In order to negotiate the loan, Xia Jun began to count his assets.

Xia Jun currently has a lot of assets, as far as East China Group is concerned, it is already very large, involving fields from basic to retail.

Among them, Huadong Bank, steel, building materials, and mining are the largest, and shipbuilding, machinery manufacturing, chemical industry and other fields are expanding rapidly.

In order to obtain the maximum amount of loans, Xia Jun brought Liu Jinshan and Li Shilin to negotiate the use of their industries to take out loans.

Most of their industrial shares are mortgaged in the Bank of East China, which means that the part they mortgage will be taken to the foreigner's bank for loans.

The two have no objection, anyway, it is a political axe loan, and they are not afraid that Xia Jun will not be able to repay the money and really sell their industry, after all, the development speed of the three provinces of East China is obvious to all.

For a qualified operator, if the loan can't even earn back the interest, then there is basically no need to do business again, not to mention that even if it is a loss at that time, it can be repaid with the tax revenue of the three provinces of East China, and there is no risk for them.

On the eve of the outbreak of the First World War, foreign capital will be withdrawn back to the mainland to cope with the war, and the banks will have little energy to deal with the matter of loans.

At the same time, Yuan Shikai also wants to take out a loan, so Xia Jun must also prepare in advance, Xia Jun naturally will not lend all the precious funds to Yuan Shikai, but just intervene in the side and let foreign banks lower their conditions, otherwise Yuan Shikai's negotiations with the banks of the six countries can only be defeated and retreated, and finally those banks will be cheaper.

Following Xia Jun's instructions, Li Shengguo began to focus on the Bank of England and the Bank of Belgium, two of the strongest banks in China.

The Belgian bank can be said to be a very active bank, and the political surname of the loan is low.

The reason why he looked for a British loan was because many of Xia Jun's industries were within the British's sphere of influence, and most of them were the minerals of the East China Mining Company, which were mostly on the territory of the British.

Therefore, Xia Jun needs a loan, once he tears his face with the British, Xia Jun doesn't mind not paying back the money, and Britain is the biggest buyer in World War II, Xia Jun can pay off the loan by selling goods.

…… At this time, the East China Mining Company had already bought a lot of land in Australia, and obtained the prospecting rights in these lands, and in order to mine these minerals, the East China Mining Company began to recruit miners in China to mine overseas.

Since the mining machinery of East China Mining Company is directly exchanged by Xia Jun from the exchange platform, it is a very advanced machinery, and the labor intensity of the miners is not too high.

Moreover, to go to Australia, South Africa and other places to mine, the monthly salary is not less than 4 yuan, which is twice the salary in China, for which East China Mining Company quickly recruited many miners.

The first to be excavated is a large copper mine in southeastern Australia, which has been explored for reserves of at least 4 million tons.

Seventy-three per cent of Australia's copper deposits are concentrated in South Australia, where nearly half of the copper has been discovered, but nearly half remains undiscovered.

followed by Queensland, with 11%; New South Wales and Western Australia again, with 9 per cent and 6 per cent respectively. The copper reserves of Australia as a whole are 77.8 million tons, accounting for about 12% of the world's copper reserves.

The East China Mining Company has already begun to buy these lands, and the main areas of the purchase are in South Australia, which is the most developed area of Australia, and the exploration here is the most frequent.

Because the East China Mining Company buys the land first and then obtains the prospecting rights, the land price is very low, and if the land is prospected first and then the land is bought, the land price will soar hundreds of times.

As a result, East China Mining Company has saved huge costs.

At the time of the planned excavation of copper mines in the southeast, East China Mining Company was already planning to build a large mine in the western Pilbara region.

Iron ore mines are found in all states of Austria, and the state with the most iron ore mines is Western Australia. Western Australia has 90% of all iron ore discoveries in the world, mainly in the Pilbara region. There are a total of 13 mines in the area.

To build a mine in the Pilbara region, a railway had to be built, and in terms of funding, the East China Mining Company already had enough money, and now there are only a few workers.

When workers arrive in Australia, their families can also go with them, and the East China Mining Company will become the vanguard of East China's autonomous political axe to emigrate to Australia.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Australia's population was still small, at this time Australia's population was only about 4.5 million, but Australia was implementing the so-called 'White Australia' policy at this time, and there was a racial immigration restriction bill, but it was not passed.

The Language Restriction Act was introduced, which prevented anyone who could not speak English from immigrating to Australia, and the last tester was a journalist in 1909 who was apparently happiest because he was fluent in five languages, and the journalist had been exiled in Ireland for not being able to read or write.

Now that Australia has abolished these systems, the East China Autonomous Government can therefore immigrate to Australia.

