In November, Shanghai has entered the late autumn, most of the people on the street have already put on autumn clothes, and on the Huangpu River wharf in the business area, a large sail steam hybrid merchant ship with thousands of tons is docked next to the special wharf of Xinde Foreign Bank.

Shove porters in simple clothes are carrying a variety of goods, mostly traditional Chinese exports such as raw silk and porcelain.

The total value of this cargo loaded with a ship is nearly one million silver dollars, and this price is only the export price at the port of Shanghai, and if it is successfully transported to Europe, the price can rise a lot.

On the other side of the pier, a group of men in Chinese or military uniforms were listening to the leader speak.

"Whether you are soldiers or students, you are selected from hundreds of thousands of people, the best children of the empire, this time the empire in order to send you to stay in Europe, spend a lot, so after you arrive in Europe, you must use ten times or even a hundred times the diligence to learn the way to strengthen the country and benefit the people, so that you can live up to the empire's high expectations for you!" It was Song Guanqian, co-director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who spoke.

He is mainly responsible for foreign affairs related to Europe, and he is mainly responsible for sending international students to study in the UK this time.

I saw that after he spoke to the students, he stopped, and then turned to a man about thirty years old, also wearing a Mao suit and a golden dragon coat of arms on his chest: "This is tens of thousands of miles away from England, and these students will all be entrusted to you, Director Han!" ”

Han Tongli replied with a serious face: "Elder Song Ge, rest assured, the ministry will definitely bring everyone to the UK safely, and then bring them back safely!" ”

Song Guanqian said: "In addition to safe back and forth." And let them learn something! ”

Song Guanqian said as he glanced at the more than 20 students in front of him. I sighed in my heart!

In order to send these 28 students to study in the UK, the Royal Family, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education, and the High Command have put a lot of effort into this. Not to mention the Ministry of Education and the High Command, they are only responsible for selecting overseas students, and the royal industry is only a matchmaker, and the follow-up has nothing to do with them.

It is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who is really in charge of studying abroad, strictly speaking, he is Song Guanqian, because Song Guanqian is the co-minister in charge of European affairs.

In order to allow these students to go to the UK to study in the local institutions of higher learning in the UK, Song Guanqian had a lot of arguments with the British Consul in Shanghai, Aliguo, and people did not say that they were unwilling, on the contrary, Aliguo still welcomed and even supported this.

The key is that at the beginning, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wanted to take this opportunity to send a large number of students at once. The initial number of people was as high as one hundred and fifty, and Ah Liguo almost didn't roll his eyes when he listened.

You must know that Britain has not formally established diplomatic relations with the Chinese Empire, and it is impossible for the British official department to promote this matter, so the acceptance of Chinese students is actually promoted by some British diplomats in the Far East.

With their private ability, it is naturally easy to send hundreds of people to England, and they don't have to pay for the tickets themselves anyway. The key is that you can't send people to the UK, you have to let them go to various schools in the UK.

If you want to go to college, you must go to university, and the military academy of the navy and the army, with their ability, recommend a few Chinese students to study in a school such as Cambridge University. But if you get more than 100 people, even the British Prime Minister doesn't have the ability!

At first, they only promised to recommend ten people to study in various universities, but later Song Guanqian was cheeky and grinded for a few days. I found Jardine Matheson and Xinde and asked them to write letters of recommendation and the like. to get as many places as possible.

In the end, it was decided that there were two Navy students and four Army students. And there are twenty-two ordinary international students.

These international students are the best talents selected from the military, Imperial University, and three high schools, generally between the ages of 20 and 30, and they will go to England on the merchant ship of Sindh & Co. back to the United Kingdom, and after arriving in the United Kingdom, they will enter each school separately, and then they will study for three to four years, learning the most advanced knowledge of this era in the top military schools and universities in the United Kingdom.

Because of the scattered study and the duration of the study, ensuring the safety of these students, and even how to deliver their living expenses to them in time, were all issues that Song Guanqian needed to consider.

And Song Guanqian, who was in charge of all these affairs, knew that the price paid by the empire in order to send these twenty-eight people to study in the UK was quite high.

First of all, the ferry ticket and travel fee, which are about 60 pounds per person each way and 120 pounds round trip.

Then there are the tuition fees, which vary from school to school, but because they are all from the top universities, the overall tuition fees are quite high, at £120 per person per year

Considering the high prices in the UK, it is impossible for these students to live at the bottom like the British civilian class, and they must maintain a relatively decent standard of living, so that they can concentrate on their studies and do not have to worry about the mundane things of life.

