On the Monday of the following week after the enthronement parade, an encrypted telegram from the Guangzhou Bay base was placed on Qin Lang's desk. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info later in the day, it was brought into a conference room by Qin Lang and read it out to his accomplices before the scheduled meeting began.

"The Qing government has agreed to buy back Formosa from the syndicate, and the formal agreement will be signed in two days."

"Really?" O'Connor was a little surprised, "So fast? ”

O'Connor calculated the time, and thought it would take at least two weeks of difficult negotiations for Conger to convince the Qing bureaucracy to accept the "sincere" advice of the banking syndicate. Because it is so important, it involves a huge sum of money that the country can hardly come up with, and its future destiny, which must not be taken lightly, and must be considered and evaluated comprehensively and carefully, and decisions should not be taken lightly.

But Conger completed the task in less than 100 hours, a result that he couldn't believe.

"It's not as hard to solve as you think, Sean." Qin Lang saw his thoughts, smiled and told him, "It doesn't take long to convince those honorable auxiliary ministers, and it doesn't take much to pay—although the actual price paid is a little higher than expected. ”

Because the assassination planned by the revolutionary party was more like a farce...... In fact, it's a farce in the real right. According to the confessions of several of the arrested attackers, neither their superiors nor they had a complete plan of action, not even the slightest idea of making one. The whole process was just that the people above asked them to assassinate the Manchu emperor and high-ranking officials, and they each ran to the parade site with a Japanese-made 26-year-old revolver, and from beginning to end they did not think about how to get close to the target, and certainly did not think about other more specific details.

These stupid guys didn't even think about the way to retreat and the route of the evacuation, even though it wasn't a suicide attack, as they intended.

However, this farce is very much in line with the style of these people. Qin Lang had heard a lot of jokes about them, some old and some new, and one of them was that a few years ago, when Dr. Sun and his comrades tried to start an uprising in Guangzhou, because there were not enough people, one of the participants, Yang Quyun, came up with a solution: he went to Hong Kong and recruited 600 poor people who did not know the truth in the name of bringing people to Guangzhou to be "camp warriors" and promised a salary of ten dollars a month - unfortunately, These men did not play any role in the aborted uprising: as soon as they came ashore, they were dispersed by a squad of officers led by a county commander.

is like the "emperors" who were suppressed by the village party secretary or the police at the police station decades later.

The man who was able to create such a comical farce, as well as his comrades, could naturally also create another equally comical farce five years later. This is undoubtedly a very interesting thing, and of course it would be all the more interesting if the syndicate did not have to pay a sum of money to gag the mouths of some cunning old foxes in politics at a price they shouldn't have paid for their actions.

Qin Lang shrugged his shoulders secretly, came back to his senses, and was very lucky not to miss Rachel's question. "How much did we give?"

"Plus the portion paid to Conger and the other intermediaries, three hundred thousand." Before saying the last word, he habitually paused for a moment as an emphasis. "Dollars."

It doesn't really make sense: it doesn't matter if it's 300,000 taels of silver, 300,000 dollars, or 300,000 pounds, it's always a fraction of the whole transaction. It's just that for the consortium, it's a little more expensive: according to convention, the bureaucrats of the Prime Minister's Yamen, which has existed for 40 years and has just been renamed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, always discuss bribery in terms of "taels" instead of "10,000 taels." Except for Li Hongzhang, because the stupid Russians indiscriminately raised the price, his worth became very high, and it didn't cost a few dollars to buy other bureaucrats.

In Yi Shui, not Qin Lang, who felt that this was a good thing, it seemed that this was another joke that was not funny. The bureaucracy of the Manchu government was stupid and shallow, and did not understand either the practice or how much sovereignty they had betrayed. Most of the time they demanded less bribes than their unqualified officials; It is a true tragedy that they have gained little from harming the country and that they have to bear the stigma.

In the eyes of others, it's comedy.

That is to say...... The syndicate of banks can get 47.7 million. Rachel secretly calculated the dividend that UMBRELLA would eventually get, and nodded in satisfaction. Very good. It's a good deal. ”

Qin Lang smiled.

