After arranging the military, Xiao Yungui asked the generals to rush back immediately to prepare for themselves, and he brought Yao Yuan to explain that he stayed in the church to communicate with Luo Weilin and other missionaries about medical issues, and discussed with them about opening a pharmaceutical factory. Yao Yuan immediately received the order, and recently he had a lot of medical exchanges with the missionaries of the church, and this kid was very fascinated. As Yao Yuan came into contact with the missionaries who knew how to heal, he found that these Western doctors were also doing things with a heart to cure the sick and save people, but their treatment methods were very different from traditional Chinese medicine, so many Chinese people could not accept them. At present, the Chinese people are still very ignorant and superstitious, and many people are sick, and they would rather believe that a glass of runic water can save their lives than that those foreign devils with red hair and green eyes can cure diseases. After Yao Yuan arrived, he cooperated with them to treat many soldiers and civilians, and Chinese and Western medicine have their own strengths and weaknesses, but Yao Yuan still appreciates the efficacy of Western medicine, and he is quite happy to let him stay in Shanghai.

After arranging the troops with the generals, Xiao Yungui asked Hong Yun'er to talk to Zhou Xiuying alone, half of the women's battalion wanted to go back to Suzhou with Hong Yun'er, and the other half followed Li Xuanji to stay in Shanghai, Xiao Yungui thought that Zhou Xiuying was a local, and hoped that she would stay to help Li Xuanji. The subsequent battle in Shanghai will be very difficult, Xiao Yungui hopes that the women's battalion can have a female general to lead, although Li Xuanji is good at civil affairs, but the battle is always insufficient, it is more appropriate for Zhou Xiuying to stay.

As soon as Hong Yun'er and Zhou Xiuying said, this chick immediately agreed, she also knew that the war would be very tight in the future, and she also wanted to stay and take care of her father and other brothers in Qingpu.

After a busy night, in the second half of the night, Barrett and Wilbur arrived with a merchant ship, and Xiao Yungui took people to the temporary wharf in Caohejing to greet them. Wilbur did get six cannons, a lot of shells, propellants, and more than 500 breech-loading flintlock guns, most of which were British goods. More than ten years ago, Xiao Yungui naturally bought all the standard equipment of the British army, as well as 30,000 catties of gunpowder and lead.

Xiao Yungui quickly completed the transaction, and Wilbur was followed by two Americans, and after the transaction was completed, Wilbur stepped forward and introduced: "Your Excellency King Xi, these two American friends are very eager to get to know you. ”

Xiao Yungui also noticed it, and immediately smiled: "Americans? There are a lot of Americans who have traded with us these days. ”

Wilbur said with a smile: "These two Americans have come at the behalft of the American Minister Marshali, and Mr. Marshali hopes to make an appointment to meet with His Excellency the King of the West to discuss the possibility of future trade between the two sides." ”

Xiao Yungui touched his chin and laughed. It seems that the Americans can't sit still, the smuggling of private businessmen has come to them, and the Americans will not sit idly by and watch the huge interests fall, at the moment Xiao Yungui took Wilbur and the two Americans to the grass hut by the dock and sat down, and Hong Yun'er naturally acted as a translator on the side. Two Americans began to introduce themselves.

The first American was named Kim Neng-hyung, the U.S. consular representative in Shanghai. Foreign businessmen called him the U.S. Vice Consul in Shanghai. Hong Yun'er vaguely remembered that this person had a great background. Kim Neng-hyung's English name is Edward? Cunningham, he is a man from the American Flag Chang Foreign Company.

Speaking of the deeds of the Americans in Shanghai, we have to mention Qichang & Co., the most famous American company in the Far East in the 19th century, founded in 1818 by the American businessman Samuel Brown, who was born in Connecticut. Russell was founded in Guangzhou. Engaged in cross-border trade between Guangzhou and Boston. In the early days, the main business items were tea, raw silk and opium, and the main trading partner was Wu Bingjian, a wealthy merchant from the Thirteen Banks in Guangzhou. Little Warren? Warren Delano, Jr. i.e. Franklin. President Roosevelt's maternal grandfather was also a senior partner of Qichang & Co. In 1846, Qichang moved its headquarters to Shanghai.

Jin Nengheng was a well-known manager of Qichang Foreign Company, and he opened China's first steamship company, Qichang Steamship Company. The construction of 16 shops "Jinliyuan Wharf", accounting for 80% of the Yangtze River shipping, created a glorious era of Qichang foreign company, also known as the Qichang era in the mid-19th century. In the middle of the 19th century, Qichang merchants held the position of consul in the main treaty ports of China, and almost handled the foreign affairs of the United States in China. Among them, Jin Nengheng, the consul in Shanghai, also initiated the merger of the British and American concessions in 1862 and became the first director of the Shanghai Public Concession.

The American minister Mashali sent Kim Nengheng to contact the rebel leaders first, which shows that the Americans' views of the Taiping army have changed, and Mashali began to plan to have more in-depth contact with the Taiping army, so he chose Jin Nengheng to come to meet.

