During World War I, the Prussian Army, which was the most famous, was blocked by the British and French forces and could not be saved, and fell into the quagmire of trench warfare.

Of course, Lu Liang did not want one side to press the other between the two camps, and anyone with a discerning eye could see that Britain and France did not do their best during World War I, otherwise the United States would not have been bullied during the Versailles talks. Therefore, the First World War must be more tragic, the duration must be longer, and every drop of blood of the great powers must be exhausted, so that there will be a chance for China.

The signal has been transmitted, the two sides reached a preliminary tacit understanding, for Germany, which is eager to enhance its own strength, the sooner it obtains China's technical equipment, the sooner it can form large-scale production in China, so as to be one step ahead of the competition. Before the end of the Munich exhibition, Germany began to organize a delegation to China, which included not only representatives of the royal family, government officials, military leaders, but also representatives of some companies, including Gustav and Karlbenz. On August 12, it was formed and officially boarded the cruise ship bound for Wuhan.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, a group of workers flocked to the dock when a cruise ship from Shanghai docked, trying to find work to unload its cargo.

Over the past year or so, more and more steamers have come from Guangzhou and other southern ports in China, and they have also brought a lot of news about China. The revolutionary party established itself in the south, China participated in the Russo-Japanese War and occupied the Japanese island of Kyushu, Chinese businessmen invested in business, and so on. This series of news made the colonial elite in Southeast Asia dizzy, lamenting that while a regional power is about to rise, the perception of the Chinese has not improved.

In the Dutch East Indies, the Chinese were not only the main owners of wealth, but also the main force of the middle and lower class laborers, who were very few in number. It is not worth mentioning in front of the massive number of Indonesian monkeys, but it occupies the main social wealth. Correspondingly, the Chinese do not have the slightest say in politics, and their low-key, silent, and disunited character also makes them tremble in front of other ethnic groups.

The rise of China has not yet brought more changes to the Indonesian Chinese, so when the Indonesian workers on the dock saw more than a dozen Chinese walking down with straight backs and full of confidence, they thought it was the Japanese!

"Little four. Where's the guy who picked us up? ”

"Boss, there, behind the monkeys."

The middle-aged man named Li Hongwen, who was called the boss, was originally a businessman in Ningbo, Zhejiang, and after the founding of the People's Republic of China, with his superhuman insight and relatively rich assets, he rose rapidly in the local area, became the owner of several large factories, and united the local big family in Ningbo. The business expanded rapidly and became the leading business group in Zhejiang. Of course, it can also be called the Ningbo Foundation.

Compared with the Guangdong consortium, the Ningbo consortium has a short development time, but the excellent business genes of Zhejiang people make them catch up. Since last year, Li Hongwen has noticed an emerging industry -- automobiles, but of course, it is still a little insufficient to participate in automobile production with their capital and strength. But Li Hongwen cares about the rubber market brought by the automobile industry.

Factories need rubber, but not in large quantities. However, the automotive industry needs a huge amount of rubber. Previously, the rubber market in China was dominated by Guangdong businessmen, who built a large number of rubber plantations in Hainan and monopolized the domestic rubber market. However, the domestic demand for rubber is still increasing rapidly, the supply is less than the demand, and there is still a broad space worth operating.

So, in the middle of 1904. Li Hongwen sent a small team of 10 people to Indonesia to inspect rubber plantations and buy a rubber plantation in the Bogor area south of Jakarta, but unfortunately there are few rubber plantations here and the scale is not large. If you start planting now. To be in six to seven years after you can cut the rubber liquid, the time is too long.

Of course, no matter how long it takes, it is worth the investment, so at the end of August 1905, Li Hongwen personally arrived in Indonesia with more than a dozen subordinates to inspect the investment environment and try to expand the scale of the plantation.

"Boss, I'm tired!" Li Hongwen was greeted by the subordinate who arrived in advance and was in charge of this side, Li Hongshou's brother Li Hongshou, the two said a few words, and then boarded the carriage and went to the hotel prepared by Li Hongshou.

The dock was too chaotic, which made Li Hongwen feel uncomfortable, and it was better to get into the carriage, but the speed of travel was not fast. The country is currently under Dutch rule and has become the Dutch East Indies, a colonial name. It was a rich country, and even if it wasn't farming, it was naturally enough to fill people's stomachs, so it created a lazy character among the locals and gave the industrious Chinese control over most of their wealth.

Wealth does not mean power and security, and along the way, Li Hongwen has seen several instances of Chinese shop owners being scolded by locals or taxes imposed by Dutch colonists.

"Aren't the Chinese safe here?" Li Hongwen asked.

"There's such a thing, boss, the number of Chinese here is too small, and those big families are not united, so they sweep the snow in front of their doors, and never ask if other Chinese are being bullied." Li Hongshou said: "But the boss doesn't have to worry about your safety, our plantation has thirty armed guards, all of which are forces approved by the colonial authorities, which are enough to ensure your safety." ”

Li Hongwen shook his head, he was not worried about his safety, he was accompanied by ten guards, with pistols hidden in his luggage, all of whom were professionally trained. He is worried about whether investing here will be harassed by the colonial authorities, and whether the locals will be unfriendly to him.

After arriving at the hotel, Li Hongwen was half-lying on the bed, and after jolting on the boat for so long, he could finally rest on the fixed bed.

"Boss, this is a report on the situation of the plantation during this time, as well as a summary of the overall situation of the rubber plantation on the island of Java." Li Hongshou handed Li Hongwen a document.

Li Hongshou has done a good job in the early stage, his 20,000-square-meter plantation has hired 300 local farmers and 50 Chinese laborers, and he is now planting rubber trees. In addition, there are a total of 36 rubber plantations on the island of Java, of which 15 are run by the British, 6 by the French, 10 by the Chinese, and the rest by the Dutch. The scale is about the same as its own plantation.

What they don't know is that since 1903, international financial capital has taken a fancy to rubber, a new material, and rubber products such as rickshaws, tricycles, raincoats, and rubber shoes are becoming more and more in demand. Because the scale of rubber production is limited by natural conditions, it cannot be rapidly expanded in a short period of time, and the price of rubber is destined to continue to rise.

However, the financial capital did not invest in the rubber plantation, but through the registration of the leather bag rubber company, advertising and soliciting capital. Headquartered in Shanghai, it was a pity that Shanghai was soon brought under the rule of China due to the Northern Expedition, and strict financial policies and perfect supervision measures forced international speculators to interrupt the initial speculation and stop this rubber speculation.

However, Lü Liang was inspired by this incident, and the later Manchu Qing Dynasty went bankrupt due to the rubber stock turmoil, which objectively promoted the demise of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Why not take advantage of this opportunity in this life?

During the Northern Expedition, most of the compradors or Manchu banks in the south, especially in Shanghai, were transferred to Tianjin, and a huge amount of wealth was transferred from the south to the north centered on Beijing and Tianjin.

So under the order of Lu Liang, the Investigation Bureau began to operate this task, imitating the historical stock turmoil, and established many rubber bag companies in Tianjin.

The next day at Lee's Plantation, the arrival of the big boss made the person in charge here nervously prepare for several days, trying to show his perfect side to his boss. Unfortunately, things didn't go as smoothly as expected.

"Hongshou, didn't you say that there are three hundred local employees? How do I see how few people are working on the plantation? Under the scorching sun, what Li Hongwen saw in his own plantation was disappointment. It has been in operation for more than a year, but more than half of the area has not been planted with rubber trees, and the so-called 300 local employees have not seen a few, but a few Chinese-looking people are working in the garden.

Li Hongshou was extremely embarrassed, and before leaving, he asked the management here to take care of the locals, but he didn't expect something to go wrong.

"Boss, I don't dare to hide it from you, those local employees are very difficult to manage and lazy. set a daily work time, but there is no one for most of the day, and they are punished, and they don't care, they still do what they should do. Most of the work in the garden is done by 50 Chinese employees. ”

"How can such a thing happen? So, are there many local Chinese, can they all be replaced by Chinese? ”

"This is not good, on the one hand, there are not many Chinese, and most of them have their own industries. On the other hand, the colonial authorities required that all farms or factories employing Chinese should not exceed 20 percent of the total number of people, also in order to cater for the feelings of the locals. ”

Li Hongwen couldn't cry or laugh, returned disappointed on the plantation, and then went to visit several major local Chinese families, but he didn't expect to be robbed by the locals on the road, if it weren't for the many guards and strong firepower, maybe Li Hongwen's net worth and life would have been thrown here. The Chinese families in Jakarta were also lukewarm to Li Hongwen, and they had little interest in Li Hongwen's proposal to jointly build a large rubber plantation, and it was said that they were afraid that the Dutch would be unhappy - they could not see that the Chinese were too powerful, otherwise they would incite the locals to make trouble!

Private capital is profit-oriented, and there is a shortage of rubber in China, so Li Hongwen came to Nanyang, but a few days of observation made him very disappointed. When he approached the Dutch authorities with the last bit of hope, but was asked to pay heavy taxes, Li Hongwen couldn't bear it anymore and went home.

There is no place for Chinese people to live in Indonesia! It was a mistake to come and invest, and people still regarded the Chinese as the sick men of East Asia, and the influence of the Chinese did not spread here at all. (To be continued.) )