As the prime minister of the Qing Dynasty, Hu Chuyuan did not feel particularly excited, on the contrary, he only felt pressure.

Even he could not find a suitable way out for China.

With the development of China's economic and military strength, the contradictions between China and Britain have become greater than cooperation, but because China does not want Britain to form a formal alliance between the two countries, and Britain does not want China and Germany to form a formal alliance, the two sides are still maintaining the necessary cooperative relationship.

France and Russia said that the Triple Entente had been secretly concluded again, but it was not made public.

Britain and France were also rapidly coordinating their relations in an attempt to unite to suppress Germany. The relationship between Britain, France, and the United States was even more complicated, but in terms of overall interests, the two sides were also identical, and neither Britain nor the United States could make Germany unify the entire European continent.

The situation in the world is so complex, where does China go from here, and where does the future lie?

Hu Chuyuan couldn't say clearly.

At this time, all he can do is to do everything he can to strengthen China.

As the only silver-standard country among the world's five major economies, China's greatest advantage is that it has abundant funds, and at the same time it has mastered the world's raw silk, tea, hemp and other monopoly export materials, and the porcelain industry has gradually recovered to a very high level, accounting for an increasing share of the world's sugar, cotton and textile industries and paper industries.

In this regard, the current situation of the late Qing Dynasty is completely different from that at the beginning of the founding of New China.

The electric industrial revolution is progressing rapidly, even surpassing the United States and Germany in many aspects, and by the beginning of 1896, the total installed capacity of China's electric power has been the sum of Germany, Britain and France.

Of course, this is not an astonishing achievement, since in 1896 there were only 72 known industrial customers of electricity consumption in Britain, compared to thousands in Germany and tens of thousands in the United States and China.

In the entire electrical industry, the United States and China are developing very fast, Germany is also growing rapidly, and it is Britain, France, Russia and other countries that are really left behind.

In Shanghai, more than half of the factories have adopted the new three-phase motors of Shanghai Westinghouse Electric Company, and a unified power frequency current of 220V and 55 Hz has been developed in China.

Both Siemens and Westinghouse have established new companies in Shanghai, with R&D in Germany and the United States, but their products are mainly produced in Shanghai, and Shanghai Yinghua Electric Company has a similar product line, and is also the world's largest thermal power company.

Also in Shanghai, Hu Chuyuan has invested in a Shenbao Machinery Factory in advance and began to enter the automobile manufacturing industry, and introduced patented technology from the German Daimler-Benz Automobile Company and the United States General Motors Company with his shareholdings, established a new Shanghai General Motors Company in Shanghai, held the shares of the Shenbao Machinery Manufacturing Factory, and invested in the production of China's first self-produced car with a gasoline engine engine, and the brand was set as Shenbao.

There is no shortage of funds, and the benefits of this advantage are endless.

Hu Chuyuan knows that if he wants to make China stronger, he only has a few things to do: first, invest in infrastructure and improve the domestic market environment and hardware; 2. Increase market capacity, and try our best to improve the national consumption capacity of Zhili, Shandong, Liangguang, and Huguang in addition to the six provinces in the south of the Yangtze River; These two points first decided that China's investment should continue to concentrate on agriculture, expand the advantages of the agricultural industry, popularize chemical fertilizers, increase the area of mechanical cultivation and animal power cultivation, increase grain output, increase the rate of deep grain processing, raise grain prices, popularize the chain of new-type agriculture, popularize animal husbandry and animal husbandry processing industry, and promote the output of cash crops.

The second focus of investment is still transportation, and the construction of railways, roads, seaports, and river ports should be increased, and new transportation construction should be carried out in North China, the Central Plains, Liangguang, and Huguang by concentrating the advantages of funds.

On this basis, Hu Chuyuan knew that he had to centralize the banking industry, and his personal losses were secondary.

In addition, he also wanted to establish a perfect industrial system in North China, Shandong, Huguang, and Guangzhou, and make full use of China's advantages in terms of vast land and resources, and further encourage businessmen to invest on their own in the six provinces south of the Yangtze River.

Nationwide, the issuance of credit should be intensified.

This means that the average lending rate of the nation's banking sector must be lowered, and the Daqing Bank must be established to provide strong supervision of the banking sector throughout China, and gradually reduce the number of note-issuing banks, centralize the power to issue money in a few large banks, and eventually give the central bank full control over the amount of banknotes.

These things were familiar to Hu Chuyuan, and the Daqing Banking Bureau and local banking bureaus were soon merged into the Daqing Bank, which was responsible for monitoring various commercial banks.