The second American is named Cyrus. West. Field, who was also an American industrialist, was remembered mainly by the telegraph. Born in Massachusetts on November 30, 1819, Field's older brother was a well-known lawyer and the founder of international law. Field, who began as a boy and never became a real scientist, had the remarkable misuse and audacity to put a nineteenth-century scientific achievement to remarkable use. Even now, this can only be done with government funding, and individuals are afraid to do so. For thirteen years, Field spent all the money he had earned in his paper business and endured one catastrophic blow after another in order to achieve his stated goal of laying an Atlantic submarine telegraph cable. In this project, Field provided the funds and equipment, and Murray and Kelvin directed Jishu in oceanography and electricity, respectively. Field's wish was finally fulfilled in 1866, when the telegraph signal connected the United States to the European continent. The only reward for this was a gold medal and a vote of appreciation from the U.S. Congress. Later, Field set about building an elevated railroad in New York City. The railroad was expensive, and some financial capitalists profited from it, and Field went bankrupt again, and he died of poverty.

The invention of the telegraph is also very exciting, but in Hong Yun'er's view, no matter how Haode invents, businessmen who dare to invest must put them into practice, in order to carry forward the great inventions one by one, and Field's courage is commendable. But how did Field come to China? It seems that there is no record of his visit to China in history.

Out of curiosity, Hong Yuner couldn't help but ask about the purpose of Field's visit to China, it turned out that Field had already begun to prepare funds to lay the telegraph cable in the Atlantic Ocean at the beginning of this year, but in terms of capital preparation, he also needed a stronger investment. He learned through Qichang & Co. that Wu Haoguan, a wealthy man in Guangzhou, was very wealthy and often invested in foreign trade, so he personally went to China to lobby the Wu family to invest.

The Wu family is the famous representative of the 13 lines of Guangzhou, the Wu family has been engaged in foreign trade in Guangzhou in the 42nd year of Qianlong, selling raw silk and tea to British merchants, and also selling foreign goods. In the 49th year of Qianlong, his father Wu Guoying was appointed by the supervision of Guangdong Customs to act as a merchant and set up Jardine Matheson. and gave himself a business name "Haoguan". The name was used by his descendants and became a well-known name in the international business community in the early 19th century. In 1801, at the age of 32, Wu Bingjian took over the business of Jardine Matheson, and the Wu family's career began to rise rapidly. Some Western scholars call him "the richest man in the world." Wu Bing succeeded his brother Wu Bingjun as a businessman in Jiaqing for six years, and became the general merchant two years later. In 12 years, Jiaqing became the second largest merchant in Guangzhou, and in 18 years, it was listed as the top merchant in Guangzhou, and ascended to the position of chief firm. For decades afterward, he held a leading position in the trade. In the sixth year of Daoguang, he handed over the administration office of Jardine Matheson to his fourth son, Wu Yuanhua, and he retired into the background, but still held the real power of Jardine and the public bank.

The Wu family maintained good relations with British and American merchants for many years, and according to an American newspaper in 1834, Wu Bingjian's fortune was 26 million Mexican silver yuan. It is equivalent to about 5 billion yuan today. There is a story circulating in Boston that an American businessman owes him 72,000 taels of silver and is stranded in Guangzhou and cannot return to China. When he heard this, he tore up the IOU in front of him, and said that the account had been settled, and you could leave whenever you liked.

Wu Bingjian not only owns real estate, real estate, tea plantations, shops, etc. in China, but also boldly conducts railway investment, securities trading and insurance business in the United States on the other side of the ocean, making the Wu family's Jardine Matheson a veritable multinational consortium. That's why Field thought of lobbying the Wu family to participate in the Atlantic cable laying investment.

But the trip to Guangzhou disappointed Field, and Wu Bingjun, the current official of the Wu family, rejected the investment because the Wu family had begun to decline and did not have the courage to make such a big investment. As a wealthy businessman during the decline of the feudal dynasty, Wu Bingjian's accumulated wealth was destined not to last long. Just as his multinational consortium was at its peak, an undercurrent was quietly surging. In June 1840, the Opium War broke out, and although Wu Bingjian donated a huge amount of money to the imperial court in exchange for the three-grade top, this could not save his career in the slightest. Due to his inextricable ties with British opium traders, he was reprimanded and punished by Lin Zexu many times, and had to sacrifice huge amounts of wealth to the Qing government again and again in order to seek temporary peace. After the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, the Qing government ordered merchants to repay 3 million silver dollars of foreign debts in 1843, and Wu Bingjian alone undertook 1 million silver dollars. It was in this year that Wu Bingjian died of illness in Guangzhou.

After Wu Bingjian's death, the Thirteen Lines of Guangdong, which were once rich in the world, began to gradually decline. Many merchants went bankrupt under the exploitation of the Qing government. What's even more fatal is that with the implementation of the five-port trade, Guangdong lost its advantage in foreign trade, and the privileges enjoyed by the thirteen banks of Guangdong also ended.

In order to cope with the huge apportionment of Ye Mingchen, the governor of Liangguang, the Wu family has been anxious, and recently the Wu family has donated a huge amount of money to recruit red single boats for the Guangdong Navy Division, and the formation of the Navy fleet to go north, the Wu family has been overwhelmed, and it is impossible to invest in any Atlantic telegraph cables. Finding nothing, Field had to follow the minister, Marshali, to Shanghai to try his luck and see if he could find a new partner.

After listening to Field's introduction, Xiao Yungui and Hong Yun'er discussed a few words in a whisper, and Xiao Yungui asked with a smile: "Mr. Field, how much money do you need for the telegraph cable investment?" (To be continued.) For mobile phone users, please go to read. )