Hearing the name of Rothschild, Wen Han and the others were all nervous, the Rothschild family is mysterious and powerful, and Nathan of the Rothschild Five Tigers. Mel. Rothschild, as an important representative of the family in London, England, won the dominance of the City of London in one fell swoop in the Battle of Waterloo, thus controlling the economic lifeblood of Britain. Since then, the United Kingdom's crucial decisions, including the issuance of currency and the price of gold, have been in the hands of the Rothschilds.

A Prussian diplomat in Britain once said: "Rothschild's influence on the financial affairs here [of London] is astonishing. They completely control the price of forex trading in the City of London. As bankers, their power is eye-popping. When Nathan was angry, the Bank of England was trembling. ”

In addition to London, the Rothschilds also opened banks in famous European cities such as Frankfurt, Paris, Vienna, and Naples, establishing the largest financial kingdom on Shijie at that time. Now is the heyday of the Rothschild family, and their turbulent liliang has made the princes and nobles of Europe bow down, Wen Han and others are naturally surprised to hear this name.

Midile reacted quickly, he frowned and said, "Alexander, could it be that the representative of the Rothschild family in the Far East is your Jardine Matheson?" ”

Alexander did not intend to deny it, he admitted very happily: "We do have the support of the Rothschilds behind us, which is also the reason why Weishenme was able to establish Jardine Matheson in Canton on July 1, 1832, the day after the collapse of the Maniac Company, and this is also the reason why Weishenme I have the confidence to say that the opium policy of the Taiping Army is useless to us." ”

After the success of the Rothschilds, they also set their sights on the Far East, but unfortunately the East India Company was in the limelight at that time, and the trade monopoly made it impossible for the Rothschilds to invest more money, but they soon found a suitable opportunity to use some energy to get the British government to cancel the trade privileges of the East India Company. Nathan saw this very accurately. The British government was also dissatisfied with some of the East India Company's practices, believing that it was an obstacle to trade in the Far East, so Nathan quietly removed another obstacle to business. After that, the East India Company decomposed a lot of retail merchants, the Rothschild family chose Madison and William, the two became the Rothschild family's agents in the Far East, Jardine Matheson after its establishment, has gradually become the Far East in the Far East in the British businessmen in China, which is of course inseparable from the talents of Madison and William, but more still has the support of the Rothschild family behind it.

Jardine Matheson was supported by the Rothschild family. Few people know, the Rothschild family's headquarters in London never intervenes in the affairs of Jardine Matheson, and Madison only regularly reports to the London headquarters on the trade situation, and even reports in detail on the political situation and pattern here. The two seemingly unrelated business entities are actually inextricably linked, and it is not surprising that Wen Han and others do not know.

Hear Alexander admit frankly. Wen Han was also relieved, he understood that the Rothschild family bigwig Alexander said must have secretly come to China through Jardine Matheson. He followed Luo Weilin to Suzhou. As a result, he disappeared over there, so Alexander was very anxious to find him.

"Who's that big guy? Can you tell us? Wen Han handed over a cigar.

Alexander declined the cigar and said worriedly, "He is the youngest son of the late Mr. Nathan. Rothschild, 25 years old, owns 15 percent of all the banks controlled by the Rothschild family in London. Definitely a pivotal figure. ”

Wen Han gasped, the youngest son of old Nathan is not very good, and the characters of the Rothschild family are not very good, but a person who owns fifteen percent of the shares of the Bank of London is a big man! Wen Han secretly scolded Alexander in his heart for causing him a lot of trouble. When such an important person came to China, he didn't even notify him or the consulate, if something happened to this person, Wen Han believed that he could pack up and go back to China immediately. The reason is simple, in order to prepare for war with Russia, the British government must need the support of the Rothschilds!

Seeing that Wen Han's face was very ugly, Alexander hurriedly said: "Mr. Minister, I didn't mean to hide it, but the big man didn't let him reveal his whereabouts, and I couldn't do anything." ”

Midile sighed and gloated, "It's a very difficult rich boy to serve, Mr. Madison, and I sympathize with your plight. ”

Wen Han said irritably: "Now is not the time to talk about this, quickly find a way to solve the problem, I don't want Clifford to have an accident in China during my tenure!" ”

Midile pondered for a moment and said, "Your Excellency, it seems that we still have to go to the king of the West for help in this matter, Suzhou is his jurisdiction, and without his support, it will be difficult for us to find Clifford." ”

Wen Han thought for a while, leaned back on the sofa and said, "It seems that this is the only way, that guy is a smiling poisonous snake, maybe he will use this matter as a coercion in exchange for our concessions." Ali Guo and Midile, two gentlemen, you can do this matter, I hope he will not ask too much. ”

……

The next day's tariff negotiations went smoothly, much to the delight of Xiao Yungui, and the British delegates agreed to abolish the duty rate on opium as an imported commodity, and also agreed to impose a 30 percent tariff on cloth imports. The French and American ministers and businessmen wondered why the British, who had been very loud yesterday, had changed their attitude overnight. Marshali and Blombull immediately understood that the British were targeting the Taiping Investment Bureau's investment projects, and the two countries made concessions.

