Maddox is very optimistic about the future of the Magic City, and wants to focus his missionary career on the side of the Magic City.

Some time ago, he took a fancy to a piece of land north of Pidgin, and wanted to rent a dozen acres of land from local farmers in order to build a church and a printing factory, and by the way, he moved the hospital he had set up in Dinghai to the magic capital.

I didn't expect to talk to the local farmers, only to know that these lands seemed to have changed hands, but there was a lot of wasteland over there, and Maddox didn't care, so he went to a nearby place to continue the conversation, but he didn't expect that the land over there was also bought.

After touching the nail three or four times in a row, Mai Dusi suddenly realized that more than eighty percent of the land between Pidgin and Wusongjiang had been bought by a wealthy man, but he didn't reveal it to the outside world.

Maadows himself is very persevering, and there are many doorways, he is secretly inquiring in many ways, collecting intelligence little by little, and finally found that the mysterious buyer who bought the land is actually Zhao Dagui of Dagui Commercial Bank.

At this time, Mai Dusi couldn't help but be surprised, Zhao Dagui said some time ago that he wanted to build a railway, and also transferred the mountain of goods and the business in Suzhou to Yishengxing, but then did not mention the matter of the railway, many people thought that Zhao Dagui was just three minutes of heat, just talking, but did not expect to quietly start to enclose the land.

It seems that Zhao Dagui wants to build the railway, but he wants to enclose land in the future British sojourn area, set up a printing house and a hospital, and how can he get it without land.

After thinking about it again and again, Mai Dusi asked Zhao Dagui if he could reserve a piece of land for himself as a base for mission.

Zhao Dagui was very happy, saying that he had a lot of land in his hands, and for the sake of the friendship between the two families, he would just leave a piece for Maddox and other missionaries, which made Maddox breathe a sigh of relief.

The two of them made an appointment to meet at the Gu family's compound today, and then went to Pidgin together, and let Maddox choose the land by himself.

The small courtyard of the Zhao family and the courtyard of the Zhao family selected by Zhao Dagui are very close to the compound of the Gu family, and Zhao Dagui in order to attract the business of foreigners, he runs to the compound of the Gu family more often than he goes to his own business house.

These three missionaries, Walter H. Medhurst, William Lockhart, and William Muirhead, are all recurring figures in modern Chinese history.

When he entered the small building, he found that Maddox was receiving a guest with Wang Tao.

Wang Tao is a native of Fuli Village, Changzhou County, Suzhou Prefecture, and a famous scholar in modern Chinese history, Maddox originally wanted to translate the Bible into Chinese, but then found that the words translated by foreigners did not particularly conform to the reading habits of Chinese, so he asked a scholar like Wang Tao to help.

When the two sides cooperated in translating the Bible, both missionaries such as Maddox who were proficient in Chinese translated the Bible sentences, and then Wang Tao polished them, so Wang Tao's Chinese skills were very solid, and English was not very good.

The Chinese Bible they translated together was the most influential and widely circulated version of the Bible in China, making Wang Tao very influential among the parishioners.

Later, the two sides continued to work together to translate and publish a large number of English science and technology books, giving Chinese scholars the first opportunity to come into contact with Western science and technology, thus establishing Wang Tao's status in the Chinese scientific community, which almost became a leading figure in the academic world.

Before Sun Dacang embarked on the revolution, he still wanted to implement the reform from the top down, so he wrote an article on reforming the current politics and wanted to send it to Li Hongzhang and other big figures, but he had no reputation at the time, so he sent the article to Wang Tao.

At that time, Wang Tao was very old, and he retired from the Mohai Library, and after reading Sun Dacang's article, he was greatly impressed, so he asked someone to send Sun Dacang's article to Li Hongzhang to read, hoping that Li Hongzhang would pay attention to such talents.

It's a pity that after the article was sent, it sank into the sea, and the spark between Li Hongzhang and Sun Dacang, which should have been wonderful, failed to ignite, which is a pity.

However, at this time, Wang Tao was just an ordinary scholar hired by Maddox, and he did not have the reputation and influence that he later had.

(Note: For the requirements of the plot, the time and age of Wang Tao and Li Shanlan when they arrived at Mohai Bookstore have been changed, and they are specially informed.) ）

The guest that Maddox and Wang Tao received was also a Chinese, in his thirties, somewhat rich, with a bushy beard, and impressively clear and deep eyes.

Zhao Dagui has read countless people since this time, and his heart moved slightly, only real scholars who are obsessed with academics can have such a gaze, and the so-called Confucian scholars of the Qing Dynasty have all cut their heads and want to be officials, and their utilitarianism is heavier than that of businessmen, except for Mu Jiu, who has seen through the worldly fame and fortune of Shanghai Daotai Palace, I have never seen much such pure eyes.

"Brother Zhao is here, this is Mr. Qiu Xun from Haining, Zhejiang, he is really the best among my Western scholars in the Qing Dynasty, and the two of them should be more close. Wang Tao is also very familiar with Zhao Dagui, so he enthusiastically introduced them.

"I've seen Mr. Qiusu. Zhao Dagui politely bowed his hand.

"Don't dare to take the word sir, Brother Zhao will call me Jingfang. The guest replied.

As soon as the two sides chatted, Zhao Dagui learned that the guest's surname was Li Xinlan, the word Jingfang, nicknamed Qiuxu, and also known as Uncle Ren, a native of Haining County, Zhejiang, who liked Western studies since childhood.

A few years ago, he went to Hangzhou as a student to participate in the township examination, but the result was not successful, and later he set up a museum to accept apprentices at Lu Fei's house in Jiaxing (Lu Fei is surnamed Lu Fei, or a place name, and he didn't know it clearly) to teach Western studies.

After listening to the introduction, Zhao Dagui nodded secretly in his heart, this should be a Chinese scholar who likes Western science and technology like Wang Tao, and the Chinese who can study Western science instead of studying the more promising eight-strand literature in this era must be real scholars.

It's just that the name Li Jingfang seems to have heard it somewhere, but I can't remember it for a while.

"Brother Fang is very knowledgeable, especially in Western arithmetic, which can be said to be in a class of its own. Wang Tao seems to have a good impression of this Mr. Qiu Xun and constantly praises him.

"So that's the case, Zhao Dagui will have to ask for more advice in the future. Zhao Dagui said a few polite words, but he didn't think so, how big is the gap between the mathematicians of the Qing Dynasty and the Western mathematicians of the same generation.

"Brother Fang just talked about a few math problems, it's quite interesting, Brother Zhao want to try it?" Wang Tao noticed that Zhao Dagui was just polite on the surface, and his heart moved, so he said with a wicked smile.

"Oh, I don't know what kind of question it is, please give me some instructions. Zhao Dagui said, but he was a little funny in his heart, thinking that he really talked about his mathematical skills, unless there were a few real mathematicians in Western universities who were comparable to himself from modern times.