Hua Ruohan glared at Dong Haichuan, Dong Haichuan pursed his lips and said that he didn't care, who let this old guy be Guo Ye's father-in-law? In the whole of China, Hua Ruohan doesn't even pay attention to the regent Wang Yixin, but he can't afford to provoke Guo Ye, not only him, the little American minister, but even the commander-in-chief and president of the United States have to look at people's faces, and they smile every day, and they ask for help......

Unlucky, it's just that this guy loosens his mouth, and he gives up a two-fold discount, there is no way, if Shi Dakai knows the greasy, then the business is designated to be no show, and in the end, the chicken and eggs will not be beaten, even at the current price, it means close to 100% profit, high enough!

Shi Dakai lowered his head and pondered for a moment, and replied firmly: "Okay, since this is the case, then it is decided, two batches of arms, I hope you can provide them to us as soon as possible, as for the silver, I will raise it as soon as possible......"

The current Taiping army controls the northern part of Jiangxi, most of Anhui, the western and southern parts of Zhejiang, and most of Sichuan, and the annual tax is not a few, although the pressure to buy a batch of arms is huge, but it is not impossible to raise this money, and it is a big deal to apportionment to the giants below, with these arms, the army that defeated the Qing court is not a problem!

Hua Ruohan laughed and said: "Wing King, seven days, seven days, we will send the first batch of arms to Tianjing on time, you just need to prepare the silver......"

It's just that as shrewd as Shi Dakai couldn't have imagined that Hua Ruohan stepped on two boats, and a huge amount of arms was sold to Shi Dakai in the front, and a large amount of arms was sold to Li Hongzhang and Zeng Guofan!

Three days later, Hua Ruohan came to Suzhou, met with the governor of Liangjiang, Jing Guohou Zeng Guofan, and vigorously promoted his arms to Zeng Guofan, Shi Dakai because he didn't know a lot about foreign affairs, he couldn't bargain with Hua Ruohan on the price, but Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang were different, the two of them had this large number of staff who were proficient in foreign affairs, and it was not so easy to fool the two people by saying a price at will.

It's just that now Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang are already ants on a hot pot, and they don't have the capital to bargain with Hua Ruohan at all, even if they know that Hua Ruohan's lion opens his mouth, it is to slander people, there is no way, who makes the current war situation extremely bad?

If there is no turnaround, then the Taiping army will definitely move eastward and take the entire Jiangnan, in that case, the most prosperous provinces in Jiangnan in the Qing court will be owned by the Taiping army, and such losses are definitely not something that the Qing court can afford!

At this time, where does Zeng Guofan care about silver, if there is no silver, then find a way to prepare silver, foreign guns and foreign cannons must be bought!

Zeng Guofan, at the instigation of Li Hongzhang, ordered two batches of 10,000 rifles, 50 heavy artillery, 6 million rounds of ammunition, and 20,000 shells from Hua Ruohan in one go, but when Hua Ruohan quoted the price, the two of them were completely dumbfounded, two and a half million taels!

It's too expensive, two and a half million taels! That's an astronomical sum! How can such a large sum of money be raised? Now the military salary of the Hunan army and the Huai army alone is enough to make two people anxious!

Li Hongzhang begged bitterly, hoping to get a reasonable price, but with little success, and the two sides were deadlocked.

At this time, Li Hongzhang's staff Sheng Xuanhuai proposed his own idea to Li Hongzhang, that is, to borrow money from foreigners to buy arms!

Loan?

However, the high interest rate of foreigners is not something that the imperial court can bear, these foreign banks are simply vampires, and there is no way to go to the road of foreign bank loans!

In the end, Sheng Xuanhuai said to Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang: "Two adults, the interest rate of foreign banks is too high, and we can't afford their interest, so we can borrow money in China, such as Hu Xueyan's bank?" ”

Zeng Guofan shook his head and replied: "Xingsun, although Hu Xueyan is rich, it is very difficult to let him take out two and a half million taels of silver in one go, even if Zuo Zongtang has a close relationship with Hu Xueyan, he will definitely not be able to come up with such a large sum of money, after all, he also needs silver turnover......

Li Hongzhang's eyes suddenly lit up, and he said: "Teacher, Hu Xueyan has no money, it doesn't mean that others don't have money, Hu Xueyan's money is not enough, we can go to Qilu Bank, that Guo Ye made Qilu Bank rich and rivaled the country, I heard that just in the semicolon in Shanghai, there are enough reserves of tens of millions of taels of silver!" We can borrow from Qilu Bank, after all, the fertilizer and water do not flow into the fields of outsiders, at least the silver is left in the Qing Kingdom! And their interest rate is also much lower than that of foreign banks! ”

Zeng Guofan was overjoyed when he heard this, and immediately frowned, and asked: "Shaoquan, although we are ministers in the same hall as Guo Ye and Hanchen, and we have admired it for a long time, but we have never heard from us, and Qilu Bank is willing to lend us so much silver?" ”

Li Hongzhang said in a deep voice: "Teacher, although we have not dealt with Guo Ye, but we are very familiar with Guo Songtao, he used to be a staff member in the Hunan army, and now Guo Songtao is the governor of Shandong, and Qilu Bank also has the shares of Shandong Political Envoy, Guo Songtao has a huge influence on Qilu Bank, we only need to ask Guo Songtao to come forward, then there is absolutely no problem!" ”

Sheng Xuanhuai on the side also said: "Yes, Zeng Shuai, now Qilu Bank doesn't say that it raises two and a half million taels, even if it raises five million taels, there must be no problem with their strength, we can use customs taxes as collateral to borrow from Qilu Bank, with the support of Qilu Bank, there is absolutely no problem!" ”

Zeng Guofan pondered for a moment, and finally agreed, however, this matter is very troublesome, and he needs to immediately send someone to Jinan to meet Guo Songtao, and ask the court for instructions, after all, this is a transaction of two and a half million taels, not a transaction of tens of thousands of taels, the amount is huge, and without the permission of the imperial court, it will definitely not work! ”

After another round of bargaining, the two sides finally reached an agreement on the deal, Hua Ruohan only went around the south, and sold more than 30,000 taels of ammunition in one go, and the profit alone was close to 2 million taels of silver! With Warrenham's stake in the Colt Company, tens of thousands of dollars in dividends will be shared, which is absolutely not a problem!

Hua Ruohan returned to Shanghai proudly, waiting for further news, an even more violent storm was brewing in Jiangnan! (To be continued.) )