Zuo Zongtang really has a lot on his mind.

China's politics has always been the bloodiest and most brutal struggle in the world, with one wrong move and losing everything, one misstep and eternal hatred, and even national affairs and the rise and fall of the people are not as important as the desperate struggle between political enemies.

Taking the dispute between Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang as an example, Zuo Zongtang believed that the affairs of Xinjiang Province were related to the country's social affairs, while Li Hongzhang believed that coastal defense was the country's first priority, and in the end it was Zuo Zongtang's opinion that prevailed, and the imperial court also agreed that Zuo Zongtang should send troops, and determined that the four provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Shanxi would mainly bear the military salary, supplemented by Anhui and Shaanxi.

Good.

As soon as Zuo Zongtang sent troops, Li Hongzhang secretly added fuel to the fire by using the case of "Yang Naiwu and Little Cabbage", provoking the officials of the Jiangsu-Zhejiang faction and the Hunan faction to fight openly and secretly, and confiscating all the officials of Zuo Zongtang's lineage who remained in Zhejiang, and then recommended Wu Yuanbing and Mei Qizhao of the Qing faction to serve as governors of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and then let the officials of the Qing faction take the lead in building the Hanhai Stone Pond to drain Zhejiang's taxes, and drained Jiangsu's salt tax on the grounds of increasing capital in coastal defense.

In this way, where does Zuo Zongtang still have military salary, since there is no military salary, Zuo Zongtang can only admit defeat.

At that time, just wait for Zuo Zongtang to be defeated, Li Hongzhang will be able to take advantage of the situation to exert his strength, and from then on, Zuo Zongtang will be completely defeated, and all leftist officials will be cleaned.

Zuo Zongtang is not such a person who is easy to be plotted, he has no military salary, so he asked Hu Xueyan and foreigners to borrow usury.

The two of them gambled on it.

Now it is Zuo Zongtang's great victory, recovering countless lost territories, and also giving him the upper hand in the imperial court.

As soon as Hu Xueyan died, it was difficult to borrow any more loans, and in addition to the severe famine in the north, Shanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, and Shaanxi were the most severely affected.

Zuo Zongtang could only accept it when he saw it, and returned to Liangjiang to clean up the mess, first of all, he had to take all the taxes and rice grain of Liangjiang, not give Li Hongzhang a penny, and see what money Li Hongzhang used to buy warships.

At this moment, Wu Yuanbing and Mei Qizhao are both people who Zuo Zongtang wants to liquidate, but these two people are not Li Hongzhang's people, they are just chess pieces that were secretly used by Li Hongzhang and thrown away when they are used up.

As long as the imperial court still has the imperial examination system, such chess pieces will be more or less for Zuo Zongtang and Li Hongzhang!

This was the politics of the late Qing Dynasty, and Chinese politics has been like this for thousands of years.

The dispute between Zuo Li and Li is too cruel, and if you are not careful, you will become cannon fodder for the two of you, and you don't know how to die.

In the absence of a choice, Hu Chuyuan could only try his best to be careful, he knew that no matter how careful he was, it was always necessary to leave another way back.

Coming out of Rongdong Courtyard, Hu Chuyuan returned to the study in the main hall, Wang Baotian, Chen Xiaobai, Liu Chengxiang, and Tan Yiyun were all there.

Chen Xiaobai asked casually, "What do you have to tell Lord Zhongtang?" ”

Hu Chuyuan thought about it, closed the door of the study tightly, told the whole thing and his own countermeasures again, and whispered to the three of them: "Although I don't know what my father thinks, I really don't want to get involved in the court dispute between the two middle halls...... But there is no way, my father is too deeply involved, even if it is my turn to call the shots, I don't want to quit! ”

Among the four, Chen Xiaobai is a truly capable and powerful character, and his ability to run a money village is even inferior to Hu Xueyan, Wang Baotian, Liu Chengxiang and Tan Yiyun are all old courtiers, loyal and diligent.

