In this part of the South Seas, it is not a good thing to tear your face with the British too early.

Hu Chuyuan was not in a hurry to make Sarawak fully read, as long as he could retain the right to fight independently in Borneo, diplomatic rights would not make much sense to Sarawak in front of him.

Therefore, Hu Chuyuan's plan was to first obtain a separate national qualification, just like the relationship between Australia and the United Kingdom, stay under the banner of the British Empire, steadily develop the power of Sarawak, slowly develop to Borneo, and then after ten years of complete construction, finally obtain the diplomatic power of reading.

After reaching this series of agreements, Woo Chu Yuan was hired by the Prime Minister of the Special Self-Governing State, Neville Chamberlain, as a state adviser, and arrived in Kuching to devise a new national development strategy for the new Sarawak Special Self-Governing State.

Rockefeller once said that even if he was left in the desert without a penny, he could recreate a new empire.

Now Hu Chuyuan can do the same.

Because his knowledge and ideas are different and beyond this era.

He made a very complete plan for the Sarawak Autonomous State, giving priority to the development of rice and plantation sugarcane and rubber economy, the development of sulfur, iron, gold, copper and coal mines, the construction of railways, the construction of ammunition supply factories, and the development of shipbuilding, papermaking and other wood processing industries by taking advantage of the existing timber advantages.

The whole core idea is to renovate the cities and ports, improve the living conditions and agricultural production conditions, implement a partial free policy for medical care, education and housing, and supply land cheaply, and then attract immigrants from southern Fujian and Guangdong through the relationship with the villagers and the signing of labor agreements.

In Kuching, Hu Chuyuan found a new space to exert himself, but was blocked by the Qing court due to his funds in the country...... At this time, the Qing court did consciously want to annex his assets, and he could only withdraw six million US dollars from the North American Wells Fargo Investment Bank to continue to support the cause of Zhang Lingpu and others.

This amount of money is really a drop in the bucket, but when the news of the establishment of the Sarawak Autonomous State spread, other Nanyang Chinese businessmen donated money to help, and the real richest man in Nanyang, Zhang Bishi, finally showed up, donating 3 million taels of silver to the autonomous state at a time, and was willing to invest 7 million taels of silver in the sugar industry of the autonomous state.

Hu Chuyuan had his first meeting with Zhang Bishi, the richest man in Nanyang, at Ivy Chunyuan, and the two soon decided to set up a joint venture in Nanyang Sugar, Mining and Tobacco to make a comprehensive investment in Sarawak.

For the time being, Hu Chuyuan is a little inconvenient.

After returning to Singapore again, Hu Chuyuan began to concentrate on dealing with the Qing court to get his money back.

His industry is mainly concentrated in the Shanghai concession, and the Qing court does not dare to embezzle it openly, and is currently in a very anxious state, and the Qing court is also trying to find a way to take away his wealth, Cixi's meaning is still the same - not hesitating to borrow from foreigners, but also to buy Jiangnan Commercial Bank and CITIC Bank.

She was really generous, and she was willing to take out eight million taels of silver to buy Jiangnan Commercial Bank, and asked Li Hongzhang to find a way to raise money to buy CITIC Bank, and said that the household department could also contribute money, and she could still get a few million taels of silver.

Bah.

At this time, Cixi may have understood that it was difficult to properly annex Hu Chuyuan's property in China, and now, what does she think, this needs to be figured out.

Hu Chuyuan may not be able to figure it out, Li Hongzhang, Zuo Zongtang, Yan Shizhang...... These people are definitely able to think it through.

Just when Hu Chuyuan was concentrating on the operation of the Nanyang Company, Li Hongzhang had already appointed Zheng Guanying to take over the Jiangnan Commercial Bank in the name of the official stock supervision. Without waiting for Li Hongzhang to start, under the planning of Yan Shizhang, the "Declaration" and the "Guardian" simultaneously announced the total assets of Jiangnan Commercial Bank and China CITIC Bank.

In the years when Hu Chuyuan served as the general office of Jiangnan Commercial Bank, Jiangnan Commercial Bank never officially disclosed its total assets, and even did not share dividends.

Zuo Zongtang and He Jing also recognized this, they wanted to use money, and they all used dividends as collateral to borrow from Hu Chuyuan.

Now the problem comes, after five years of operation, the total capital of Jiangnan Commercial Bank has grown to 230 million taels of silver, including the shares of Wanqi Foreign Bank and many other foreign banks, including 30% of the shares of Jiangnan Agricultural Cooperative, as well as the total assets of its branches, the factories invested in Shanghai, the ground shops held in the Shanghai concession, and the railways, factories and mines held in the five provinces of Jiangnan.

Although Jiangnan Commercial Bank is not listed, most of the factories controlled by the firm are listed in Hong Kong, plus the market value of Swire, Wanbao and Chanchen on the stock markets in Hong Kong, London, Berlin and Paris.

The total amount of accumulated wealth directly scared Zheng Guanying stupid.

Really scared silly.

Zheng Guanying had never seen so much money in his life, and immediately after that, Li Hongzhang was speechless...... To be precise, Li Zhongtang finally understood how terrible Hu Chuyuan was, and Hu Chuyuan's assets left in China could not be swallowed by the top ten, especially when foreigners were also involved.

In the process of rapid expansion, Jiangnan Commercial Bank left a large amount of debt to the Bank of America, which was not only the largest creditor bank of Jiangnan Commercial Bank, but also the first debtor bank of the Qing court.

The debt of the Jiangnan Commercial Bank was 79.7 million taels of silver, and the debt of the Qing court was 57.99 million taels of silver.

Come on, buy it.

Hu Chuyuan did not believe that the Qing court had the courage to repay the debts with the American-funded banks.

The interest on these debts was relatively low, averaging less than 10% per year, but before Hu Chuyuan left, he had signed a supplementary clause that when he no longer assumed the debt guarantee liability of Jiangnan Commercial Bank and the debt of the Qing court, Bank of America had the right to renegotiate the loan interest and debt guarantor.

At the same time that Mr. Robert Russell, president of the Bank of America, and Pfister Delano, president of the Wells Fargo Investment Bank of North America, personally arrived in Tianjin to discuss the new loan interest with Li Hongzhang, Hu Chuyuan also passed Yan Xinhou and transferred the letter to the Prime Minister's National Affairs Yamen, stating that he could not run the Jiangnan Commercial Bank and was no longer able to bear the debt guarantee, and also reached an agreement with the United States to no longer guarantee all debt liabilities.

Burst.

Vomit blood and go.

The price of tearing his face with Hu Chuyuan is huge, and the Qing court now understands it.

February in Singapore is warm, like early summer, sometimes cool, sometimes warm.

Hu Chuyuan lived in the Ivy Garden, didn't care about anything, and followed Cheng Tinghua to practice cross-palms and legs with peace of mind.

What did he have to worry about?

He still has a lot of wealth left in the United States, enough for him to use in this life.

If the Qing court wants to unload the mill and kill the donkey, then kill it, who is the mill and who is the donkey, then it's hard to say.

In control of the two concession newspapers "Declaration" and "The Guardian", he began to expose the fact that Zheng Guanying embezzled public funds for the layout of machine weaving, and that Sheng Xuanhuai and Li Hongzhang had taken kickbacks in the Beiyang military purchase, and even the amount of kickbacks for Sheng Xuanhuai and Zheng Guanying's purchase of machinery and ships was also poked out.

They also didn't want to think about how Hu Chuyuan could not collect this information, not to mention that the foreign banks must know about the matter of handling military purchases and receiving kickbacks with foreign banks, and Hu Chuyuan held shares in these foreign banks.

The sales volume of the "Guardian" is not high, and the average order volume is only 3,000 copies, but a large number of copies of the newspaper are circulated in Beijing and Zhili, and the news is spreading more and more widely.

The news that the Qing court was going to forcibly buy 172.5 million taels of silver from merchants for 8 million taels of silver also spread widely, and the news that the Qing court was unloading the mill and killing the donkey, and that it was going to recover all the commercial shares of all official and commercial firms at a low price became even more widespread.

All of a sudden, everyone was in danger, and Qiao Zhiyong, Xu Run and others all felt shivering.

On February 7, 1883, Jiangnan Commercial Bank went on strike to resist the blackmail of merchants by the Qing court and benefit the people.

Liangguang Commercial Bank, Shandong Commercial Bank, Sichuan Commercial Bank, Huguang Commercial Bank, and Shanxi Commercial Bank followed suit, boycotted the market three times, and stopped supplying all rice, salt, sugar, oil, and groceries.

Liangguang Commercial Bank and Shandong Commercial Bank are the leaders, and these two commercial banks, the former is held by Hu Chuyuan, and the latter is simply controlled by Hu Chuyuan. Among the two commercial banks in Sichuan and Huguang, Hu Chuyuan also controlled the circulation of their funds through the ticket number business and held a certain amount of shares.

Now, Hu Chuyuan wants to make a big deal out of it, and he has personally written to The Times and the New York Times, asking them to report on the matter.

