"Lord Wang, Lord Zhongtang also said that he wanted to ask for credit for Qin Kai, but I haven't seen the excerpt yet, but I heard that the French Minister Deliku went to see Lord Zhongtang as if he had burned his ass!"

Prince Gong sighed, his tense face loosened a little, and he smiled slightly, this war is a war, but in the end, we have to sit down and talk slowly, it seems that Li Zhongtang has a drama over there, I guess I want to wait for my eyebrows, and report to the court together! Otherwise, where will the face of this Huai army be placed!

He took a sip of water to moisten his throat, "I entered the palace to see the Queen Mother yesterday, and this reward must be rewarded, but the Queen Mother also said two words, which put me in a dilemma......"

Li Hongzao is more concerned about Qin Kai's affairs, this Qin Liefeng seems to be very close to Zhang Peilun recently, this is a good thing, now Qingliu's power is getting bigger, Zhang Zhidong and Zhang Peilun have outstanding political achievements after being released, and their voices in the court are a little stronger, thinking of this, he asked: "What did the Queen Mother say?" Lord Wang,"

"The pillars of the country should be rewarded and punished!" Prince Gong opened his mouth and said, smiling slightly, "Princess, what do you think of the Queen Mother's words!" ”

These people are all people who understand, "rewards and punishments are clear", this is very simple, it is not simple, put this "pillar of the country" in front, whose country is this now? The country of the Queen Mother and the country of the Qing Dynasty, whoever proposes to reward it, if there is something in the future, it will be a disaster for the country of the Qing Dynasty and the country of the Queen Mother!

Li Hongzao was also stunned when he heard it, what kind of idea did the Queen Mother make, last time she mentioned the chief general of the Gui Army, the Queen Mother chose the 60-year-old old man Xu Yanxu, this time the credit has reached the point where he has to be rewarded, and he is still thinking about these unreliable things, but this matter is actually easy to do, he pondered for a while.

"Lord Wang, yesterday's excerpts from Zhang Peilun, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and Ding Richang, the governor of Fujian, arrived, and they all asked for rewards, and Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Hubei, the minister of Nanyang, and Liu Kun, the governor of Liangguang, were all on the fold! In this matter, I think let's let Ding Richang get up, this Qin Kai is not his subordinate! ”

Prince Gong Wang Yi nodded, for Li Hongzao's set of promoters of Tai Chi out of the matter, they are bosom friends, this Ding Richang is also a multi-faceted person, no one can be offended, everyone still sells his account, not a simple character, this matter should be up to him, look at several other military ministers, all of them have the same meaning.

Weng Tong, the secretary of the Ministry of Industry on the side, took notes, and later he could report to the Queen Mother according to this tone, and after remembering it, he looked up at Li Hongzao, the secretary of the Ministry of Officials, "Lan Sun, now the position of the governor, is there still a shortage in that province?" ”

Li Hongzao looked up at Weng Tongyi, "This Qin Kai is already a political envoy from the second rank, and if he gives a governor from the second rank, it seems that the reward is lower......

Jinglian, the secretary of the Ministry of War, said: "Li Shangshu, this court's reward, the courtiers can still pick and choose, but this merit seems to be a little bigger, just to a real governor at the same level, I'm afraid there will be unclear comments on the court's rewards and punishments...... Doesn't this Qin Kai like to lead military ships, then let him lead the commander of the Nanyang Naval Division, this commander is a first-class position! ”

"No!" Prince Gong on the side immediately opened his mouth to deny this resolution, lowered his head and thought about it, and said: "This military position must not be given, the Queen Mother will definitely not like it when she sees it, I think so, in addition to the position of Nanyang Minister of Liu Kunyi, the Governor of Liangguang, Qin Kai was awarded the governor of Guangdong and the Minister of Nanyang, and supervised the military affairs of the Nanyang Naval Division, so that he and Liu Kunyi could contain each other......

"The prince is clever!!" Several bigwigs of the Military Aircraft Department naturally admired the way of employing the six princes, this trick can be regarded as calculating the Hunan army and the Huai army, this Qin Kai's position has always been difficult to judge, starting from the foundation of the Hunan army, and Li Zhongtang has a relationship.

