In a three-story western-style building on Bund Avenue in the Shanghai Business District, He Feitu was carefully looking at the dress that his subordinates had just sent over!

"This is a new dress sewn by Master Li himself, using the finest materials, and the regulations are also made in strict accordance with the regulations sent by the Ministry of Education, there will be absolutely no mistakes!" The subordinate next to him said as he took out a full set of dresses.

He Feitu looked at it and nodded: "Well, you did a good job, this time it is not trivial to participate in the state banquet, no matter what aspect needs to be prepared to the best, this etiquette must not be worse at all!" ”

Since receiving the gilded invitation letter from the officials of the palace affairs department, He Feitu's whole person has fallen into excitement, outsiders may not know, but he has put a lot of thought into order to be able to participate in this state banquet.

He is not a member of the Raw Silk Chamber of Commerce or the Money Association, although he is also engaged in the textile business, but not raw silk, but spinning, his family has been engaged in the cloth business for generations, experienced several homespun workshops, in recent years, with the large-scale use of steam engines in the raw silk industry, after setting off a wind of machines in Shanghai, he also saw the business opportunities, specially purchased many machines from Europe, and united several other families engaged in the cotton industry to open the country's first machine foreign cloth factory, is for ' Huisheng Textile Co., Ltd. is a weaving fabric manufacturer integrating spinning, weaving, printing and dyeing.

However, although the development of the raw silk industry in Shanghai is extremely surging, the development of cotton cloth related industries is extremely backward, which is also related to the domestic environment. The demand for finished fabrics, especially cotton fabrics, is not high. As long as there are some markets in the cities, don't count on the rural markets.

And the cotton cloth market in this part of the city is also occupied by a large number of traditional homespun cloth. The market left for woven fabrics is actually very small, and this part of the already small market is occupied by a large number of foreign fabrics, which has led to the fact that after Huisheng Textile Company was put into production, although the profits are also quite rich, it is far from saying that the situation of making money is far from being overturned, and the limelight is far less than that of those silk reeling factories.

This time, he tried his best to get an invitation to a state banquet, just to take advantage of this opportunity to explain to the military and political leaders, especially the Ministry of Industry and Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the importance of protecting and developing domestic woven fabrics, and the purpose was very simple. That is to try to influence the Empire to raise the tariffs on cloth in the tariff negotiations with other countries.

For this reason, he has directly purchased up to 50,000 yuan of treasury bonds, so that he has obtained the qualification to participate in the state banquet, but this is not all his preparations.

This time he went to Jingshi to prepare for a heavy hemorrhage, so he carried with him a cashier's check of up to 200,000 yuan from the Royal Bank, which could be used to buy all the treasury bonds if necessary, and all he wanted was for the empire to raise the import duty on foreign cloth!

300,000 yuan was used to buy treasury bonds, which sounds like a lot, but for the He family, who have raised heavy capital and are ready to fully enter the weaving industry, as well as several other families. That's 200,000 yen is nothing.

You must know that six or seven families, including the He family, are already raising heavy funds, and it is expected to open a larger-scale textile factory in Shanghai this year, and two more textile factories in Nantong and Hangzhou next year. The initial investment is expected to exceed 2 million yuan, and if all goes well, they will also borrow from the financial industry. With more funds pooled, the scale of investment in the next three years is likely to exceed 5 million yen.

This is going to be a few million yuan. It is not impossible to spend 200,000 yuan to buy treasury bonds, and if the public relations succeeds in raising the import tariff on foreign cloth. Then they are sure to squeeze out the original market of foreign fabrics with their cost advantages, and at the same time expand more woven fabric markets, which will bring millions of profits.

If it weren't for the future development prospects, he He Feitu wouldn't have been able to take out hundreds of thousands of funds to buy treasury bonds, and he would have too much money to spend.

In fact, he didn't know that not only did he plan to use this state banquet to carry out a policy public relations activity, but in fact, most of the wealthy businessmen in other industries such as the raw silk industry and the money industry also took a fancy to this public relations activity, so they would spend a lot of money to buy treasury bonds.

The next day, He Feitu took the steam passenger ship of the Shanghai Steamship Company, which had just opened last year, and set off for Nanjing, and when he left the Huangpu River and passed through the Wusong Fort, he could still see a large area of dense coalition fleets on the deck.

This is obviously a war between the two countries, but why hasn't business been affected much? Foreign merchant ships entering and leaving Shanghai, and even the Yangtze River waterway from Shanghai to Nanjing were not blocked by the Allied or Chinese forces.

When their passenger ship sailed past the coalition fleet, the coalition only sent a small gunboat to accompany them, but they did not intercept or board the ship for inspection.

After Wusong, He Feitu saw a large number of warships when he was in Jiangyin, but these are the warships of the Chinese Navy, and the battleship also said, but the fort by the river is very conspicuous, this fort is even larger than the scale of the Wusong fort, and you can see the muzzles on the fort from a distance, and there are such strong forts to defend it, no wonder the fleet of those foreigners can't beat it.

The steam passenger ship of the Shanghai steamship company is very fast, although the shipping company invested by the Shanghai shipyard, Xinde foreign company and several other commercial banks was officially listed last year, but there were already business activities two or three years ago, but the scale was very small at that time, after the capital increase was formally established last year, the company was formally established, and a number of steam passenger ships and sail ships were purchased, operating the passenger and freight business from Nanjing to Shanghai, Shanghai to Ningbo, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and other treaty ports. However, due to the lack of ships, the main business is still the regular passenger ferry flights from Shanghai to Nanjing and Shanghai to Hong Kong, and the other businesses are relatively small.

In particular, the passenger ships are all steam dark ships, which are fast and popular with business travelers, and of course, the tickets are not relatively expensive.

The tickets of this year, especially the tickets of the steam high-speed passenger ships, are actually much more expensive than the air tickets of later generations. In the future, the first-class ticket for domestic short- and medium-haul flights was only two or three thousand yuan. It is equivalent to the salary of ordinary workers for about half a month to a month, but the first-class ticket for the steam passenger ship from Shanghai to Nanjing in this year is as high as more than 100 yuan. It is equivalent to a year's salary of an average worker.

And all kinds of discrimination are everywhere in these years, which has no social status. Even if you have money, you can't buy a first-class ticket.

At noon, He Feitu and several other first-class passengers were invited to the captain's meal and lunch with the captain, except for He Feitu, most of the other five first-class passengers also had backgrounds, an army officer wearing a military uniform and wearing the rank of lieutenant colonel on his shoulder, although this person was young but the highest status among the people, everyone spoke consciously or unconsciously to compliment him.

Three of the other people were businessmen, like He Feitu, who were on a business trip to Nanjing. The other is a son of a wealthy family in Songjiang, who took his female dependents to visit relatives in Nanjing, and it is said that his uncle served in the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Nanjing, holding a high position as director.

After lunch, He Feitu had nothing to talk to the captain and the lieutenant colonel, and the gentleman's son, so he began to talk with the other three who could be seen at a glance as business people.

The four men, including He Feitu, were dressed differently, He Feitu was wearing a traditional horse coat robe, and the other two were wearing suits. The other was wearing a somewhat retro brocade robe.

Strangely, none of these people wore Chinese costumes.

It's not that they don't like it, it's that it's not very suitable for wearing, and Chinese clothing has been around since the day it was promoted. It was promoted as an official uniform, and eight out of ten people wearing Chinese uniforms were officials in those years, although the official did not clearly stipulate that this Chinese uniform was only allowed to be worn by officials. The public is not allowed to wear it, but you are an ordinary person wearing Chinese clothes. It's just a joke.

Therefore, even if the ordinary gentry are rich, they rarely wear Chinese clothes. Either it's a traditional horse coat robe, or a suit, or simply play retro style and wear a Hanfu.

These people are all business people, and this is whether the business is good or not, how much money they have earned this year, how much they have lost because of the war, etc., which makes the children of the wealthy gentlemen who are drinking tea leisurely on the side can't help frowning secretly, hum, these are rich and foreign, and they dare to talk about state affairs if they don't understand each other.

The son of this gentleman is surnamed Shi Mingxun, the word is repeated, a person from Jiaxing, Zhejiang, although he was born in a wealthy family, but he is not a vulgar generation, on the contrary, he is still a very outstanding young man in the contemporary era, the former Qing Dynasty has been admitted to Xiucai, last year Xuanwu Dengji Enkoli although he was raised in the Zhejiang examination room, but in the final examination was unsuccessful.

A few months after returning to his hometown to study in a new school, his uncle, who was an official in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, wrote to him last month that this year's entrance examination might be held earlier, and at the same time, the autumn enrollment of Imperial University would also be held in advance, so that he could prepare early and arrive in Nanjing in advance to prepare for the examination, and at the same time told him not to worry about his studies, he had already won the qualification for him to audit Nanjing Higher High School in advance, and would not delay his studies.

Therefore, this Shi Fuzhi took his wife who had just become married and the old mother and maid who were waiting for him to go out to Nanjing, accompanied by the daughters of his uncle's family, who were going to move their families to Nanjing.

He was a person who was preparing to take the entrance examination and the entrance examination of the Imperial University, and he had spent the past two years reading new books, and he had a little knowledge of Chinese and foreign affairs, and knew that the British and French invasion of the empire was to open the port and trade, to fight for better tariff benefits and to legalize the opium trade.

No matter how difficult this war is, it will be fought, and these merchants have complained about the ongoing war of the empire because the war has been affected a little!

However, although he was dissatisfied in his heart, he was not a reckless person, so he naturally would not run up and accuse him, he just shook his head and picked up the book and went back to the cabin.

He Feitu's journey did not delay too much, and at noon the next day, he set foot on the land of Nanjing, and then went straight to the city with his entourage.

After him, Shi Xun and his party, who brought more than a dozen family members and large bags, also recruited several carriages and entered the city. (To be continued......)