It is not good for Hu Chuyuan to tear his face, but unfortunately, things have already reached the point where he can't tear them up.

On February 14, the "Guardian" and "Declaration" continued to disclose that the Beiyang Bank used a large number of circular technology and paper, all the paper and pigments were imported from the bank, and the machinery and plate making were also the responsibility of the bank, and once the bank decided to plot East Asia and Taiwan, it could disrupt the economy of the Qing Dynasty by forging a large number of Beiyang Bank banknotes.

On February 15, the Guardian was blocked by the Zhili Yamen and was not allowed to spread outside the concession.

On February 17, the "Declaration" comprehensively reported on the cooperative relationship between Sheng Xuanhuai and Yue himself, and speculated that Sheng Xuanhuai may be one of the masterminds of the Tianjin attack, and labeled Sheng Xuanhuai as a "Japanese and Han annihilation".

On February 22, the Qing court dismissed Zheng Guanying and Sheng Xuanhuai, and all the banknotes of the Beiyang Bank were invalidated and exchanged in the Beiyang Bank within a time limit.

At that time, there was a run on Beiyang Bank.

On March 1, Beiyang Bank went bankrupt, and the total amount of banknotes issued was 14.85 million taels of silver, and only 3.74 million taels of silver were exchanged.

In the scolding of the whole country, the Manchus who relied on Li Hongzhang to contain the Hunan army continued to keep Li Hongzhang, and only gave him a small punishment of demoting him to two levels and retaining him, but the title of Zhongtang was withdrawn first.

Hu Chuyuan finally let out a bad breath and set off for the United States to meet his wife Wu Shuzhen in Oakland.

At this time, he had no intention of returning to China at all, and he was not an idiot, after such a fuss, his assets were preserved, and he and the Qing court completely turned their faces.

The world is so big, where is not his stage.

Why bother?

I can't do it.

He's always changing the world, and in Auckland, he's running a world of his own.

A large amount of land throughout Oakland, Berkeley, Hayward, and Richmond was bought by the San Francisco Bay Company, and the two towns of Oakland and Richmond were built intensively.

In Lake Merritt Lake, San Francisco Bay has resettled about 27,000 Chinese through its own land project.

According to the new Regulations on the Administration of Chinese Workers, Wanqi has the sole right to operate the import of Chinese laborers, and other U.S. companies are not allowed to import labor from China and Nanyang.

Wanqi has set up a special Chinese labor management company, and reached agreements with 17 major Chinese workers, including the United Railroad Company and the San Francisco Bay Company, to give Chinese workers the same salary as American workers, and Wanqi Foreign Company will be responsible for paying them on their behalf.

Hu Chuyuan is a master and enthusiast of building gardens.

Soon after arriving in Auckland, he chose to rebuild the garden on the triangular peninsula on the north shore of Lake Merritt, and more than 120 acres of land were used for the construction of private mansions.

Recently, he has been confined to a hotel in the center of Auckland, which Wu Shuzhen has bought as a temporary residence for her and Hu Chuyuan.

Soon, she planned to reconvert the hotel into a twelve-storey luxury hotel for business.

Her business acumen is still unquestionable.

After resting for a few days in Okra, Wu Shuzhen tentatively asked Hu Chuyuan about her surname, and she didn't plan to return to China.

Hu Chuyuan's answer is not to think about it for the time being.

He had already handed over the disposition of his property in China to the Bank of America, and let Robert Russell, Pfister Delano, and John Young, the American minister to China, negotiate with the Qing court strongly, and he was too lazy to deal with the Manchurians.

Isn't it nice to be in Auckland?

Just when Chen Lanbin was ordered to try his best to contact Hu Chuyuan, Hu Chuyuan had already left Oakland with Wu Shuzhen and re-checked into the Imperial Hotel in Manhattan.

Here, Hu Chuyuan continued to live a low-key life, and often met with Albert and Pulitzer to discuss issues with the American News Newspaper Company and the Wanqi Laboratory.

At this time, Hu Chuyuan decided to publish a newspaper "American News" that was distributed throughout the United States, similar to the positioning of "Today's America," the largest newspaper in the United States, and set up three branch headquarters in the western, central, and eastern parts of the United States at the same time to publish "American News."

In his design, U.S. News was a double-page, medium-sized newspaper, with the first page delivered by telegram and unified across the country, and the second page consisting of local news.

In Wanqi Laboratory, Albert has hired more than a dozen scientists with a certain reputation in the United States, and further merged with Bell Telephone Company, inviting Bell to serve as the director and chief scientist of the laboratory.

As for the kind of smokeless gunpowder proposed by Hu Chuyuan, it has been studied in the laboratory, and the manufacturing process is very simple, just using nitric acid and cotton, and the problem now is the fine fibrosis of cotton, as well as the purification of nitric acid, so as to obtain very pure nitrocellulose cotton.

There is still some way to go for large-scale industrial production, but for the time that can be expected, it is really a good propellant.

While examining the experimental results of nitrocellulose and new telephones in Wanqi's laboratory, Hu Chuyuan met Alexander Graheim Bell, the legendary inventor of the telephone, who was only thirty-six years old.

Out of trust in this man, Hu Chuyuan decided to stay a little longer and talked for a moment in the office of Alexander Bell's laboratory director.

On the one hand, Edison invented the carbon box technology and filed a new patent, which greatly improved the sound quality of the telephone, but Edison sold the technology to the Western Union Telegraph Company.

JP Morgan, a major investor in the Western Union Telegraph Company, not only does he not plan to continue to transfer patented technology, but he is also prepared for a long-term tug-of-war with Bell Telephone.

This made the Wells Fargo Investment Bank of North America cheaper, and the Wells Fargo Investment Bank quickly invested in buying a 50% stake in Bell Telephone Company and jointly established a new laboratory with Bell to continue to invest in telephone technology research.

The Bell Telephone Company also operated its own telegraph device production and operation industry, from which all the telegraph devices of the Gangnam Telegraph Office were purchased.

In order to secure this huge contract, coupled with financial constraints, Mr. Alexander Bell sold a portion of the company's shares to Wanqi Foreign Bank, and then transferred these shares to Wells Fargo Investment Bank, so that Wells Fargo Investment Bank actually held 63% of the shares of Bell Telephone.

Hu Chuyuan listened to Mr. Bell's scratches very quietly, it seems that there are too many problems in this emerging industry, competition is always everywhere, and it is a capital competition that makes Mr. Bell feel painful.

After listening, Hu Chuyuan stood up, picked up the phone, and asked the operator to plug the phone into JP Morgan's office.

Soon, the call was connected.

Hu Chuyuan did not say much nonsense, he put forward a condition, 1.5 percent of the United Railroad shares in exchange for Edison's technical expertise, and at the same time, the Western United Telegraph Company was not allowed to get involved in the telephone business.

J.P. Morgan was silent for a moment and then said, "Since you're in New York, we can make a deal."

Trading between oligarchs is as simple as that.

JP Morgan can bully Bell Telephone, but if Bell Telephone has Wells Fargo Investment Bank and Bank of America behind it, the problem is complicated.

I can't do it.

Yes, all businessmen understand this.

Hu Chuyuan put down the phone and said to Alexander Bell: "Look, the problem has been solved, we will continue to invest, please build your telephone company into the largest telephone company in the United States!" ”

Mr. Alexander Bell couldn't believe what he was seeing.

The problem that troubled him for a whole year was solved by Hu Chuyuan with just one phone call.

Yes, 1.5% of United Railroad's stock is worth millions of dollars.

Hu Chuyuan was about to leave the laboratory, but at this time, a young man came to apply for a job, with a letter of recommendation from Charles Bachler, the manager of the Eastern Telegraph Company, but the letter was addressed to Edison.

Bell looked at the thin dark brown-haired young man curiously and asked, "Then why don't you go to Edison's company?" ”

The dark-haired young man replied in very strange English: "His salary is too low, I heard that Wanqi Company is willing to offer a monthly salary of 55 US dollars to recruit technicians!" ”

Bell nodded silently and said, "Then you can intern here for three months temporarily, and if everything is satisfactory, we are willing to pay you this salary." ”

The brunette nodded in agreement, and then followed Bell's secretary to the lab.

Hu Chuyuan asked casually, "Who is he?" ”

Bell indifferently threw the letter of recommendation aside and said, "Nikola Tesla, an Eastern European man, I don't know what kind of skills he will have, but I would be happy to have trouble with Mr. Edison." ”

"Oh!"

Hu Chuyuan's heart trembled slightly.

He smiled secretly, this deal is a good deal, and a monthly salary of $55 can recruit Nikola Tesla, and it was still very wise to formulate this high-salary policy in the first place.

He thought for a moment, and then commanded Alexander Bell: "This may be a very unique person, I am very interested in him, and I would like you to tell me everything about him beforehand." ”

"Oh, I'll do it!"

Alexander Bell nodded cautiously, thinking to himself, this young man from Eastern Europe named Tesla was really lucky.

(To be continued)