"From the beginning of this matter, to suppress and protect freedom, the starting point of our civilization. …… With this move, we can hope for the progress of the people; With this move, outsiders can be despised by outsiders. …… On the surface, it is only a dispute between commerce and industry; As far as its content is concerned, there is a great deal of concern for national power and sovereignty. The Chinese nation is a valuable nation in the world; If it fails, the Chinese nation will be more and more slaves, cattle and horses, and will be slaughtered by others. …… For the sake of Chinese China, the Chinese people should use purchasing power as a weapon to refuse to buy foreign goods, and the owner of this number is also a member of the people, and should fulfill their obligations. ”

On July 29 of the Western calendar in the "Minbao" in 4602 of Yanhuang, with a small bang, a large number of foreign goods from Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, Germany and other countries on the street were burned, and the onlookers all cheered, and a bunch of foreign goods accumulated by inferior merchants were persuaded to arrive at the congregation and excited students to be placed in the center of the street to ignite, this scene is no longer surprising.

In the past week, all parts of the country have boycotted foreign goods and refused to unload foreign goods, and unlike the so-called businessmen of various countries, when the boycott of foreign goods first started, they thought that this kind of non-governmental commercial boycott would not last long.

"Chinese can't do without foreign goods!"

Foreign businessmen say this, there is a reason to say this: in half a year, China has imported as many as 200 million customs taels of goods from Europe and the United States, most of which are consumer goods, cotton cloth, cotton yarn, wheat, foreign oil, and other consumer goods have imported more than 120 million customs taels in half a year, and the life of the Chinese is not foreign goods, without foreign cloth and foreign yarn, they do not have enough cloth to make clothes, and there is not enough wheat, but the fact has made them fall through their eyes, and the boycott of foreign goods is not only not just a formality as they imagined, but has an increasingly fierce trend. From the very beginning, first the academic circles promoted the business community, and then the chamber of commerce also advocated that the people rise up and destroy the goods, and made a decision to ask the commercial banks to "destroy all the foreign goods stored within three days". Local chambers of commerce have successively telegraphed to major newspapers across the country.

"The local rejection of foreign goods and ships is very active, and leaflets are distributed everywhere to persuade the people to resist and persevere to the end."

At the same time, in the face of the vacancy in the market, some people want to invest in industry, and the ruling axe has introduced relevant incentives such as three years of tax exemption for the establishment of an industry.

At the same time, Shanghai's industrial machinery companies have rapidly launched a variety of machines with relatively simple technologies such as spinning machines, looms, and flour machines, while Ma'anshan Yangtze River Machine Tool Company and Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau have successively launched various easy-to-make machine tools. The Industrial Bank, a number of Chinese-funded banks and money banks have successively promised to provide low-interest loans to the industrial industry, and the political axe has provided guarantees for reputable enterprises, which has further stimulated the emerging industrial investment boom.

With the further development of the boycott of foreign goods caused by the war between Belgium and the right of way, it seems that the spring of China's industry has arrived, and the spring breeze that blows away the chill is slowly blowing on this land.

"This boycott of foreign behavior is the first starting point for my 400 trillion compatriots to intervene in diplomacy." The newspaper also believed that the boycott of foreign goods was the starting point of "the people's efforts to use foreign competition", and the national diplomacy also enabled other countries to see the sincere patriotism of the Chinese people and the great strength it displayed.

In the face of pressure from various countries, the ruling axe said that "the business people do it, not the political axe does it, and the political axe is inconvenient to interfere", while expressing this attitude, the ruling axe issued the "domestic product" standard, the standard is divided into complex seven grades, "Chinese capital, Chinese management, completely domestic raw materials, Chinese work" for the first class, is the purest domestic product. In turn, go down to "Chinese capital, Chinese management, completely for foreign raw materials, Chinese people work; or Chinese capital, Chinese business, completely foreign raw materials, foreign technicians" is the seventh class, which is the lowest grade of domestic goods, and outside the seventh class, it is foreign goods.

And even when the ruling party met with the representatives of the Chamber of Commerce, he declared that "although the boycott of foreign goods originates from the railway and originates from the patriotic heart of the people, it will certainly be of great benefit to the development of the domestic goods industry." The successive affirmation of the ruling axe undoubtedly fueled the "arrogance" of the people's boycott of foreign goods.

At the same time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs played a very important role in the ensuing negotiations. On the one hand, in the process of negotiating with foreign envoys, consuls-general, consuls, consuls, and other foreign diplomats of various countries in China, on the one hand, they insisted on a tough stance and tried to use the boycott of foreign goods as a means to force other countries to recognize the railway as a commercial treaty, and it was inconvenient for them to negotiate, and on the other hand, they used every opportunity to negotiate with all parties and argue on the basis of reason, in order to obtain a satisfactory diplomatic result.

"As the Chinese people awaken and grow in power, their role and influence in diplomacy increases. In formulating and implementing foreign policies toward China, the political axes of various countries can no longer only consider the attitude of the political axe, but have to consider the reaction of the Chinese people. They have become an important factor in enabling China to preserve its territory and sovereignty and to force the great powers to abandon their direct domination or military occupation of China in favor of a new China policy. ”

Putting down the newspaper in his hand, Chen Moran, who was wearing a coarse cloth coat, had a little pride on his face, because in the past week, he had already put on a coarse cloth coat made in Shandong, which was the best support for boycotting foreign goods.

Even the military uniforms of the Guangfu Army have been changed from oblique striped cloth to coarse cloth, although the cloth used in the military uniforms of the Guangfu Army is produced by Sun's and Nantong Dasheng in Shanghai, but in order not to compete with the people for the source of cloth, it was changed to coarse cloth.

"In power, the countries hope that we can abide by the commercial agreement in the road construction loan, to a certain extent, they have agreed that this is a commercial agreement, and they hope that if we want to recover the right of way, we can negotiate with the companies to redeem it!"

Liang Dunyan seemed to have undergone some changes in his gaze when he was in power, and the all-round boycott of foreign goods under the backdrop of the political axe was only eight days, and the ministers, consuls, and commercial banks of European and American countries first dealt with them lightly, and then then to the current tension, and the changes in the meantime could not be clearer to him, who had been negotiating with various countries.

Eight days ago, the sales of foreign goods in China reached as much as one million taels, but from the third day, the national sales were less than 10,000 taels, and he even told Germany, the United States, and Britain that the ruling axe might be due to public opinion, and the other countries had already signed as many as 16 million pounds of machine orders, and the industrial company even suspended the machine orders signed with Germany, the United States, Britain, and France for a total of 10 million pounds.

In the face of unprecedented resistance, countries have to seriously consider China's voice. As the ruling said, when it should be hard, it should be hard, and of course when it is soft, it must also be soft, and in his opinion, the time seems to be ripe.

"Redemption?"

Chen Moran shook his head, this was not what he needed.

"Even if we redeem the railway, what money will we use to repair it?"

Shrugging his shoulders, Chen Moran said a realistic question.

"To redeem the right of way, companies from various countries will definitely take the opportunity to increase the price, the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway has given in to the Ministry of Communications, and expressed through the U.S. consul that it hopes to sell the right of way to us at a high price of six million US dollars.

When asked, he answered it for him.

"At least five thousand kilometers of railway! It's not a win, it's a fiasco! ”

Staring at Liang Dunyan, Chen Moran continued.

"What did we buy back with 100 million taels? For example, the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway spent more than 10 million taels to buy 49 kilometers of railway, as well as more than 4,000 tons of rails and beam materials, are these worth? ”

Liang Dunyan will be a little confused about the meaning of governance, is it possible that the ruling wants to take back the right of way without paying a penny? How could the great powers agree?

"The right of way is to be recovered, but the question is how to collect it, now the Ministry of Communications is negotiating with the Hexing Company of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, we admit the railway loan of four million pounds, and can even approve them to continue to build roads, those companies' money is raised in the European and American private bond sales, they are taking other people's money to lend us, and then they use this to threaten to build surveys, road construction, including railways are also operated by them, until 50 years after its operation, we can take back the management rights, and now we want to fight for this management right!"

