Passenger liner Victoria.

On the deck, a lively open-air dance party is being held. Pairs of white men cuddle and pace to the rhythm of the dance, while the Chinese are much more reserved, mostly sitting next to them smiling and watching with drinks or whispering about their favorite topics.

In addition to Minister of Finance Kong Xiangxi, Minister of the Navy Chen Shaokuan, and Secretary General of the Executive Yuan Weng Wenhao, there are also Zeng Rongfu, executive secretary of the Ministry of Railways, Zhu Changnian, superintendent of customs, Zhang Fuyun, director of the Customs Affairs Department of the Ministry of Finance, Guo Bingwen, director of the International Trade Bureau of the Ministry of Industry, and Mei Lehe (British), director of the General Taxation Department of the Customs.Chinese

In addition, there was a whole host of secretaries, military attachés, commissioners, translators and technicians.

Just looking at the composition of the special mission, we know that it is not as simple as celebrating the coronation of the British king, but also needs to carry out a series of diplomatic, trade, borrowing, technical cooperation and other tasks.

Kong Xiangxi's eldest daughter, Kong Lingyi, is undoubtedly the focus of the open-air ball. There were also many handsome and handsome men in the special envoys, but under the watchful eyes of Kong Xiangxi and Soong Ailing, these young Chinese officials did not dare to act rashly. In the end, he could only bargain with a gringo, a middle-aged foreign man with a head and a face, and invited Kong Lingyi to dance with a smile.

Zhou Hexuan came out of the cabin after taking a nap, walked to the deck and took a look, and saw that only Kong Xiangxi's table was still empty, so he walked over generously.

"Can I sit here?" Zhou Hexuan asked.

"Of course, please be seated!" Although Song Ailing didn't like Zhou Hexuan, she still had basic manners and etiquette.

Kong Xiangxi smiled and nodded to Zhou Hexuan, and Kong Lingjie also looked up at Zhou Hexuan, his eyes full of curiosity.

Kong Lingjie is Kong Xiangxi's youngest son, who just turned 16 years old this year, and is seven points similar to his father's appearance, but more delicate and handsome. Before he gained weight, this guy was still a handsome guy, and he was very polite, at least not offensive.

"Mr. Zhou!" Kong Lingjie deliberately stood up to greet him.

"Hello," Zhou Hexuan glanced at the book in the other party's hand and said with a smile, "Kong Gongzi read "Red and Black" at a young age, how much can he understand? ”

Kong Xiangxi smiled and said to his son: "Ling Jie, Mr. Zhou is a great writer, if you have any doubts, you can ask Mr. Zhou for advice." ”

Kong Lingjie explained seriously: "I heard my teacher say that "Red and Black" is the foundation work of European critical realism in the 19th century, and it is a great world masterpiece, so I found it to read. As for how much I can read, I don't know, I just find it interesting. ”

"Hahaha," Zhou Hexuan laughed and praised, "Fun is the motivation for reading, and Kong Gongzi has initially mastered the way of reading." ”

"Really?" Kong Lingjie was quite surprised, after all, the person who praised him was a Nobel Prize winner in literature.

Hearing that her youngest son was praised, Song Ailing said proudly: "A few juniors in our family are Ling Jie's most talented readers, and he has always performed very well in school. ”

No one could have expected that decades later, the richest person in the Kong family would be Kong Lingjie.

This guy has been a diplomat for Lao Jiang for ten years, accumulated deep network resources, and used these resources to engage in foreign trade and securities in the United States. He first bought a large tract of wasteland in Texas, started with underground oil resources, and then entered the real estate industry in the United States, and his net worth far exceeded that of his father and brother.

Unlike Scrooge's father and arrogant brother, Kong Lingjie is very low-key and extremely insecure. He rarely appears in public, and he has turned his villa into a bunker with a fully equipped underground air-raid shelter with an emergency room, a detention room, a fire extinguishing system, a power supply system, and a recreation area.

The bunker villa, with its main gate built into a turret, is equipped with protective steel armor to not only defend against bombardment and tank assaults, but also has an artificial lake built above the shelter to prevent neutron penetration in the event of a nuclear bomb.

God knows what Kong Lingjie thinks, he actually built a bunker villa for himself in the United States, and also took the nuclear bombing into account.

Could it be that it was blown up in Chongqing?

It's a wonderful family.

Zhou Hexuan chatted without a word, and after a while, Kong Lingyi, who had finished dancing, also came over and sat next to Zhou Hexuan and chattered non-stop.