But the Huai army obviously has reservations about the treatment of Qin Kai, and the Hunan army boss, in fact, Qin Kai has never had a relationship, Zuo Dashuai is still on the way back to Beijing, and he doesn't know where to go, Liu Kunyi has little contact with him, this time he took Liu Kunyi's Nanyang minister and awarded Qin Kai, which is somewhat related to the face of officialdom......

And for Qin Kai, in fact, this promotion is very limited, and the official rank is not mentioned, but a high-grade Nanyang minister is added, the biggest advantage is that he is the actual governor of Guangdong, but the two Guangxi governors are covered with it, which is somewhat a big containment, in fact, the Hunan army is all over the two Guangzhous, and it is not easy to create a world here. ,

On the same day, the excerpt of the military aircraft department entered the palace, and it is intriguing that Qin Kai's excerpt on the issue of Nanyang labor was also sent in, and this time the old lady of the West Palace was quite satisfied with Yi's opinion, this Han man in charge of the army is not a good thing for the Manchus, but it is ...... Are there still Manchurians who can take charge of the army?

Since the death of the monk Greenqin who can fight, the Manchu generals have completely declined, the Eight Banners Army is like a fictitious, even the green battalion soldiers have become waste, and now the strongest army in the Qing Dynasty is the provincial governors, the governors of the hands of the soldiers and horses, if you want to move the military power of these people, the first thing to move is the Li Zhongtang who is in charge of more than 60 thousand soldiers and has the Beiyang Naval Division!!

At that time, this Lord Li was light and moving! This Qin Kai is a newcomer, but he is in charge of a weak Nanyang naval division, but he has played a more majestic record than Beiyang, this is a big foreshadowing, the old woman pondered, if this Li Zhongtang can be made big by this Nanyang, it will also be a strange thing......

This way of checks and balances is the only law of the emperor's mind, the old woman thought of this and felt that she had found a new way to check and balance Li Zhongtang, and when she smiled, she saw the excerpt played by Qin Kai, this cutting-edge excerpt is rare, and I opened it to take a look at it while curious, but it was the affairs of the Nanyang Chinese laborers, this Qin Kai naturally had to teach well, but this kind of irrelevant question, but you might as well let it go, and the combination of grace and power is the way to employ people.

Two days later, he turned back to the excerpt of the military aircraft department on Qin Kai's reward, the Empress Dowager's instructions made Prince Gong a little confused, in the original position of the governor of Guangdong, the minister of Nanyang supervised the military affairs of the Nanyang Naval Division, the queen mother specially rewarded the third-class baron, and at the same time, for the labor problems reported by Qin Kai, the queen mother instructed the new minister of Nanyang to have full authority to deal with overseas civil affairs and military affairs.

After thinking about it, Prince Gong also had to admire the shrewdness of the Queen Mother, and he gave Qin Kai a stumbling block for Liu Kunyi, and the Queen Mother gave him a messenger to deal with overseas affairs, which inevitably had some contradictions with the Minister of Beiyang...... In the military boundary of the Qing Dynasty, with the Beiyang and Hunan armies, this day can be better! ——

Borneo and Kuching Harbor, the rice flag of the Sunset Empire fluttering on the harbor declares that this is one of the overseas territories of the powerful Sunset Empire, in fact, this is just the territory of the North Borneo Company, the Sunset Empire occupied a piece of colony with their ships and guns, and then relied on a large number of such companies to operate their global commercial dumping network.

However, for now, the North Borneo Company is a real bankruptcy, the British Empire has a perfect legal system, even if it is an overseas colony, it is not that the British can find a piece of land to raise the national flag, and then they can get British support and become the governor of the colony, and North Borneo is one of these countries that has not been recognized by the British Empire.

