In order to sell his food basket plan to these relatives, Li Yongji had to delay his trip. After staying for seven days in a row, after meeting N many relatives, saying N many words, and giving N many promises, he finally took out his time to go to the camp to raise his heart and meet the foreigners who had been waiting impatiently there for a long time.

The reason why I met foreigners in Yangxinju Daying, instead of in Qingpu County, was not only because it was more private and the environment was more comfortable, but also because I had to take care of the feelings of Qingpu people, or the Qingpu gentry, because most of the people in Qingpu County were currently more resistant to foreigners and didn't like them very much.

In fact, the Qing Dynasty people at this time were basically very resistant to foreigners, the reasons are many, and it is complicated to talk about it in detail, but it is mainly due to their lack of confidence in themselves, or from the national characteristics of their own shameful culture.

After all, China did not open the country by itself, but was opened by force. In the war for opium twenty years ago, it was clear that his side was just, but it was still a complete defeat.

The consequence of failure is to cede land to foreign countries and seek peace, that is, to let foreigners enjoy all kinds of privileges on Chinese soil, which makes it difficult for Chinese people to accept emotionally, but they can't accept it and can't change it, so they begin to blindly exclude foreigners, neither want to contact each other, nor want to understand each other.

In this case, unless they regain a heavy victory over the foreigners, find the confidence of the foreigners, or completely get rid of that last fig leaf by the foreigners, so that they can be forced to wake up, it is impossible for this blind xù like a shrunken turtle to disappear.

Thinking that the soldiers of the elite army at the beginning, even if they had learned a lot of theoretical knowledge about foreigners before, and knew something about their origin and history, many people were still very uncomfortable when they really met foreigners.

When they first met the foreigners, although the pants peeing did not appear, there were a lot of people fighting between the two groups, and later carried out a number of interactive activities, and everyone had more contact, and the talents of the elite army gradually dispelled their fear of the foreigners.

In fact, because this place in Qingpu County is closer to the concession of foreigners, there are more opportunities to see foreigners, so compared with other places, people here are more open, at least the understanding of foreigners is not so weird, and even in the past for a period of time, many people still generally have a good impression of foreigners.

This is because since the opening of Shanghai, foreigners have to buy a large number of products from them through guò compradors, such as silk tea porcelain and other products, basically through guò to buy them; In addition, foreigners do not only sell opium, but also sell a large number of foreign goods such as foreign cloth and fire. Foreign cloth is much cheaper than local homespun cloth, foreign fire is more convenient and easy to use, foreign goods are generally easy to use and cheap, and the things sold to foreigners are also more cost-effective than selling to their own merchants.

This is just like the Chinese peasants who exported agricultural products to Japan in later generations, even if this farmer's ancestors had beaten the Japanese devils and received anti-Japanese patriotic education since he was a child, he still traded with the other party as usual in front of economic interests, and even made a living from the orders of Japanese merchants.

In other words, although this dumping trade of foreigners may have an impact on the natural economy of the Qing Dynasty, it is very beneficial to the people in places such as Shanghai County and Qingpu County for the time being.

In addition, some foreign missionaries are also very good to the people, although it is not good to always attract people to foreign religions, but they often use their status to stand up for the people to fight against the government, and there are almost no missionaries who really do evil to the people. You are not stupid, and it is impossible to completely listen to the nonsense of the government about the evil deeds of foreign missionaries.

In the past ten years, the pain of defeat has gradually been forgotten, but the benefits brought by foreigners have gradually become obvious, so in the minds of the local people, the reputation of foreigners is still passable, at least a little better than the government.

However, the uprising of the Little Knife Society completely lost the favor of the local people towards foreigners.

It's only been a few years since the knife will oppose the Qing Dynasty, to be honest, although most of the local people don't know what the knife will be, and they don't like it, but they hate the government even more, so the acceptance of the knife meeting against the government is not bad.

At the beginning, the Little Knife Club also cooperated with the foreigners, and the foreigners even used force against the government for the Little Knife Society, but who knew that in the end, the foreigners still betrayed their promises and began to collude with the government to destroy the Little Knife Society.

After the failure of the Xiaodaohui uprising, the officials and troops fought back strongly, and many people who directly or indirectly supported the Xiaodaohui during the period suffered from it, and those who did not support it were also heavily taxed.

The people have no choice but to sprinkle their hatred on the foreigners, thinking that the foreigners are not good, that they are treacherous, that the foreigners are all bad guys who cannot be trusted, and that their hearts will be different if they are not of our race!

But to put it bluntly, these people hate foreigners, not for any national hatred and family hatred, they don't have such a high consciousness, mainly because life has become difficult recently, but they are powerless to resist the government, so they have to turn the finger back at the small number of foreigners, in order to find a point to vent their resentment. Because of this, they call anyone who comes into contact with foreigners a second devil. Of course, this is talking about the ordinary people of the middle and lower classes, the gentry and scholars who have always been very rich, and they have always hated foreigners.

In fact, because Li Yongji's elite army all used foreign guns and foreign cannons, although the source is unknown, and there is no direct evidence to prove that Li Yongji traded with foreigners, in the minds of the local people, they all believe that Li Yongji is colluding with foreigners, otherwise where did those foreign guns and foreign cannons and those strange foreign goods come from?

