Hearing Marshali ask about Wu Jianzhang's whereabouts, Xiao Yungui was full of indifference in his heart, and said lightly: "Wu Jianzhang? The murderer has been beheaded for public display, and the head is commanding the whole army. ”

After hearing this, Marshali, Wen Han, Blombur and others all stood up in shock and questioned them with nonsense, among which Marshali was the most intense, and he kept questioning Xiao Yungui Weishenme killed Wu Jianzhang without interrogation.

Xiao Yungui didn't expect to kill Wu Jianzhang and these foreigners reacted so much, so he patted his head at this time, and vaguely remembered that Hong Yuner had told him about Wu Jianzhang's background. Wu Jianzhang is not only the boss of Tongshunxing, one of the thirteen banks in Guangdong, but also one of the seven major shareholders of Qichang Foreign Company of the United States. Needless to say, Qichang was the most famous American company in the Far East in the 19th century, and its influence was like that of the East India Company to Britain. Since 1832, Tongshunxing, the thirteen banks of Guangdong, has been doing foreign trade business with foreign powers and has close business contacts with other countries. Wu Jianzhang's death can be said to have caused the great powers to lose an extremely important trading partner, and many businessmen and companies still have creditor's rights and debts with Wu Jianzhang.

In history, after the knife society caught Wu Jianzhang, Liu Lichuan did not kill him because of his fellow villagers and peacetime, and was rescued by American missionaries, which also shows that the Americans did not spare any effort to save Wu Jianzhang's life. But Xiao Yungui did not regret killing Wu Jianzhang, after Wu Jianzhang escaped in history, he frantically suppressed the Little Knife Society, this kind of person Xiao Yungui didn't want to keep himself unhappy.

Seeing a few foreigners kicking their noses and shouting in their big tents, Xiao Yungui slapped the table again and shouted loudly in English: "Shut up! ”

This sound startled everyone, and for a while the tent was quiet. Xiao Yungui stood up and said loudly: "Say it one by one, can such a noise solve the problem?" Is this how gentlemanly you are? ”

Lord Wenham snorted, waved the back of his tuxedo, and sat down, knowing that Marshali must be the first to jump out and say something. Blombull also shrugged his shoulders and sat down, the French and Wu Jianzhang did not cooperate as much as the United States and Britain, and he just wanted to fish in troubled waters.

At that moment, Ma Shali stood in the center of the big tent, waved his arms and said loudly: "Your Excellency King Xi, your killing of Wu Jianzhang will cause chaos in the trade of Shanghai and Guangzhou, and Wu is also one of the important shareholders of our American Qichang Foreign Company. You killed him and grossly violated the interests of the United States! Even if Wu commits a great crime, he should be handed over to the public trial of various countries, and you must bear the consequences if you punish it privately! ”

Xiao Yungui scoffed: "Who is Wu Jianzhang?" At best, he is a businessman, and if you kill him, Shanghai and Guangdong will be chaotic? Mr. Marshali, you are too alarmist. I have a message for you here, that is, the earth will turn without anyone! Wu Jianzhang is a shareholder of Qichang Foreign Company, yes. But he was also an official of the Manchu Qing Dynasty. This time in Shanghai, he commanded his army to kill tens of thousands of people, many of whom were innocent, and I just wanted justice for the victims! Submit it to the public trial of various countries? Is this necessary? The consular jurisdiction in the Treaty of Wang-Ha is limited to you foreigners, whether Wu Jianzhang is a Chinese or a prisoner of this king, and what crime he should sentence is up to this king! ”

Marshali angrily pointed at Xiao Yungui and said angrily: "You are a bandit who despises human rights. Everyone has the right to a fair trial! ”

Xiao Yungui scolded: "Fuck the notary trial, when he Wu Jianzhang was slaughtering those unarmed people, when did you so-called just consuls and ministers come out and say a word?" Now you're here again to accuse the king of injustice? What is the rationale for this? It was the Manchu Qing who was barbaric first, and Lao Tzu was barbaric with him to the end! ”

The two argued. Wenham and Blomble didn't seem strange at all, but they enjoyed the noise, which was commonplace in both the British Parliament and the Cabinet of the Second French Empire.

Zuihou Wenhan stood up and said, "The two of you arguing will not help solve the problem, let's discuss how to solve the matter in front of us." ”

Ma Shali sat down panting and took a sip of tea, but Xiao Yungui was red-faced, obviously the king of the west had the upper hand in this dispute.

Seeing that the two of them stopped, Wen Han said slowly: "Your Excellency the King of the West, we in the United Kingdom regret that you made such an irrational decision to let an important and influential merchant and official die, Wu promised our British Empire to expand the area of the concession before his death, and at the same time had several trade dealings with our British East India Company, we need to discuss before we can list the specific losses." Your Excellency the King of the West, please note that you promised to ensure that the interests of our Britain will not be harmed, but now that Wu Jianzhang is dead, all the losses caused can only be borne by your army. ”

Here it is again, these foreigners are all robber logic, why should Wu Jianzhang bear the sin created by Xiao Yungui?

Blombur also chimed in: "Yes, Wu Jianzhang also promised us to expand the scope of the French concession, and the scope of the British and French concessions can be expanded to the areas of Hongqiao and Yangpu, which is recorded in an official note. ”

The current British and French concessions have not yet surpassed the Suzhou Creek, and the public concessions of later generations have not yet appeared, and this time the British and French want to expand the concessions, that is, they want to occupy both sides of the Suzhou Creek, and occupy some good ports and prosperous market circles on both sides of the Suzhou Creek to meet the expanding trade needs of their own countries.

