The day before the Lantern Festival, the group of southeastern countries and the vassal states of the empire signed 18 treaties, special treaties, declarations, regulations, and other documents in Beijing, such as the "Declaration of the Pan-China States on the Suppression of the Slave Trade and the Abolition of Slavery," "Rules on the Rank of Diplomatic Personnel," "Protocol on the Settlement of Creditor's Rights by Chinese Silver Dollar Bills," and "Treaty on the Extradition of Suspects by Countries," and so on.

European newspapers that have been following the conference generally believe that this marked the complete entry of the Asiatic political and economic order into an era of Chinese dominance, and that for the first time in thousands of years, the vast empire truly radiated its influence to all aspects of the Asiatic political and economic system.

Because Europe has the British-dominated Vienna system, European newspapers generally refer to the series of treaties signed at this conference as the establishment of the Yenching system or the Chinese system.

Burmese King Min Dong left the capital with a lot of gains, signing a large contract for the purchase of weapons and receiving official canonization from the imperial royal family, giving him the legal status of king, and signing an educational exchange agreement that will allow 100 Burmese students and officials to enter Yunnan Normal School every year to learn Chinese and scientific knowledge.

Of course, Min Dong also had to agree to the Empire's sending officials as advisers to oversee his changes and guarantees of civil rights and the abolition of slavery.

On the China-Myanmar border, several free trade zones have been set up, and Chinese and Myanmar merchants can trade freely.

On the fifteenth day of the first month, Ye Zhao prayed for a bumper harvest of grains at the altar of prayer.

After the first month of the Lantern Festival, Ye Zhao led hundreds of civil and military officials to worship the god of agriculture at the Xiannong altar, and personally cultivated the fields in "one acre and three points of land".

Because of the old custom of not shaving your head in the first month, in February, it is the busiest day for barbershops in Beijing.

The imperial hair shaving industry began five years ago, first in the south, and now barbershops have sprung up in the big cities of the north, and soon, barbershops have also been divided into different grades such as high-end shops, middle-level shops, low-end shops and street stalls to meet the needs of different customers.

The "Yixin" barber shop not far from the Equality Life Building is one of the most upscale barbershops in the new city of Beijing, with glass doors and windows that are always spotless, clear and transparent, and the barbershop logo in front of the door, with swirling red, blue and white twill columns, usually only luxury barbershops spend a lot of money to customize such a fashionable and eye-catching logo.

The "new" barber shop has both the old qualified head shaving master "Kuaidao Liu" sitting in the formation, and the new female master Chen Mei, who is good at clamping hair, mastering the temperature skillfully, and the hairstyle ripples are revealed, known as the "red card old man", and the barber shop has introduced the latest imperial hair perm, the hair is rolled on the thread of a stick, and coated with alkali paste paste, and then placed in a hot iron pipe with a handle-like pliers, heated with an electric current, until the hot gas fumigates the hair.

The "new" barbershop is now preparing to be made exclusively for women, and the male masters will be transferred to a new men's shop that will open not far from it.

In the early days of the business, women were basically not seen to get a haircut, but gradually, especially in recent months, the new female surnames have learned more and more from the concubine Niangniang, and a perm can be worth several "men's heads", which opened the eyes of the barbershop shopkeeper, and he was determined to regard female customers as the first.

Although there are screens between the men's and women's barber departments, the shopkeeper still feels inconvenient, and some aristocratic ladies are reluctant to come a second time when they come once, so they propose to the owner to open a branch, and the old store is only for female customers, and the owner also very much agrees.

And Chen Mei, who has excellent hair clamping skills, has naturally become a cash cow for the owner and the shopkeeper.

"Quick Knife Liu" Master Liu saw that a little girl stole his limelight, although he was not angry, he was helpless.

Ming said that he was going to the new store, Master Liu cursed Chen Mei, but his hands were not ambiguous, and he was tidy and tidy, and this was his battlefield.

In the evening, a group of uninvited customers suddenly came to the shop, two young men in brocade robes, followed by seven or eight young men in black uniforms.