Because of this, except for those groups that are related to the Jingwu Army and benefit from it, to be honest, the locals in Qingpu County do not have a good impression of Li Yongji.

It's just a small family, but it's just an interesting thing to talk about in private, and by the way, envy, jealousy and hatred, but other gentry and big families, they can't help but hang the two devils in their mouths, and they are disdainful of people like Li Yongji, who were born in business.

It wasn't until I heard that Li Yongji had exterminated the local big Wang family for a trivial matter, that everyone began to be afraid of Li Yongji, although some people scolded more ruthlessly and ugly after that, but except for some gentry who thought they had a backstage, everyone dared not scold him publicly.

After that, the Jingwu army successively made the Suzhou victory and the Changshu victory, and also recovered Wuxi, Li Yongji himself was named the governor of Jiangnan from the first grade by the imperial court, at this time, even those gentry who thought they were hard in the background did not dare to publicly scold him for being a second devil, and only dared to say a few words in private.

However, although Li Yongji became the admiral, the local elite and gentry class, as well as most of the scholars, still had a bad impression of him, and still thought that he was a second devil who relied on the power of foreigners. Everyone also thinks that Li Yongji's good life will not last long, and when he defeats Changmao, he will be liquidated by the imperial court sooner or later, and the current arrogance is only temporary, and some people even began to call him the second devil in private.

Not to mention anything else, Li Yongji has been back to Qingpu County for so many days, except for the county magistrate who had to bring someone to greet him once, he has never appeared since, and the bureaucrats of Songjiang Mansion pretended not to know, and they didn't even send someone to greet him.

Looking at the people who came to see Li Yongji these days, most of them were businessmen and relatives who had business dealings, and there were few real scholars or gentry who came up to mingle with each other.

It can be seen that the gentry and the Qingliu class are still respectful and distant from Li Yongji, which means that Li Yongji is currently just playing business, and has not yet extended his magic grip to the land where these gentry rely for their livelihood, and the time of rising is too short, they can't react, otherwise, it will not be respectful and far away, but a group attack.

Having said so much, in fact, it is just a sentence, Li Yongji looks like a beautiful person in Qingpu County, but he is actually unpopular. You must know that the right to speak in this era is in the hands of the gentry and Qingliu, not in the hands of businessmen and officials, and the gentry and Qingliu don't like you and hate you, then you are unpopular. At present, everyone's respect for Li Yongji's family is just respecting his official position and being afraid of the knife in his hand, which is different from liking.

At present, only those middle- and lower-class groups that benefit from the Li family really support him, but this group is still too small in scale and too small in voice, if it is not for the deterrence of the elite army, they still cannot directly confront the gentry class.

Li Yongji himself may not be very clear about this because he has been staying in the barracks for a long time in the past, but Li Zhengxiang and others understand it very well, so they strongly asked those foreigners to go to the camp to talk to Li Yongji about business. This was done in order to minimize the resistance of Qingpu people, especially the Qingpu gentry class, to the Li group.

After all, the Li family is a businessman, and they also have a lot of business dealings with these rich gentry, so they always have to take care of the other party's feelings.

Seriously, Li Yongji really doesn't think these people have any trouble for him, after all, his current elite army has become a climate, and most of the business activities that make money are dealing with merchants from all over the world, that is, they mainly go wholesale in large quantities, and there are still a few who really play retail with the gentry.

Think about it, too, how many local gentry are there? How many family members are involved? How many pearls, small mirrors, soap, and other stainless steel ornaments can they buy? How could it be possible to get more than 30 million taels of silver by relying solely on local retail.

In addition, the gentry class is a very small number of people after all, they only occupy a large amount of land, and the land restricts many tenant farmers, so they seem to be very powerful, but in fact, they are vulnerable to their own guns.

Even if they don't play any role to mobilize the masses to fight local tyrants, even if they don't rely on modern products to play dumping, they can completely destroy their natural economy by using only existing economic means.

You know, there are a large number of grain shops in your own home, and there are checkpoints set up by the Jingwu Army and the Jingwu Dart Bureau on the official roads everywhere, and the Longyou Gang, a branch of the Cao Gang that monopolized local shipping in the past, now does not dare to offend themselves, it is all well water and river water, and it can be said that the local bulk logistics channels are almost all in their own hands!

As long as they do not let people collect their grain, and at the same time reduce the price of grain, then they will lose a lot, and then they will inevitably use their own tenant farmers to reduce their losses.

If they do that, they can just use the name of recruiting workers or recruiting soldiers to bring these people into their own camp, and everyone knows that once someone joins the camp of the elite army, it can be unreasonable, and all kinds of taxes will not fall on them and their families.

At that time, even if those tenant farmers don't like them for the time being because of their status as two devils, they will still choose themselves in the face of immediate economic losses and economic benefits at their fingertips, and once they choose themselves, the elite army can make the strongest support for their choice, excluding the interference of external forces.

The tenant farmers ran out, and the gentry and landlords only had land but no one to cultivate it, and they could not sell the things they planted or lost money, and sooner or later they would go bankrupt, and then they would have no money and would be depressed, so look at what kind of reserve they still play!

But this method has to be done slowly, as for now, it is better to listen to your father's words first, don't give those gentry too much truth and stimulation, and cause unnecessary trouble, so let's go to the nest of the heart and talk to those foreigners about business with peace of mind.