As for the concession, Xiao Yungui thinks it's nothing, since it is clear that it is a concession, and someone else rents your land to use, unlike the direct cession of Hong Kong, to be honest, if Shanghai does not have the concession and the investment of foreigners, it seems that it is impossible to develop. Didn't Shenzhen, which was reformed and opened up in later generations, also develop in this way? If you need to develop backward places, you have to attract foreign capital and businessmen to invest, and when people come, they want to build wharves, warehouses, residences, factories, etc., you have to give people a place, rent out the land, rent it for decades, and then people have the confidence to invest, right? It's impossible to want others to invest without giving them protection.

Xiao Yungui's next step is to build southern Jiangsu, and an extremely important part of it is to attract foreign businessmen and capital to enter. And even though he had already brought it, he only picked up the sesame seeds but lost the watermelon, which is a shameful take-it-or-leave-it.

At present, the longest lease period of the Shanghai concession is only 99 years, and the area is also very large, and it is actually nothing to expand the concession. The expansion of the concession meant that more merchants and companies from foreign powers would come to Shanghai, which would be of great benefit to Shanghai's economy, commerce, and tariffs.

However, Xiao Yungui also saw the disadvantages of the concession, the great powers could station troops in the concession, what consular jurisdiction there was, customs tariffs were agreed, Chinese were not allowed to enter the concession, and so on, which damaged China's sovereignty. Xiao Yungui felt that expanding the concession was not a problem. But the question is how to expand the law, and he also wants to limit the occurrence of some things that undermine sovereignty through this lend-lease negotiation.

Xiao Yungui said lightly: "Lord Wenhan, Your Excellency Blombull, Wu Jianzhang has promised the British and French to expand the concession, and we can discuss it. We can say yes. Then Xiao Yungui looked sideways at the puffed Mashali and asked, "Mr. Mashali, is your country interested in expanding the concession?" I think the U.S. can also expand some concessions. This is also negotiable. ”

Marshali snorted. He could not have imagined that Xiao Yungui would raise such an issue, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty had always been very afraid of the foreign powers' claim to concession land, believing that it was a matter detrimental to the national system, and they were also worried that some Huayi miscellaneous place would cause trouble, and the American concession was limited to the Hongkou area, and was limited to the land used by the American Anglican Church mission. The area was small, and most Americans still traded in the British Concession.

Xiao Yungui didn't wait for Ma Shali to reply, and then said: "Actually, this king thinks that the expansion of concessions in various countries can be discussed, but the only request of this king is that the management and security rights of these concessions should be handed over to our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to manage. There are also concessions of various countries that can actually be merged and unified into one large public concession. In this way, it can better promote the trade and trade between various countries, so that the land rent and labor prices in the concession can be unified, which is convenient for businessmen from all countries, and avoids the chaos of the market atmosphere in each concession, and also avoids the unfairness caused by the emergence of various forms of concession management. ”

Historically, the emergence of the public concession was actually in September 1853, after the Xiaodaohui occupied the county seat of Shanghai, and the Manchu government lost control of the concession. In July 1854, the British and French Concessions of Shanghai jointly established an independent municipal organization "Shanghai Ministry of Industry Bureau", established police forces, and began to manage all the affairs of the concession on its own.

Since Xiao Yungui understood the real danger of the concession, he now planned to expand the concession in exchange for countries giving up the exercise of those chaotic rights in the concession, so as to avoid the emergence of a country within a state.

Sure enough, the ministers of the three major countries all turned their heads and ears when they heard this, but this proposal was too abrupt, and several ministers needed to weigh it carefully, so Zuihou Wenhan said: "Your Excellency Xiwang's proposal is very constructive, but we need to go back and discuss it carefully before we can decide." ”

Xiao Yungui nodded and said, "Yes, we also need to reformulate the Shanghai land lease charter, and sign a new land lease agreement after re-negotiating with other countries." ”

Seeing that Xiao Yungui had given a part of the leased land, Ma Shali eased up a little and asked, "Then Your Excellency the King of the West, after Wu Jianzhang's death, who will fill the investment quota and business transactions vacated by him?" If Wu Jianzhang's family gave up their investment and demanded to get their shares back, Qichang would suffer huge losses. ”

Xiao Yungui snorted contemptuously and said: "We have so many rich people in China, are you still afraid that you will not find anyone to invest?" There is He Yuanlun, the president of the Baoqing Chamber of Commerce, and Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin, the two bosses of Guiyun Firm, these three people are businessmen on the rich side, Zhu Changlin and Wei Helin have great influence in Hunan, Guangxi and other places, He Yuanlun controls more than ninety percent of the business transactions of Baoqing merchants, and they can all buy Wu Jianzhang's shares. I also heard that Qichang & Co. wants to open up a business route to purchase tea directly from Wuyi Mountain, and I believe that the three of them can do the same. As for Wu Jianzhang's business in the Thirteen Banks of Guangdong, the Thirteen Banks of Guangdong have earned enough, and it is time to change people. In a word, all the commercial and trade gaps that appeared after Wu Jianzhang's death, this king will find someone to fill them, and you only need to settle accounts with Wu Jianzhang's heirs in Guangdong. Money is not a problem, what this king needs is a direction to invest! (To be continued......)