When he shaved the young man's head, the young man's eyes were wide as if he were afraid that he would shave the young man's head with a clipper, and he was not allowed to use scissors, but only with a clipper.

And when he tossed with the young man's head, the young men's faces turned pale, as if they had a hatred with him for killing their father and taking their wife, which really scared Master Liu enough.

It wasn't until the young man frowned that the lads didn't dare to look at him so fiercely.

Needless to say, it was Ye Zhao who was shaving his head, shaving his head in the Forbidden Palace, and the careful shaving master was sinned, and Ye Zhao, who looked at the cautious appearance of the shaving master, was even more sinful, and he did not have the pleasant feeling of shaving his head in later generations, so he didn't know when Ye Zhao was used to shaving his head outside.

At this time, enjoying the pleasant feeling of "Quick Knife Liu" unscrupulously fiddling with his head, looking at the delicate man whose hair was gradually falling in the bright glass mirror, Ye Zhao laughed and said, "Master Liu, this kind of head shaving clipper you use was invented by me." And he said, "And the perm machine and perm alkali next door are also inspired by me." ”

Master Liu smiled and said, "Dare to love the master or our old line." I didn't think so, I thought Ye Zhao was bragging, and if it was really as this young man said, the perm had his credit, wouldn't it ruin his own job?

Who knew that the young man seemed to be able to see his thoughts, and said with a smile: "I didn't smash your job, this female customer has more customers, and his life is exquisite, and there will naturally be more male customers, so his family has to ask him to trim and shave his hair well, do you understand this reason?" ”

Master Liu didn't understand what the young man was saying, but he was shocked in his heart, this guy is a human or a ghost, how can he know what I think?

Ye Zhao stretched out his hand, and the guard next to him handed over a newspaper, and on the fourth page of the international page, there was news of Hosokawa Shaobang's return to China.

Ye Zhao rolled his eyes a few times, and suddenly said, "Muren, Hosokawa Shaobang originally wanted to see you. He didn't look back, but Master Liu knew that his words must have been said to the young man on the sofa against the wall.

From the mirror, Ye Zhao could clearly see Muren's subtle expression, but Muren was expressionless, and suddenly coughed, and the more he coughed, the more he coughed, and a guard was busy knocking him on the back.

Master Liu sighed and said, "Master, your brother's body is not very good. ”

Ye Zhao was stunned when he heard this, you must know that this Emperor Meiji was just in his early twenties, and he was nearly twenty years old, but Muren already had faint crow's feet at the corners of his eyes, and he did look a little older than himself.

Before returning to Japan, Hosokawa Shaobang proposed to see Prince Muhito, but was rejected by the Zongren Mansion because he didn't want to see guests and didn't want to get involved in this political affair again.

Perhaps the battle between the major names of the noble court has exhausted Hosokawa Shaobang, making him regret his short-sightedness and loss of his righteous name.

Ye Zhao didn't squeak, and opened the newspaper again, at this time a guard hurriedly walked in, whispered a few words in Ye Zhao's ear, Ye Zhao bowed slightly, and said to Master Liu: "Hurry up, I have something to do here." He said to Muren: "After I go back, I will be able to recuperate." ”

The guards sent Muren home, and Ye Zhao also left the barbershop a few minutes later.

In the Wenhua Palace, Zhou Jingshan was waiting, Ye Zhao received a letter from the Internal Affairs Office in a hurry before entering the palace, entered the splendid hall, and sat on the throne, Ye Zhao opened it and looked at it a few times, two pieces of information, one is the investigation of Zou Kaizhi, Ye Zhao does not like to use the way of special agents to investigate the minister, but in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, sometimes it is inevitable.

The second piece of information was that the sailors of an American merchant ship had a conflict with the locals in Cebu and were besieged by the local natives.

Seeing that Ye Zhao finally turned his inquiring gaze to him, Zhou Jingshan smiled bitterly and said, "Holy Lord, the Council has submitted a petition to question Zou Kaizhi. ”

The matter of Zou Kaizhi and Xue Dai was in the newspapers of the concession, although the title of "a certain ministry" was used, but between the lines, as long as he was an insider, he could not help but clearly allude to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Empire.

