No matter how tough he was, Chai Dongliang still could not refuse the temptation of the "Bethlehem Contract", and after the two sides negotiated, the Bethlehem Iron and Steel Company copied the original text of the contract, but the opponent who signed the contract was no longer the Qing Dynasty political axe, but the Guanghua Group Corporation in Shanghai. This secret treaty between countries is smeared with a layer of protection from a commercial contract. According to the provisions of the contract, all funds belong to special loans, which must be supervised and used by the commercial representative of the Bethlehem Company in China in accordance with international accounting and auditing principles, and Chai Dongliang and the Anhui Military Advisory Office are not allowed to arbitrarily embezzle a penny.

Of course, this contract was still top secret, and Chai Dongliang instructed the newspaper to lightly publish the news that the Shanghai Guanghua Group Corporation had received an order from South America to produce two heavy armored cruisers with a displacement of 4,800 tons for the Chilean Navy. There is no doubt that this is a trick jointly made by Chai Dongliang and the Bethlehem Company to cover up the plan of China and the United States to cooperate in building a new navy. Since it is necessary to build warships for the Chilean Navy, it is only natural that the renovation and expansion of the Guanghua Shipyard and Arsenal in Shanghai will be a matter of course, and as for the use of American technology for transformation, it is also the decision of the businessmen themselves, and it has nothing to do with the political axe. Moreover, it is also declared that all important parts and components are imported, and Guanghua Shipyard only produces the hull part of the ship with low technical requirements.

Chai Dongliang knew very well that once the "Bethlehem Contract" was made public, and the people knew that the loan would have to be supervised and used by the Americans, they would definitely be put on their heads. Chinese do not understand the international accounting principles, and always feel that the borrowed money must be used by themselves at will, otherwise it will be a loss of power and humiliation of the country??? It has long been rumored outside that Chai Dongliang is the big boss behind the Shanghai Guanghua Group Corporation, and it will be difficult to take off Han Jian's hat after it is buttoned!

It's just that Chai Dongliang vetoed the proposal to build a large-scale military port now, which stimulated himself and Yuan Shikai too much, and some of the gains outweighed the losses. Moreover, Chai Dongliang has been secretly developing new seaplanes and Eagle V-12-cylinder engines in Wuhu, and once it succeeds, it will be equipped with a water aircraft carrier formation, and there is no need to build a bunch of battleships and cruisers to go out to show off. What really made Chai Dongliang excited was that through the loan and technology introduction of the "Bethlehem Contract", a complete set of industrial systems such as chemical, metallurgy, machinery, and electronics were built in China at one time.

It only takes three or five years for Chai Dongliang to build a complete set of industrial systems in Anhui and Shanghai. This is the help that the book friend group can't provide, no matter how good the book friend is, he can't send 30 million US dollars!

As for copying American standards in its entirety now, it is also a helpless move, who makes China's industrial foundation too thin and the country too poor!

As soon as the news spread, such an order obviously did not cause much reaction from the powers, and the foreign newspapers only reprinted the news in the cracks. The production of four 10,000-ton transport ships by the Guanghua Shipyard for the Americans only aroused the pride of the Chinese people, while the production of heavy armored cruisers for the Chilean Navy made the emotions of the Chinese people extremely complicated, some people thought that this was a sign of China's industrial take-off, and more people thought that the Shanghai Guanghua Shipyard had the ability to manufacture such a large warship, but did not contribute to China's coastal defense, and the Han Dynasty was no different!

People from all walks of life have called on the Yanjing Provisional Political Axe to fund the purchase of this soon-to-be-built warship to strengthen the domestic naval force. The heads of Yuan Shikai and Admiralty Chief Liu Guanxiong were noisy. Now that the economy of Yanjing's temporary political axe is on the verge of collapse, if the aftermath cannot be solved in the short term, Yuan Shikai, the big president, will have to step down without others pushing him. Where to pay for this warship that is still on the drawings.

The final result was that Chai Dongliang reluctantly bought the expensive "Feihong" with an American loan, and Britain and Austria-Hungary saw the bargain and sent representatives to Anqing one after another, asking Chai Dongliang to buy several other warships they built for the Qing Dynasty's political axe according to the contract price.

After visiting Anhui and Shanghai, the U.S. minister Jia Leheng was shocked by the huge potential that Chai Dongliang had. Taiping Province has been upgraded to the Ma'anshan Economic Zone, with the same administrative level as the provincial capital Anqing, and a huge coal-steel complex is under construction in Ma'anshan, and when it is completed, Chai Dongliang will have the largest steel plant in the Far East. Although the amount of special steel smelted by Guanghua Iron and Steel Company in Shanghai is not too large, it has a complete range of products, and the quality of many kinds of alloy steel far exceeds that of Pittsburgh in the United States. Although the former Soviet Union imported from Germany and transferred to China, the set of information on the yield strength and metal ratio of steel provided by Ma Xiaobraid is also 20 years ahead of the world!

