At the last minute on November 3, 1882, Emperor Meiji of Japan declared defeat and withdrew from the Franco-Japanese alliance. After final negotiations with the Great Merchants, it was agreed to renounce the sovereignty of Ezo and the Ryukyus and withdraw all the Japanese residents there. However, Daisho also promised not to station troops on it for ten years, but at the same time banned the entry of the Japanese Navy and Army. The indemnity amounted to seventy-five million taels of silver, to be paid over six years. The first two thousand five hundred taels of silver were delivered, and thereafter ten million were paid annually and were guaranteed by several British and American banks.

The so-called bombing of Tokyo in Japan was in fact just a kind of blackmail by the big merchants, and Tokyo was much farther away than Nagasaki. If you really want to send an airship over, it is basically a one-way nature, and there is no return. As for sending troops to land, not to mention whether the big merchants have the strength or not, even if they do, this long supply line is not something that the big merchants can afford now.

Shen Yazhi looked at the final negotiation result, felt a little pity, and complained a little: "100 million becomes 75 million, and there is a loss of 25 million taels, and you are too generous." ”

"Okay, you girl shouldn't be too distracted." Wang Yi stretched out his hand and hugged the girl in his arms, and said with a smile: "The reason why I agreed to such a request is mainly because there are fifty tons of gold in the down payment of the war reparations that Japan promised to repay, in addition to a lot of pounds and dollars. If it's all silver, this 100 million is my bottom line. ”

"Why?" Qianjia asked curiously on the other side.

"To tell you a story, in the Inca kingdom of ancient South America, there was a saying that gold was the sweat of the sun and silver was the tears of the moon, and there was no real money there. Labor is treated as a unit of value, to be exchanged. What do you think? Like the system of distribution according to work in communist society that I mentioned to you in my Marxist philosophy class? However, in 1532, everything changed. That year, Francisco Pizarro and the Spanish conquistadors he led came to the so-called Upper Peru and began to search for the so-called Golden Country. After defeating the Inca army at the Battle of Cajamarca, they came to Posito, where they discovered Mount Ceroriric, a real mountain of money. It is a continuation of the Andean vein, from which the Spaniards dug up more than 2 billion ounces of silver, which is about 57,000 tons or about 1.14 billion taels of silver on our side. But the huge amount of silver that Pizarro brought back did not save Spain from political and economic decline...... Any idea why this is? ”

The two girls frowned, obviously not knowing the truth.

Wang Yi continued at this time: "The reason why Spain fell into such a field is because they grabbed too much silver in order to support their own southern and northern wars. According to the principle that scarcity is expensive, when this silver flows into the market, too much silver leads to a sharp decline in the price of silver. Instead of making Spain richer, the abundance of silver coins caused prices to skyrocket, and people had to pay more for the same goods. In other words, the Spaniards did not understand that the intrinsic value of money was determined by what other people were willing to exchange for it. ”

"Oh!" The two girls understood a little.

"So it's certainly a good thing for us to get more precious metals to expand liquidity. But with the current market size of Fengji and Heihei, 100 million taels of silver is too much! It's too much for our financial system to accommodate! At the present level of about 10 million taels once a year, they also promised to pay gold, pounds and dollars, instead of a single silver. If I were to be given 100 million taels of silver at a time, I really don't know what to do. ”

"It's really for you, let's leave it at home!" Shen Yatou joked.

"Come on, at the current rate of silver price drops, our annual losses are enough to build a lot of schools."

The girl wrapped her arms around Wang Yi's neck and said, "You will count the money!" ”

"It's talent, no way."

Qianjia looked at the map on the coffee table in front of her at this time, and suddenly asked, "Why did you take back Ezo and Ryukyu, but not garrison them on them?" In particular, Ezo is so close to the Japanese mainland. ”

Shen Yazhi suddenly raised her little hand and replied, "I know!" ”

"Really? Let's talk about it! Wang Yi was a little surprised, and encouraged with a smile.

"Put fat in front of the kennel door, Yangmou! …… Hehe, Wang Yi, you have no intention of letting go of Little Japan at all! ”

"Ahh

"The main thing is that you are too bad, and if I think about it, I will know what you are going to do."

These words didn't choke Wang Yi to death, and Qianjia laughed on the side.

In fact, such a year-to-year repayment is also unfavorable to Wang Yi, after all, the downward trend of international silver prices will not change in the next few years. In other words, Japan's war reparations were depreciating all the time. But it doesn't matter, Wang Yi already has a way to deal with it. That is, taking advantage of the large outflow of Japanese silver, causing the price of silver in Japan to rise, and trading silver, copper or other raw materials through the hidden foreign banks of Guò Dashang Silver Furnace in Japan.

Although Japan withdrew, the war between the Great Merchants and France did not end. However, the two sides are thousands of miles apart, and in addition to the losses suffered by the French foreign bank, the two sides no longer seem to have intersected. This matter is pressed here, and no one is in a hurry to solve it. The French Tokyo fleet, led by Colonel Lone Ba, set off a month earlier than scheduled, and the number of battleships doubled overall, two ironclads, six cruisers, plus four torpedo boats, and various other ships.

However, the airship of the big merchant still produced an unexpected terrorist deterrent, and the Central Asian butcher Skobylev, who was originally stationed in Irkutsk, took advantage of the fact that the weather had not completely turned cold, and directly led his troops to Krasnoyarks, along with all the ordinary people and residents of the nearby area.

"Haha, the Russians were scared." Wang Xiaoxiao, deputy chief of staff, brought a front-line battle report from the Northeast Republic.

"It's not that simple, the Russians are just hiding sharp teeth, they won't give up!" Wu Xiao looked at the map and said.

"Send a telegram to Zheng Haitao, asking him to directly build fortresses in Irkutsk and Chita next year, and at the same time rush to repair the railway, as far as possible to connect it with Nebuchu." Wang Yi also looked at the map and discussed things with a bunch of staff officers around him.

Wu Xiao shook his head and said, "I'm afraid there is not enough manpower!" ”

"Inadequate?" Wang Yi smiled and said: "It doesn't matter if it's insufficient, I have received so much compensation from Japan now, which is not used for infrastructure construction, and there is not much investment for this money." ”

"The captain plans to buy people from the Qing court?"

"Buying people?" Wang Yi was puzzled and said: "What do I do when I buy people, give the Qing court a handling fee of hundreds of thousands of taels, let them send us strong labor, and after finishing the work, those who are willing to stay will stay, and those who are unwilling will let them go back." ”

"It's okay that way, it seems to be more cost-effective than buying people directly." Others agreed.

"That's it, I'm not a slave owner, what do I want so many slaves to do!"

"Those who come to work are willing to stay because we are good enough on the business side. And those who chose to leave because our side was not good enough. If we had the money to buy back a bunch of slaves who didn't want to work, we might as well spend that money on improving what we weren't good enough for! In this way, people will become willing to stay, and their motivation to work will be very different. ”

"By the way, Captain, there's something we should take care of." Wang Xiaoxiao poured Wang Yi a cup of tea and said with a smile.

"What's the matter?"

"What are we going to do with the passenger ships, merchant ships, and a bunch of French people that our navy has taken back?"

"That's it!" Wang Yi thought for a while and said, "Otherwise, find Tang Shaochuan to sign an agreement with the French minister, and we will allow them to redeem the hostages with money, and the price will be different according to different identities." If the French have no money to redeem them, give them jobs. After five years, let them go. ”

Others think about it, and it's also a way.

Compared with Wang Yi, who is worried about how to spend money, the Japanese are worried about how to make money. The cession of Hokkaido and the Ryukyus, especially the island of Hokkaido, suddenly left Japan without an important supply base for raw materials. Fortunately, Britain and the United States have promised to support Japan, otherwise it would be a problem for the government to maintain itself. Now they are all waiting for the return of one person, and that is Hirobumi Ito in Germany, who is studying the political system there.

In the eyes of the Japanese, the reason why they lost to the big merchants this time is, in the words that everyone likes to shout about everything now, because of the system. There is a consensus in Japan that the current state system cannot adapt to the development of modern society, and that Japan needs to be reformed. But how to change it, how to change it, to be honest, even Okuma Shigenobu and Itagaki retreat, who have been shouting about freedom and civil rights all day long, do not have the slightest idea.

However, another group of people also began their own schemes, Mitsuru Toyama, Rokusuke Hakoda, and Kotaro Hiraoka, and now they have established the predecessor of the Black Dragon Society, Japan's first modern right-wing organization, Genyosha. The president is Kotaro Hiraoka, and the Genyosha takes the meaning of the surging waves of the Sea of Japan and the magnificence of the Genyo, and advocates the so-called "diligent emperor to serve the country and respect no lover". However, the external advocacy is Greater Asianism. The previous Qing Volunteers, because Toushan Man had been busy with the establishment of the Xuanyang Society, so he never had the opportunity to go to Mukden. However, this time the Japanese army was defeated, but for the first time, Toushanman began to face the enemy of Dashang. Their location is Fukuoka, on the same Japanese island of Kyushu as Nagasaki. The day after the war, Touyama Man, who got the news, took people to go there in person. At that time, the news was chaotic, and many people said that the big merchants were about to start a landing attack. However, after arriving in Nagasaki, the dilapidated scene of the port and the surrounding area still deeply shocked all the Genyo members present.

"What the hell do you see?" Toyama began to ask around, and finally asked about Sosuke Yamazaki, who was cleaning up his tavern.

Soyu Yamazaki, who was originally normal, suddenly went crazy and shouted, "Youkai, Youkai!" Flying youkai! ”