The British Royal Concession was one of the necessary diplomas for these British adventurers, and the land leased by the Americans from the indigenous Sultan of Sulu in the Philippines changed hands several times before it reached the current company, and the chairman of the North Borneo Company was also a figure who had shown his face in China's modern history - Sir Rutherford Alcock, the former consul in Shanghai, whose Chinese name Ali Guo was more familiar to the Chinese people.

Ali Guo is not a good bird, pit Meng abduction is his forte, the huge lease of Shanghai Beach in the Ten Mile Ocean Field is this masterpiece, and now it is changing hands and doing business in the colony, you must know that this is a business of 10,000 miles, just borrow the guns of the British, sign a large piece of land to the local indigenous sultan, and then you can start enslaving the locals.

The Dent family, which owns the rights and interests of North Borneo, is not bad at all compared to the name of Ali Guo, the English name of the family founder is Lancelot Dent, the owner of Guangzhou Baoshun Foreign Company, this English name is the same name as the cattle man in King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, but it does not remind the Chinese of anything, but his other Chinese translation name "Turbulence" can also be regarded as a name in modern history, of course, leaving a notoriety.

It can be said that it was one of the craziest opium dealers in the early days, when Lin Zexu Humen sold cigarettes, he once wanted this guy, and let this guy stink for 10,000 years, Guangzhou Baoshun Foreign Company was also one of the three major foreign companies that imported opium into China in the late Qing Dynasty [the other two are Jardine (Jardine, Matheson&Co., also known as Jardine's Foreign Company), Qichang Foreign Company (Rusell &Co.)].

Now the opium trade is naturally still a profiteering industry, but the industry of the Tudi family has turned to a more promising colonial industry, of course, the way of obtaining benefits in this era is still relatively primitive, the most basic way of operation is to open up sugar cane plantations, rubber plantations, and farm management, but almost unlimited labor is the root of the wealth of zào, of course, if there is a suitable way to obtain resources, these colonial agents with the name of the company will naturally not hesitate at all. ,

And recently Ali Guo has just received the news that the path he took with Count Guò Chakra has finally come into effect, and the British authorities may soon grant them an official charter, which was originally a good thing, but this time it is in response to a common saying in the East - good things are grinding, and when he was just preparing to build the North Borneo Company, the port turned out to be a huge fleet.

It is impossible for the North Borneo Company to obtain the support of the Strait of Malacca Fleet 600 kilometers away without obtaining a royal concession, and he is naturally very aware of this point as he has considerable experience in British Far East officialdom, and the British Empire will not expend force for a matter that has no interests, of course, provided that there are no interests......

And this unauthorized, synonymous with no interest, and his present position is somewhere in between, and if it could not prove the value of the North Borneo Company, the British Empire would not have wasted its military power to protect a useless port that did not contribute to the British commercial network.

Therefore, Ali Guo immediately took his 30-man mercenary army to the port to explore the limelight, and to his surprise, it turned out to be a Qing fleet, including two warships and four cargo ships. Although Ali Guo had been running a colonial company for seven or eight years as a British consul, he still knew a little about the situation in the Qing Dynasty......

Hell today, those stupid Manchu bureaucrats will also send fleets to escort trade? And it also appeared thousands of miles away from the sea area of the Great Qing Kingdom!! He finally gave up thinking about it, and decided to go on board the ship to meet the head of the fleet, as the chairman of the British North Borneo Company.

This is naturally the Second Fleet led by Lu Zhiyuan, they were ordered to sail all the way along the coastline of Borneo, this Kuching Port is the first place they found that can be called a port, the entire coast of North Borneo is a wild land, it is no wonder, even in later generations, Borneo is still an island covered by tropical rainforests up to 80%, and in this era, the local population is concentrated in scattered villages along the coastline.

Lu Zhiyuan naturally didn't know this old British man Ali Guo, Qin Kai didn't expect that there would be such a person on this road, after entering the port, he immediately found that a large number of local natives were being guarded by the British in the construction of the port, for these Nanyang natives, he did not have any mercy, Qin Kai instilled in them those bloody incidents, so that the Nanyang sailors for these natives to deal with only two kinds, one is to obey, the other is to be immigranted.

