In the following days, there were businessmen from all over the world who heard the news and came to buy shares, Li Weiguo did not refuse to come, but in order to give those businessmen who joined before some sense of superiority, Li Weiguo no longer gave the later generations the treatment of founding members, only gave them the treatment of ordinary shareholders, despite this, these latecomers were still very willing to participate, so Li Weiguo quickly raised the initial capital for the establishment of the bank.

Before and after, Li Weiguo signed contracts with a total of 300 businessmen, raising a total of 3 million pounds, equivalent to 12 million taels of bank, which is far beyond the minimum capital injection standard of foreign commercial banks at the ordinary city level, and even meets the standard for the establishment of large state-level banks.

You must know that the China International Commercial Bank, a self-run bank in the late Qing Dynasty, was founded by Sheng Xuanhuai and established in Shanghai on May 27, 1897, with an initial capital of only 5 million taels of silver. At that time, the silver exchange rate was only half of what it is now, which shows how huge the funds in Li Weiguo's hands were.

At the time of the establishment of the International Commercial Bank, as many as 20 banks had been opened in China by the imperialist countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Japan, which had been operating for more than 30 years, monopolizing China's international exchange business and domestic financial markets, and gradually controlling the Qing government's finances and taxes, thus becoming a bridgehead for them to carry out economic aggression against China.

Now that Li Weiguo established a bank more than 30 years ahead of schedule and is ahead of the foreign powers in legally opening banks in China, if it is properly operated, China's international exchange business and domestic financial market will be monopolized by Li Weiguo's banks in the future, and perhaps they will be able to replace the foreign powers in controlling the government's finances and taxes.

This is a big game of chess, which will affect the future pattern of the whole China, and even the world pattern, Li Weiguo grinned, in the future, his counterfeit-banknote empire failed, and now he has enough confidence to create a more powerful counterfeit-banknote empire, become the maker and decision-maker of global money rules, and make the whole world submit to his financial knife.

The next step is to convene a board of directors to determine the name and address of the bank, as well as the appointment of the bank's management. Li Weiguo, as the legal representative and chairman of the board, has no doubt, even if the other board members have opinions, they are helpless, after all, the Qing government does not allow foreigners to set up banks in China and issue currency, except for Li Weiguo, they can't find any other alternative candidates, so they can only agree to his harsh conditions.

The name of the bank was studied by the board of directors, and finally Li Weiguo decided to name it the Asian Investment Bank, referred to as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

Of course, this is just Li Weiguo's bad taste, but fortunately, the other board members and shareholders did not object, so he was given a pass.

On the question of address, because the members of the board of directors except Li Weiguo were all foreign businessmen from all over the world, the British businessmen wanted to set up in the British Concession, the French businessmen wanted to set up in the French Concession, and the businessmen of the United States, Belgium, Portugal, the Netherlands, and other countries also planned to set up in their concession areas, but in the end, Li Weiguo made an arbitrary decision and directly chose the county seat of Shanghai, opposite the drum tower in the center of Zhengjie, on the grounds that if it was set up in a foreign concession, the Qing government would not recognize it, or even allow it, and everyone had no choice but to agree.

As for the assignment of management staff at the Asian Investment Bank, each board member insisted that he must install "his own person" to work in the bank, fearing that Li Weiguo would embezzle and lose their money. In this regard, Li Weiguo made concessions, because there are no people around him who understand the operation of the bank, and he wants to let the Asian Investment Bank operate as much as possible. However, Li Weiguo also left behind, and he instructed Steward Yang to hire some people who had taken care of the bank, and let them join various departments of the bank as interns. In this regard, the board members objected, but Li Weiguo blocked their mouths with one sentence: "The people who will deal with you in the future are all Chinese!" ”

With the finalization of the management of the Asian Investment Bank, the bank's shelves were set up, and Li Weiguo then went to the Shanghai County Ya, paid a deposit of 100,000 taels of silver, and successfully registered the Asian Investment Bank in his name.

Li Weiguo then spent about 20,000 taels of silver to buy several shops and houses opposite the drum tower in the center of Zhengjie, covering an area of about 10 acres.

Of course, Li Weiguo paid for this money himself, after all, he accounted for 25% of the bank's shares, and became the president of the bank.

The board of directors also debated the style of the Asian investment bank's headquarters, and finally agreed to build an eight-storey building that combines East and West, with a Gothic spire on the outside and a Chinese interior to cater to the preferences of Chinese clients.

Looking at the entire Qing Empire, there was not a single eight-story building, and Li Weiguo successfully persuaded all the board members that the Asian Investment Bank needed to advertise if it wanted all Qing citizens to know, and the construction of the tallest building in the Qing Empire was the best advertisement, and the board members felt that it made sense, so they agreed.

Just when the construction of the Asian Investment Bank building was in full swing, Li Weiguo also received a letter from home, and the official document of the appointment of the officials in the capital had been sent to Jiangning.

"Lu Jianying's movements are so fast!"

Li Weiguo sighed, he should have come or come, he had planned to wait for Bao Ling to come back from Hong Kong and let him help put pressure on the Qing government to replace him as the county magistrate of Shanghai, but now it seems that Lu Jianying is afraid that he can't wait to let Li Weiguo take office in Chongming County.

"Young master, Chongming County can't go!" Steward Yang was in charge of investigating the situation in Chongming County, knew where it was, and was worried that Li Weiguo would fall into Lu Jianying's trap.

"It's okay, let's just be careful!" Li Weiguo said indifferently, if he didn't take office, Lu Jianying would definitely make a big fuss about himself.

Li Weiguo had already planned this move at the beginning, and the ultimate goal was to get the Shanghai county order, and he was moving forward step by step, link by link, towards the ultimate goal of occupying Shanghai, and now that he was about to succeed, he could not give up.

Returning to Li's house in Jiangning and visiting his parents, Li Weiguo proposed that the whole family go to Shanghai to settle down, but Li Yanming refused, still playing the same old tune, reluctant to give up the grass and trees in his hometown.

It stands to reason that Hong Xiuquan had already rebelled at this time, why hasn't Jiang Ning gotten any news yet?

Li Weiguo was puzzled, he needed a reason that his father couldn't refuse, and that reason was that the Taiping army was about to fight. But there is no news from the Taiping Army so far, which makes him feel a strong uneasiness in his heart.

Family, nothing can happen to the family in this life, it is too dangerous to stay in Jiangning, and the Taiping Army is not a good man and a woman.

"Send someone to inquire near Yong'an, Guangxi, I want to know the movements of the chaotic party over there at any time!"

"In addition, select some strong family members from the mansion and follow me to Chongming to take up the post."

"Select a hundred people, if there are not enough people in the house, go and recruit some to come back, remember to pick the loyal, honest and strong ones, and would rather lack them than overuse."

"Well, the old slave will do it." Steward Yang took the order and went down to make arrangements.

Back in his room, Li Weiguo opened the official box, which contained a letter of appointment from Chongming County and an exclusive official seal.

"Nine grades and eighteen levels, from now on, Lao Tzu is considered a high-level cadre!"

Li Weiguo laughed, although this trip to Chongming County was full of conspiracy and danger, he was not afraid, maintained an optimistic and sunny attitude, and was full of confidence in the cause he was going to strive for.

Just when Li Weiguo was secretly having fun, a brutal war was being staged in Yong'an in the south, and the largest peasant armed rebellion in modern Chinese history officially kicked off.

In fact, as early as January of the first year of Xianfeng, Hong Xiuquan had already launched a rebellion in Jintian, Guangxi, and established the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. However, the scale was very small, and the local Qing government officials concealed the truth and lied about the chaos. It was not until September that the Taiping army captured the important town of Yong'an, which attracted the attention of the Qing court and sent two large armies to encircle and suppress it.

At the beginning, after Li Weiguo and Su Sanlang, the owner of the Heaven and Earth Society's Flame Hall, became brothers, he gave Su Saburo a batch of British-style firearms and ammunition. A month later, Su Saburo led the members of the Heaven and Earth Society to arrive in Guangxi with the help of British merchant ships, during which Su Saburo and other members of the Heaven and Earth Society accepted the help and training of the British ** official, mastered the use of this batch of firearms, and so they converged with Hong Xiuquan, which immediately attracted the attention of Hong Xiuquan, in the subsequent battle of attacking Yong'an, Su Saburo commanded the Heaven and Earth Society Musket Team easily broke through the city, and was directly named Flame by Hong Xiuquan, appointed as the military commander, and the status and power were second only to the Wing King Shi Dakai.

However, these news were strictly blocked by the Qing army, so Li Weiguo, who was far away in Jiangning, could not get the news for a long time, and Li Weiguo did not know the situation there until the person sent by Steward Yang to inquire about the news came back.

"It's already in Yong'an, it looks like I'm going to have to hurry up and prepare." Li Weiguo's brows were furrowed, and his attitude towards the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had always been very objective, just a large-scale rebellion by a group of unambitious careerists who incited the ignorant toiling masses to rebel and seek personal gain. As a result, most of China was plunged into a 14-year war, the two sides slaughtered each other bloodily, the Taiping army slaughtered the Qing army, everywhere the banner people and large families were slaughtered, the Qing army counterattacked, slaughtered the Taiping army, and every city and place occupied would be massacred, and would rather kill 3,000 by mistake than let one go. The end result was that the population of the country was 430 million on the eve of the outbreak of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and after the defeat of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the population remained only 230 million, not counting the natural population growth rate. This catastrophe caused China to lose 200 million people, of which 82 million died directly in the war.

Li Weiguo hated this kind of war, because it caused too many innocent people to lose their lives, and severely damaged China's economic strength, and the whole war led to China's direct economic losses as high as 2 billion taels of silver, which was equivalent to twice the total foreign indemnity payments at the end of the Qing Dynasty, and China's total GDP dropped directly from 43% of the world's first to 6%, and the national strength was wiped out, and the inability to build national defense was another important reason for the failure of the second ** war.

Of course, there are also many beneficiaries of this war, the Han armed forces got rid of the control of the banner people, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, Zhang Zhidong, Zuo Zongtang and other Han heroes rose up, changed the pattern that the Qing Empire has always been the world of the banner people, especially south of the Yangtze River, the banner people were killed by the Taiping army, and from then on it was the world of the Han people, laying the foundation for the future Han revolutionary movement to overthrow the Manchu Dynasty.

This is the only remarkable place, Li Weiguo cannot deny that this is also the path he wants to take now, but he is different from Zeng, Li and others, because he will not be a slave to the Manchus.

Three days later, Li Weiguo set off for Chongming County, accompanied only by Zhang Xiaoliu and a hundred newly recruited guards, and Steward Yang stayed behind to take care of Li Weiguo's parents. Fortunately, the Taiping army will capture Jiangning a year later, so there is still time to do it.

The only regret for Li Weiguo is that there is still no news of Fu Shanxiang, but he did not give up and still sent a large number of people out to find it.

Li Weiguo and his entourage all rode horses and soon arrived in Shanghai.

The construction of the Asian Investment Bank Building started quickly, but the foreign businessmen on the board of directors could not wait, so Li Weiguo first rented a nearby shop as a temporary office space, and called it "listed for trial operation".

Since the common people do not know much about the Asian Investment Bank, Li Weiguo has carried out large-scale propaganda to make people understand that the Asian Investment Bank is the best bank, the most trustworthy bank, and the most beneficial bank.

It takes time for people to accept and trust the Asian Investment Bank, so Li Weiguo is not in a hurry, he goes to John and buys him a hundred long muskets, as well as a matching three base of ammunition, to arm his escort.

Li Weiguo deliberately rubbed in Shanghai County for a few days, and gave his guards simple training so that they could learn to use muskets and have a certain combat effectiveness before leaving for Chongming County to take up their posts.

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