At the urging of Hu Chuyuan, the Cabinet Prime Minister's Office soon launched a development outline for the next 10 years, which was uniformly announced in the "Tianjin Daily", "The Guardian", "Ta Kung Pao", "Jiangnan Daily", and "Declaration", which will focus on the construction of North China, Shandong, Huguang and Guangzhou, the Prime Minister's Office will improve infrastructure construction, increase investment, businessmen will invest in industry and commerce on their own, and for some special plans, Daqing Bank will provide additional loan guarantees and subsidies.

Therefore, the main flow of political axe funds is still in North China and Shandong, and vigorously promote the electrical industry, in Tianjin, Tangshan, Laiwu, Zibo to set up the country's largest thermal power plants.

In the field of education, the Prime Minister's Office proposed to focus on the construction of six universities, namely Yenching University, Tianjin University, Jiangnan University (Shanghai), Southeast University (Fuzhou), Nanyang University (Guangzhou), and Aurora University (Shanghai), and set up foreign Chinese language schools, engineering schools and technical public schools in various provinces, and set up engineering colleges in the six provinces of Jiangnan where conditions permit.

At the same time, Hu Chuyuan abolished the tax package system, and everyone had to pay all personal taxes according to the system, but donations to education, medical care, scientific research, road and canal repairs, reservoir construction, and other undertakings could offset the taxes, and the investments within these areas could offset part of the taxes.

This clause is also very important to Hu Chuyuan personally, because his annual investment and donations to these causes in China totaled more than 100 million yuan, especially in the six provinces south of the Yangtze River, thousands of schools and schools are almost supported by his funds.

As a capitalist and businessman, Hu Chuyuan also played an extremely key role, he alone invested 140 million yuan in infrastructure investment in the Zhili area, focusing on railways, ports, and electric power, and the total investment scale in Shandong and Liaodong Peninsula also exceeded 100 million yuan.

Across the industrial spectrum, his investments are even larger.

Governing the country and doing business are not necessarily in conflict, and he himself received a lot of political subsidies and support policies, and his personal income tax in 1896 will exceed 144 million yuan, but his actual donation to education will exceed 170 million yuan, and he also set up large-scale schools in Zhili and Shandong.

Through CITIC Bank and other holding banks, he also provided large loans to the provinces for the construction of roads, canals, and reservoirs, and in conjunction with Westinghouse's pilot project in Buffalo, the reservoirs also began to build small and medium-sized hydropower stations to make up for the cost of reservoir construction by generating electricity.

As of December 30, 1896, in just half a year, the total investment in new infrastructure projects in various places increased to 1.292 billion yuan, the highest peak in history, and this trend is still growing.

A large number of projects means a large number of jobs and debts, in just half a year, the cabinet of the prime minister's office borrowed public bonds and national bonds reached 1.45 billion yuan, the numbers reported to the Guangxu Emperor in front of the front, for the emperor, it is indeed very confusing and incomprehensible, but out of trust, he still adopted a policy of support.

Hu's answer is simple: as China's economy grows further and financial markets boom, selling just 30 percent of the state-run shares will be enough to settle these debts.

After the abolition of the Prime Minister's Senior Minister's Yamen, the official shares held by the Qing Zhengaxe were transferred to a separate State Administration of Investment Promotion, which was under the jurisdiction of the new Minister of Investment Promotion, and there was a China Merchants Bank with reading power.

Of course, Hu Chuyuan did not trust the quality of officials in various places, and the rule was always very simple, a big project is the beginning of big corruption, and he also set up the General Administration of Integrity Supervision of Reading Li, which is responsible for supervising large projects nationwide.

His method is still very flexible, setting up a separate allowance and subsidy for major projects, giving those officials a sum of money, and it is safe within this range, and if the limit is exceeded, he will immediately send people to conduct surprise inspections.

It's easy to say, but behind everything there are all kinds of details that work.

After becoming the first assistant minister of the prime minister's cabinet, Hu Chuyuan was busy non-stop, and hardly had a day to rest quietly, and Liu Hongxi, Luo Dayou, and other officials who had made achievements in the local area were all transferred back to the prime minister's office.

In order to implement more detailed political management, various localities are also constantly recruiting officials to supplement the existing bureaucratic system, and there are too many inadequacies and a wide variety of new problems.

Hu Chuyuan is basically unable to solve those problems, he is a great businessman, and he can be regarded as a first-class politician, but when it comes to the governance of the country and the control of the entire bureaucracy, he does not have the kind of scenery that he used to have, and he is no longer an omnipotent person.

The good news is that although there are many problems, the general direction is always moving forward rapidly, the constitutional system itself is meaningless, and the gradual reform of the entire political axe system is effective after all.

The large-scale construction and investment controlled by Hu Chuyuan was also very effective.

After a busy and arduous few years, at the end of 1898, Mei Qizhao, Zhang Zhiwan, and Yan Jingming died of illness one after another, and Ding Ruchang, Liu Mingchuan, Liu Kunyi, Liu Jintang, Liu Shengxiu, Xu Zhanxu, and Wang Debang ...... All who could die died.

Except for the old demon Li Hongzhang who is still surviving, there is almost no one with higher prestige than Hu Chuyuan in the political situation of the late Qing Dynasty.

This has completely become the era of Hu Chuyuan, who controls the entire situation and promotes Zhang Zhidong, Zhang Baixi, Huo Hongji, Lu Chuanlin, and Tu Renshou to the "young and promising" generation between the ages of 55 and 65 to the Prime Minister's Office and serve as cabinet ministers.

Behind this group of people, especially in the section of the twelfth year of Guangxu (1886), Xie Yuanqi, Wu Hongjia, Ding Bingqian, Yang Shipai, Sun Xidi, Song Bolu, Luo Guanglie, Xu Shichang, Sun Zongyuan, Li Xiling, Jiang Xizeng, Ye Dachen, Ye Dahan, Zheng Baochen, Li Yihuang, Mei Ruding, Qin Shusheng, Chen Kuilong, and Song Yuren were all promising officials.

Not for other reasons.......

After the Sino-French War in 1885, it became a common practice for new Jinshi to defect to Hu Chuyuan, and the proportion of defectors to Hu Chuyuan in this session was extremely large, especially with the increase in Wang Yirong's influence, most of these Jinshi were introduced into the six provinces of Jiangnan as officials, becoming the grassroots force of the pragmatic school.

Under Hu Chuyuan's care and the efforts of these people, in the past ten years, they have been successively promoted to the officials of the third grade, Xie Yuanqi, Ding Bingqian, Yang Shipai, Sun Xidi, Xu Shichang, Sun Zongyuan, Li Xiling, and Chen Kuilong are already officials from the second grade, half of them serve as governors outside, and the other half hold important positions in the Prime Minister's Office.

If Yuan Shikai relied on investing in Xu Shichang to get the presidency, then Hu Chuyuan's investment in politics can be called a thousand times that of Yuan Shikai.

Under this wave of people, the number of Enke defecting to the Hu Party in the fifteenth and sixteenth years of Guangxu is also very large, and in recent years it has been all over the place, some are prefects, and Wang Qingmu, a Jinshi from Chongming County, Jiangsu, who is most concerned by Hu Chuyuan, has mentioned the governor of Shandong to replace Zhang Zhidong.

At first, Hu Chuyuan was only promoted and appointed because Wang Qingmu studied in the Jiangnan Academy of Chinese Studies when he was a teenager, and later found that this person was honest, shrewd and steady, and had a long-term vision, proficient in foreign languages, and familiar with Chinese and Western books.

Since then, he has made special arrangements to transfer him to the Prime Minister's Office, and at the same time to withdraw Zhang Zhidong back to the Prime Minister's Office as the Prime Minister's Deputy Auxiliary Minister of the Interior, he will also be specially sent to Shandong to serve as the governor of Shandong.

For a person who is only thirty-eight years old, the speed of promotion to become the governor of a province so quickly is indeed amazing.

There is no real boss in the current political situation of the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang is in Sichuan, Ronglu is in the northeast, Tan Zhonglin is the last half, and the rest are Hu Dang.

In addition to the constitutionalist Hu Party, another group of people who also had a lot of weight was the Fuxing Society, but the Fuxing Society was mainly concentrated in the navy, the army and the new army, customs, education, and the media.

This is a very important reason why Hu Chuyuan can sit firmly in the position of prime minister and first assistant minister.

Now the whole world is pragmatic, except for Li Hongzhang, Tan Zhonglin, and Rong Lu, the old demons of the pragmatic faction are basically dead, and the rest is the constitutionalist faction headed by Hu Chuyuan.

Reform.

What you are most afraid of is that others will hold you back, and what you are most afraid of is conservatives.

But now this is such a situation, as long as you want to be an official and want to achieve something, you have to follow Hu Chuyuan's set of methods, and only if you follow this set of methods to make achievements in the local area, you can be promoted.

The whole dynasty is full of Hu parties.

Now, even the Jinshi examination is not important, the number of jinshi selected every three years is only half of the previous one, and the other half is under the control of the doctoral college directly under the management of the Prime Minister's Office, which is directly selected from those college students from the same people's background, and those who pass the examination are given to those who are from the same jinshi background, and they are given political courses in the doctoral college, and then distributed to the counties one by one to start from the grassroots level.

Even if he was born as a Jinshi, he had to continue to defect to the Hu Party.

From this point of view, Hu Chuyuan's "New Compilation of Information Administration", which he began to compile a few years ago, and the subsequent publication of "Reference for Political Affairs" have played a very important role, and they are now both basic subjects of the political science course of the Doctoral College.

(To be continued)