The first agricultural university did not need so much money in the early days, so Hu Xiaoyan left two million taels of silver, and then transferred a group of agricultural teachers and students from Shanghai Chengxin University to support. Two million taels of silver were mainly used to buy land and build new schools. Zhang Jian has connections and capital in Nantong, and it is really good to hand over the affairs of this university to him.

After bidding farewell to Zhang Jian, Hu Xiaoyan returned to Shanghai.

Since leaving Shanghai for Beijing, Hu Xiaoyan has been asking Yan Zhuzhu, who stayed in Shanghai, to prepare for the auction and distribute invitations.

The auction was all royal collections he had acquired from the palace. Yan Zhuzhu personally commanded more than 100 pawnshop bosses in Shanghai and Beijing, and personally selected them one by one.

This kind of thing should have started at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and in fact, this is not to blame on ordinary people and banana people. If the country is backward, it will be beaten if it is backward.

China's backwardness is, on the one hand, backwardness in science and technology, and on the other hand, backwardness in culture. Confucianism has not kept up with the pace of development of the times. If you want to change the situation of worshipping foreign countries, you must start from the cultural aspect, Yan Fu's retro movement under the influence of Hu Xiaoyan is a trick of Hu Xiaoyan, Yan Fu alone is not enough, starting from Wei Yuan, it has been so many years, China has indeed changed, but it has changed too little. Yan Fu alone is not enough.

Yan Fu changed the concept of the Chinese people from within Confucianism, while Hu Xiaoyan changed the foreigners' perception of the Chinese from the outside. The auction was specially arranged by Hu Xiaoyan for this purpose.

Since ancient times, the most worthy collection of antiques, everyone is inconsistent, the public says that the public is reasonable, and the mother-in-law says that the mother-in-law is reasonable. But there is no doubt that the most expensive collection is always the most worth collecting.

The price of one of Van Gogh's famous paintings may even exceed the price of Qianlong's jade seal. This is a clear proof that foreigners look down on Chinese culture and discriminate against Chinese!

If you want to change this perception, if you want to make Chinese proud, spending money is always the best and last way.

In order to achieve the desired effect, Hu Xiaoyan specially arranged five trustees: the two sons of the Ye family, Li Jingmai, the youngest son of the Li family, Zhang Zhidong's eldest son Zhang Renquan, and Yuan Shikai's confidant Xu Shichang. There is also a volunteer Yu Qiaqing.

On the Chinese side, as long as the rich people who are slightly famous, all have received invitations, led by Yixuan. On the foreign side, in addition to Miss Roosevelt of the United States, who has not yet returned, there are also Prince Hirohito of Japan, Prince Alexei of Russia, and Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, who came all the way from Germany. The others were ministers of various countries, as well as some merchants.

The first intention of this auction is, of course, to use the auction to promote the study of Chinese culture in various countries, so that countries around the world can face up to Chinese culture and Chinese art. Another intention is in Japan.

How did Japan survive the financial crisis when it was financially strapped thirty or forty years ago? Auction Chinese Antiques!

From Sheng Xuanhuai to Hu Xueyan to the Jin Merchants Ningbo Gang and other Chinese tycoons have been invited to participate in such auctions in Tokyo, Japan. Japanese officials are auctioning off antiques looted from China at high prices. Each antique is worth at least a million taels of silver. As long as ten pieces are auctioned, it is more than 10 million taels of silver.

Historically, after the Japanese army entered the city of Beijing, they took possession of the treasures in the palace, and in the future, these antiques were again auctioned by the Japanese to obtain the financial income that the Japanese army urgently needed.

Many people are still propagating that Japan is among the most disciplined and least murderous countries among the Eight-Nation Alliance. In fact, these idiots didn't even consider that it would be difficult to keep those antiques with Japanese troops, where would they have the spare strength to kill people and set fires? Japan even had to hire civilians in Beijing to do some of the defensive pressure for them.

In this time and space, Japan did not take advantage of a single hair in Beijing, and lost 10,000 or 20,000 infantry. So in order to raise money, sooner or later, the Japanese base camp will hold another such auction to raise money.

Therefore, it has become necessary for Hu Xiaoyan to hold such an auction before this to absorb private capital. He did not want to conquer Japan through war. Japan's strength is not weak, and it is too difficult for China, which does not have a navy, to defeat the Japanese army. And the air boat, because it is restrained by anti-aircraft machine guns, is almost an impossible task to hit the Japanese mainland quickly.

Although there is no news that Japan has developed an anti-aircraft machine gun, Hu Xiaoyan will definitely not despise the Japanese. Japan is undoubtedly the most powerful country in Asia. There is no absolute chance of winning, and Hu Xiaoyan will definitely not make a move easily.

If Japan is not attacked by troops, then it can only economically disintegrate Japan's potential. In this auction, Hu Xiaoyan took out eighty or ninety pieces of his collection, ensuring that all the powerful businessmen present could buy one or two pieces. And every object that is at least a thousand years old, no matter how cheap it is, can make these powerful businessmen feel pain for a long time. When Japan holds such auctions in the future, these big businessmen will no longer have the money to contribute to the Japanese economy.