Ye Zhao said: "What do you think? ”

Zhou Jingshan sighed and said: "The newspaper in the concession is so troublesome, there must be an explanation, and Zou Kaizhi can go for a trip." It's just a newspaper run by foreigners, and it often makes waves, but it's too bold. ”

Ye Zhao waved his hand and said: "As long as it is not illegal, there is nothing bold or bold, if you want me to say, our newspaper must learn from others." ”

Zhou Jingshan nodded silently.

Ye Zhao knew that he didn't agree with him very much, but this public opinion war must have touched him a lot, this Zhongtang, who is known for his strictness, should know that the rule of officials, even if you give you hundreds of legendary "Baolong Diagrams", it is only a momentary fast, the root cause is in the system, in supervision, and in the transparency of information.

"Zou Kaizhi, look at himself, ministry officials have the right not to accept questions, isn't it clearly written in the bill of the House of Representatives just passed?"

Zhou Jingshan nodded slightly, but everyone knows the current situation in their hearts, and the senior officials of the ministry who are thrown on the cusp and do not accept the questioning will be overshadowed by their careers.

Before Zhou Jingshan said goodbye, Ye Zhao stopped him and said, "Send a telegram to Manila to ask if there is a friend of mine on the Stephenson who is being detained in Cebu. After thinking about it, he said, "Forget it, I'll ask the Zongren Mansion to send a report, it's not a big deal." ”

Zhou Jingshan bowed down, but a thought quickly flashed in his heart, the emperor's tone was flat, but the identity of a person who can be called a friend by the emperor must be extraordinary.

…… Cebu is the earliest developed city in Luzon and the second largest port after Manila, known as the "Queen City of the South", and was first discovered by the Portuguese navigator Magellan more than 300 years ago.

Cebu, Manila, and the entire Luzon area were called "Philippines" by the Spaniards, after the name of King Philip II of Spain.

St. Petersburg, Cebu was built by the first Spanish governor in the Philippines and has been repeatedly renovated and expanded, and is the most eye-catching and magnificent symbol of Cebu Port.

It's just that St. Petersburg has long been taken over by the Chinese, and the Spaniards have withdrawn their military forces in Luzon, but according to the agreement, the Spaniards who trade in Luzon receive the same status and equal rights as Chinese businessmen, including tax exemptions, criminal governors' judgments, and other privileges, and according to the agreement, Spanish merchants are protected by the [***] team, which is safer than before.

But the Americans did not have such luck, the "Stephenson" came from San Francisco, at this time, the United States, is experiencing the largest economic crisis in history, last year the United States steel production fell by 1/4, oil production fell by 1/4, and the amount of shipbuilding fell by 2/3. The stock price of the industry as a whole fell by 40%, with the price of railway stocks falling by 60%. More than 40,000 companies have gone bankrupt, with a total debt of $1.2 billion, and the economic crisis is spreading to Europe, which is also the first world economic crisis caused by the United States.

This economic crisis is the disillusionment of liberal capitalism, the beginning of monopoly capitalism, and the big capitalist families in the usual sense have begun to emerge from this crisis.

In the United States, Shenghe Bank has begun a journey to acquire shares of steel companies and railroad companies at ultra-low prices.

As for this economic panic in the world, China is beyond the outside world, and the supply and demand of the internal market created by its huge population, territory and resources have made it possible for China to read outside the European economic and trade system, and compared with the economic panic of the Western world, China is in a period of steady rise.

However, this kind of national event is obviously not clear.

Rong Lu is Manchuria is a white flag man, good at drilling camps, but unfortunately bad luck, to the fall of the previous dynasty when he was just a small outsider, and then he quickly threw himself into the arms of the new dynasty, he listened carefully to every voice of the royal family, the laws and regulations of the new dynasty, he was even more careful about the word, and also reported to a legal training course at Beijing University.

These efforts paid off, and in the last year, the Governor of Nanyang was dismissed and he was appointed Counsellor to the Governor of Luzon, and his views on the trade of the Nanyang were praised by the Emperor.

At this time, he was hurrying into the iron gate of St. Petersburg, and he completely ignored the thick green lawn and the scenery outlined by tropical trees unique to the South Seas, and his face was gloomy.

