"Hahaha, Li Zhongtang's house is really full of talents, which is enviable. 》Xingsun is a great talent, and the coming day will be the humerus of the middle hall. Liu Xian laughed. Sheng Xuanhuai, who was seated, still bowed smugly, "The military gate has won the award." ”

Li Hongzhang sent him to meet Liu Xian and lobby the north and the south to join forces to resist the ocean, but Liu Xian naturally did not allow it. That's careless! Although there was some surprise that Li Hongzhang would take the initiative to extend an olive branch, Liu Xian was also willing to accept it.

Zeng Guofan died, the Hunan army was divided, and all the bigwigs sang on stage in a team, and no one held anyone's stinky feet. Li Hongzhang and his Huai army are now the largest military group in China. Although there is still a Zuo Jinliang in Fujian and Zhejiang, but without the pacification of Gansu and Shaanxi, and the success of recovering Xinjiang is in the future, Zuo Zongtang's influence and strength are always inferior to Li Hongzhang.

Sheng Xuanhuai walked out of the Admiral's Yamen with a smile on his face. He did a lot of homework on this visit to Liuzhou, not only to obtain the proportion of foreign merchants in the transshipment of grain for six consecutive years after the four years of Tongzhi, but also to obtain the proportion of foreign merchants' steamers in the past ten years, which is the most prosperous trade route in China today -- Guangzhou to the Shanghai Sea. Shocking, it makes people's hearts beat countless times faster at a glance, and they persuaded Liu Xian, who had already agreed and just wanted to get a fight.

On the two numbers, all of them are rising all the way, and the proportion of foreign businessmen is one step a year. And at the same time, Sheng Xuanhuai also has a year-by-year cargo throughput after Shanghai Ercrow, and some of the numbers of Shanghai Customs, relying on the good relationship between Li Hongzhang and Hurd, Sheng Xuanhuai can easily get his hands on it.

The matter is over, but Sheng Xuanhuai does not plan to leave. He wants to take a good turn between Liuzhou City and even the counties under his jurisdiction. Guangxi's geography, history, climate and other reasons have made many Chinese people. In particular, the northerners have always despised it, but Sheng Xuanhuai has been looking at it since he entered Liuzhou. The local people's livelihood seems to be not much inferior to Tianjing.

The rise and fall of a city depends on the market. Looking at the household registration, looking at the people's complexion, and looking at the people's clothing, Liuzhou is much stronger than most of the states and counties he has seen. Sheng Xuanhuai had a guess in his heart, and he wanted to confirm his guess. If correct, it would have changed his life choices.

It's not dusk yet, and Liuzhou should be the rarest time of the day. And what Sheng Xuanhuai saw in front of him was indeed like this, sparse pedestrians, and a deserted market. It's all so deserted.

The entourage behind Sheng Xuanhuai raised his hand and beckoned a carriage parked at the corner of the street. The whole of China, just Liuzhou and Hanzhong, can have so many hospitality carriages. Just because the Qin army had many horses, the whole army eliminated an unknown number of old horses. In addition, the development of factories in the two places made many foreign merchants, which gave rise to many carriages. "Go to your industrial park in Liuzhou."

Sheng Xuanhuai arrived in Liuzhou City yesterday afternoon, and he saw the liveliness of Liuzhou City at night. Today, he is more interested in industrial parks.

Except for the south gate of the city, the carriage went straight to the south. After passing through the Guanji outside the city, it only took half a quarter for people to come to the industrial park. It is located on the bank of the Liujiang River. A short distance further south is Xinxing Town, which crosses the Liujiang River and goes 20 miles southeast of Jiangkou Town, both of which are traditional trading towns in Liuzhou. Now that the industrial park is taking advantage of, it is naturally more prosperous than before.

Liuzhou's industrial park is not too large. After all, there were only eight of these factories established by the Qin army: match factories, cigarette factories, soap factories, caustic soda factories, glass factories, sugar refineries, textile factories, and machinery factories. The rest of the nitrate fields and the gunpowder bureau for refining the nitrate are in the north of Liuzhou. All the rest are in Qinzhou. For example, there is a shipyard under construction and a small shipyard.

"Keep going inside." Sheng Xuanhuai didn't get out of the car and walked around the industrial park. And after the carriage wandered for two quarters of an hour, according to Sheng Xuanhuai's meaning. Stopped again to the outermost.

There was silence in the carriage. Sheng Xuanhuai closed his eyes, and all that was left in his mind seemed to be the whirring chimney. This is industry, although it is still very thin, and when added together, it is not half of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. But the benefits they produce, any one alone can crush the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.

Founded in the fourth year of Tongzhi, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, also known as the Shanghai Machinery Bureau, was planned by Zeng Guofan and actually responsible for by Li Hongzhang, and was the largest military factory founded during the Westernization Self-improvement Movement, and also the largest Western-style enterprise founded by Li Hongzhang in Shanghai. The first batch of investment amounted to 250,000 taels of silver, and then Zeng Guofan was allowed to obtain 10 percent of the tariff from Shanghai Customs as the funds of the manufacturing bureau, and this proportion was increased to 20 percent in the eighth year of Tongzhi, which is equivalent to an annual investment of at least 400,000 taels of silver.

Even the steel plant on Qin Jun's drawings can be built overnight, and it is not comparable to the value of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.