The auction was a complete success, but unfortunately only Prince Alexei of Russia bought two, while Miss Roosevelt of the United States bought one, and Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany bought one in a meaningful way. As for Japan's Hirohito and the major ministers, they didn't make a move at all! As for the merchants of other countries, they were so frightened by the high price that they did not dare to make a move.

Tens of millions of pounds to buy a Chinese antique, without knowing the European market conditions, these foreign businessmen really dare not make a move.

Behind the success of this auction is that Yan Zhuzhu spent a lot of time studying the personalities, hobbies, and collection characteristics of those invited Manchu businessmen, etc., before finally confirming the types and quantities of auctions.

Yan Zhuzhu should be the first credit in this auction!

Hu Xiaoyan's mind was not at the auction. The conversation after the auction is the point.

In the subsequent meeting, Germany's Crown Prince Wilhelm was very talkative, and several technical cooperation agreements were reached, and the railway issue was even more decided. The railway investment of up to 100 million marks was simply negotiated by the two. However, the issue of the final Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge cannot be discussed in any way.

Is the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge easy to build? It's easy to say, it's hard to say. Later generations of China were easily built without any external forces.

The Germans of this era specially sent more than 100 engineers and designers to Nanjing for field investigations, and finally they referred to the design of the Jinshan Bridge in the United States. The feasibility of the construction of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge was affirmed.

But herein lies the problem, because the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge is too long, so Germany requires all cement and steel to be imported from Germany!

Hu Xiaoyan, on the other hand, demanded that the required materials be purchased from China.

Everyone can't talk about it!

The words of the German experts are also very reasonable, because China's steel industry has just developed, and even the powerful Maanshan Iron and Steel is not recognized by the Germans. If Hu Xiaoyan only wants to build a century-old bridge, then they will accept Chinese steel and cement. But if Hu Xiaoyan wants a bridge that will last for hundreds of years, then he will have to accept German steel and cement.

They even produced a data drawing comparing the quality of German steel and cement with Chinese steel and cement. The Germans are really rigorous and well prepared for this.

China's steel and cement have failed in various tests on the drawings!

Hu Xiaoyan does not believe that this data is the average of steel in Germany. Their data should be the latest developed steel formulas and cement formulas! In order to obtain a large order for raw materials for the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge.

But this is unacceptable to Hu Xiaoyan. If he wants to develop his country's heavy industry, he must continue to invest, and this investment cannot be unlimited. Preferably one that is supported by an order and is able to produce blood on its own.

Wilhelm II explained very mildly, affirming that the data came from the latest steel and cement formulas, but his words did impress Hu Xiaoyan.

"This bridge will be the greatest wonder of the century. Governor Hu didn't want this bridge to collapse if it couldn't hold on to a hundred years of history. ”

"If it is an ordinary bridge, even if it is a 1,000-meter long bridge, China's steel and cement are up to standard, but more than 4,000 meters long Yangtze River Bridge, even we in Germany have not built it, in order to be preferred, it is better to use steel and cement from Germany. We don't want the bridge to suddenly collapse halfway through construction. This is not only irresponsible to your country, but also a kind of negation of our country's technology. ”

The last sentence touched Hu Xiaoyan.

"Half against half. If all steel and cement were bought from Germany, the price would be too high. We can't accept it. You ask the expert to calculate the dosage, and we buy half of the amount. For the other half, I invite your country to provide a formula for production and use in our country. Of course, we will pay royalties. ”

When Crown Prince William heard this, he did not reply immediately, but waited until the next day to agree.

Neither mentioned the agreement presided over by Dou Nale to ban the export of new technology to the Manchus.

After the German affairs are settled, all that remains is the problem of Japan and Russia. As for Miss Roosevelt of the United States, she continued to return to Beijing to negotiate with Tang Shaoyi. Tang Shaoyi, an opponent who was somewhat familiar with the United States, made Miss Roosevelt very uncomfortable.

Japan's Prince Hirohito is still very young, and he is not to be outdone in the face of the old man of Russia, Prince Alexei. Hu Xiaoyan just provoked it a little. Hirohito sneered at Alexei unceremoniously. How can Alexey, Prince Maozi, endure it? Immediately said that if Japan continues to exist in the Northeast, the Maozi will mobilize the navy from Russia to teach the Japanese dwarf how to behave well!

Prince Hirohito, of course, did not believe that Russia would send a navy as far away as Europe to Asia to fight a war with the Japanese navy, which was the largest navy in Asia! After all, Hirohito is not a traverser!

It's a pity that Hirohito didn't expect that the reason why the polar bear is a polar bear is because Lao Maozi's brain is full of vodka!

The day after Prince Alexei sent back the telegram, Prince Nicholas II roared at rejecting the advice of several sane ministers, desperately demanding that the Russian Pacific Fleet make a sortie in Asia. As the commander of the historical fleet was Stepan Osipovi Makarov

The Russo-Japanese War escalated!