On the steps, he hurriedly ran down to greet Shen Guiqing, the imperial trade representative in Cebu, who was in his thirties, with gloomy eyes, and was Rong Lu's cronies.

The Cebu Trade Office was in fact the local military administration, and the uncivilized indigenous chiefs of the Cebu Islands needed to pay tribute, and the educated Luzon people were even more required to pay taxes normally.

In Cebu, there was a 500-strong Korean infantry wing under the command of Shen Guiqing, whose military discipline was not very good, and compared to the Chinese garrison in Manila, the Luzon natives called them "Goryeo sticks" behind their backs.

Seeing Shen Guiqing, Rong Lu asked with a gloomy face: "People are here?" ”

Seeing that Rong Lu's face was not good, Shen Guiqing had a cool breeze behind his head, but he knew the methods of this counselor, and said cautiously: "Yes, there are four people imprisoned here, the shipowner, the captain, and an American female doctor and her servant. ”

Rong Lu suddenly stopped, looked at Shen Guiqing gloomily, and asked word by word, "Have you ever been rude to the female doctor?" "The worst result is that day, this female doctor Rong Lu doesn't know who it is, but when she heard that it was a telegram from the Zongren Mansion, there was a slight mistake, and I was afraid that it would be enough for him to lose his head ten times.

Shen Guiqing said anxiously: "Adult Mingjian, the little one hasn't moved half of her fingers, and the villain has taken the head of the item as a guarantee." ”

Rong Lu sneered: "Your head? ”

Shen Guiqing hurriedly said: "My lord, if you want to say that this little Yanma is really delicious...... Seeing Rong Lu's gloomy gaze, he was so frightened that he hurriedly retracted the second half of the sentence, "But, but her maid is amazing, the waist card she took out is the Ouchi guard, although most of them are bluffing, but the small one doesn't dare to make a mistake, isn't this trying to find out her origin......"

Rong Lu stared at him for a long time, staring at Shen Guiqing's heart, Rong Lu bowed his head and walked into the castle quickly.

Shen Guiqing's heart went up and down, led the way, came to the second floor of the house arrest of the Western stunner and the maid outside the room, knocked lightly, because if he didn't knock on the door, he had been scolded by the maid who split his head and covered his face, and now he learned well, not to mention seeing Rong Lu's expression, he knew that this female doctor was really not small.

Seeing Shen Guiqing's cautious movements, Rong Lu's hanging heart finally let go, and it was good that he was not rude.

"Come in." Crisp sound.

Shen Guiqing hurriedly pushed open the door and made a gesture of please, while the crisp voice in the room was still saying: "We are just passengers on the boat, there is no illegal trade, you check it out, I am afraid that you will be in trouble if you are locked up again." ”

Rong Lu entered the room and could see clearly that it was a delicate girl standing in front of the window dressed as a maid in green satin clothes and trousers.

On the Western sofa, reading the newspaper is a blonde beauty with a beautiful surname, deep blue eyes with seductive magic, a snow-white shirt revealing a charming neck and a silver necklace, blue jeans tightly wrapping slender legs, and black short-heeled leather boots look very cool.

Rong Lu walked a few steps quickly, with a smile on his face, and asked respectfully, "Is it Dr. Christina from St. John's Hospital in New York?" ”

The blonde beauty got up and asked, "Did Mr. Wen ask you to pick me up?" "Extremely fluent in Chinese, it was Christina, after obtaining her medical doctorate, who refused to be offered by the hospital and came to China to find her lover.

Rong Lu didn't know who Mr. Wen was, so he smiled and said, "I am Rong Lu, Counselor of the Luzon Governor's Palace, in short, I would like to extend my most sincere apologies to you for this misunderstanding, and I will personally escort you back to Yanjing tomorrow." ”

Christina sighed.

The female guard Xiaotao asked, "What about Mr. Michelle?" Michelle is the owner of the Stephenson, an American businessman who met Christina in New York and is a friend of Christina.