Although the merchants of various countries were not very happy, they saw that the wind direction had changed, so they had to follow suit. They learned from different sources that the Taiping Army's demand for arms and the arms industry will reach a peak in the future, and businessmen from various countries are secretly preparing to adjust their trade strategies to meet the changes in the demand-side market.

As the first tariff bill of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, this rule and regulations absorb the advanced tariff policies and management methods of the West, and make clear provisions on the tax rates of more than 250 kinds of import and export goods, which have a wide variety of goods, even if you want to import a needle, you can also find the corresponding tax rate, and completely bid farewell to the Manchu era of goods and tax rates. At the same time, the tariff regulations strictly stipulate a series of procedures for customs declaration, inspection and tax payment of imported and exported goods, and each procedure is strictly supervised by Chinese personnel. Xiao Yungui withdrew the right of consular approval of customs declarations of various countries, and only retained the right of consular review, and added Chinese observers to supervise this link.

That is to say, in the future, the import of goods no longer requires the approval of the consuls of various countries, and businessmen from all countries can import goods to China according to their needs. The demise of this regulation is very epoch-making, which means that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom can import what they want without being choked by the so-called consuls of various countries on behalf of the governments, and although the countries can still control from the source of exports, the shackles on the Chinese customs side have been removed, which is a very big success.

In addition, the agreement that tariffs should be adjusted according to the proportion of prices also gave the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom a lot of room for the Chinese side to adjust the tariffs as needed, and the role of tariffs in protecting its own industry and commerce will certainly play a role in the future.

Then merchants from all over the world began to come to pay taxes one after another, including the customs duties owed during the Battle of Shanghai, and Xiao Yungui also unceremoniously pocketed the income, which should have been collected by the Manchu Qing Dynasty, and now fell into Xiao Yungui's holy treasury.

On the same day, the Shanghai Customs was proclaimed, Wei Helin was appointed as the first director of the Customs Department, with the same post as the inspection point, Li Taitai was the general adviser of the Customs, and the Customs Department set up a customs unit for each trading country to manage separately, and a group of businessmen from the army were promoted to serve as the heads of the tariff units of various countries, and the tariff chiefs of each country accompanied a supervisor, most of which were served by famous compradors under Chinese businessmen and foreign banks. At the same time, among the subordinate customs staff, Xiao Yungui asked Li Taitai to hire a large number of foreigners to fill the position, after all, foreigners are familiar with foreigners, and it is easier to deal with them.

After the tariff matter was settled, Xiao Yungui breathed a sigh of relief, and the next day he asked Wang Minyun to preside over the establishment of the General Administration of Investment Promotion, and Zhu Changlin became the first director of the Shanghai General Administration of Investment Promotion of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Subsequently, the China Merchants Administration announced a very large investment promotion jihua, which shocked businessmen from all over the world and Chinese businessmen in their own countries. This jihua involves railways, telegraphs, mineral mining, military industry, shipbuilding, clothing, medicine, education and so on.

In terms of railways, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Jihua built a railway to Suzhou, which passed through Jiading, Kunshan and other places, with a total length of more than 100 kilometers. Xiao Yungui hopes to use Suzhou as a pilot to see the effect of building a railway and the reaction of the people, and then build a railway to Hangzhou and Wuxi.

In the same way, the telegraph first built a flying line from Shanghai to Suzhou, and then promoted it after seeing the effect.

In terms of minerals, Guangde in the west of Huzhou has been captured by the Taiping army, where there is coal mining, Guangde began to mine coal from the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty, and tens of thousands of people entered the mountains to dig coal during the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty. At the same time, Xiao Yungui also issued an invitation to hire mining companies from various countries to explore minerals in southern Jiangsu, and once the exploration is completed, they will have the right of first refusal.

In terms of military industry, Xiao Yungui threw out the purchase of three rear-loading rifled musket production lines, six gunpowder assembly lines, a 6-pound rifled artillery production line, an 8-pound rifled artillery, a 12-pound rifled artillery production line, and several shells and bullet assembly lines. At the same time, the Taiping Army also made a list of guns and gunpowder that needed to be purchased in the near future, and the total value of this batch of arms was close to 1.6 million taels.

When many businessmen who were enthusiastic at first saw this order, they couldn't help but gasp, such a huge arms purchase seemed to be impossible for any foreign bank to complete alone. When he saw this order, Midile was very surprised, this batch of ammunition is enough to arm an army of nearly 100,000 people, it seems that this king of the West will become the overlord of the Far East with the most firearms in the near future. (To be continued......)