But when it comes to benefits and results, Sheng Xuanhuai and other Li Hongzhang's henchmen can laugh. Taking the imitation of the German Mauser 11mm breech rifle as an example, the cost in Germany is only ten taels of silver, but the cost price of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is as high as nearly 18 taels of silver. Almost all the raw materials for the production of armaments in the manufacturing bureau were imported, the salaries of personnel, especially foreign technicians, were on the high side, the funds for purchase were excessive, and the number of officials was too superficial -- in addition to the increasing number of foreign advisers, many Chinese officials and staff members took advantage of their connections to enter and receive salaries. The yamen-style management model makes the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau the same as other local machine bureaus, and the products are of low quality and high quality, like black holes, devouring a lot of money.

In the history of the original time and space, Sheng Xuanhuai, who was the money bag of the Beiyang family, was vigorously sprouting the idea of 'seeking wealth' at this time. The confusion caused by knowing the essence of the Westernization Movement seems to have seen a guiding light looming in the fog in the distance.

The carriage waited quietly on the side of the industrial park, and time passed slowly. When the sun was setting, Sheng Xuanhuai in the carriage suddenly heard a bell.

The bell came from the rear, Sheng Xuanhuai stretched out his head to look, and saw that it was a donkey cart, an old man flicked a whip, and a bell was hanging from the donkey. The car was piled up with goods, but they were all covered with thick cloths, so that Sheng Xuanhuai couldn't see what it was.

The donkey cart slowly walked past the carriage, and the old man who drove the cart smiled at Sheng Xuanhuai. Then Sheng Xuanhuai watched the old man drive the donkey cart all the way to the match factory.

"This old man, this old man should be delivering matchboxes to the match factory." Outside the carriage, the coachman, who had been waiting quietly for a long time with his mouth closed, rushed Sheng Xuanhuai to stare at the donkey cart and said carefully.

"Huh?" Sheng Xuanhuai paused, then smiled, stretched out his hand and threw a piece of Yingyang to the coachman. "Let's talk about it, in the past two years since Liu Junmen came, Liuzhou has undergone major changes. Are you doing better than before, or are you not as good as you used to be? ”

The coachman was frightened and received Yingyang, and a flower bloomed on his face. For Sheng Xuanhuai's inquiry, the smile was even brighter. "How can life not be as good as before. Look at the match factory, there is also a cigarette factory, only in their free time to paste matchboxes and cigarette boxes, women and children can earn three or five hundred dollars a month. Not to mention that these factories recruit so many people to work. ”

"I don't know if I've seen the shanties in Dongguan?" The coachman asked. Seeing that Sheng Xuanhuai was silent, the smile on his face added a sense of self-satisfaction. "In the past, although there were some coolies at Liuzhou Wharf, most of them were local people. There are few shacks outside Dongguan, and the women and children are less than 100 households. Today's shantytowns are more than 1,000 households, ten times more than in the past. Except for some who sell coolies at the docks, that is, those who work in industrial parks. ”

Sheng Xuanhuai has a new discovery, that is, the people of Liuzhou he has come into contact with, from yesterday to the present, no matter how high or low their status, all of them have clearly said "industrial park". Unlike other local people, most of them regard the Western-style factory as a monster and refer to it by a nickname.

"Did you see the little one?" The coachman revealed the palm of his hand that had been holding the whip, Sheng Xuanhuai glanced at it, and his eyes immediately froze. "Two fingers missing." Only the thumb, index finger, and middle finger of one hand are still intact, and the other two are missing the upper part of the head. "It was accidentally wrenched while working in a textile factory."

"The villain was originally a fisherman from outside the city. When the textile factory was recruiting, the small greedy for wages, ignored the rumors at the time, and entered the factory. At that time, the villain's heart was really up and down, but who knew that the factory was so good. In the first month, the youngest took three taels of silver, and in the second month, the youngest took three taels and seven cents. At the highest, I took a small five taels of silver, which is better than fishing on the river, and I don't know how many times better my life is. ”

"There is also a meal in the factory every day, and in the evening school, I can also go in and listen to it with my employee ID. The villain lived to be thirty-one years old before he could really write his name. ”

"It's a pity that when I was fishing for the thread, the machine broke two of my fingers. The textile mill won't let me do it anymore. The pharmaceutical factory was all inclusive, and the villain was also compensated for ten taels of silver. After the villain recovered from his injury, he used the ten taels of silver and the family's savings to buy a horse, and first pulled a cart to transport cotton and cloth to the factory. The steward in the factory sees that the villain is the old man inside, and deliberately takes care of the villain. I earned the capital back a year ago, and I let people make a car after the year......"

The coachman in front of you may be just a special case. But Sheng Xuanhuai doesn't pick anyone, but picks a special example, isn't it also ridiculous? More likely, Qin Jun's industrial park has really changed life in Liuzhou.

Sheng Xuanhuai remembered the lively scene in Liuzhou City last night, and also thought that he deliberately went to the household department before coming to Liuzhou to find someone to check the household registration and population documents reported by Liuzhou.

There are less than 30,000 people in the entire Liuzhou City, only 5,000 households, and there are only more than 400,000 people in the entire Liuzhou Prefecture. And now, according to the coachman, there are thousands of shantytowns in Dongguan alone...... (To be continued......) R527