And now the British approach, in essence, is similar to Lu Zhiyuan's original intention, he pondered for a moment and then stopped thinking about it, the situation here is indeed as the adults said, it is in the initial stage of construction......

"Report!" A soldier shouted loudly outside the door of the command room.

"Come in! What's the matter? ”

"Report to your lordship, there is an Englishman who says he wants to see the commander of the fleet!" The soldier replied loudly.

This news made Lu Zhiyuan a little surprised, the British are not good birds, but Lord Qin has taken care of it, this time it is to open up a trade route, not to make a living!

Ali Guo on the trestle is observing the two Qing warships moored in the harbor, these are not ironclad ships, the design is still a bit old-fashioned, but there are a lot of naval guns in the black hole, and the caliber is also good, it seems that it should be the main warship of the Great Qing Kingdom!

At this time, a large number of heavily armed soldiers calmly descended from the warship, the other party's weapons looked very advanced, and the training and state of the soldiers were not to be underestimated, which made him worry a little more, could it be that these Chinese really came to Nanyang to grab territory?

The last to get off the boat was a young and stern officer wearing the five-cloud suit of the Qing Navy, the officer glanced at the old British man not far away, and asked the pro-soldier next to him in a low voice, with a stern expression, he actually said in English: "This English gentleman, what are you looking for me?" ”

Now Ali Guo almost had the feeling of dropping his jaw, this incompetent army of the Qing Kingdom, when did the officers be able to communicate in English, but now is not the time to express surprise, he stepped forward to bow his hand with Chinese etiquette, and also said in Chinese: "This lord, I am the chairman of the British North Borneo Company, entrusted by the British Empire, to manage the affairs related to North Borneo!"

Ali Guo, who was born as a diplomat, naturally knows the truth of pulling the banner of the tiger bark tree, and the sun never sets on the empire, so there is no need to use it in vain, but the other party smiled and punctured his tiger skin at once. ,

"North Borneo Company?" Lu Zhiyuan smiled, walked two steps to Ali Guo's side, leaned up and whispered: "Mr. A Liguo, I'm afraid your company may not be authorized by the royal family......

These words frightened Ali Guo, his old heart beat a few more times, this is too terrifying, when did the Qing people who are extremely closed know to this Cheng Dù...... However, the other party's next words made him calm again.

"But...... We are only here to do trade, Mr. Aliko, I see that there are a lot of indigenous people here, we have a large number of good quality goods to supply to you, and besides, I would like to sign a long-term cooperation agreement with the North Borneo company, and I hope to obtain the right to purchase the raw materials produced locally in the future, of course...... It was purchased at the market price! ”

This is undoubtedly a surprise for Ali Guo, after the opening of the port, the most hope is naturally a large number of merchant ships to and fro, can obtain taxes, sell local resources, and at present North Borneo is a mess, how can there be business to the door, I didn't expect someone to send business to the door today.

"Your Excellency's surname?"

"My surname is Lu, and I am an officer of the Nanyang Naval Division!"

"Lord Lu, there is no problem at all, Kuching Port will provide the best supply for the Nanyang Naval Division......"

"Very good", Lu Zhiyuan interrupted Ali Guo's nonsense, beckoned to call a shopkeeper who was with the ship, bowed his head and explained two sentences.

Shopkeeper Wang came up with a smile and said to Ali Guo: "Lord Ali Guo, why don't we take a look at the goods and quality that our Mawei Shipping Company can provide for your company, and then come to Lord Lu to sign a cooperation contract?" ”

After a toss, in the face of a large number of novel and practical goods provided by Mawei Freight, and the price advantage is incomparable to Penang and Singapore, which are important British transit ports in Malacca, the old British man was immediately tempted, and immediately asked to sign a cooperation agreement with the Qing officer surnamed Lu after returning.

Ali Guo is a character born in diplomacy, but in the face of the contract that Lu Zhiyuan took out to restrain each other, he didn't understand it for a while, and at his request, he went back to Ren to study it for a long time to understand, this is definitely a model of a commercial agreement, the terms are complicated but the rights and responsibilities are clear.