"Ruling ...... you mean"

"As long as the operation and management of the railway is taken back, borrowing to build roads is not a bad thing, the key problem is how to borrow, borrowing does not sell the rights and interests of the state, this is a good debt, when we build roads in the future, we will directly issue bonds from the Ministry of Finance to Europe and the United States, and at the same time clearly stipulate that the right to build and manage the railway belongs to the Chinese state, and the foreign engineers and general ledger offices hired must obey the orders of the Ministry of Communications and the general office or charge d'affaires of the project; Outsiders are not allowed to interfere in the purchase and payment of railway equipment, otherwise they are not allowed to do so. The right of way is in me, even if it is offset by railway debt, what does it matter! ”

Some lazily leaned back in the chair, and Chen Moran half-squinted.

"We can look at the country as a company and look at the country's financial problems from the perspective of corporate finance. First of all, if the interest rate on the state debt is higher than the rate of return that can be brought by the project invested or spent by the state, for example, the interest rate on the national debt is 20% and the rate of return on the national investment project is only 2%, where the interest rate on the national debt is the cost and the return on investment is the income, then the project of the state expenditure will lose 18% per year. In this case, in addition to the indispensable state spending, the government should stop and reduce spending, and in particular, it should not waste money through deficits and national debts, and the tax burden should be reduced. If so, it is true that the political axe should save as much as possible in case of a future fiscal crisis with 20% interest on debt. If the interest rate on national debt is lower than the rate of return on state expenditure items, then the money in the treasury will only hinder the growth of national strength and make the country decline, for example, the rate of return on our railway construction is between 8% and 15% a year, which is far lower than the borrowing interest rate, on the contrary, we can borrow money boldly. ”

"In power, the national debt has long been accepted by the people, but the people of our country cannot accept the national debt! The reason why the Chinese people resist is that almost all the national debts are reparations imposed by the great powers, and the borrowing is all due to the loss of sovereignty! Therefore, the Chinese people cannot accept foreign debts! ”

Liang Dunyan, who was born as a child in the United States, naturally knows that there are good and evil debts in the United States, but the people's attitude towards the fundamental negative surname of national debts is of course even more unacceptable to borrow foreign debts, and they have no idea the reputation of borrowing money for construction by the political axe.

While waving his hand, thinking about the people's resistance to the national debt, Chen Moran rubbed his temples with a headache.

After a while, the "Guangfu Bao" and other newspapers in China will successively issue some special articles on the treasury bonds, and the "Guangfu Bao" will take the book as an example to introduce the powerful role of the national debt in the country; by the end of the 19th century, we had not yet implemented the treasury bond market, but the book was already in the forefront. During the Meiji Restoration, he dared to use public debt to support development, while the Qing government was still busy stockpiling silver to the country. As a result, by the time of the First Sino-Japanese War, the national strength of the two countries was very different, and the Manchus, who had deposited the silver, lost 250 million taels of silver to the borrowed capital, and the borrowed silver was used to develop industries and railways, and the borrowed silver was used to build a fleet, and finally they earned it back by fighting a battle, but they then borrowed more. ”

After pondering for a while, Chen Moran continued.

"To change the thinking of the Chinese people, this is undoubtedly the best enlightenment, now as a poor country why can the capital challenge Russia as a European power, they use the borrowed money to develop industry, develop the military, and use the borrowed money to fight, borrowing not only makes the capital not lose its rights, but squeezes into the ranks of the powerful countries, the people don't shout to learn from the book? If you want to learn the book, you must first learn the attitude of the book towards the national debt! ”

After taking a sip of tea, Chen Moran continued.

"Now that the ruling axe is not recognized by foreign countries, it is difficult to borrow new foreign debt, so we have turned to domestic public debt issuance. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Finance, we have raised 43 million yuan of public bonds from China, after this time the issuance of public bonds, our domestic debt market is opening, and the intensity of the issuance of domestic treasury bonds will be increased in the future. ”

Picked up the teacup and drank a few sips, but Chen Moran frowned, although he had already been mentally prepared to turn his foreign deposits into China's treasury bonds, but this always relied on his own money, it was not a thing, after all, that money had other uses, but if the people did not recognize foreign debts, a large amount of foreign debts, I am afraid it would cause the people to feel bad!

"Debts must be raised, so let's start with the railway!"

Before he finished speaking, outside the office, a military staff officer hurriedly walked in, holding a telegram in his hand, but his face was full of joy and sorrow.

"Govern, Xi'an, Xi'an is righteous!"

(To be continued)