The commercial representative of the Bethlehem Iron and Steel Company stayed in the Military Advisory Office every day, asking Chai Dongliang to transfer the patented technology. In mining, cement crushing and grinding equipment, Guanghua Group has undoubted world-leading technology. The Bethlehem Company took the lead in ordering 160 sets of vertical kiln cement equipment at a time, and when it was put into operation, cement production in the United States would be completely monopolized by them. Bethlehem Iron and Steel Company no longer dared to regard Guanghua Group as an insignificant ally, but an important partner, and even proposed a share swap between the two parties and each other's own shares in each other's company.

The Bethlehem Company originally had a political purpose of promoting American standards, but shrewd American businessmen introduced Guanghua Group's standards in the first place. On September 15, 1912, starting from this day, the crusher, ball mill and other equipment manufactured by Bethlehem Company will be produced in accordance with the standards of Guanghua Group, and it is believed that in the near future, the entire mine grinding equipment in the United States will adopt the standards of Guanghua Group. In other words, Guanghua Group's standard for mine grinding equipment will become an international standard jointly adopted by China and the United States.

In the eyes of a large conglomerate like the Bethlehem Company, the US political axe is for them, and commercial interests are above all else??? To hell with political purposes!

During the investigation, Jia Leheng found that Chai Dongliang did not vigorously set up government-run enterprises like the local officials of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but provided some key technologies and part of the start-up capital, and then skillfully gave some impetus to the businessman's capital, and the enterprise would naturally develop along the normal track.

In Anqing and Wuhu, he saw the staff of the Military Advisory Office showing movies to the common people about how to elect district chiefs and district councilors. The scope of power of the district council and the district council is clearly conveyed to each and every citizen, so that they know what they will do in the future and what kind of benefits they can pursue. Those who are preparing to run for mayor of the district have made speeches on the streets, promising that if they are elected, they will build public facilities such as libraries, nursing homes, and kindergartens to fight for better educational conditions for school children.

Jia Leheng was pleasantly surprised to find that everything Chai Dongliang did coincided with his own ideas. After the Xinhai Revolution, Jia Leheng sensitively found that the biggest obstacle to China's entry into a constitutional state was not the clean political axe, but the fact that those parliamentarians did not have representative surnames and were completely out of touch with the common people. Since the defeat of the Qing Dynasty's Imperial Yuan, the power of China's nascent legislature has begun to swell. Because of the issue of the right of way in Sichuan, the Qing Dynasty's Senior Administration Yuan collectively voted to pass a resolution demanding that the Qing Dynasty sentence Sheng Xuanhuai to death. At that time, the ministers of various countries in Beijing were in an uproar, and they really could not understand that a legislature should exercise the functions and powers of a court! After entering the Republic of China, the power of the Senate was expanded indefinitely, the political axe and the president became rubber stamps, and in just half a year, the two cabinets collapsed, and Yuan Shikai was even more shrinking and unable to move an inch.

Ben, the United States, and Germany have all unceremoniously pointed out that reform, especially political reform, is becoming a handy tool for local separatist forces. With the deepening of reforms, the country has not only not been cohesive, but on the contrary, it has become more disorganized. Countless small [***] groups and parties have emerged one after another, using constitutionalism as a cover to share the soup from the bowl of the strong, while copying the style of [***] internally, and living the addiction of "little emperor" behind closed doors, and thinking about "he can replace him".

Jia Leheng and the US political axe reached a pessimistic consensus that China can only avoid division and chaos if it is led by a strong figure??? Constitutionalism is such a high-level thing, the Chinese will not learn it for the time being! Therefore, after the Xinhai Revolution, the United States also had to submit to the will of the British and supported Yuan Shikai to become the ruler of China.

But in Anhui, Jia Leheng saw a completely different scene, Chai Dongliang's implementation of the district council and district government axe election, strict regulations on their respective spheres of power, and the election began in Anqing and Wuhu, the most educated and the most civilized, and after reaping practical results, the district and county elections were gradually expanded.

Reducing the power of the provincial council bureaus and expanding the powers of the district and county council bureaus and political axes was the beginning of the separation of powers, and starting from the most educated areas, it avoided the possibility of illiterate peasants being wantonly deceived by the gentry, and it was easier to achieve tangible results.

