After Song Biao arrived, a local estate owner invited Song Biao and his entourage to live in his estate because of his special relationship with the president.

It is a vine-growing estate, which is common in such coastal hotspots, and this estate is also heavily planted with agave.

Interestingly, the estate was built by a French merchant during the French occupation, in a very typical French Lololi style, delicate and beautiful. After Díaz and other Mexican heroes were expelled, a local haciendor bought it cheaply.

After a busy year and a half, Song Biao regarded this trip to Mexico as a very good vacation trip, and it was very interesting to visit the vineyard and agave garden in the estate with Miss Shu Xuan and Secretary Li Enfu, and also tasted the tequila brewed by the estate.

Even if he came on vacation, Song Biao also had an infantry company by his side to defend it.

After Song Biao rested in the manor for two days, Rong Biao dared to come over in a hurry, and sent the company's general counsel, Mike. Mr. Norton invited him over, and at this time, Song Biao and Miss Shu Xuan were sitting in the corridor with the manor's wife and daughter, chatting, tasting fine wine and Mexican food.

Seeing that a guest came to visit, the wife of the owner of the manor politely left with her daughter, Shu Xuan also walked out with the daughter of the owner of the manor of a similar age, and the two young girls happily took the opportunity to go to the vineyard alone to pick fresh grapes.

Song Biao lit a local Mexican cigar for himself, sat on a white recliner and enjoyed the sun, but Rong Biao walked over sweating profusely and took Mike with him. Norton and Song Biao say hello.

Mike. Norton, an American, is not very old, because the rise of the oil industry has only been a matter of the past ten years, and most of the practitioners are very young, especially such educated people, who have usually joined the industry in the last ten years.

"Hello!"

Song Biao was very enthusiastic with Mike. Norton greets him, invites him to sit down with Rong Kuo, and pushes the box of cigars to them so that they can do their own thing.

After Rong Kui sat down, he couldn't wait to say to Song Biao: "There should be oil here, but unfortunately, Mr. Norton doesn't think that there will be a lot of oil available here, and even if there is, it will only be like the heavy oil extracted by Petroleos Mexicanos, and kerosene cannot be refined at all." Perhaps, it is a bit too risky for you to pay $1.2 million for the 460,000 acres in one go. ”

While saying this, Rong Biao was also looking at Song Biao curiously, he and Song Biao were not familiar with each other, and he believed that if it weren't for the fact that both parties were Chinese, Song Biao would definitely not hire a layman like him as the deputy general manager of this oil company.

The position of General Manager of Petroleos Mexicanos remains under the authority of Bill Reis. Rong Sen. Mr. Canfield assumes the role, apart from the fact that Mr. Canfield still owns a small stake, in a special place like Mexico and in the Tampico region, where Mr. Canfield has lived for three years and has plenty of experience.

In Rong Kui's eyes, Song Biao is a very strange person, a governor of the three eastern provinces actually went to Mexico to invest in oil, just like Kang Youwei went to Mexico to invest in real estate, it is a very strange thing, but it is happening.

In the matter of being hired by Song Biao, Rong Kui's heart is also more complicated, on the one hand, he is very happy, on the other hand, he is also very suspicious, as for the things that his classmates told him, he still has a very complicated opinion.

Song Biao could feel this, but he didn't care.

For Song Biao, almost everyone is insignificant and can be replaced, and the world never stops functioning because of the lack of anyone.

He doesn't even mind Yung and Mike. Norton replied with skepticism, and simply: "Who knows, I don't know if there is oil here, I just said it casually, and President Dias casually agreed." To put it simply, $1,200,000 is not a lot of money, and it's worth my bet. ”

"The problem is that we are likely to spend more on exploration and drilling, and Dohanni's Petroleos Mexicanos has spent more than $3 million on drilling, and the only thing we produce is heavy oil, which can only be used to produce asphalt paved roads," Yung said. It was precisely because all the money invested turned into a bubble that Dohanni, the oil colonel, was forced to flee in embarrassment and sell all his shares. ”

Song Biao snorted.

He only knows that Tampico must have oil, this kind of thing as long as anyone who has read a few Republic of China novels knows, as for whether it is the initiator who quoted the wrong information, he can't say, but he also knows that Mexico is a large oil-producing province, and the whole of America is easy to produce oil.

There is certainly no problem with investing.

It's just about finding oil.

Song Biao thought for a while and said, "I always have a hunch that it will be strange here, maybe my hunch is wrong, it's just a beautiful fantasy, but anyway, since I have already spent one million and two million dollars, I can't save another three million dollars." Find a way to find some engineers as good as Mr. Norton, find as many experts as you can, and say no, then find another one until you find one. Everything needs to be risky. If I can produce oil, it will solve a lot of my difficulties, and if I can't produce oil, the situation will not be much worse. Although I have a limited knowledge of oil, I have seen a lot of asphalt lakes in these two days, and if there is no oil in this place, where are we going to venture? ”

Rong Yu reminded: "It's hard to say. ”

Song Biao replied indifferently: "As an investor, and you as the person in charge, the authority I give you is to invest five million dollars here to organize the best oil company." In the end, if there is no return, everything is not fruitless, because I hope to train some Chinese oil workers and technicians here, and then return to China to explore for oil, even if there is a low-yield oil well here, we all earn it, China is earned, China is so big, I don't believe there is not even a high-yield oil well. ”

Rong Yu had nothing to say, so he could only translate Song Biao's words to Mike. Norton.

Mike. Norton shrugged his shoulders indifferently and replied: "If you have to look for oil here, I'm afraid I can't handle it, the geology here is too complicated, let's ask the experts of the Federal Geological Survey to take a look, maybe there will be good results, I know some friends, they may be able to introduce a few suitable gentlemen over." ”

Song Biao immediately clapped his hand and said, "Then it's decided." ”

Rong Kuo could only reluctantly agree, feeling that it was really terrible for a person who had not received a modern higher education in chemistry and geology to make such a crazy decision, even if he wanted to train his own team, it was relatively easy to extract oil by finding a mine in New Jersey, but it was difficult to use Chinese laborers due to the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act.

Song Biao was so convinced of Tampico's ability to produce oil that he rejected Rong Kui's plan to issue shares in New York to raise funds from the beginning, and within the limits of the funds, he tried to control every cent of the shares in his hands, and did not intend to share the success with anyone.

For this reason, he also worked exclusively with Bofirio. Dias applied for a special grant to allow him to build a small self-defense force in Tampico to avoid other contingencies.

Suddenly thinking of Kang Youwei's matter, Song Biao was also very curious to change the topic and ask Rong Kuo: "I heard that you met Mr. Kang Youwei before, how is it, how do you feel?" ”

"Oh!"

Rong Yu also thought of this matter, and said: "It's really better to say that it's better not to see, I used to think that this is a cultural person, but now I find that he is basically the leader of a community organization, the royalist party has always had a special influence among the Chinese in Mexico and California, and even collects protection money and taxes, and I feel that Mr. Kang Youwei completely regards himself as the leader of the overseas Chinese, and requires all overseas Chinese to be loyal to him and the royalist party he leads, which really makes me feel incredible, how can he do this?" Even when I offered to invest in Mexico, he asked for a stake in their company, but he refused to pay for it, apparently because he wanted to extort a sum of money. Really, it really gave me a glimpse of this man's true face, in fact, it was nothing more than that, but fortunately, his royalist society was gradually declining, and there were not many Chinese willing to support them. ”

Song Biao sighed and said, "So that's the case, it's really disappointing." ”

Rong continued: "They also opened a Huamo Bank, and the strange thing is that all the Chinese deposit money there, but there is no interest at all, and the royalist society is said to have unscrupulously used the Chinese deposits directly to run the industry, which is really incredible. ”

Song Biao thought for a while and said, "It's really getting more and more disappointing." Although it is said that the Wuxu Reform Law failed to a large extent because of this man's stupid conceit, he tried to reform it after all, but it is a pity, a pity. ”

Rong said: "He heard that you were coming, so he asked to meet with you, but I didn't know what he wanted to talk about, so I refused to introduce him, I don't know if he will have excesses?" ”

Song Biao didn't care, and said: "Let him go, is his life and death still something we need to care about?" ”

In fact, it's really a pity that Song Biao really planned to meet Kang Youwei when he came to Mexico, because he guessed that this gentleman always had the value of use, and since he had the opportunity to meet, he always wanted to see what kind of person this Mr. Kang was.

It turned out to be better than seen.

At this time, there were about 20,000 Chinese in Mexico, most of whom lived in northern Mexico, and many of them were forced to move south to Mexico in the Chinese Exclusion Act in the United States.

In addition, the port of Mazatlán and the nearby town of Union and Mexico City are also places where Chinese people gather.

Today's Torreón is not the textile center of Mexico, there are about 1,000 local Chinese workers, and they have been gathering for a long time, and on May 13, 1911, before the outbreak of the Xinhai Revolution, Francisco . Madero led the [***] armed and peasant armies into the city of Torreón, which was under the control of Dias, resulting in the killing of more than 300 Chinese, and the number of Chinese killed throughout Mexico is difficult to count.

Actually in Porfirio. During the presidency of Diaz, Mexico has always held a very liberal policy of foreign investment and immigration and colonization, and even signed a treaty of friendship and commerce with the Qing Dynasty in 1899. President Dias's only infreedom was the prohibition of free elections, which was violently overthrown.

Song Biao in and Bofirio. During the presidency of Dias, the idea of establishing a Chinatown in Mexico was also discussed. President Díaz recognized that in Mexico, citizens are free to possess weapons, which is also consistent with the United States, until the later stage of the prohibition of possession of military-controlled weapons.

This means that Chinese can also possess weapons semi-legally in Mexico.

During the few days of Tampico vacation, Song Biao had been thinking about these things, and finally decided to invest in some properties in both Tampico and Torreón, and in order to allow the Chinese to operate here for a long time, he even considered opening a Mexican commercial bank.

Tampico's oil industry, he decided to sell it at the most opportune time, after all, the nationalization of Mexican oil is an inevitable trend, and no one can stop it, unless Porfirio. How is it possible that President Díaz can rule forever?

Therefore, long-term investment should still be concentrated in banks, copper mines and textiles, and it is necessary to build some relatively closed defensive fortresses in areas with high concentrations of Chinese, such as Tampico and Torreón, to avoid being slaughtered by the so-called peasant army.

It would be better to stop a few warships in Mexico and Central America at a critical moment, and the Qing government at that time used a heavy cruiser to force Mexico and Cuba to stop the exclusion of China, and demanded an apology from the other side, and also to pay compensation?

This incident is almost the last imperial dignity of the Qing political axe.

At this time, Kang Youwei was not in Torreon, but went to Mexico City to speculate on land, because Mexico City was building a tram, Kang Youwei's experience of traveling around the world in Europe and the United States finally showed a powerful side, he immediately realized that the land price of the tram passed through would skyrocket, and quickly invested in the purchase of a lot of land, and earned more than 100,000 silver yuan.

Of course, Mr. Kang Youwei's ability to speculate on land is by no means limited to this, after the Republic of China, Mr. Kang Youwei, who returned to China, has speculated in Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Qingdao, which are generally short-term speculation, and it is indeed a short-term master in the tide of land speculation in the Republic of China.

As for killing people in order to run a silver mine in Guizhou, Mr. Kang also did it, in short, this person is too complicated.

It was so complicated that Song Biao really didn't want to deal with him.

After using a strange and stubborn way to get Rong to continue to set up an oil company in Tampico to extract oil, Song Biao worked in Porfirio. With the special help of President Dias, an additional part of the land was purchased to set up Chinatowns in Tampico and Torreón.

To this end, Song Biao personally went to Torreón and Mexico City to visit the local Chinese gentry, and founded the Mexican Fubon Company with them in the form of joint stock operation, opened the Mexican Commercial Bank, purchased land in Mexico City and Torreon, and prepared to invest in textile mills, investment banks, copper mines, silver mines and copper smelting companies.

Song Biao casually stayed in Mexico for a month, half for business, half for pleasure, and then visited Chile and signed a treaty of friendship and trade between the three eastern provinces and Chile, which reduced Chile's export taxes on copper and miscanthus to facilitate the import of these resources from Chile.

It was only at this time that Song Biao officially returned to the three eastern provinces by boat.

It was also at this time that Connes. Mr. Vanderbilt finally completed the registration of Bank of America, and although it was only a U.S. bank with no interstate operations and only financial operations in California, the bank was eager to open a new branch in the Shenyang New Area of the three eastern provinces.

For this reason, Cones was very excited to send an urgent telegram to Song Biao, who was in Chile at the time, telling Song Biao that he would increase the capital injection scale of the three eastern provinces branches of the Bank of America to 30 million US dollars within three months, so as to meet Song Biao's stipulation on promising the right to issue notes.

Because of Conns's excessive enthusiasm and trust, this made Song Biao look a little embarrassed, Song Biao originally thought that this was still a very difficult thing, but in fact, it was indeed very difficult, but Conns. Mr. Vanderbilt believed too much in Song Biao's friendship with him, and was convinced that this friendship would guarantee the Vanderbilt family a special return in the three eastern provinces, so Cones really listened to Song Biao's persuasion and sold the stake in the railroad company that the family had held for more than 70 years to the American railroad company controlled by J.P. Morgan.

The butterfly gently stirs its wings, and the whole world is thrown into chaos.

The Eastern Railroad, owned by the Vanderbilt family, controlled rail traffic in New York, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine, and was decisive for the export of oil, leading to a triumvirate of competition between J.P. Morgan, John A. Rockefeller, and Andrew W. Mellon.

As we all know, once the Vanderbilt family loses its controlling stake in the railroad company that owns the entire northeastern United States, the status of the Vanderbilt family in the United States will also decline completely, so Connes D. Vanderbilt's railroad transaction has also caused a very huge controversy in the United States, and people can't wait to discuss that the century-old Vanderbilt family will eventually be replaced by J.P. Morgan \ John A. Rockefeller\ The Andrew W. Mellon triumvirate squeezed into a second-rate family.

In short, the Vanderbilt family sold a controlling stake in the railroad company and eventually siphoned off a huge fortune of more than $35 million from Andrew W. Mellon, which not only caused a sensation in the United States, but also brought about another problem, that is, Andrew W. Mellon also fell into a liquidity crunch, so that he could not take a controlling stake in Gulf Oil at the same time.

J.P. Morgan Bank, who had no interest in the oil business, unethically participated in the affair and bought the shares of Gulf Oil Company held by Colonel James M. Gerfe.

Cones D. Vanderbilt, who was nearly squeezed out of the hegemony of the Eastern consortium in the United States, pinned his hopes on the family's enterprising spirit in the western United States and its large-scale investments in the three eastern provinces, both of which were supported by the U.S. Treasury Department and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

In order to support the Vanderbilt family's newly established Bank of America Bank of America's right to issue notes in the three eastern provinces, the U.S. Department of the Treasury has agreed in principle to approve Bank America's application for interstate banking and trust securities and insurance business.

This statement by the US Treasury Department was criticized by Wall Street banking oligarchs as "immoral special care", but throughout the long 19th and early 20th centuries, "immorality" was everywhere, both in the actions of political axes and in the expansion of commercial capital.

Regarding all this, Song Biao is just a bystander who happens to be in the Americas, and he is very vulgar to do something that everyone will do, and the truth in this is like a man can masturbate.

(To be continued)