The next day.

Accompanied by Ouyang Kang, the consul general of San Francisco, Hu Chuyuan took a carriage and went to San Francisco's Chinatown-Duban Street with Wu Shuzhen and Ye Tongguang.

It is close to downtown San Francisco, which used to be the only way to get to the Shore Wharf, and is now home to more than 30,000 Chinese. Due to the lack of planning, poverty and other factors, the area is particularly dirty, and it is full of wooden houses built with wooden boxes on the pier.

San Francisco's municipal axe has always regarded this area as an epidemic area, and has set up quarantine lines around it to restrict Chinese people from leaving at will.

Looking through the window, looking at this slum area, looking at those ragged Chinese workers, Hu Chuyuan's heart was very uncomfortable.

Passing through Duban Street, we continue to see a Chinese-owned shop street, with dozens of shops, including restaurants, hotels, rice shops, tea houses, pharmacies and cloth shops, most of which are opened by Cantonese.

Along the way, Ouyang Kang babbled about the situation here, his expression was a little numb, and he was a little helpless and embarrassed.

He was in his forties, not tall, and as a consul general, he was also the proprietor of the Canton Association, barely a wealthy man among the Chinese in San Francisco.

He has a cousin named Ouyang Geng, who is one of the young children studying in the United States, who is studying at Yale University.

Most of the Chinese workers here came to make money, and they were abducted and sold as piglets, and many of them signed a death deed that was close to a deed of sale. More or less, you can still earn some salary, but the money will also be deducted, and there are not many people who can really get it.

It's impossible to make a fortune in San Francisco.

Those who have made a fortune and go home to show off...... They are all liars, and they continue to trick their fellow villagers into coming over.

Many people came ten years ago, barely survived to this day, redeemed a free body, but could no longer find a suitable job, and could only work as cheap laborers on the docks, in their forties, without even a wife.

There are a lot of Chinese, but they are all men, and it is very difficult to get married...... There is not even any possibility at all.

Hu Chuyuan could only sigh, it was still very difficult to change this situation, even if he could do it, it would take a long time.

Take your time.

He said this to himself.

After leaving Duban Street, Hu Chuyuan returned to the hotel, where he decided to speed up the various things he had to do, and accompanied by several managers of Wanqi Foreign Bank, he personally selected a new newspaper location and purchased new printing equipment.

Everything is being done in the fastest way possible, even at any cost.

A few days later, Pfister-Delano bought the San Francisco Citizen Times, and on the basis of the original newspaper, Hu Chuyuan retained all the staff such as the editor-in-chief, and moved to a three-story building he bought for $700,000, and the factory next door was the printing house.

With a little preparation, the San Francisco Bay Newspaper was up and running, lowering its offer from 3 cents to 1 cent per copy, increasing its pages from one to two, and publishing supplements and columns, doubling its pages and content while slashing prices.

Subsequently, Hu Chuyuan set up the North American CITIC Investment Company first, and through the network of the Shaolin abbot of Pfister-Dela's post-80s, he found a real estate developer in San Francisco to buy land in the Oakland area, starting from the port.

On the western shore of Lake Merritt in Auckland, he first planned a plot of land for a new Chinatown.

The Port of Oakland is planned to be three times larger than the existing Port of San Francisco in 10 years, with all deep-water ports and intercity rail and light rail connecting Oakland to other surrounding towns.

These are not things that can be done in a short period of time, and Hu Chuyuan is not in a hurry.

After having some foundation, he took the train to Washington, D.C., to meet with Minister Chen Lanbin, who was anxious.

When Hu Chuyuan arrived in Washington, D.C., it was October 22, 1881, and it was late autumn.

Not long after the invention of the electric light, which can be used commercially, electrified street lamps have been installed in Washington, D.C., a country that is keen on new technologies.

On both sides of the street, the dim lights flickered on and off, making it seem a little unstable, but this added some mystery.

Hu Chuyuan sat in his carriage and Chen Lanbin sat opposite him, always beside him the elegant Miss Wu Shuzhen, one of the most unique partners in his career.

Chen Lanbin's anxiety and embarrassment can be seen.

Hu Chuyuan said that he was not in a hurry was false, he just didn't want to show it.

Through the car window, he looked curiously at the street lamps, as if time had passed, and he had returned to a more familiar time, but it could not belong to him.

He loved this era when he was just spreading his wings, and only here he was a god-like man, forever filled with countless unknowns.

"About that...... thing!"

Chen Lanbin was eager to communicate information with Hu Chuyuan, and with his understanding of Hu Chuyuan, if there was one person in China who could turn the situation around, it would be Hu Chuyuan.

Hu Chuyuan raised his hand slightly, signaling Chen Lanbin not to speak in a hurry for the time being, leaving him a little time, enjoying the halluciation as if he had returned to many years later.

The carriage slowly stopped in front of the slightly shabby door of the Qing Legation, and slowly entered the Legation, and the street lights disappeared, except for two nondescript red lanterns hanging under the eaves of the gate.

