Not only Li Hongwen, but also Huaguo saw that there were not a few businessmen who saw rubber as a profit point, because Hainan was occupied by the Guangdong consortium, and they had to look for rubber production areas further away in the Nanyang region. However, whether it is Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, or the countries of the Southeast Peninsula, they are all shrouded in the rule of the Western powers, and even Thailand, the only semi-colonial country, is oscillating between Britain and France, and will not look at China in their eyes.

The poor rubber investment environment was quickly fed back to Luliang, and the businessmen were wronged outside, and of course they would cry to the boss. The feedback from the bottom to the top was too inefficient, and they chose to convey the message directly to the current chairman of the chamber of commerce, Metro, through the Chinese Chamber of Commerce.

"That's probably how things are, the big guy finally scraped together the money to open up a rubber plantation in Nanyang, but he didn't expect to suffer a lot of grievances and have a lot of fire. I mean that the demand for rubber is getting bigger and bigger, not only in the Chinese market, but also in the international market. "Metro belongs to the category of people who can go straight to heaven, and it is not difficult to find Lu Liang to report the situation, and he and Wu Shimin and others are also serving as economic advisers to the presidential palace.

"Oh." Lu Liang didn't say much after listening, and another big stone pressed into his heart. In this era, there are countless holes waiting to be filled, and Southeast Asia is one of the larger ones.

The original plan was to move there again according to the changes in the international situation after reunification, but I did not expect the speed of China's economic development to be unexpected, and I did not expect that private capital would be so sensitive and the pursuit of profits was strong, so that the country's strength could not keep up with the situation of the people.

Lu Liang is actually happy to see this happen, and the country has a driving force to go out, which is the normal model. Rather than single-mindedly pushing the country forward.

What drives the rise of great powers? Of course, it is interests, and no one will say that the rise of the country is extremely dark, in fact, it is like that. Spain and Portugal explored the Maritime Silk Road and became the first colonial powers; Britain became an empire on which the sun never sets through the steam engine revolution and global colonies; The United States harvested Europe's wool through two world wars, and eventually replaced Europe as the world hegemon; Germany and Japan, two unlucky countries, did not fight other hooligans, but in the end they took over the world by economic means.

Therefore, the burden on Lu Liang's shoulders is heavier. At this stage, if you don't have the ability to send troops to Southeast Asia to avenge those wronged businessmen, you can only find a way from within.

Lu Liang set his eyes on the big housekeeper Lu Yi, and the two cooperated tacitly, and Lu Yi knew what Lu Liang meant. As the first genetic person under Lu Liang, Lu Yi has been in charge of the most important departments from beginning to end, and is actually engaged in the position of the country's premier, but it is Li Jingxi who shows up. There is no way, the strongman of the Republic of China is still growing. can't pull out the seedlings to help them grow, so Lu Liang is now focusing on cultivating Song Jiaoren, hoping that he can mature as soon as possible.

"According to statistics, in the development of the national economy, raw materials have become our weakness. Iron ore and other metal resources supplied by internal channels account for the majority, and the proportion of other raw materials will decrease. Lu Yi didn't look at the documents, he opened his mouth and came, only Lu Liang knew what he meant.

The steel base has basically become a raw material supply base now. Since the launch of the battleship "Taishan", the proportion of heavy machinery and manufactured goods provided by the steel base has not exceeded 2 percent. The rest are all industrial raw materials and genetic humans, of which genetic humans account for about 5 percent. Most of the rubber needed for economic development in the past was synthetic rubber provided by the steel base.

The embarrassment is that even if the steel base fully provides raw materials, it cannot meet the needs of the rapid development of the national economy, from the Yangtze River to the southeast coast, from the Chengdu Plain to both sides of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, and then to the Yangtze River Delta. Industrial high-speed trains require unlimited raw materials to move forward, and a steel base alone simply cannot meet the demand.

It was a strategic resource from the beginning of the twentieth century until the end of World War II, when the synthetic rubber industry became widespread. At the end of the First World War, Germany synthesized a small amount of industrial rubber, and then this technology matured in the thirties of the twentieth century. And it is used by major industrial countries. However, the demand for natural rubber has not decreased since then, and in many fields, natural rubber has excellent properties that industrial rubber does not have.

After pondering for a while, Lu Liang said to Metro: "I can't let the army enter Southeast Asia now, the country is at odds with Britain and France, and diplomatic channels don't have much effect, and Britain and the Netherlands wear the same pants at all." However, this will change in a year, and I can't tell you the specific plan. ”

"Now it seems that the problem of insufficient raw materials for industry must be solved immediately. For rubber, the output of natural rubber is small and the growth cycle is long, so we will carry out the synthetic rubber industry. You can announce this news through the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, we have mastered the technology for large-scale production of synthetic rubber, and those who are willing to invest in this area can negotiate through the Ministry of Industry. Here we provide industrial equipment and technical guidance, and you come up with funds, manpower and land. ”

Considering a little further, the cotton, wool, oil, and metal minerals needed for industrial production must be developed from a realistic point of view, and the industrial raw materials in the south are scarce, and some metal minerals are difficult to mine and the transportation is inconvenient. The north is much better, there are large tracts of land that can be cultivated or mined, and Xinjiang, Mongolia, and the northeast are all coveted sources of resources. National reunification must be accelerated, and this is an inevitable requirement of economic development.

For the north, Lü Liang has another set of perfect plans, which are much more peaceful than violent flat pushing. Huaguo has an overwhelming advantage over the north, and only 3-4 armies can defeat the Beiyang military force, but such a process is too rough.

In the course of the war, there will be a large number of casualties, and the eight towns of Beiyang (plus the twentieth and twenty-first towns) were carefully trained by Yuan Shikai, who exhausted his efforts to arm and train them, and cultivated a large number of outstanding officers and soldiers, who were all part of the country's strength, and wasted in the war of unification outweighed the losses.

In addition, the damage caused by war to civilians and the economy is also not small, and civil war is the last war that soldiers want to experience.

"How is the layout of the Investigation Bureau in Tianjin?"

"It's been going on for a month, several companies have been established, the personnel are in place, and the publicity has begun, just waiting for them to take the bait!"

Finally began, the battle in Kyushu was basically over, and the siege of Tagawa caused heavy losses to the guerrillas in Kyushu, and it can be expected that Kyushu will be calmer for a long time, so that there is no need to put all your mind over there, and the pressure on logistics will be reduced. The time and place of the four-party talks have been set, San Francisco, December 1 local time. There are still a few months left until the talks, enough to do a lot!

The first step is the financial war, the executor, the No. 3 agent of the Investigation Bureau, the genetic man Lu Zhi, the pseudonym Jason Omar, the British nationality, the chairman of Tianjin Rubber Company.

Just like Shanghai in the semi-colonial state, Tianjin also showed a kind of perverted prosperity at this time. After a large number of industrial enterprises, foreign firms, and comprador firms were transferred from Shanghai to Tianjin, it became the main port and financial center for the great powers to carve up northern China. Having lost the rich middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, the great powers, especially the British and French, frantically plundered the resources and wealth of the north, because even ordinary people knew that it was only a matter of time before China unified China, and there was not much time left for the Manchus and the foreign powers.

The great powers plundered the wealth of the north through privileges, loans, and various foreign banks and foreign banks, and among the major foreign banks and banks, the British Debai Ocean Bank and Huasheng Bank were inconspicuous, these two companies were founded in 1904, headquartered in London, and mainly engaged in business in northern China.

Although the reputation of these two enterprises is not good, but the two enterprises have abundant capital, among which Debai Yang Bank mainly buys cotton, wool and other resources in the north, and has a generous hand, high reputation, and can pay for goods in a timely manner, which is very popular with compradors. In addition, it also sells a variety of industrial products, from lamp oil and iron nails to arms and ships, and if you investigate carefully, you will find that the whereabouts and sources of these purchased materials and the industrial products sold are not clear.

The other Huasheng Bank is also very strong, the most important thing for the bank is capital, this bank not only has advanced management, a variety of business methods, attracted a large number of middle and lower class customers, but also opened up the relationship between the upper echelons of the Manchu Qing Dynasty, so that the Manchu Qing Dynasty obtained a loan of 40 million taels of silver from the Huasheng Bank with the 10-year income of the Jiaoji Railway as collateral, and became instantly famous in the banking circles of Tianjin. (To be continued.) )