Rejoicing for a moment at that wonderful, exciting figure, Rachel asked a second question: "How is the Qing government going to pay for this money?" ”

"Mortgages." He replied, deliberately using a light-hearted tone, "HSBC is ready." ”

"Does it have anything else to pledge?"

"Not a lot, but enough to complete the deal."

"And what about your plan?" She then asked.

"I've already said," he did say, "that the new plan was for the Qing government to first redeem the island with loans, and then nationalize the two railroads and sell them in order to get a little money to fill the financial gap created by repaying the loans." The plan is still in order, everything is under control, Rachel. ”

"In that case, I don't have any other questions, Qin." Rachel held up her hands to indicate that the question was over—but only a few seconds later, she asked a new question. "And one last thing, can we get a business opportunity in this deal? You know, the mission of the mercenaries in the Philippines is coming to an end. ”

Qin Lang nodded, not to answer her question, but to show that he was aware of the situation in the Philippines. The joint strangulation of the US army, mercenaries and the Chinese Filipino armed forces secretly supported by UMBRELLA dealt a heavy blow to the Philippine resistance, and the losses were heavy, and tens of thousands of resistance fighters have been killed in the battle - of course, the true loss figure of the resistance is difficult to determine, because the US army, mercenaries and Chinese armed forces all adopted the same identification rules in the clean-up operation, "it is the resistance who flees, and it is the trained resistance that stands still", Many civilians who were not resistance fighters were also killed - the heavy losses caused more and more members of the resistance to lose faith in the future, become weak-willed and increasingly inclined to lay down their arms; At the same time, according to the confessions of some resistance fighters who voluntarily surrendered, the resistance had lost the ability to carry out suicide attacks due to the depletion of the bombs they had obtained, which further weakened the cohesion and will of the resistance, and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed completely.

Moreover, representatives of Aquinardo, the top leader of the Resistance, were secretly negotiating with representatives of the U.S. government in Manila - a secret that almost all resistance fighters did not know, but Qin Lang knew before the negotiations began, and of course the same was true for Rachel and O'Connor - so they knew very well that in a few weeks, maybe months, the mercenary mission in the Philippines would be over.

Now, it is really time to look for a new job for mercenaries.

But Formosa ......

"I'm not sure yet, but I'm not optimistic." Qin Lang spread his hands, "Even if it's just for the sake of the emperor and the empire, and of course the people's fragile national pride, it's unlikely that the Qing government will let a foreign army land in Formosa." If you think about it more deeply, it paid $48 million to redeem the island, and if it doesn't take full advantage of the deal to boost the prestige of the government, it will make that money look like it was spent for nothing - and we all know the finances of that government. ”

"So, there's no chance at all?"

Qin Lang pondered. "It's not entirely out of chance...... If we can convince a few auxiliary ministers, then we can send mercenaries to that island under other names...... It's just that you need to give a little preference in some areas, and then find some excuse to cover up people's ears. He looked up and said to Rachel and O'Connor, "Of course, excuses, we can always find reasonable excuses." ”

The world lacks a lot of things, but there is no shortage of excuses.

"Of course." The two unanimously agreed.

"I'll put Hartman and Wang Zhen in charge of this task."

These were the last words of the day about China. In the time that followed, they quickly shifted the conversation to something else - the day-to-day affairs of the company, especially Tri-cell Bank, and the various reports and forms submitted by the staff. These topics are not discussed because they are the topic of the day, and while they are certainly worth discussing, the main reason they have them is because they need to do something meaningful before Duncan arrives.

Duncan is the protagonist of today, which is unusual, but it is true. According to the meeting, he was to report on the results of his negotiations with the eastern military-industrial complex, to submit a report on the inspection of the company's eastern office and the Ford Motor plant, and to report on the inspection of the company's eastern office. Wright and Wilbur. Wright's inventive invention was initially evaluated. All of this had been written into the schedules of the four of them a week before, marked with time and circled in red pen, and Duncan knew what he was going to do and when.

That's how it should be.

He was supposed to arrive in the conference room fifteen minutes earlier, but he was late. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )