Qin Lang walked into the conference room of Morgan Company. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

This was the second time he had been here—the last time was in 1894, when he had explained to the leaders of the consortium his plan to provide war reparations to the Chinese government; At that time, he was a humble little man -- of course, even now, in front of the giants who control the American economy, he is still a small man, but to the average American, he is a well-known big man.

And, just to show a little friendliness and closeness, the big guys also like to mention his new identity.

"Look, here comes our father of chemical engineering." William of the Cleveland Consortium. Mather said with a smile. Last time he was in this room, with two other representatives of the consortium from the Hanna and Eaton families, and this time it was the same.

Mather had a good relationship with Qin Lang, and although not close enough to the level of Morgan, Rockefeller, Bush, or Harriman, he was still a little closer than the others -- mainly because of the Cleveland consortium owned the shares of the Great Viper Arms Company, the same as the other four consortia and banks, fifteen percent. So he was the first to say hello and got an enthusiastic response.

"Forget it, Mr. Mather. It was just a newspaper report that the Chemical Society did not recognize. Qin Lang said with a smile, stretched out his right hand to Mather, and then the two hands clasped together.

"The Chemical Society will always recognize it, won't it?" Mather gently patted Qin Lang's shoulder twice with his left hand, smiled, and deliberately lowered his voice, "To be honest, I was very surprised by the great success you have achieved in the field of chemistry, and many times I wonder what kind of surprise you will bring me." ”

"Actually, I want to know, Mr. Mather." Qin Lang shrugged his shoulders and then walked towards the next gentleman. He knew all the delegates who had attended this meeting, and they had all attended the previous meeting -- except for George Brown, who represented Harriman Corporation. Herbert. Walker, George. Herbert. Walker's maternal grandfather and George. Walker. Bush's great-grandfather, Qin Lang used to compare him to George W. Bush at the last meeting. Harriman was a man - but such a low-level mistake would never happen again.

Although he was not familiar with it yet, Qin Lang had already seen Mr. Walker several times at various parties, and he would never be mistaken again.

"It's a pleasure to see you here, Mr. Walker." He said politely, like a master.

Of course, Morgan is the owner of this room, everyone knows, but now he has not appeared; And when he showed up and sat in his place, the meeting officially began.

But the initial topic had nothing to do with "railways", but the business that Qin Lang had just done in Washington, and everyone seemed to care about it.

Of course, they do care about it, in a way. "Seven thousand mercenaries, Qin, do you really think that the Empress Dowager of China will accept threats from the federal government and London? Based on past experience, it seems that you sent a little less soldiers. Morgan asked, but wasn't worried.

No need to worry. The intervention was a joint military operation, in addition to the American troops, but also the British troops, and there was naval support -- strong support. "The Admiralty has decided to increase the number of warships of the Far Eastern Fleet to eleven ships, including six cruisers." Qin Lang said, "Together with the British Far East Fleet, the military forces invested by the United States and Britain are enough to force Her Majesty the Empress Dowager to accept the request." ”

"And," he continued, after a pause, "this time the intervention will be more about threats than force, and the ground forces and the fleet are just a signal." If the threat is not successful, there is no point in throwing more troops. ”

"And you believe the threat will succeed." Morgan looked at him, and so did the others.

"I believe Mr. Conger will be able to convey exactly what Washington meant." Qin Lang returned them with a calm gaze, "Once the army departs, the rest is the matter of the diplomats. ”

"We believe in you, Qin." Morgan said, looking serious, "The plan we're going to talk about is based entirely on the success of your intervention plan and the right to build the railroad, otherwise it's all just a loft in the air." So you absolutely can't go wrong. ”

It was a threat, and he had to do it. Although everyone trusts Qin Lang's judgment and believes that he will never go wrong, now the discussion is about business, money and time, and at such a time, even if it is a long-term partner, the veracity of his statement must be discounted, and Qin Lang's plan does have obvious risks - even greater than the last time, at least on that time everyone saw that China was going to lose, and this time there were only unconfirmed predictions.

And this time Harriman participated. For many years, Morgan has been in fierce competition with Harriman in the rail transportation industry, but Qin Lang is Morgan's partner. In order not to let Harriman worry too much about falling into the trap of a competitor, a little posturing is also necessary.

Qin Lang understood Morgan's thoughts and smiled. "I totally understand, Mr. Morgan. But this time, we're still going to win, for sure. ”

"I hope so." Morgan said, exchanging glances with Rockefeller and the others for a moment, then nodded, "You can start, Qin." ”

"Thank you." Qin Lang stood up and let his gaze slowly sweep over everyone, and at the same time said, "First of all, I want to tell you that the National Assembly and the State Council have agreed to submit a request to the Emperor of China to build a railway from Beijing to Guangzhou in accordance with my proposal, so our plan can be implemented soon. ”

Of course, this is only a meaningless but necessary beginning, and so is the next sentence. "The first part of this plan, gentlemen, we all understand that you are better at this part than I am, so we can skip it and move on to the next part."

Yes, the first part of the plan is good at every consortium, because they always do it, always robbing stupid ordinary shareholders in the same way - how can you get more money in the shortest amount of time with the least investment? The answer is fairly simple, conceive of a big project that will only exist on the blueprints, a dam, a railroad, a building, or whatever, but make sure that the shareholders feel that it is profitable, and then set up a new company and announce that it is going to start construction, and also hype it up so that everyone knows. Of course, the new company is bound to have a bit of a funding problem, so it wants to issue shares and pool the money of shareholders "for the whole project". But in reality, the project will never start, the funds will just accumulate little by little, becoming bigger and bigger, and finally, when the time is ripe, the company will declare bankruptcy for any reason, and the consortium that manipulated behind the scenes will smoothly take all the funds, leaving only countless crying shareholders and some poor worms with black pots.

This is the best and easiest way, it will always work, of course, the process in the middle is a little more complicated, it needs some temptation, it needs some encouragement, it needs some sweetness...... It also needs to buy off some government officials, but in any case, it is the trick that the consortium has used.

It's too simple to let them do it again, Qin Lang doesn't need to remind him of anything at all, he doesn't need to make anything, he can watch quietly from the sidelines - but this doesn't mean that the consortium can get rid of him and do it alone, his whole plan is not so simple.

"I'm going to say the second part of this plan," Qin Lang said loudly, so that everyone could hear it clearly, "when the railway company goes bankrupt, the right to build the railway is still in our hands, and at this time, the second thing we will do is sell it to the Chinese merchants." ”

As he expected, a buzz sounded, and then there were questions. "Will the Chinese buy the right to build the railway?" "I've heard that Chinese strongly opposed the construction of a railroad and thought it would ...... Well, it's some ridiculous statements, but I did hear stories of Chinese tearing down railways. ”

"As you said, Mr. Morgan, there is a situation in China where many people oppose the construction of railways." Qin Lang did not deny it. There is no point in denying a fact...... But it lacks meaning in itself. "But it doesn't matter, even if they only intend to buy the railroad back and then tear it down, or buy back the right to build it without building it, they must pay us a sufficient amount of gold, or silver, as they did in 1876."

But this was not the answer Morgan needed, so Qin Lang continued. "And now the situation has changed a lot, and there are more and more people who support the construction of the railways, all of whom want to revitalize the country, and at the same time do not want China's interests to fall further into the hands of Western countries, so there is no doubt that they will buy our railways and the rights to build railways."

"But do they have that much money?"

"Never underestimate the role of patriotism, Mr. Mather." Qin Lang turned to his questioner, "All it takes is some necessary agitation, instigation, stimulation and guidance, and the patriots will automatically assemble, empty every copper plate in their pockets, and buy back the railroad and the right to build." Of course, the same is true of those who are ready to buy the railroad back and tear it down - even if their motive is simply a simple hatred of the railroad. Gentlemen," he looked at the others, "any kind of strong emotional fluctuation can become a fatal flaw for the devil to exploit. ”

Everyone laughed, attracted by Qin Lang's prophecy of bright prospects and sense of humor, and was ready to listen to him explain the next part of the plan, and no one pursued another question, that is, even if the Chinese patriots were emptying their pockets, would they be able to scrape together enough funds? Of course, even if this question is asked, the answer is yes, and there is no doubt that the potential economic power of a country of 400 million people is absolutely difficult to estimate, although most of the time it is impossible to squeeze all the money out.

But right now, Qin Lang was doing it, or he was going to do it—the third part of his plan made everyone in the room feel that way, including Morgan and Rockefeller.

"The third part of this plan, when we sell all the railroads and railroad construction rights to the Chinese people, we can secretly get the Chinese government to pass a law, or order, to nationalize all the railways." Qin Lang was still smiling, but no one noticed a trace of sarcasm hidden in his smile.

And sneering. In the entire conference room, only Qin Lang himself knew what the real meaning of the "railway state-owned" policy was for the Qing government, only he knew the history, while the others knew nothing.

They are all thinking about his next step. There is no doubt that the Qing government did not have the financial resources to build and operate a railway from Beijing to Guangzhou, and once the Chinese emperor nationalized the railway, then in the end, the only thing he could do was to sell the railway again, and the price would be extremely low, at which point they could buy the railway again, and then repeat everything again.

And it can be repeated again and again, and again and again, and again and again...... If the Chinese emperor had not yet been overthrown by his angry people.

"Great." Mather was the first to say, "Qin, you are really a genius. ”

"I just know more about China." Qin Lang said that it is not modesty, it is a fact. Everyone in the room can come up with the same plan – as long as they know China well enough. To a certain extent, the people here are all the same, all have black minds, and they are all devils.

For ordinary people, they are all devils, and without good people, they will only be more evil.

"Personally, I don't think it's enough to just implement this plan in the United States and China, and we might be able to pull in the British and the French, a United Railway Company controlled by us, to issue shares simultaneously in the United States, Britain and France." The maternal and great-grandfather of the future president of the United States said, "Finally, let the British and French come out and carry the black pot." ”

"Good idea." No one will object to this proposal, for the Americans, it is a matter of course to strike at the British, and those French, the American consortium have long looked down on these usurers.

"Well, then, the matter is decided," Morgan declared, "now let's move on to the last thing." ”

The last thing, to determine the distribution of benefits, the most important work, whether it was, is or will always be.

Qin Lang waited calmly.

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To add yesterday's note:

Note 1: The original English text of "Denby" is "Denby", I don't know if this translation is correct

Note 2: Dongjiaomin Lane should be the name changed after 1900 (to be continued, if you want to know what happened next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )