As for the railway, the first section of the operating railway built on the land of China was the section from Shanghai to Wusongkou, built by the British, because of knocking down a spectator, the roadbed was stripped off by the villagers, and the Qing Dynasty axe redeemed the railway under the pressure of the old squire, although many businessmen and gentry in Shanghai strongly opposed and demanded to keep the railway, but finally demolished it.

Although Western skills such as telegraph and railways have not yet appeared on the land of China, Pasha Li also knows that these clauses cannot be agreed by the Chinese, and foreigners cannot enter the interior of China to do business, let alone build railways in the interior.

Needless to say, the Guangzhou-Foshan section of the two railway projects, which were coveted by British and French merchants, would closely link Guangzhou with its satellite cities, and its commercial value and profits would be incalculable. The section from Guangzhou to Shaozhou will greatly shorten the distance between Guangzhou and Jiangxi and even Fujian tea areas. Shaozhou is the throat of Guangdong, and this section of the railway, regardless of carrying goods and passengers, will be a golden channel. Although the construction of this railway may be a little expensive, but in the long run, it is foreseeable that gold will roll in.

Back in the camp of the Chinese army, Su Shun didn't rush to the crown angrily, took a few sips of tea, and said to Ye Zhao with a solemn face: "Do you see it?" The ghosts are preparing to fight us again! ”

Ye Zhao flipped through the new charter and said with a smile: "If you don't give them an excuse, won't you get it?" ”

Su Shun was slightly stunned, and wondered: "Do you want to promise the new tricks of the ghosts?" Jingxiang, this is not a joke, Jingli Qingliu is staring at the two of us. ”

Holding up the colorful teacup, Ye Zhao said: "Sixth uncle, the telegram is clairvoyant ears, and the train is a wooden ox and a horse that travels thousands of miles, why not introduce it into China?" ”

That is to eat barbecue, Ye Zhao enthusiastically explained some Western things with Su Shun, which is really a foreshadowing for today.

Su Shun said in a deep voice: "Western skillful skills will only confuse the Qing Dynasty." ”

Ye Zhao sighed and said: "Blindly resisting change is tantamount to covering your ears and stealing the bell, Sixth Uncle, I don't like what I say, don't blame me for offending, but if you think that relying on the old and relying on the same will turn our Great Qing Kingdom into a paradise, forever like an iron bucket, Sixth Uncle, then it is a big mistake!" ”

"Sixth uncle, forgive me for saying a bold word, you can sit in this Central Plains flower world, whether it is the previous dynasty or the current dynasty, all of them know the essence of the 'foolish people'......" Speaking of this, Ye Zhao shook his head, remembering the countries of later generations, in fact, no matter what kind of government the country is, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, the ruling class has always wanted to "brainwash the foolish people", and the difference just depends on what you promote.

Looking at Su Shun, Ye Zhao said slowly: "But Sixth Uncle, in today's world, just relying on foolish people to rely on the old can not maintain our iron bucket country, our Qing Dynasty is falling behind the Western countries more and more, a hundred years later, I am afraid that our Qing Dynasty will fall apart, and you and my descendants will die without a place to be buried!" ”

Su Shun looked at Ye Zhao in shock, these words were simply "rebellious", and if he changed the second person, he would immediately be guilty of raiding the family and exterminating the clan.

Su Shun's brain was buzzing, and he didn't know how to react for a while.

Ye Zhao said again: "What's more, the railway telegraph, entering my Qing Dynasty is not a matter of a few years earlier or a few years later. Let's just say that the extermination of bandits, there is a railway, the heavenly army is within reach, there is a telegraph, the military order in front is accessible, the sixth uncle, since you have promised that the ghosts can enter and exit the whole territory of Guangdong, then why not introduce the telegraph railway? If it is really as the sixth uncle said to confuse my Qing Dynasty, the right to buy a lesson, in this corner of the south, Jingxiang is still sure to destroy its poison. ”

Su Shun was silent, and finally sighed and said: "Maybe what you said makes sense, now that Yiren is strong, there is no way to get the best of both worlds after all, but the capital is short and long, how can you say it?" ”

Of course, Ye Zhao knew that if a peace treaty was signed for the construction of a telegraph railway, what would happen to the quarrel in Beijing, not to mention Beijing, the people of Guangdong would be fried.

It is precisely because it is so difficult to introduce new things that it can be said that now is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, before they came to Guangzhou, how many powerful people in the capital have regarded the stormy southeast half of the wall as an outcast? The panic of only preparing to be in Gou'an, Jiangbei, and even to withdraw from the customs has spread among the clan, and now that Guangdong is pacified, it is not certain whether it can gain a firm foothold, and the pressure of "tossing" in Guangdong is much smaller, at least, for the time being, there is no substitute for himself, and no one can say the words of dismissing his own official, at most he will slander a few words or scratch in front of the empress dowager of the two palaces and the king of parliament.

And the people of Guangdong, relying on their current prestige, have drafted a few notices, and it is not difficult for them, as a "ruler" with modern thinking, and with the banner of Guangdong to slowly brainwash the people.

In fact, the most important thing is to explain to the people what the telegraph and the railroad are, and to explain them in a way that they can understand, so as not to cause panic among the people, and not to spread rumors like later generations, describing these new things as some kind of witchcraft and the like.

As for the loss of power and humiliation of the country, it will not be, because he would not have allowed foreign merchants to dominate the ownership of the railway and telegraph.

Because this peace agreement was part of his own plan.

Ye Zhao said to Su Shun sincerely: "Sixth Uncle, I don't care about who chews the tongue behind my back, but don't worry, I will not humiliate the country." ”

Su Shun looked at his expression for a long time, and finally nodded.

Sure enough, the next day, when I heard Ye Zhao smile and said, "Yes, we agree with the terms of businessmen from various countries erecting telegraph lines to build railways." Pashali was so surprised that he almost couldn't close his mouth, and he had already made up his mind to urge the country to gather heavy troops and launch a brutal revenge on China with the fleet in India.

Ye Zhao smiled again: "However, in the construction of railway lines, telegraph lines and ports, our political axe is willing to invest together with businessmen from all over the world, and we will contribute 40% of the silver, and businessmen from all countries will raise 60% of the silver to set up a railway company, a telegraph company and a port authority, but my Guangdong political axe will account for 60% of the shares." ”

This was the beginning of Ye Zhao's ambitious plan, the erection of a telegraph from Hong Kong to Guangzhou, the construction of a railway from Guangzhou to Foshan, and the construction of Huangpu New Port was because the waterway of Huangpu Old Port was relatively shallow, and with the development of ship technology, it was inconvenient for high-tonnage steamers to dock, and if we wanted to maintain the status of Guangzhou as a trading port, it was imperative to open up a new port to the Pearl River Estuary in the southeast.

And why build a railway from Guangzhou to Shaozhou? It is also to maintain the status of Guangzhou's trade port. With the rise of Shanghai, because of the distance from the silk and tea production areas, the transportation is inconvenient, and the foreign merchants have not been able to enter the city of Guangzhou, Guangzhou's status has gradually been replaced by Shanghai in the past two years, and the construction of the railway to Shaozhou has made the tea merchants in Jiangxi and even Fujian tea areas re-regard Guangzhou as the first choice of tea Fu.

Moreover, the signing of this peace treaty, which only allowed foreign merchants to trade in the whole territory of Guangdong, and a series of measures such as building telegraphs and repairing railways, etc., will make foreign businessmen feel the openness of Guangdong's new policy, and will make them realize that Guangdong will gradually become the economic center of China, so that they will reunite in Guangzhou.

Ye Zhao wanted to restore Guangzhou's glory, not to mention surpassing Shanghai's hegemony in re-monopolizing Sino-foreign trade, but at least to keep pace with Shanghai.

Not to mention the effect that this will have on the people's ideological change, let's just say that Guangdong Customs, because the north and south are not very smooth now, and the war is dense, Guangdong Customs will inevitably be controlled by themselves.

Hearing Ye Zhao's happy promise to build a railway and other terms, Pa Xiali was speechless for a long time in surprise, and then, he immediately realized a problem, according to the terms that the young commander promised, it was clearly the posture of "blocking the whole country and opening Guangdong alone", in Guangdong, it seems that any conditions are fine, if you want to invest and want to make money, come on, you want to open more ports, you want to enter the hinterland of China, but the door is firmly closed.

In this way, in the foreseeable future, Guangdong alone will become the center of China's trade with the world, and the businessmen who invested in the construction of railways in the early stage will certainly make a lot of money.

But after all, the conditions were much more relaxed than what he estimated in advance that the Chinese could agree, especially when he looked at Ye Zhao and smiled: "In Guangdong, I will definitely preach the equality of China and foreign countries, so that businessmen from various countries who come to China to do business do not have to worry about life safety, business disputes, and can negotiate with other countries to formulate a code." Pashali was even more surprised, but if he could deal with local political axes that acted according to international rules, it would be much more tempting than reluctantly entering Chinese mainland to do business.

Now Pashali felt that the young negotiator opposite him was much more complicated than he imagined, what was he thinking?

"Mr. Commander-in-Chief, we can't accept that your country invests 40 percent of its capital but asks for 60 percent of the shares!" After several Chinese businessmen exchanged views with each other, some foreign businessmen raised objections.

Ye Zhao is a lion's mouth, in fact, exchanging 50% of the investment for 51% of the shares is Ye Zhao's bottom line, and the ownership of this "joint venture", Ye Zhao has to take everything in his hands.

However, Ye Zhao also knows that the cost of building a railway is very high, and in fact, the land cannot be discounted into shares. For example, the United States, which is developing its western region on a large scale and is developing vigorously in railway construction, has extremely preferential policies for the construction of railways. Merchants from all over the world can invest, and the land that needs to be expropriated to build the railroad is not only given to investors, but also 6 square miles of public land on each side of each mile, which the government sells or transfers to the railroad company to help raise funds for construction. The railway will naturally belong to the investor forever, and only need to sign an agreement with the US political axe, including the payment of special taxes and some special terms, such as the US political axe needs it, military or political purposes, can use its railway line for free and so on.

It's just that if you open your mouth, you can say 40% of the funds, and it is impossible to take the top of the land, which will be an astronomical amount of money.

It's okay to say anything else, but the section from Guangzhou to Shaozhou, which is two or three hundred kilometers, is quite a long railway in this era.

When the railway just appeared, the cost was extremely high, a kilometer of railway, almost fifty or sixty thousand pounds, and in recent years, with the development of science and technology, the cost per kilometer fell below ten thousand pounds, the recent emergence of new technologies such as detonators, so that the cost of building a railway is cheaper, coupled with China's low labor, almost without labor, recruit a large number of coolies who have food to work, but Rao is so, some sections of the road are afraid to build bridges and open mountains, the cost of each kilometer will not be less than 5,000 pounds.

At 5,000 pounds sterling, 260 kilometers, it would cost 1,300,000 pounds to build this railway. Forty percent of the Cantonese political axe was 520,000 pounds sterling, 1,780,000 taels of silver.

In addition to the construction of the port and other funds, I am afraid that three or four million taels of silver will have to be prepared, how will this money be settled?

However, Ye Zhao knew that it was better to build early than late. In addition, the exchange rate of silver and the pound has been depreciating, especially after ten or twenty years of the United States' dollar from the gold and silver standard to the gold standard, after completely abandoning the silver peg, the price of silver has fallen sharply, now one pound is exchanged for more than three taels of silver, decades later, it has fallen to one pound can be exchanged for more than eight taels of silver.

Looking at the foreign businessman who raised the objection, Ye Zhao smiled and said: "Mr. Smith can completely withdraw from our discussion, I believe that the construction of this railway will easily raise a large amount of funds in your country's London financial market." ”

Smith did not expect that the Chinese young commander would know his name, after all, it was only a few brief introductions to each other on the first day, and several businessmen had not spoken much in the previous negotiations, thinking that the Chinese had long forgotten their names, and even if they remembered, they had long been confused.

