Emperor Richard was generally satisfied with the new Prime Minister's policy program at home and abroad, and finally let him leave the palace with a few words of encouragement.

Leaving the palace, Baron Tang Dezhao was shocked to find that the clothes on his back were soaked with sweat until he got into the car.

From this, how much pressure did His Majesty the Emperor put on him?

It is like a god who knows the world, and has nothing to hide in front of his wise eyes, and penetrates the hearts of people, and he has to deal with them with a good spirit.

Since then

Baron Tang Dezhao became more and more afraid to slack off, and after becoming the prime minister, he conscientiously managed state affairs, showing extraordinary ability......

Chicago and Detroit are the two major centers of heavy industry in the Five Great Lakes region, led by the former and supplemented by the latter. Together with more than a dozen surrounding cities, it formed the largest heavy industry urban agglomeration in the empire, which played an irreplaceable and important role in the industrial system of the Tang Empire.

The Great Lakes Heavy Industrial Zone is the most convenient place to export to Europe, rich in coal and iron resources, mature industrialization facilities, complete development of categories, and has many incomparable advantages, and has now become the leading heavy industrial zone of the Tang Empire.

The region has a large production capacity in the fields of steel production, agricultural machinery and equipment, automobiles, machine tools, mechanical products, chemical products, military industry and shipbuilding, and is the largest in the world in many fields.

Emperor Richard spent two weeks visiting the major industrial cities of the Great Lakes, inspecting the steel mills and machinery factories, and visiting the Institute of Technology Chicago, Teachers College, Northern Iron and Steel Institute, Detroit Institute of Technology, and other institutions, and made a series of important speeches.

While in Detroit

Emperor Richard also met with the French envoy, Admiral Jean-Casimir, and had a private meeting with Mr. Admiral for half an hour, and had a full communication......

Thousands of miles away in China

At this time, after more than three years of business war, with the help of a mysterious person, Hu Xueyan, a red-topped businessman known as "Zuo Zongtang's money bag", finally ended with difficulty and won the victory of challenging foreign merchants.

If we want to understand this, we have to start from three years ago

In a series of wars to quell the Agubai rebellion and defeat the Tsarist Russians to recover Xinjiang, Lord Zuo Zongtang greatly strengthened the prestige of the imperial court and greatly boosted the morale of the people.

Therefore, in 1881, he was able to be promoted to the military aircraft department, and for a time the holy family was favorable, and the ministers who advocated the defense side were in high spirits.

And this caused Li Hongzhang to be deeply dissatisfied, and he was ready to take action to clean up the biggest political enemy of the same dynasty as an official.

On the bright side, he was also a minister of the pillar of the imperial court, and Li Hongzhang could not shake Zuo Zongtang, who had outstanding military achievements, for a while, so he thought of a crooked idea, and first took Zuo Zongtang's money bag Hu Xueyan to open the knife.

Specifically, Li Hongzhang's protégé Sheng Xuanhuai is in charge, looking for opportunities to start.

The opportunity was not long in coming

In 1882, Hu Xueyan opened a silk reeling factory in Shanghai, costing 20 million taels of silver, hoping to bring down the price of silk.

This incident aroused strong resistance from foreign merchants, and the first Sino-foreign business war broke out in history. Foreign businessmen united to resist Hu Xueyan's behavior of lowering prices and wanting to monopolize the market.

Originally, Hu Xueyan had the chance to win, because he had already spent a lot of money to pocket all the 80,000 quintals of new silk in China. If you have mastered most of the supply, you have the right to bargain.

This move is intended to break the situation that foreign businessmen have monopolized the bargaining power of raw silk for more than ten years.

In desperation

The foreign merchants rushed to buy raw silk, and seeing that Hu Xueyan did not let go, some foreign merchants offered to buy his raw silk at the market price, plus 12 million taels of silver.

But Hu Xueyan just didn't let go, what he wanted was obviously not these, but the initiative of Chinese businessmen and foreign businessmen to negotiate in the future, so as to avoid Chinese businessmen and raw silk households from always being squeezed and exploited by foreign businessmen, and grasp the initiative in raw silk bargaining.

When Hu Xueyan and foreign businessmen were at a stalemate, Li Hongzhang sent Sheng Xuanhuai to appear.

Sheng Xuanhuai secretly found foreign merchants and told them:

The only condition that foreign merchants can eat raw silk is that "they are not allowed to buy Hu Xueyan's raw silk".

As a result, bureaucratic capital and foreign businessmen colluded together to mobilize raw silk from all over the country to alleviate the urgent needs of foreign businessmen, making Hu Xueyan's huge raw silk inventory difficult to digest, and instead backlogged a large amount of silver funds, and the two sides were deadlocked.

Immediately afterwards, Sheng Xuanhuai pushed Hu Xueyan, who was quite blind and conceited, into the brink of life and death through two moves, one mile and one outside......

One trick was to release the news that in the new 1883 year, the Italian raw silk had a bumper harvest.