Referring to the income and expenses of the basic middle class in the UK, the Foreign Office set the living allowance for students at £350 a year, which allowed students to maintain a minimum of decency, including the possibility of renting a decent townhouse and hiring a servant.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has only formulated such a standard, and the specific amount has to be decided by the Ministry of Education and the High Command, because the funds for studying abroad are not provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is strictly speaking only an agency, and the specific funds have to be paid by the departments that send international students, that is, the Ministry of Education and the military.

The Ministry of Education was struggling, so the funds for international students were pressed again and again, and finally the 22 students sent by the Ministry of Education were given 300 pounds a year for living expenses, plus tuition fees and travel expenses.

The military has a lot of money, and the six students they sent were originally the top young officers, two majors and four captains, and their own salaries were not cheap, and the living expenses given to them by the military could only be said to be subsidies, so they simply issued a 'study allowance' according to the standard of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to the standard of 350 pounds per person per year.

The above-mentioned ferry tickets and other expenses for 20 people will cost more than 3,300 pounds.

Tuition fees are based on four years and cost £10,000 for twenty-eight people.

The cost of living for four years is £26,400 for an ordinary student and £8,400 for a military student, adding up to £34,800.

The cost of dressing, tuition fees, and living expenses all add up to at least £47,000, and if you add up the difference, and the cost of logistical support from the Foreign Office, it is easy to exceed £50,000.

According to the latest exchange rate of one gram of gold to 15.36 grams of silver, the 50,000 pounds is equivalent to about 150,000 taels of silver, which is about 230,000 silver dollars when converted into a standard silver dollar issued by the Imperial Bank of China (weighing 27 grams, containing 24.3 grams of pure silver, and 39 millimeters in diameter).

It took more than 200,000 yuan for these people to get the opportunity to study in the UK, and it can be said that the price paid is quite high!

Especially on the side of the Ministry of Education, their funds are not much, and this time they spent more than 100,000 yuan to send students to study in the UK, which is also ruthless for them.

Song Guanqian had been watching these students who carried the future expectations of the empire board the ship, and then the merchant ship Yang Fan left the dock, and he was away from sight before he left the dock.

On the merchant ship Maria of Xinde Foreign Company, Han Litong walked up to the top deck after arranging the students, and then looked into the distance by the railing.

There are many ships sailing on the Huangpu River, there are small and medium-sized medium-style hard-sailed ships, there are also ocean-going merchant ships with soft sails, slender hulls and extremely deep into the water, some merchant ships also have a high chimney in the middle of the sails, slowly spraying black mist, with the smoke spitting out, the huge paddle wheels on both sides of the hull are also slowly turning, driving the ships forward.

From time to time, I also skipped a pure steam clipper with no sails and only a chimney, some of which were paddle wheels, while others were invisible from the outside, but the ships were running fast, and this kind of ship must have been a large-scale steam dark wheel clipper that appeared on a large scale in Shanghai in recent years.

The Huangpu River is not small, it is small but it is not small, but with so many ships coming and going, the channel of the Huangpu River seems to be very crowded.

Looking away from the river, the south bank is a wilderness, but the north bank is full of high-rise buildings, this north bank is the famous Bund Avenue in the business area, and the other north side of the riverside Avenue stands the headquarters of many foreign banks, various banks and other enterprises.

After crossing the Bund in the former British Concession and at the mouth of Suzhou Creek, Han Litong saw a tall building rising from the ground at the mouth of the river, which is very typical of the Baroque architectural style, although it has not yet been built, but it is already tens of meters high.

Han Litong has also heard of this building before, I heard that it is led by Xinde Foreign Bank, Jardine Matheson Bank, Royal Bank, and more than ten other Chinese and foreign enterprises jointly invested in the construction of the 'Bund Hotel', the investment is huge, it is said to build the top and most luxurious modern hotel in the Far East, and now even if it has not been built, but there are already four floors of the Bund Hotel has become the tallest building in the business district, and after it is completely completed, I am afraid it will become the landmark building of the future business district.

Maybe by the time I come back from Europe, the Bund Hotel will already be built!

It's just that he is tens of thousands of miles away, not to mention the long distance, and he still has to stay in Europe for a few years to establish diplomatic relations between the empire and the European countries, so when he will be able to come back is something he himself can't predict.

Maybe three or four years, maybe seven or eight years, or ten years, maybe when I return to this land, I will have gray hair, maybe when I return to this land, the whole country will no longer be backward, and the people will no longer be ignorant!

Han Litong can't predict the future, and all he can do now is to go to Europe tens of thousands of miles away with all kinds of expectations! (To be continued......)