After getting out of the car, Hu Chuyuan said to Chen Lanbin: "Don't worry for the time being, this kind of thing is ...... It's not within our control, so let's see what happens. ”

Chen Lanbin sighed at this time: "Hu Tituo, I'm waiting for your sword to go wrong right now, I can't do anything anyway." The Americans are so arrogant that they don't talk to us at all, and they say that it's their business and that it has nothing to do with us. ”

Hu Chuyuan said: "Don't worry. ”

Of course, Chen Lanbin was in a hurry, this matter had already alarmed the Queen Mother, and his future was almost tied to this, so he had no choice but to write an excerpt to ask for retirement, and said that Hu Chuyuan was the only one to solve this matter.

He wanted to smear the soles of his feet and slip them clean.

In the legation, Rong Hong and Wu Jiashan were also waiting for news in the hall.

Greeting them one by one, Hu Chuyuan still didn't say much, and only waited until he finished the dinner for the guest family before he invited Rong Hong to his room to discuss the matter alone.

When Hu Chuyuan left the United States last time, his relationship with Rong Hong was not very harmonious.

But it turned out that Hu Chuyuan's method was right, and after 27 older thorny students, including Rong Hong's nephew Rong Kuo, were sent back to China and handed over to the jurisdiction of the Fuzhou Shipping Administration, and the self-love association was established by the more moderate Ouyang Geng, the situation was significantly better, and the conflict between the students and Wu Jiashan was greatly eased.

It was precisely because of this incident that Chen Lanbin especially believed in Hu Chuyuan, thinking that he had different abilities, and at the critical moment, he suggested to the imperial court that Hu Chuyuan should replace him.

On the other hand, after Rong Kui and others arrived at Fuzhou Shipyard, Hu Chuyuan also ruthlessly put them in the sailors for half a year, and then successively selected more suitable candidates to return to the UK to study, including Rong Kui.

This can be regarded as a great affection for Rong Hong, if Hu Chuyuan wants Hu Chuyuan, Rong Hong is a thorn, at this moment, but he only knows that he thinks about his own dignity and freedom.

Rong Hong is also very clear about this.

Closing the door, as soon as he sat down, he sighed with Hu Chuyuan: "I had some disputes with Hu Shao a few days ago, but now that I think about it, I'm really doing things rashly!" ”

Hu Chuyuan's expression was serious, and he said: "Those are all trivial things, Mr. don't have to think about it, the past is over." I have arranged for Rong to go to the UK to study mechanical manufacturing, and there are two pipe bands in the care of fellow countrymen Ye Fu and Deng Shichang, so there will be no problems. ”

Rong Hong smiled contentedly: "It's really heartbreaking." ”

Hu Chuyuan waved his hand, signaling that he didn't need to say anything more about this matter.

At this time, Wu Shuzhen also knocked on the door and came in, and asked with a smile with Hu Chuyuan: "Oh, it's still very mysterious." ”

Hu Chuyuan quietly pulled a chair and asked her to sit down too.

Rong Hong then said: "Hu Shao, what you asked me and Mr. Wu to do a few days ago is almost done, and in two days, we will arrange for you and Mr. John Sherman of the Republican Party in the United States, who is now the chairman of the Republican Party." Some of these situations seem to be very clear to Miss Wu. ”

Speaking of this topic, Wu Shuzhen couldn't help but sigh a little and sighed: "Politics isn't all like that." Just like the dispute between the conservatives and Westernists in the Qing court, in the final analysis, there are three reasons: ideas, rights, and regions. At present, the Congress and the Republican Party in the United States are in chaos, but the Mingzhu Party is united, that is, it wants to exclude China and win public opinion through the card of Chinese exclusion. ”

Yung continued: "Since the economic crisis of 1873, when the House of Representatives was re-controlled by the Benjamin Party, they were indeed the crux of the matter. The Benjamins are extremely anti-Chinese, discriminating against all non-white people, including blacks, and their main supporters are the current estate owners and the American people at the grassroots level. What they propagate is the theory of the scourge of Chinese workers, that it is Chinese workers who have caused the economic crisis, and that if they do not expel Chinese workers, the United States will be occupied by the Chinese and become a low-class yellow race. ”

Hu Chuyuan listened silently and thought in his heart.

In fact, this problem continued many years later, and the Ming Cook Party was conservative from its birth, both in terms of economy and human rights, and their anti-Chinese and [***] tendencies were perpetuated for a long time.

Yung continued: "Nonsense, although we tried our best to contact the Republican Party Chairman John Sherman, he is only a representative of the centrist party, and even if he is also a centrist party, there are many contradictions between him and President Chester Arthur. The real person in power at the moment is Secretary of State James G. Bryan, but he belongs to the more radical faction and has no contact. ”

The three of them just chattered like this, roughly sorting out the current political situation in the United States, and there is no doubt that Grant and Sherman are the best breakthrough at present.

(To be continued)