After deciding on the policy of delaying coping, Alexander. Stephens came to New Orleans with a very correct mentality this time, and he looked very serious on the surface, but as soon as he came, he talked a lot about the friendship between China and the United States (the government of the Southern Federation), or talked about the ups and downs, or the differences between the civilizations of the two countries.

At the beginning, Li Yongji still had to deal with one or two, after all, Li Yongji's behavior this time was more tentative than sincere, so I also wanted to know what the Richmond government thought of this matter.

In other words, Li Yongji originally did not have the idea of treating New Orleans as a concession, and even when he asked the northern government for this contract, it was mainly a means of bargaining, which belonged to the sky-high asking price, who knew that the other party would sign it without saying a word, and he was embarrassed to say that I was asking for a sky-high price, but in fact, you can pay it back on the ground.

After negotiating peace with the northern government, Li Yongji somewhat understood the other party's thoughts, that is, the northern government at that time was already at the end of its strength, and it seemed that it still had strength on the surface, but in fact, it was the weakest time.

In other words, judging from the situation at that time, the Lincoln government was more like a desperate gambler, and was frightened by the Chinese Expeditionary Force, so the mood for peace was more urgent, and at that time, as long as the expeditionary force agreed to withdraw troops, and did not affect too many of the actual core interests of the Lincoln government, they could agree.

Obviously, the city of New Orleans is important, but it is too far away from the Northern government, and it is still under occupation, so there is no hesitation for the federal government to promise this place.

Even the envoys of the negotiations at that time believed that New Orleans was one of the most important cities in the Southern Union, and giving this city to the Chinese as a concession might affect the relations between the two sides. It would be wonderful if you could make an enmity or even fight because of this.

However, Li Yongji and others were not idiots, and in addition the relationship with the southern government at that time was quite good, and the purpose of Li Yongji's hope was to make the north and the south truce as soon as possible, thus creating the fact that the north and the south were divided, so they did not publicly sign this agreement with the northern government on the cession of New Orleans to China as a concession.

If the Chinese side did not announce the agreement, the Lincoln administration would not have announced it, after all, if it did. The Chinese are a minor nuisance at best, but for the Lincoln administration, it is a stain on the prestige of the government.

In fact, not to mention the agreement to cede New Orleans to the Chinese as a concession, even the previous agreement to cede a large amount of territory in the west, the Lincoln administration did not announce it internally, but strictly controlled the newspapers and magazines in the territory and banned the publication of relevant reports.

So, even if someone obtains the public contents of the Smithland Treaty from sources other than the United States. Nor can he, let alone dare to make a big deal about it in the United States of America, and once he does, he will not have to do it without anyone else's hands. Those ubiquitous extremists of the Patriotic Association would arrest them and torture them.

In fact, the patriotic association at that time was extreme. The end elements are quite good, but if they drag on until now and fall into the hands of those patriotic youth troops who have separated from the Patriotic Association, the result will only be even more miserable.

In a word. This agreement to cede the city of New Orleans, including the Port of New Orleans, to the Chinese has always existed and is part of the Treaty of Smithland. The reason why the Chinese Empire has previously made public treaties with China and the United States mentioned this. It was just because the Chinese government didn't want to publish this article at that time, and the purpose was naturally not to provoke the Southern Alliance government.

You must know that at that time, Li Yongji already had the intention of going, that is, he wanted to leave the quagmire of the North American continent as soon as possible, return to China as soon as possible, and patiently bury himself in farming and climbing the science and technology tree, and wait for the overall national strength to rise, and then there will be an overall explosion.

In other words, don't look at the fact that the Chinese military has gained a great reputation in the international community because of its interference in the American Civil War, but Li Yongji himself knows very well that China's foundation is very thin, and its overall strength is still far behind that of Western powers, such as Britain and France.

At present, Britain, France, and other powers are unable to figure out the true strength of China, and they feel mysterious about the combat effectiveness of the Chinese army, and the distance is long, which is why they are so friendly, and the relationship with the Chinese empire is one of cooperation rather than confrontation.

However, once the great powers such as Britain and France really discover China's true reality and engage in an overall war against China, then with Li Yongji's current ability, winning or losing will be between five and five percent, and even if he can win in the end, it will inevitably greatly weaken China's national strength and slow down its own development speed.

Of course, the situation of such a hot war is not bad, and I am most afraid that those European powers will unite to impose an economic blockade on China, in which case, the losses will be even greater.

Because Li Yongji does not want to farm step by step, but wants to rely on the technology and equipment of the 21st century to develop by leaps and bounds.

In other words, Li Yongji does not plan to follow the old path of the primary industrial revolution, but intends to jump directly to the electric power revolution after the second industrial revolution, and intends to vigorously develop the electric power industry and related factories.

In addition, Li Yongji plans to popularize information technology to a limited extent, and within 20 years, popularize basic roads, railways, telephone networks, and radio networks among China's major cities, and officially start popularizing the Internet within 30 years.

The reason why these 20 years and 30 years are set is mainly for the growth time of talents who learn this knowledge.

Because Li Yongji now does not lack technology, nor does he lack related equipment, what he lacks is only talents who can apply these technologies and sufficient funds.

It takes time for talent to grow, and it takes time for funds to be prepared, and during this period, a good political environment at home and abroad is indispensable.

Think about it, how many years has it been since the reform and opening up of the red China in another time and space? Economic development can be described as flying, and it is not an exaggeration to call it a great leap.

Why is this so? First of all, the first factor was that Red China was in a peaceful world at that time, the political environment was stable, there was no turmoil and the like, and there was a good internal environment for economic development.

The second factor is that although China was very backward at that time, other countries were very advanced, so as long as the country opened its doors and took the initiative to accept advanced technology and ideas from outside, it may take a long time to catch up, but shortening the distance can be completed quickly.

To put it bluntly, the reason why Red China is developing so fast. It is because standing on the shoulders of giants, there are a lot of ready-made technologies and equipment available, especially technology, many of which are take-it-or-leave-it.

But even if it is a doctrine, the real leap forward of Red China at that time was more than ten or twenty years later, why is this so? Because after more than ten or twenty years, an earlier group of young people has grown up, and this group of young people has been exposed to new technologies and new knowledge since childhood, and they have talents that are not comparable to those of the older generation. When these elites rejoin society, the energy will naturally be different from the past.

Li Yongji is the same now, in order to shorten the process of growing up talents in China, he started with the generation of primary school students, starting from primary school students, he directly used the modern textbooks that have been deleted and modified, hoping to wait at least five years for this group of growing up primary school students to become the main force of his talents.

The reason why primary school students were chosen was because Chinese education in this era was too closed. Too conservative. Those who have read books for three or five years are fine, but if they have read more than five years, their thinking about old knowledge and old culture will begin to take root in them, and it is difficult to change them easily. And this so-called conservative cultural person will not only not become the driving force of the Chinese-style scientific and technological revolution, but will become an obstacle.

It is for this reason that Li Yongji simply started from scratch. It starts with a blank sheet of paper for school-age children, and for those who have read more than five years of school, it is mainly for practical influence. For those who have been studying for more than eight years, they have basically given up.

The reason is simple, everything in a child is not yet developed, it is easiest to paint, and if something is instilled in him at this time, he will follow this path, whether it is right or wrong.

Although young people have been instilled with a lot of the culture of this era in advance, but before there are simplified characters and pinyin subtitles, it is quite difficult to learn Chinese characters, and it is not bad to be able to read through 3,000 words in five years, and be proficient in reading and writing.

When Li Yongji was in China, he once asked people to do a series of experiments to calculate the efficiency of education inheritance in this era, and the results showed that a normal person can read and write less than 3,000 Chinese characters proficiently after five years of study, and the literacy rate is about the same as the level of the third grade of primary school in the 21st century.

In addition to the literacy rate, the ability of the teenager who has studied for five years is far worse than that of primary school students in modern society, the most serious is the mathematical ability, and the young man who has studied for five years in the late Qing Dynasty has only the same arithmetic ability as the second grade of primary school, and even many people can't even calculate addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

That is to say, the most basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, especially the ninety-nine multiplication table, which is the basis of the foundation in mathematics, a person who has studied for five years in the late Qing Dynasty still can't, and it is no wonder that outsiders call them nerds.

On the contrary, those who have not read too many books, the literacy rate is not high, but they have stepped into the society early to ask for life, their arithmetic level is not bad, the reason is self-evident, from life to learn, after all, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and other arithmetic skills are a basic ability in life, all aspects will be used.

Therefore, it was this incident that made Li Yongji realize that literacy rate is not the only criterion for literacy, and improving the overall quality, especially the quality of mathematics, is the real top priority.

It was precisely because he understood this, and Li Yongji was in a bit of a hurry to get things done, that he ordered a large-scale reform of education and increased investment in new education.

On the one hand, Li Yongji reformed the school system and the imperial examination system, popularized scientific knowledge for young scholars who already had a certain foundation in reading, and added some basic skills training, hoping that they could have more scientific literacy and have a skill, and in the future they could become workers and technicians or something, or become businessmen or grassroots bureaucrats, which would be barely qualified.

On the other hand, Li Yongji has increased his investment in primary education, directly using the method of free reading plus subsidies to carry out modern education for school-age children, and directly using modern teaching materials, hoping that they can receive a more formal and scientific education system from the source.

In other words, those children who have not been poisoned by traditional education are the fundamental talents that Li Yongji really values.

In order to smoothly promote the new type of education, Li Yongji directly targeted the children of the poor who had little resistance to the new type of education, and also seduced them with practical benefits such as free reading and subsidies for reading.

In addition, Li Yongji's reuse of young people under the new education is also obvious to all, not to mention anything else, let's just talk about the youth guard group back then, except for a few people, most of them have been promoted and reused, and they have reflected extraordinary energy in all aspects.

The most famous are Bai Yunfei, Li Fei, and Zhang Hu. Now they are all the commanders of China's first motorized mobile unit, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they are young people.

However, for this policy to be implemented smoothly, it is not only a policy, but also a large amount of investment, not only in terms of funds, but also in terms of teachers, educational facilities, and other aspects.

However, the main problem here is still the issue of funding, because in order to make this new type of education really spread from childhood. A lot of money must be invested unilaterally, otherwise, if there are no good policies but no actual investment, it will only become like India's universal health care in another time and space, just a nice gimmick and meaningless.

In order to prepare funds, Li Yongji set his sights on a major tax in the national tax, which is also the most traditional and important tax in the feudal state - land tax!

Back at the beginning of the statehood. Li Yongji made a plan to let the land tax go directly to education, that is, the land tax collected. It will be directly invested in education, of which the construction of schools in various places and the related maintenance costs, including student subsidies, are the top priority.

In the beginning, the empire did not pay much land taxes. But when the country stabilizes and the grassroots officials return to work, the amount of tax collected in this area will increase. Relatively speaking, there are more and more new schools in various places, but there is a serious shortage of teachers, resulting in a great waste of funds.

Coupled with the backlash of intellectuals everywhere, using the traditional powers such as discourse and clan power in his own hands to restrain people in the vicinity from sending their children to new schools, this is the fundamental reason why Shen Shiming stopped the land tax and directly invested in education.

After three years of struggle, Li Yongji has initially accomplished his strategic goal, that is, to divide the United States, divide the United States into two countries, the north and the south, weaken the overall strength of the United States, and then plunder the territory of western North America bordering the Pacific Ocean.

Today, although there is no real truce between the North and the South, and the United States of the North has not recognized the legitimacy of the regime of the Southern Confederate States, because China, Britain, France, and other great powers have recognized the legitimacy of the Southern Confederate States one after another, and the Northern Army is unable to continue to attack the South, and the South is also unable to defeat the North, it is a matter of time before the two sides cease war.

In addition, Li Yongji, the territory in western North America, was also obtained through a contract, although fundamentally speaking, whether or not to take and occupy those lands depends on strength, but with this Smithland Treaty, China can obtain a certain amount of legal rationality, which is quite beneficial to the Chinese in the future colonization of North America, and it is also very necessary.

All in all, Li Yongji's main goals in North America have been achieved, even if he returns to China now, there is no problem, there is no possibility of a major repetition, and it is impossible for the United States to reunify the north and the south, on the contrary, the division of the two countries is already a certainty.

The reason why Li Yongji has not left is that he wants to wait for the production of Soho, second, he wants to do things carefully, and it is best to see the situation of peace talks between the north and the south with his own eyes, so as to avoid accidents, and third, he is a little worried about the domestic political environment and wants to make some arrangements in advance.

Now, Li Yongji is about to return to China, and he can't wait a little, but there is still no ceasefire between the North and the South of the United States, and there is a great intention to continue fighting.

Moreover, according to Li Yongji's intelligence, not only Lincoln also fantasized about continuing to fight, completely defeating the South and unifying the North and the South, and even Davis had a similar dream, hoping to defeat the North in one go and obtain a complete United States.

It was precisely because he saw the unwillingness of both sides that Li Yongji thought about it and finally put forward the matter of New Orleans as a Chinese concession, and his fundamental purpose was to make the southern government pay more attention to himself, so that the southern government would take the initiative to come and negotiate with him, and he also happened to take advantage of the situation to put forward his idea of a north-south armistice.

In other words, New Orleans is an introduction, a brick, and a brick that the Southern government is reluctant to reluctant. The fundamental purpose of Li Yongji's action was to attract the idea of the Southern Government, and then take advantage of the situation to urge the Southern Alliance Government to start peace talks with the Northern Government as soon as possible at the expense of New Orleans.

Now, Li Yongji's goal has been achieved, and the Southern government, after hearing that New Orleans was a concession by the Chinese Expeditionary Force, was really anxious and immediately sent the vice president to negotiate.

Originally, Li Yongji was also very happy and felt that he had finally made a good start, but who knew that the vice president always spoke without boundaries, and he could say everything, but he didn't say it on time, which made people very bored! (To be continued......)