Facing several Kong family members, Zhou Hexuan couldn't help but think of Kong Lingkan, who was studying in the United States.

Doesn't Prince Kong like other people's wives?

Zhou Hexuan satisfied him very benevolently, and asked his friends from the Hongmen General Hall in Wuzhou to help Kong Lingkan find a white beauty in her 30s. That woman is an outdated Hollywood star, she used to perform in musical and dance dramas on Broadway, and she changed her husband five times before and after, and now this one is not divorced, which is just in line with the taste of Prince Kong.

Since last fall, Kong Lingkan has not gone to school much, dancing and watching movies with married women all day long. The woman completely regarded Kong Lingkan as a mobile bank, and in just a few months, she had squandered 20,000 US dollars, almost squeezing out the funds for Kong Dagongzi's study abroad.

The woman's husband, who was on the verge of bankruptcy during the Great Depression, ran a factory but owed a large amount of money to the bank. Hongmen is setting up a trap to pit him, and when this man is cornered, he will definitely make up his mind from Kong Lingkan.

When the time comes, he will send gunmen to take advantage of the chaos to ensure that Kong Lingkan's death is not clear, and it has nothing to do with Zhou Hexuan.

In order to kill Kong Lingkan, Zhou Hexuan took out $50,000 for his activities. This huge amount of money is enough for the Hongmen brothers to help, after all, some of the Hongmen are poor.

On the deck, Zhou Hexuan talked and laughed with the Kong family, without any sense of guilt in his heart, because it was not a pity for people like Kong Lingkan to die, and letting him live could only harm the Chinese people.

"Mr. Zhou, I heard that you know the King and Crown Prince of Sweden?" Kong Xiangxi asked suddenly.

Zhou Hexuan said: "It's just acquaintance, there is no friendship." Minister Kong is going to visit Sweden? ”

Kong Xiangxi nodded and said: "Yesterday, I received a secret telegram from China, Wang Jingqi, the minister in Sweden and Norway, to inform me that Sweden has a lot of bank deposits, and the country's banks and businesses are interested in cooperating with China. The most important thing is that Sweden has no international ambitions, and borrowing from them does not have to worry about future trouble. ”

Zhou Hexuan suggested: "If you want to borrow from Sweden, it is too early to cooperate, and the cooperation between the two countries is purely commercial interests." Now that Japan is eyeing the tiger, it is very likely that some more incidents will break out, and if there is an incident, Sweden's confidence in China will be reduced, and the difficulty of cooperation will also increase. ”

Public is public, private is private.

Zhou Hexuan tried to kill Kong Lingkan with all his intentions, and on the other hand, he spared no effort to help Kong Xiangxi come up with ideas, because borrowing from Sweden is an act that is beneficial to the country.

Historically, Kong Xiangxi traveled all over Europe and the United States, asking for loans everywhere. Sweden also intended to borrow, but before the negotiations were completed, a full-scale war of resistance suddenly broke out, and the Swedes were afraid that they would lose all their money, so they immediately canceled the original loan plan.

It is very interesting to say that although the "golden decade" of the Republic of China has been ridiculed, it is real in the eyes of the great powers. With the continuous victory of the Nanjing government in the civil war and the smooth implementation of the unified tax policy, the Chinese market is more and more favored by the foreign powers.

Coupled with the world economic crisis in the past few years, capital from all over the world has sought profits in China. In the past few years, consortiums from Germany, the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy and other countries have flocked to the city to sign railway loan contracts with the Chinese government.

Even the American consortium, which has always been extremely cold to Chinese borrowing, has changed its view at this time. At present, Pearson, president of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, is personally visiting China to discuss cooperation with Zhang Jiaxuan, Minister of Railways, and is willing to provide China with a large amount of credit.

Zhou Hexuan saw that the Japanese were about to call, while the American ambassador to China, Jensen, saw a rapidly developing Republic of China.

Jensen made a special call to the US State Department and said: "Many foreigners cannot but be deeply impressed by China's achievements in agriculture, industry, transportation and other fields in recent years...... Under the leadership of the Nationalist Government, a period of economic development has arrived. Jensen also said that Britain, France, Germany and other national consortia have already provided large loans to China, and the US government should also actively participate in investing in China.

From Jensen's report, it can be seen that on the eve of the all-out war of resistance against Japanese aggression in 1937, China's development momentum was extremely optimistic about the foreign powers. If it had not been for the Japanese invasion, Chang Kaishen would have spent another ten years gradually eradicating the domestic warlords, and China would have at least developed to a certain level of prosperity, if not a strong country.

But history has no ifs......