This seemingly casual young commander has a deep Taoism, but he is not just a reckless man who can fight! Smith thought in surprise, his blue eyes rolling and not squeaking.

Indeed, China's railway is completely different from the sparsely populated railway construction in the western part of the United States, there are many Chinese, the market is vast, this railway is a very high commercial value, connecting the north and the south, is an out-and-out golden road, even if the investment cannot be recovered in a short time, but in the foreseeable future, the prospects are incomparably wonderful.

If this railway enters the London financial market to raise funds, there will be a tide of followers, and there will be thousands of small investors who subscribe for stocks, and many British people who have never been to the East still think that the Chinese people are full of gold and silver, and investing in China's railways will naturally make a steady profit.

It seems that this young Chinese commander is not very easy to fool, Smith thought to himself.

As for Lawyer Hall, he didn't glance at Ye Zhao very much, but he sighed in his heart that Mr. Wells's eyes were like torches, and he found such a Chinese magnate to cooperate, but he was afraid that the richest man in the British Empire in the future would be none other than Mr. Wells, but no, let's just say that the gunpowder factory that cooperated with Mr. Ye had actually integrated funds and turned into "Shenghe Bank", with Mr. Wells sixty percent of the shares and Mr. Ye forty percent of the shares. The development of Shenghe Bank can be said to be extremely strong, not only the gunpowder factory made a profit of thousands of miles, but also took the opportunity to invest in the military market, with the newly developed "Angela 1856" breech gun as the main product, which sold very well in continental Europe and the Americas.

At present, the total assets of "Shenghe Bank" are about 200,000 pounds, which has doubled in just two or three years, and it is still expanding rapidly.

At first, Mr. Hall was a little puzzled as to why Mr. Wells had consolidated the gunpowder plant and its proceeds into Shenghe Bank Holdings. Just like the arsenal, Mr. Wells can invest in it as a sole proprietorship, and as for Mr. Ye's income from the gunpowder factory, he only needs to remit it to Shanghai, so why should he integrate the name of Shenghe Bank, invest in the name of Shenghe Bank, and divide the profits to Mr. Ye?

Now, lawyer Hall has to admire Mr. Wells's foresight, and he is firmly tied to a carriage with this young Chinese magnate, and in the future he will earn a thousandfold and a hundred times the income he has now.

Speaking of the Guangzhou-Shaozhou railway, Shenghexing will definitely be able to participate, and will get a large share, and in the future, there will be more and more such opportunities, and Mr. Ye, as Mr. Wells's agent in China, will definitely be a source of money.

Although Lawyer Hall now knows Ye Zhao's real name, he is still used to calling Ye Zhao Mr. Ye by his surname.

…… In the next day, the two sides really started negotiations, and Pashali did not want to stop there, of course, he "took advantage of the victory to pursue", and put forward many terms for Guangdong's opening to the outside world, such as the supervision of the British in Guangdong Customs, for example, what are the detailed rules of the "commercial law" promised by Ye Zhao, and for example, the missionaries in Guangdong, the privileges enjoyed by foreigners, and so on.

Ye Zhaoke did not let go of these conditions, and the only thing that was relieved was the equity distribution in the joint venture construction of ports and railways that he had discussed with foreign businessmen.

On the political issues that Pa Xiali was concerned about, except for the opening of several ports such as Tianjin and Yingkou, there was little progress in the rest.

A few days later, Pashali threw out the clause of demarcating a large area of land in Xiguan, Guangzhou, as a concession.

Ye Zhaoke is really a little impatient, this old foreign devil is really kraft candy, he is perseverant in negotiations, and he forces you little by little, he is really a very powerful opponent.

Let's just say that compared with the previous life, in addition to the military compensation has been greatly reduced, there are a few fewer treaty ports, although the mainland has not been opened, Guangdong is open to a staggering degree, and Kowloon has not been ceded, but Guangzhou has developed, Hong Kong has naturally benefited, and in real comparison, in the eyes of Western countries, the benefits obtained now are only slightly inferior to those in the previous life. Of course, they don't think that this treaty is actually better for them.

In their eyes, the draft peace treaty should be very tempting and reach the psychological price of their signing, you must know that in the previous life, the British and French coalition troops were in the capital and the charter signed after the burning of the Old Summer Palace, but in this life, the British and French coalition forces have suffered a lot.

But they are insistent on keeping quiet, as if they are extremely reluctant, throwing out one proposal after another, in short, trying to squeeze your bottom line in the negotiation as much as possible.

It is no wonder that when it comes to negotiations, compared with Western countries, China is a toddler, and since ancient times, China has not studied real peace talks. In the era of great unification, the Fanbang either regarded itself as having the mentality of a superior country, or sought peace when it was at a disadvantage, and there was almost no precedent for negotiating with the "Fanbang" with an equal mentality. As for the era of secession, the negotiations were nothing more than because there was no certainty of victory, and in the end it was to destroy the enemy country and unify China. The so-called peace talks almost never want to coexist peacefully with the other side, and the few items negotiated are compensation in addition to land cession.

And the Western countries, from the Roman era to the Middle Ages vassal states, fought and talked about commonplace, signed all kinds of peace treaties and various trade treaties, what could not be obtained on the battlefield, realized at the negotiating table, war for politics is actually for the economy, hundreds of years ago Westerners understood its essence.

Ye Zhao didn't even glance at the new charter thrown out by Pashali, and said with a smile: "Mr. Pashali, if your country has to rely on concessions to maintain trade with China, don't you think that this is a deformed business model and will not last long?" I hope that China and the rest of the world will get along with each other on an equal footing, so that commerce and trade can prosper. I also believe that Guangzhou will become the city with the best sanitary conditions and the best environment in Asia in the next few years. ”

Pasha Li said that he fought with this Chinese young magnate, and he had to sigh in his heart that he was young, but he was not impatient or impatient, and he always unconsciously controlled the direction of the negotiation. It's as if you have worked hard to conquer a fortress, cheering and rejoicing, only to suddenly realize that this fortress was deliberately given up and deliberately given to you.

This kind of feeling of restraint has almost never been experienced by Pashali, even in the face of sophisticated political opponents in China, but he has never had this feeling of not being able to see through the opponent's mind at all.

Now hearing the words of the young commander, Pashali's dark gray eyes flashed, and he smiled: "Your Excellency the General is very confident, but we Westerners believe that seeing is believing, and without the protection of the concession, can Your Excellency the General take full responsibility for the safety of our businessmen?" ”

Ye Zhao smiled and said: "Mr. Consul said that it was a joke, even in London, murderers and serial killers abound, will the prime minister of your country be responsible for this?" After a pause, he said: "Of course, I will do my best to restrain the people, and I also believe that China is a country of etiquette, as long as your country does not launch a war of aggression again, the merchants of all countries are amiable and respectable in the eyes of the people." ”

Pashali was speechless for a moment.

Ye Zhao said with a straight face: "From my personal point of view, I sincerely welcome businessmen from all over the world to come to Guangzhou to trade and do business, and even more welcome businessmen from all over the world to invest in industry and infrastructure construction. ”

Hearing Ye Zhao's sincerity, several businessmen nodded slightly, they had never seen such a kind Qing official, they had ever seen such a kind Qing official, they had seen it groveling, and they had seen it coldly, but this kind of ordinary treatment with an equal mentality was rare. The young commander had almost cornered the coalition forces, but no one could have imagined that he would be so detached and calm when dealing with foreign missions, which was very different from the legendary killing god on the battlefield.

Of course, Ye Zhao knew that merchants from all over the world came to China to make money, but in the same way, the changes brought about by foreign trade and Western science and technology would increase the efficiency of national wealth creation, and would promote the birth of the first batch of national industries.

I only hope that under my own rule, the national industry can really flourish.

(To be continued)