"Gentlemen, I have told you all that I know, and I have not concealed anything."

Captain Fernellon Albert was politely invited to a separate room by two policemen, then locked the door and left despite his pleadings.

"Oh God, you can't do this to me! I am a citizen of the Kingdom of France, and a friendly merchant of your Qi Kingdom. …… I didn't commit any crime other than collecting the high-priced tickets of those Jews. It is extremely barbaric and rude for you to restrict the freedom of an innocent foreign merchant in this way! …… I will report this to our king, and I will make the most severe complaint against your superiors!" ……”

After being stopped by several policemen, Captain Albert was taken to the police and subjected to intense interrogation, from the purpose of his trip to Hanzhou to his itinerary in the days following his arrival in Guizhou, and even the list of goods he purchased and the amount of money he spent. Finally, he took the trouble to ask the Jews what he was going to do, as well as the identities and backgrounds of those people.

The police officers intercepted and detained him with great purpose, apparently by surveilling and following him, and perhaps possessing some evidence that was very unfavorable to him.

In order not to get into trouble, Captain Albert was very happy to tell everything he knew. How those Jews offended a prominent nobleman of Qi in Hanzhou, how they were persecuted, and how they came to Guizhou with the intention of fleeing to the Continent on their merchant ships.

As for the identity of the Jews, Captain Albert did not know, and he was only concerned with calculating how to extract more money from them.

Truth be told, when Captain Albert agreed to the Jews to board their merchant ships, he didn't care much about their identities, but only carried an extra batch of special "cargo". He even planned to ransack them with his crew in the depths of the sea, kill them and dump their bodies at sea.

In the middle of nowhere, killing a few strange passengers without knowing it will get you into trouble. Moreover, this move can not only rob them of their belongings, make a small windfall for themselves and the crew, but also save a lot of fresh water and food on the ship, which can be described as killing multiple birds with one stone.

Of course, this kind of crime, which only exists in the mind and has not yet been committed, must not be confided to the police of Qi State. After all, we are gentlemen from the civilized world, not pirates who kill people and oversell goods.

When Captain Albert was questioned, while carefully answering the questions, he kept thinking about whether he had inadvertently committed a serious crime after coming to Hanzhou itself, so that it provoked the questioning of the Qi police.

As the interrogation deepened, he gradually came back to the fact that most of the policemen were targeting the Jews, as if they suspected that they had committed some serious crime in the Qi country. Otherwise, I wouldn't have held a lot of gold yuan coupons in my hand, and I couldn't wait to exchange them all for gold and silver currency, and I didn't want to wait too long. What makes people even more suspicious is why they were in a hurry to leave the mainland of Hanzhou by boat, and they did not dare to take a special liner ship to carry people, so they deliberately selected a European cargo merchant ship.

"Damn Jews!" Captain Albert slammed his hands on the closed door, cursing in his mouth.

Oh God, I hope that the people of Qi can quickly find out the ins and outs of the whole incident and not let themselves be involved.

——

"Mr. Sassoon, those people are indeed spying on us." After Redona Bewen entered the house, he said with a solemn face: "And, it is certain that they are the military and police detectives of the Qi State. …… Was it the French captain who reported us? ”

"No, he didn't report us." Victor Sassoon shook his head and said: "Perhaps, it was us who exchanged a large amount of gold and silver currency in several banks, which attracted the attention of the local police. They're just suspecting who we are, otherwise they'd just rush in and arrest us all. ”

"So what do we do now?" Redona Bevan was so confused that he panicked for a while.

"Did you see the whaling ships that were about to leave the harbor when you were at the docks?" Victor Sassoon asked softly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Sassoon. I didn't pay attention to ......"

"The whaling ships are supposed to be resupplyed, and their crews are hoisting their sails towards the mast, and they may soon be departing. So, we need to find a way to get on one of the whaling ships and get out of here with them. ”

"However, there are people watching us outside......"

"So, I hope someone can sacrifice themselves and bravely rush out and lure away those who are watching us."

"Mr. Sassoon, what do you mean ......?"