Xia Jun is very low-key in his immigration to Australia, but he regards this matter as a national strategy, and now Australia's population is still very small, as long as he continues to immigrate to Australia, then he can control Australia in the future.

While immigrating to Australia, Xia Jun is also smuggling arms into Australia and sending professional soldiers to infiltrate Australia.

Australia is a large country with a small population, and if you want to smuggle into Australia, you just need to use your brains to smuggle it is not too difficult.

If the Australian authorities take any means to restrict and exclude the Chinese, the Chinese in Australia will immediately enter a state of insurrection.

At the same time, the nickel and chrome mines of East China Mining Company in the Philippines and South Africa have also entered the mine construction stage, and it is much easier to immigrate to these two places, but Xia Jun is not ready to think about South African immigration, but concentrates on immigrating to Nanyang and Australia, and South America is also one of the directions of his immigration.

Xia Jun immigrated to the Philippines while smuggling arms to various parts of the South Seas, and sent some professional soldiers to infiltrate the islands of the South Seas to conduct armed training for the Chinese in the South Seas.

The hundreds of young people from Nanyang and Australia are still in training, so they have not been sent back, and it will take at least two years of training to send them back to Nanyang and Australia.

Immigration to Nanyang is currently limited to the Philippines, as the East China Mining Company only operates business in the Philippines.

However, in the future, Xia Jun's investment in Nanyang will expand, and all companies will develop in the direction of Nanyang, and then it will be the time for a large number of immigrants to Nanyang.

…… Li Shengguo's negotiations with the foreign banks went smoothly and not, and the most smooth of them was not surprisingly the Belgian bank.

Belgians are very active in lending in China, and the Longhai Railway and the Jinghan Railway were built with their loans, and the Belgians are more greedy for many industries in the East China Group.

Among them, the most coveted are the pharmaceutical manufacturing companies of the East China Group, as well as the railways under construction in the three provinces of East China.

The success of the negotiations between the two sides was that the Belgians had no political conditions attached, they only wanted to mortgage things.

Soon Li Shengguo reached the first commercial loan agreement with the Bank of Belgium, that is, the Bank of East China pledged the shares of the two main railway roads to the Bank of Belgium in exchange for a loan of 8 million pounds, that is, nearly 90 million yuan.

The railway is very valuable, but it does not cost so much money to build the two main roads of Fujian, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang provinces. The interest rate on the loan is only 3.5%, because this is a medium-term loan, only for 6 years, so the interest is lower than that of a long-term loan.

In the loan negotiation with the British HSBC bank, the British began to negotiate the conditions, and Li Shengguo immediately refused and turned to other banks to negotiate loans.

Seeing this, the British bank HSBC immediately abandoned its political conditions when it learned that the East China Group had signed a loan with a Belgian bank.

Because they have decided that it is only a business loan. Although the East China Group is the head of the East China political axe, its surname is different.

Obviously, there is no shortage of money to maintain the rule of the East China Autonomous Government, and if the conditions are raised, it will never be possible to negotiate a business, after all, there is no pinching of the other party's vital points.

The two sides soon talked again, and the British bank HSBC quickly valued the shares of Huadong Bank, and at this time, Huadong Bank was developing rapidly.

The British bank HSBC offered to borrow 10 million pounds from the East China Group as long as the shares of the East China Bank were mortgaged to them.

The British offered a very high price, but Li Shengguo did not agree to mortgage the shares of the East China Bank, the business of the East China Bank was rising rapidly at this time, and all the deposits of the East China Autonomous Government Axe were placed in the East China Bank, and the East China Bank still had great potential for appreciation, and now the shares were mortgaged to make the biggest loan.

Li Shengguo advocated using those factories as collateral instead of pledging shares. In this way, when the enterprises under the group expand their factories, they can take the factories as collateral, and the mortgage of shares is just a one-shot deal, which is naturally not cost-effective.

During the negotiations, banks in various countries showed great interest in the medium-term loan proposed by Huadong Group, because the profitability of Huadong Group's factories was very good.

Obviously, this is a business that cannot be lost, and even if they can't afford to pay it back, it will be even more profitable to swallow these factories.

The banks then entered the stage of bargaining, and there were still disagreements between the two sides on loans, interest, and factory valuations, which had to be resolved.

Naturally, these banks wanted to keep the price of the factories used as collateral down, and at the same time wanted to raise the interest rate higher.

However, the interest is not bad, after all, it is a medium-term loan, and no matter how much it is raised, it will not be mentioned anywhere, and as for the valuation of the factory, there is something to be done.

After listening to Li Shengguo's report, Xia Jun felt that he should make some moves to continue to improve his value.

(To be continued)