In addition, everyone knows that Hu Xueyan has hoarded a large amount of raw silk in his hands, which has led to the price of raw silk in Huaxia market falling in response, coupled with the joint suppression of government and business, it is less than one-third of last year.

Such a messy market situation actually caused Hu Xueyan to suffer a huge potential loss, and the raw silk that he bought with 20 million taels of silver in the previous year was worth less than 6 million taels of silver in 1883, and the raw silk lost 14 million taels.

Sheng Xuanhuai continued to demagogue, so that the foreign businessmen insisted on confronting Hu Xueyan, and finally almost broke Hu Xueyan.

Just when Hu Xueyan borrowed money everywhere to continue the business war, Sheng Xuanhuai made another move......

At the beginning of 1884, news suddenly spread in the market that Hu Xueyan's Fukang Qian Zhuang was going bankrupt.

After the news of Fukang Qianzhuang's imminent bankruptcy came out, people came to withdraw money. A large amount of silver was taken out by depositors, and the branches of Qianzhuang located all over the country were in a hurry, which forced Hu Xueyan into a desperate situation.

At this time, the Fukang money village no longer had enough silver to deal with the run tide, and the Fukang money bank, which was originally operating steadily, immediately fell into the wind and rain.

The only way to survive is to sell the large stock of raw silk in the warehouse.

At this time, the foreign businessmen showed their bloody knives, and they were only willing to bid 30% of the unified caliber, that is, they took out more than 2 million taels of silver and ate 80,000 quintals of raw silk in Hu Xueyan's hand, which was originally worth 20 million taels of silver.

Such a price is tantamount to robbery.

When facing the danger of life and death, Zuo Zongtang solved the urgent need with a letter.

Hu Xueyan took this handwritten letter from Zuo Zongtang to Weihaiwei and met Mr. Zhu, who was said to be a maritime businessman in Lanfang, and after the secret talk, the two sides set a cooperation agreement, and then the market changed abruptly.

The Dahai surnamed Zhu personally came to Huhai and auctioned a huge bill of exchange of 5 million silver dollars to be paid at sight at the headquarters of Fukang Qianzhuang, which was issued by the internationally renowned Datang Empire Bank of Communications, which is one of the eight major consortia of the Datang Empire.

More than a dozen newspapers and media in Shanghai witnessed this shocking moment, and the Dahai surnamed Zhu directly took out a 5 million silver dollar bill of exchange like a piece of paper, slapped it on the table with a "snap", and then said slowly; "I'll deposit this money for me, and I'll talk about it when I think about it."

It is not immersive, and it is impossible to describe the horror of everyone present.

Afterwards, the person in charge of the Shanghai branch of the Datang Imperial Bank of Communications issued a public statement confirming that there was no problem with the bill of exchange and that it could be paid at sight.

Bank of Communications handles hundreds of millions of remittance payments every year, which are just normal business transactions.

What kind of financial consortium is Datang Imperial Bank of Communications?

According to public reports;

Bank of Communications has branches and banking institutions in 37 countries around the world, with bank exchange business covering five continents and a total of 462 tons of gold reserves, making it one of the world's financial consortia ranked fourth in the Tang Empire.

The international exchange business handled every year is as high as hundreds of millions of Tang Yuan, and there are hundreds of millions of dollars when converted into silver.

As soon as the news came out

The run on the whole country immediately stopped, and a large number of depositors deposited silver and other jewelry into Fukang Bank, and a serious financial risk that fell from the sky was resolved.

It was as if with a slight wave of his hand, the dark clouds dissipated.

Fukang Qianzhuang, which is backed by a financial giant, is no longer the original money bank run by a red-top businessman who is known as the richest man in China, but a big backer with a deep background and amazing strength.

No matter where the depositor is, it is the word "confidence" in the end.

With confidence, it is natural that there will be no run, but a large amount of money will be deposited in Fukang Bank.

Hu Xueyan survived this catastrophe without danger, and immediately launched a fierce counterattack.

In 1883, the Italian raw silk harvest led to the price of raw silk in the Chinese market from 1883 to 1884, which fell by more than half.

Hu Xueyan waved banknotes and frantically bought new silk, and his behavior of grabbing goods caused great panic among foreign businessmen, and he quickly participated in the trend of grabbing goods.

The price of new silk soared from the original 115 taels of silver per quintal to 180 taels of silver per quintal in just three days, and then launched a strong rebound in retaliation.

200 taels of silver, 220 taels of silver, 260 taels of silver, 300 taels of silver, 350 taels of silver......

In just a few days, the price quickly surpassed Hu Xueyan's original cost of 250 taels of silver, and in the following month, it rose all the way to a high price of 440 taels of silver.

And Hu Xueyan also lost no time in releasing goods at the price of 300 taels of silver, and as the price continued to rise, he gradually increased the intensity of releasing goods.

