. I think it's probably because of this that it's an exaggeration. ”

"Promise him! Write back to him immediately! Feng Yunshan shouted in surprise and interrupted Wu Chongyao's nagging: "Oh, this king is excited for a while!" Chongyao, you quickly contacted him and said that he was willing to invest in the construction of a railway, but not in the United States, but in our two Guangzhou! ”

"Holy King, do you want to invite them to come to Liangguang to help build the thirty-mile railway from the mining area to Wujiang?" Wu Chongyao asked.

"Yes! However, it is not only necessary to build this section of the railway, but there are many places where the railway must be built. Feng Yunshan looked at the map, nodded and said, "Also, that John is right, the train is on the railway, and it can indeed run hundreds of miles in an hour, or even faster!" ”

Feng Yunshan recalled the convenience of the high-speed development of bullet trains, high-speed railways, and subways in later generations, and secretly thought that the railway must be built as soon as possible.

"Holy King, then Wu and the others will go back, so I will make an appointment with the people of Qichang and ask them to send a letter to John, inviting him to send someone to Guangdong to help build the railway!" Wu Chongyao agreed. He remembered the purpose of his visit, so he continued: "Holy King, Wu Mou came because of another tricky matter. ”

"The British consul in Guangzhou, Bao Ling, returned to Guangzhou today with some foreign merchants. Just now, he quietly came to Wu's mansion to inquire about the Holy King's opinion on the tobacco trade. Wu speculated that a while ago, the Holy King, you promised the foreigners to open the treaty port, and these British began to want to trade, mainly to dump tobacco and soil in our China. Wu Chongyao said the reason why he came out to find Feng Yunshan.

Feng Yunshan thought about it for a while, and then guessed clearly. This must have been the defeat of the British in this war and lost a lot of money, so they hurriedly organized a batch of tobacco to sell, hoping to get back the loss from the tobacco soil. Needless to say, the sale of tobacco and soil benefited not only from opium dealers, but also from the Governor-General of Hong Kong Island.

But it's really hard for me to stop it openly. After all, the original agreements with various countries have made it clear that there is no ban on the trade in tobacco and soil. It is only with reference to the provisions of the "Secret Agreement on Missionary Trade and Trade between the United States and the United States" that the tariff on tobacco and soil is 50%.

At the beginning, the reason why Feng Yunshan stipulated this was mainly from two sides.

On the one hand, they don't want to cause a second opium war right away.

At present, half of the trade between foreigners and China comes from tobacco. If tobacco is directly banned, it will inevitably lead to a full-scale opium war. But at present, according to their own strength, it is not enough to resist the large-scale invasion of foreigners! Therefore, before that, I still have to compromise a little.

On the other hand, even if he banned the tobacco trade in Guangzhou, not to mention the other Manchu Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai and other places, they were still open to the tobacco trade, but the smuggling of tobacco and soil in the two Guangzhous and Guangzhou, made his ban on smoking in Guangzhou completely meaningless.

Therefore, after thinking about it again and again, Feng Yunshan decided that it would be better to openly allow the tobacco trade, but to carry out high-priced tariffs to curb it appropriately.

As a result, the forced tobacco dealers had to raise their prices.

In this way, not only can they collect a large amount of tariffs, but they can also force those who smoke tobacco in disguise to reduce the amount of tobacco they smoke at the same cost.

As for harming you, are you afraid that future generations will scold yourself as a traitor and collaborate with foreigners to harm your compatriots? To be honest, Feng Yunshan is really not worried.

History has always been written by the victors. For those Chinese people who are willing to fall and get drunk and dream of smoking tobacco, Feng Yunshan has no good feelings.

Since he is so rich, he should donate half of his money to his powerful forces to save the people of the country. If you are already poor and desperately want to smoke tobacco, then such a person is even more hopeless, it is better to smoke to death as soon as possible, and you can also improve the average quality of Chinese people.

Therefore, Feng Yunshan did not feel much guilt or guilt. Think about it, even if you ban the import of tobacco from Guangzhou, you will come in from other channels, but the cost is greater.

Feng Yunshan now experienced this mentality. It is no wonder that some historians who have sought truth from facts in later generations have said that at that time, only China banned tobacco in the world, but it was precisely the country with the most serious tobacco smoking.

You know, at that time, Britain and other countries in Europe, including India, never banned tobacco. There are also a large number of people in the British who smoke tobacco, and not only that, but the tobacco they smoke is also the most addictive and high-quality Turkish tobacco.

The Manchus, on the other hand, smoked much worse tobacco from India and Bengal. Despite this, the British did not smoke as much as the Manchus, and they were so tricky. In this regard, Feng Yunshan can only admire the breadth and profundity of the Chinese people's food culture.

At that time, in Europe, they all believed that tobacco soil was a kind of nourishing medicine, so they themselves often smoked it, but they dissolved tobacco soil in red wine and made tobacco soil medicinal wine to "drink", or used tobacco soil and tobacco soil preparations as daily medicine like aspirin, and even made tobacco soil into infant sedatives to prevent them from crying, including cough medicine for children, which was mainly made of tobacco soil.

It is precisely because most of them use the method of soaking in water and swallowing, which confirms that if the medicine is bitter, the taste of tobacco is not very good, and the absorption in this way is not much, and the degree of addiction is not great. Therefore, although many foreigners eat tobacco soil, more than half of them are not seriously affected, and only small half-foreigners are seriously addicted.

In fact, at that time, the British overseas army was equipped with a considerable amount of tobacco soil, some of which were used for the treatment of malaria, rheumatism and other drugs, and some were directly called nutritional products, in short, a strategic material.

The people of the Manchu Qing Dynasty all used the method of igniting and smoking. That's why the opium is called smoky! This method is easier to stimulate the sensory organs, and the absorption is also fast, second only to the intravenous injection of later generations. In this way, the addiction is naturally fast.

That's why there is no ban on tobacco again, but it's very different! (To be continued.) )