"My dear Redona, as soon as I arrive in Europe, I will bring the letter to Baghdad as soon as possible, so that my family will all move to England. At that time, I will specifically ask them to take your wife and children with them. I swear that I will treat them as my family in the future, and I will make sure that your children will grow up happy and safe, and that they will be successful. ”

"......" Redona Bevan's eyes immediately widened when he heard this, and he looked at Victor Sassoon in disbelief, and then sat down in a chair with a half-sound, biting his lip tightly, and nodding bitterly.

"Thank you, Redona!" Victor Sassoon stepped forward and gently embraced Redona Bevan, "Jehovah bless you, my dear brother! ”

"Mr. Sassoon, when you see my wife and children, please tell them that I love them." Redona Bevan had tears in her eyes.

"I will." Victor Sassoon nodded and said solemnly: "I swear, if anything happens to you, on behalf of the Sassoon family, I will do everything I can to avenge you." …… The Holy Jehovah can bear witness! ”

——————

"Why are there so many young and middle-aged men in this Guizhou city, and they are still wandering around the streets one by one with nothing to do?"

After leaving the train platform, a group of five people from the Daxing sub-station of the Military Police Intelligence Department immediately summoned a carriage to pick up passengers, and instructed the coachmen to drive to the Guizhou Military Police Headquarters, preparing to ask for help from their local colleagues and mobilize all their energy to search for whether the Yi people who had committed the crime were still stranded in Guizhou City.

The horse-drawn carriage drove quickly on the street, and the guests from Daxing found through the windows on both sides that there were many young and middle-aged men on the street, either drunk and swaying on the side of the road, or shouting excitedly in twos and threes, faintly saying something like "making a fortune" and "panning for gold". In addition to doubts, Gong Qibin, deputy head of the Daxing sub-station of the Military Police Intelligence Department and captain (major) of Xuanjie, asked the driver curiously.

"Oh, those people!" The driver glanced at the young men on the side of the road with his spare eyes, and his face instantly showed an excited expression, "They are all gold diggers from all over the country, ready to take a passenger liner to Qianzhou (now South Africa) to dig for gold. I heard that the veins there are very vast, with a radius of no less than hundreds of kilometers, and you can dig up gold by digging in the soil twice. Obediently, I thought that more than 20 years ago, we had enough gold mines in Guizhou. Unexpectedly, compared with Qianzhou, it is simply incomparable. ”

"Gold is the most important strategic material in the Empire, how can it be mined by private individuals?" Gong Qibin said curiously: "Could it be that the Qianzhou Governor's District can't control the entire ore vein?" ”

"Oh, sir!" The coachman smiled and said, "Didn't I just say that." The gold mine found in the Xingshan area of Qianzhou (now Johannesburg) stretches for hundreds of miles, with a wide range and abundant reserves, and it is definitely my country, oh no, it may also be the largest gold mine in the world. Just in that place in Qianzhou, how many garrisons can there be? I guess I can't take care of it at all! It is said that the gold mines there also attracted many Yi people from Europe. As soon as they got off the boat, they exchanged all the money they had on them for a few horses, and they seemed to be mad and galloped towards Xingshan. Holy shit, so much gold, you can't cheap those rough and stupid Europeans for nothing! ”

"Hehe...... then why don't you rush to Qianzhou, but honestly drive a carriage here to pull people?"

"I want to go, but who will take care of my parents at home?" The coachman said dejectedly: "However, my two brothers sold some valuable things at home, and with a dozen partners, they had already bought tickets to Qianzhou more than a month ago. God forbid, I hope that my two brothers will make a fortune and hit a lot of luck, and strive to dig up ten or twenty kilograms of gold to come back. Hey, that's going to get rich all of a sudden! ”

"According to what you say, aren't all of you people in Guizhou running out? …… Who will do the work in the factory and the crops in the field? ”

"As for the three melons and two dates in the factory, and the few grains of wheat harvested in the field, how can there be any gold dug up in the soil?" The coachman said with a senseless face: "If there is no one, it's a big deal to drive a boat to Annam, Qin, or Japan and Korea to recruit immigrants!" Those new immigrants, just give a few big boys, and work harder than livestock! ”

Gong Qibin listened and couldn't help shaking his head again and again.