It took more than a month before and after

Hu Xueyan hoarded most of the 112,000 quintals of raw silk, returning 33 million taels of silver, and there are still 19,000 quintals of raw silk left in his hands, and the market price after the retreat is still close to 8 million.

On May 9, 1885, Fukang Qianzhuang under the management of Hu Xueyan announced the introduction of the Tang Imperial Bank of Communications, accounting for 55% of the shares, as the largest shareholder, and the Hu family retreated to the second largest shareholder, accounting for 26% of the shares, and hundreds of large and small shareholders were among them.

This news further boosted the momentum of Fukang Bank, making it the first local money bank in China to introduce foreign capital, and put on a layer of foreign businessmen.

According to sources;

It is said that after the completion of the Sino-foreign raw silk business war, Hu Xueyan personally deposited the profits of 13 million taels of silver into the head of the sea merchant surnamed Zhu, and all the 15,000 loads of raw silk were loaded and shipped by sea, without asking for a single cent of silver.

After this crisis-ridden raw silk business war, Hu Xueyan understood that Fukang Qianzhuang must find a big backer, otherwise it will be finished sooner or later, and all the billions of fortunes will be empty.

This big backer must be able to make Li Hongzhang, the real power faction of the imperial court, deeply jealous, otherwise under the collusion of officials and businessmen, Fukang Qianzhuang will never come out, and the future will be dark.

It's still terrifying to think about the danger at the beginning......

When Fukang Qianzhuang was facing a crazy run, Sheng Xuanhuai said hello to Shao Youlian of Shanghai Daotai, which made Shao Youlian deliberately owe Hu Xueyan his salary for 20 days.

This move is extremely vicious

At that time, the branches of Fukang Qianzhuang in all parts of the country were in an emergency, and Hu Xueyan was helpless to prepare to cut meat to survive, and the salary of 200,000 taels was a life-saving money, and it would be fatal one day later.

But the court didn't give it, it was just 20 days late.

This made Hu Xueyan suffer a solid loss, but he couldn't pour bitter water, did he go to sue the court?

Another trick that is even more vicious is that Li Hongzhang exerted his efforts at the same time in the imperial court, demanding the investigation and punishment of the Fukang money bank deficit case, so as to "calm the people's anger and comfort the dissatisfaction of the people in Jiangnan".

Immediately, the imperial court ordered the seizure of the assets of the red-topped businessman Hu Xueyan, and the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, He Jing, and the governor of Zhejiang, Liu Bingzhang, supervised the case, giving an explanation to the people of Jiangnan, which was actually slaughtering fat sheep.

You must know that He Jing is the same year as Li Hongzhang, and Liu Bingzhang is Li Hongzhang's world friend, and the two of them made a move, which is equivalent to announcing Hu Xueyan's full beheading.

When Li Hongzhang made frequent moves, Zuo Zongtang finally wrote to the imperial court, exonerating Hu Xueyan for the sake of Chen, and also buying time for Fukang Qian Kang to win a glimmer of life.

It is difficult to describe the complex officialdom battles in detail.

End of 1884

The imperial court finally changed its course under Zuo Zongtang's strong statement, and handed over Hu Xueyan's money bank deficit case to Zuo Zongtang to investigate and handle it personally, so as to win a respite for reversing the raw silk market.

Zuo Zongtang is also an old minister of officialdom, and he has been dragging it out under the pretense of physical reasons, and finally ushered in the victory of Hu Xueyan at the moment of reversing the business war.

The price of raw silk market soared, and a large amount of silver poured into Fukang Qianzhuang, and the original "Qianzhuang Deficit Case" naturally came to an end.

Of course, Hu Xueyan also had to put millions of taels of silver up and down, so he was able to get out.

It's plain to say, but in fact, there are several times on the verge of life and death, and there are many crises, which can really be described as frightening.

End of April 1885

Hu Xueyan took people to Fuzhou at a gallop in the starry night, and saw Zuo Zongtang, who was seriously ill, and after the two discussed for a long time, Hu Xueyan cried and said goodbye.

On May 9, the news that the Tang Imperial Bank of Communications had entered Fukang Qianzhuang shocked the world for a while.

At the beginning of July, Zuo Zongtang, who was seriously ill, died of illness in Fuzhou, and the minister who carried the coffin into the river finally completed his brilliant and brilliant life.

At this time, those who have a heart understand;

Zuo Zongtang knew that his days were numbered, so he found another big backer for Hu Xueyan, a red-top businessman who had been following him for decades, that is, the Bank of Communications, the fourth largest consortium in the Tang Empire.

As for what the court thinks, it doesn't matter what Li Hongzhang thinks, Zuo Zongtang's life has come to an end, are the dead still afraid of the living?

As for Fukang Qianzhuang, who hugged the big thick legs, then there is no need to worry.

If the imperial court or Li Hongzhang makes another black hand, what needs to be faced at that time is the anger of the Bank of Communications, and then someone will naturally stand up and uphold justice.

At that time, hehehe......

(End of chapter)