Chai Dongliang's efforts are gradually changing this situation, moderate but resolute land reform has reduced the possibility of unrest and riots in the ruling areas, the balance of power between the provincial and county political axes will become the basis for internal stability, and the nationalization of the mineral resources of Anhui and Jiujiang will benefit all the people in the areas he rules, so that every people will become staunch supporters of Chai Dongliang's reforms. Different from the constitutional reform of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, which was beneficial but not practical, and also different from the comprehensive and constitutional government that Song Jiaoren and others expected to be achieved overnight, Anhui adopted the route of taking small steps quickly, which seemed to have made little progress, but every step was solid and powerful.

Chai Dongliang was originally just a partner of the American political axe, but Jia Leheng found that this move was extremely wise, and the ruler of Anhui was obviously more suitable to be an important ally in the future than the powerful but twilight Beiyang, the idealistic Southern Revolutionary Party that was only good at destruction but not proficient in construction.

Although Chai Dongliang's economic and industrial strength is pitiful by American standards, the number of troops is not large, and the people are generally poor, Jia Leheng has found that this region is full of vitality, this kind of thing has appeared in the Spanish navigators who have crossed the ocean, in the pirates of the British private plunderers, in the American cowboys who have developed the west, and now, it has appeared on the other side of the ocean, in those who have been [***] Domination torments on the insensitive yellow race.

This thing is called hope, which is a beautiful vision of the foreseeable future, as long as there is hope, all miracles can be created,?? Hopefully, this kind of thing has always been a luxury in China, belonging only to politicians and elites, but in Anhui, it belongs to every most ordinary person.

Hope is the foundation of a nation's great rejuvenation, and the source of this hope is because the people have deeply realized that Anhui is theirs, Anhui's interests are their interests, the success of the Military Advisory Office is closely related to their personal interests, and the rejuvenation of the nation is the basis for the success or failure of everyone's own destiny!

When the business representatives of Jialeheng and Bethlehem Company visited the construction achievements of Anhui with great interest, Chai Dongliang was worried about the advance army of the expedition in the Military Advisory Office.

In order to prevent Yuan Shikai from being constrained behind his back, Chai Dongliang promised that Anhui would vote for Yuan Shikai to be the official president, and Anhui deputies would collectively join the "Republican Party" formed by Liang Qichao and Tang Hualong. In exchange, Yuan Shikai appointed Kuang Haishan, who had just left the fortress, as a Mongol envoy. After thwarting Jebtsundamba's rebellion, the Mongol advance force was free to decide whether or not to remain in Mongolia.

Although Chai Dongliang and Yuan Shikai both understood that this kind of cooperation was just building a tower in the sand, they tacitly maintained a tacit understanding with each other, and it seemed to the outside world that the advance army of the expedition to Mongolia had spared no effort to support the Yanjing Provisional Political Axe.

In the large conference room of the Military Advisory Office, a huge sand table was set up, and the personnel of the Provisional Staff Headquarters gathered here, repeatedly deducing the future battle situation.

Chai Dongliang was in high spirits, and the huge order for the 160 sets of vertical kiln cement production lines of the Bethlehem Company received 2.6 million US dollars, equivalent to 8 million taels of silver, just for the deposit. The "Bethlehem Contract" stipulates that the investment in a complete set of metallurgical, chemical, mechanical, shipbuilding, and artillery projects will be built with loans from the United States.

"Baotou, which is not only a traditional transit station in Kulen and Kyakhta, but also has huge iron and coal mines, can be built into an industrial and commercial center in the west??? After occupying Baotou, trade with Russia can be carried out on a large scale, and wherever our army goes, Guanghua Bank's banknotes will be issued! If all the Jin merchants use the banknotes issued by us, the money banks and ticket numbers of the West Gang are willing to invest in Guanghua Company, and they can sell some of the shares to them, and if they don't eat the ancients, they will go bankrupt! Chai Dongliang pointed at the sand table with a horsewhip.

Li Zhichang, the president of Guanghua Bank, naturally echoed the voice, which banker does not want to build a huge financial empire by himself?

"Director Yang, your Industrial Bureau should also cooperate with the army's actions and set up a sub-bureau in Baotou, which is a good place to 'forest in the east and iron in the west, grain in the north and grain in the south, and coal everywhere'??? You have to remember that the sword in the hands of the soldier is in the service of the merchant's calculations, and wherever the sword goes, the commercial interests must also be able to be achieved, otherwise the army alone cannot control it. ”

Yang Liren, director of the industrial bureau, also nodded frequently.

Seeing that Chai Dongliang had been talking about future construction, Secretary-General Gao Ming couldn't help but interject: "Governor, Commander Kuang, they have just set foot in Mobei, and it seems too early to talk about this. ”

Chai Dongliang smiled faintly and said leisurely: "Yes, he has just come out of the plug!" ”

(To be continued)