Sure enough, it is a golden charming eye, and the wealth is moving!

When these people heard that Qianzhou was full of gold, how could they still have the heart to work in the factory and cultivate in the fields. Looking at Guizhou, I am afraid that the entire southwest region will lose a lot of population in a short period of time.

The western region, including Kunzhou Province, accounts for almost a quarter of the area of Han Zhou (the former Kimberley Plateau region of Western Australia is included in Northridge Province), but the total population size is only more than 3 million, less than 11% of the total population of the country, so it is divided into only two provinces.

The Western Desert Province, with Linhai (present-day Port Hedland, Australia) as its capital, is like Northridge Province, a vast and sparsely populated population of less than 300,000, mainly based on mining and animal husbandry.

As a result, most of the population in the western region is concentrated in the fertile and pleasant climate of Kunzhou Province. But it is remote and at the end of the migration route, and for a long time the population growth was much lower than that of the rest of Hanzhou.

Fortunately, more than 30 years ago, the discovery of a number of rich gold mines in Kunzhou led to a wave of immigration, and countless gold diggers with dreams of making a fortune flocked to the area, causing a sudden wave of explosive population growth in the area.

But as time went on, almost all the important gold mines in the Kunzhou region were controlled by the government, and the bare gold in the outlying poor mining areas was basically mined.

Therefore, those gold diggers who made a fortune carried huge sums of money, and after leaving the gold mining areas one after another, they either returned to their hometowns with beautiful lichens, or built mansions and Nameiji in several cities such as Guizhou, Linjiang (now Fremantle, south of Perth, Australia, at the mouth of the Swan River), Guangxin (now Banbury, Australia), and lived a luxurious and wealthy life.

Most of the frustrated gold diggers stayed in Kunzhou, either entering the city's manufacturing factories and trading companies, working honestly to make money, or coming to local counties, towns and villages, applying for loans from local governments for agricultural materials and land, and returning to a peaceful rural life.

Later, Qi began to increase the development and construction of colonial territories such as South Africa, Mozambique, and Hailing Island (present-day Madagascar), and Kunzhou Province, located in the southwest region, with its convenient geographical location, made entrepot trade prosperous. Countless hot money continues to pour into this area, which has greatly promoted the development of the local economy and focused on improving the local people's livelihood.

The southwest region of Kunzhou Province has sufficient sunshine and precipitation, as well as suitable temperature, soil and climate, which provides the most advantageous conditions for the growth of wheat.

However, in the past 20 years or so, due to the impact of a large amount of cheap rice on tropical islands such as Weiyuan (New Guinea Island), Xuanhua (Timor Island), and Kaihua (present-day Java Island), the overall domestic grain price has been hovering at a low level, making the vast number of wheat farmers in Kunzhou Province far less profitable than before, which has greatly dampened the enthusiasm of farmers.

Many young people have left the countryside or entered the cities to find jobs in factories and trading companies that are much higher than the income of farmers, or they have taken ocean-going merchant ships directly to Qianzhou, Mozambique, and Hailing Island to fight for a century of prosperity.

That's right, Kunzhou Province, which already lacks a source of immigrants, is also the largest migrant exporter in Qianzhou. According to conservative estimates, the number of immigrants from Kunzhou to Qianzhou is about 6,000 to 8,000 every year.

This situation has always been a source of distress for local governments. Think about it, after a year, the population of a county is gone, and the Qianzhou Governor's District is cheapened in vain.

Today, the discovery of huge gold mines in Qianzhou has attracted countless gold diggers from all over the country, all hoping to get rich overnight. Then, the Kunzhou area, which has always maintained close exchanges with Qianzhou in terms of personnel and materials, and the existence of regular liner transportation, will there be more locals who will be moved by the wind, abandon the work in their hands, and flock to Qianzhou without hesitation.

In this situation, Kunzhou will inevitably lose a large number of people, and perhaps it will also have a big impact on its local economy.

"Heh, I'm a petty officer in the intelligence department, why are you worried about such a big thing? I only hope that I can have a good luck and capture those few people who committed the crime. In this way, we will be able to show our face in front of Your Majesty and gain more favor and attention! ”

(End of chapter)