Although Christina cared about the safety of her friends, she had just come to China, and she didn't want to cause trouble to Ye Zhao, let alone make any demands with these officials, and wait until she met Ye Zhao in the capital.

Xiao Tao, who is familiar with her surname, wants to speak up, but she knows the style of these overseas officials, overseas supervision is weaker than that at home, and when she encounters those officials who are not things, Michelle doesn't know what to suffer in a few days.

Rong Lu said with a little embarrassment: "The Stephenson is loaded with opium, and American merchants are not allowed to trade in Cebu......"

Xiao Taoling gritted her teeth and said, "Those opiums were wrapped by the captain privately, okay?" If the shipowner smuggles tobacco and soil, it won't be like that, right? It's not enough to plug between your teeth. ”

In fact, when he saw the amount of tobacco confiscated, Rong Lu knew that this was not an opium ship, and now there are fewer and fewer opium ships, and the empire is planning to negotiate with the British to ban the opium trade in the world.

Rong Lu was about to speak, but Christina had already interrupted Xiao Tao's machine gun with a little restraint, and said to Rong Lu: "Mr. Counselor, we will abide by the laws of your country, but please Mr. Counselor must find out about this matter." ”

Xiao Tao closed her mouth helplessly, although the young lady is the emperor's lover, but in fact, she is still a commoner in her bones, but she is not like herself, and she doesn't take local officials seriously.

Rong Lu breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly said, "It must be." "The letterhead of the Zongren Mansion seems to only mention Miss Christina, and if someone else's words are released, Rong Lu doesn't dare to let people go so easily, although the supervision overseas is not strict, but if you don't follow the procedure, things will still be very troublesome.

Rong Lu smiled at this time and said to Christina: "If you want to see Mr. Michelle, I can arrange it immediately." ”

Christina said gratefully, "Thank you, Counselor." ”

Glancing at this Western stunner's deep blue eyes gratefully, Rong Lu couldn't help but feel light, and then he didn't dare to think about it, and hurriedly led the way, saying, "Please here." ”

When he walked past Rong Lu's side, Xiao Tao said: "By the way, my young lady's suitcase was snatched away by the Luzon people in the chaos, I don't know if the counselor can help find it, it's nothing, but there is a photo inside, a photo of my master......"

Rong Lu kept smiling, and suddenly, he remembered what Shen Guiqing had said, this little girl took out the waist card of the inner guard.

And her master? Rong Lu's heart trembled violently, he stayed for a long time, and hurriedly chased after him.

Christina and Xiao Tao entered the room where Michelle was under house arrest, and outside the door, Rong Lu paced and groaned.

Shen Guiqing stood aside, secretly looking at Rong Lu's face, not daring to squeak.

"These monkeys! Go, and find out what is going on. Rong Lu gritted his teeth with hatred.

Shen Guiqing walked away quickly.

After only an hour, while Christina was comforting Michelle, Rong Lu knocked on the door and sent the box in with a smile, but the contents were completely gone, after all, it was a few days ago. Christina didn't know that in just over two hours, the small city of Cebu had already jumped into prison, and I don't know how many people had been imprisoned.

Little Peach Heart said that the thing is gone, what is the use of this empty box?

Christina is very grateful to this enthusiastic official, although Christina also knows very well in her heart, such enthusiasm, just because of her big backer, thinking of Ye Zhao, her heart is warm, and she can't wait to see him now.

Michelle was a wealthy businessman in his forties, his wife died of illness, and he had no children, he was a real single aristocrat, and he once pursued Christina passionately, but as the stock of his steel mill plummeted, the banks began to force him to pay his debts, and his business was on the verge of bankruptcy, so he had to cooperate with the Spaniards, so he came to Luzon to buy spices and native products in the name of a partner Spanish merchant.

At this time, withering on the sofa, Michelle was discouraged, and even Christina's comfort was taken as a deaf ear, and then suddenly saw the Chinese officials so polite to Christina, Michelle sighed in her heart, and said in her heart, woman, woman. He thought that Christina was fascinated by her beauty and fascinated Chinese officials.

Seeing that he was absent-minded, Christina persuaded him a few more words, and had to take his leave.

(To be continued)