Chen Xiaobai said: "The owner, the master doesn't know, it's just that the profits here are too big, and Lord Zuo Zongtang Zuo is a person who can give heavy profits." Not to mention anything else, the money borrowed by the lord and the Standard Chartered Bank was more than 12 million yuan for a period of six years, and the interest was as high as 6 million yuan, and the master collected a guarantee fee of 2.7 million taels at a time. If it weren't for Zuo Zhongtang's instruction and nod, how could the master dare to take this money? ”

Hu Chuyuan thought for a while and said, "It's not that my father has the ability to earn this money, but that Zuo Zongtang is good at controlling people's ways and holding other people's seven inches." ”

Chen Xiaobai asked, "Then what now?" ”

Hu Chuyuan didn't know what to do for a while.

After a moment of silence, he and the four of them asked, "Uncles, how is our Hu family treating you?" ”

Hearing this, the four of them hurriedly replied: "The owner, the master treats us like brothers, go to the soup and fire, and never give up!" ”

"yes!"

Hu Chuyuan felt something, Wang Baotian, Liu Chengxiang and Tan Yiyun were Hu Xueyan's earliest confidants, and it can also be said that they were friends of 20 years of hardship, Chen Xiaobai was Hu Xueyan's main opponent in the Qianzhuang business in his early years, and he was a partner in Qianzhuang together when he was young, and was later rescued by Hu Xueyan in danger, and they have known each other for more than ten years.

They are all people that the Hu family can completely trust.

Although he and these people have not really established a trustworthy and deep friendship, they only do things for him in the eyes of Hu Xueyan.

Thinking of this, Hu Chuyuan sighed: "Four uncles, then I will say something here that cannot be passed on, the lessons of the Wu family in Guangdong, we must never forget." As the saying goes, rabbits and dead dogs are cooked, and birds are hidden, and we will eventually have a day when they are no longer useful. ”

Chen Xiaobai and the four of them each gasped, and Wang Baotian even asked, "Dongjia, what ......do you mean?" ”

Without waiting for Hu Chuyuan to answer, Liu Chengxiang said: "Even if we don't make this plan, we should guard against it, and we can't buy all eggs in one basket!" ”

Hu Chuyuan nodded slightly and said, "That's true, but I'm not in a hurry at the moment." Then again, the praying mantis catches cicadas, the yellow finch is behind, and the Hunan faction and the Huai faction may die in front of us. ”

Chen Xiaobai sighed faintly and said: "The affairs of the world, who can say clearly, the Tao is clear, there is a Tao is the reincarnation of the five virtues, each in charge of the world for three hundred years, in my opinion, even the number of the Qing Dynasty is not easy to say." China is not prosperous, the little ghost jumps off the beam, and today's foreigners are becoming more and more arrogant, but I am afraid that the old thing of foreign invaders entering the Central Plains will be repeated, but it has changed from the Qing Eight Banners to an overseas foreign country! ”

Wang Baotian exclaimed: "Master Chen, you can't talk nonsense, if you let outsiders hear it, you will have to cut off your head!" ”

Chen Xiaobai hmmed and said, "It's all my own family here, so I just said it casually!" ”

Hu Chuyuan also smiled bitterly, and did not continue to talk about this topic, but said what he discussed with Zuo Zongtang, and discussed it with several shopkeepers.

Wang Baotian is a housekeeper and is not very involved in business matters, so Chen Xiaobai said first: "This thing can be done, let's first pay the spring silk money owed to us by the British and French foreign banks to the two foreign companies in Germany, and then transfer 2.44 million taels of silver from the money bank to the Qiao family." The rest of the thing, find a way to draw the money in the pawnshop and the rice shop, move the deposit of the money bank, and transfer three million taels of silver to the Xiang army, if there are still five million taels of silver, Xia Si can continue to collect this year. ”

Raw silk trading and ordinary business is different, this is a order and a speculation, a harvest and a sale, when the spring silk is harvested, give the silk farmers a deposit to pre-purchase summer silk, and wait for the summer silk to be harvested, and then leave the deposit until the spring of next year, and continue to use it to harvest next year's spring silk.

In Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the purchase price of spring silk is generally 3.7 taels per catty, and it is 4.6 taels per catty when sold to foreign banks, and the purchase price is 3 taels per catty and the selling price is 3.8 taels per catty.

Every year, the output of spring silk in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is at least 4 million catties, and the output of summer silk is not less than 2 million catties, 100 catties is a load, and the total output is between 60,000 and 70,000 catties.

After the spring silk is harvested, the foreign bank can not settle the account, the local silk merchants have to continue to invest money to buy Xia silk, and the small businessmen can't lift it, Hu Xueyan's capital is more and more year by year, and last year almost monopolized half of the spring and summer silk in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

The taxes in Jiangsu and Zhejiang are high, and a load of silk transported out of Zhejiang from Huzhou will be subject to additional taxes, Zhengli, Liangjiang military salaries, Tanggong guard fees, Junhu funds, aftermath fees, relief fees, and Huzhou local charity fees, totaling 18.7 taels of silver, and when they enter Shanghai, they will levy similar miscellaneous taxes of 18 taels of silver in Shanghai Daotai.

The so-called Qing Dynasty never increased taxes, and low taxes were pure.

On average, a tax of 0.36 taels per catty of raw silk is added, and after deducting the freight, merchants can only earn 0.4 taels of silver per catty of raw silk.

On the other hand, not all of the raw silk is exported to Britain and the United States, and about half of it will be reeled in the foreigner silk reeling factory in Shanghai to refine the mature silk, and then sell it back to China, and the price has risen to 7 taels of silver per catty.

For this reason, Hu Xueyan has to raise the price with foreign banks every year, and if he raises the price of one more yuan per catty of raw silk, he can earn an extra 300,000 taels.

Hu Xueyan also understood in his heart that no matter how he made money, the real most profitable people were foreigners, so he wanted to monopolize the entire silk market in Jiangsu and Zhejiang with financial resources and power, and foreigners had to come to discuss with him if they wanted to buy silk.

But whether it is a foreigner or other silk merchants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, everyone is reluctant to let him do this.

Later, Hu Xueyan's capital turnover was not good, and he wanted to borrow from other merchants, but the major silk merchants did not borrow money, hoping that he would close down and go bankrupt.

As a result, he was really bankrupt.

What is ridiculous is that Hu Xueyan's bankruptcy directly led to the bargaining power of the entire raw silk industry falling into the hands of foreigners, and the silk merchants who could still rely on Hu Xueyan to raise prices in the past have since lost their glory and become vassals of foreign companies.

Hu Chuyuan saw more and more clearly and understood that businessmen and politicians in the late Qing Dynasty, including Hu Xueyan and Zuo Zongtang, were all fucking sore and deserved to be bullied by foreigners.

After discussing with the three big shopkeepers, he first instructed the matter, Chen Xiaobai went back to Shanghai to discuss the mortgage of the debt with the foreign bank, Tan Yiyun was responsible for raising funds, and Liu Chengxiang continued to be responsible for the acquisition of Xia Si and the transfer of transportation.

To be honest, if it weren't for the help of these big shopkeepers left by Hu Xueyan, Hu Chuyuan really didn't know what to do.

It's easy to give an order, but if you really want to handle those things, you don't have more than ten years of experience and experience, and you don't have the connections, relationships, prestige and connections you have accumulated...... Who can get things right? The slightest mistake can toss Hu Chuyuan to death.

However, when Zuo Zongtang came to the Hu family's compound at this time, he really helped Hu Chuyuan a lot.

Without him, it is almost impossible for Hu Chuyuan to smoothly take charge of the Hu family's family business.

Without Zuo Zongtang, where would Hu Xueyan have such a big family business?

What's more, Zuo Zongtang was also a scholar of Tirenge in the Qing court, the governor of Liangjiang and the minister of Nanyang Commerce, and the leader of the Hunan army after Zeng Guofan.

As long as Hu Chuyuan talks to him and has a relationship, Hu Chuyuan's position in the Hu family is already unbreakable.