1855 United States Tycoon

Although since then, the Macdonald Consortium and did not relax their search for Dana and Alice, they have not found any truly meaningful information. Several times, they seemed to have some clues. For example, they found that the text in some newspapers seemed a bit like Dena in style, but these speculations were eventually proved to be their mistake. In short, for a long period of time, they did not get any reliable information from Dena.

In this way, time came in 1894 in a blink of an eye, and as in the original history, I fought against Japan in the Qing Dynasty.

Just like the original history, I have little preparation for this war. After the war started, I found out that there was no funds in the treasury that could be used for emergency military expenditure. Moreover, although we have a large number of troops in the Qing Dynasty, the number of troops that can be sent out to fight is pitiful.

In the previous Taiping Heavenly Kingdom War, my treasury in Qing Dynasty has been exhausted. In order to continue the suppression of bandits, the provinces had to be allowed to raise funds on their own. Since then, the fiscal power has largely been transferred from the central government to the local governments. So the money in the hands of the court is really nervous. Now that the war is fought, you can't live without money. In September of this year, Zhang Baixi, editor and editor of the Imperial Academy, wrote a note to Chen Chou's salary, which was quasi-salted. At the end of September, the Ministry of Households put forward four further measures to raise funds, namely: 1. Yan Daan two warehouses discounted, and then reduced by 10%, and 40% of all cases were opened. 2. Pawn shops donated money; 3. Tea sugar catties Cal; 4. Donated by local medicine stores. Later, Liu Kun, governor of Liangjiang, agreed to three fund-raising memorabilia, namely: 1. Officials advocate the rate of donation; 2. Persuade the gentry and rich to donate; 3. Send an order to donate interest.

But these ancient fundraising methods are of course quite limited in efficiency. In the end, through these methods, I only raised less than 10 million taels of silver, which is a little bit of money compared to the 200 million yen (equivalent to 140 million taels of silver) raised by the Japanese. , It’s not enough to stuff your teeth.

Fortunately, Mr. Scrooge McDonald, an old friend of the Chinese people, was prepared for this. As early as the time when we promoted the Warship Guarantee Agreement between China and Chile. He considered this issue and told Li Hongzhang through Rong Hong that once the war started, if the Qing country was short of money, as long as they agreed to some conditions, the Macdonald Venture Capital Bank could lend money to the Qing country.

Ordinarily, the war has already begun, and of course the issue of borrowing should be one hundred thousand urgent. But a big problem with my bureaucrats in Qing Dynasty is that they like to procrastinate. First, they hope to solve the problem more through domestic fundraising, and have an unrealistic illusion about their ability to raise funds in China. As a result, when the facts proved that they found that the money raised in the country was not even enough to pay for the purchase of ships to the Chilean government, they had to transfer it back to indicate that they needed to borrow money.

This time, the chief representative of the Macdonald Consortium to talk to me about the loan business is Chen Guang. Since that attempted assassination, Chen Guang's position in the Macdonald Consortium has quickly ascending. Today, Chen Guang is over fifty, and his body is no better than he used to be. He can no longer carry dozens of kilograms of body armor. However, as a hero who saved Scrooge, he still received a lot of preferential treatment. For example, he was promoted quite a bit in his position. As for letting him be the chief negotiator this time, one is because he can understand Chinese, and the other is to give him a chance to do meritorious service, and he can get more pension when he retires in the future. Although giving more money to employees always hurts Scrooge, he must consider the effect of publicity and the role of role models. Only by setting up such an example, the people who protect Scrooge will be even more desperate in the future.

However, Chen Guang has not received any negotiation or economic training, so in fact, it is difficult for him to preside over this negotiation. The one who is really responsible for it is another guy named Dell.

On the Manchu side, it was Zhang Yinhuan who was once the Qing ambassador to the United States. However, he did not directly negotiate with the United States, but negotiated with the McDonald consortium through a person named Wu Tingfang.

"If you talked to us about loans a few months earlier, such as when the war started, we certainly wouldn't ask for an 8% interest rate." Chen Guang leaned back on his chair and looked down on the advantage of his height. Wu Tingfang said, "At that time, it was completely unclear who won and who lost, so if you borrowed money at that time, only about five and a half percent interest would be enough. But now, your army is in North Korea. It has been beaten like a fool by Japan, and your fleet was wiped out in the naval battle with the Japanese a few days ago. Under such circumstances, we believe that the probability of your victory in the war is very small. So at this time, if I lend you money to fight, the risk is great. Since the risk has increased, our asking price will naturally be higher."

"Our fleet has not been annihilated." Wu Tingfang argued. "The main force of the Beiyang Navy still exists. In the end, the Japanese were the first to withdraw from the battle."

In this time and space, in order to deal with China's possible temporary purchase of warships from Chile, Japan's shipbuilding plan is larger than in the original history, and there are as many as three Yoshino-class warships. As a result, during the Yellow Sea War, the Beiyang Navy suffered more severe losses. Not only was it the same as in history, even if it failed to sink even a Japanese warship, its own loss was even more than the original history of the Jingyuan. cruiser. More importantly, according to the news received from the British watching the battle, the damage to other ships of the Beiyang Navy was also very serious. Their battleships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan also lost at least one main gun.

"I know that your Zhenyuan and Dingyuan are still there. However, as far as I know, they are seriously damaged, and with your shipbuilding ability, there is no way to repair them. I heard that even in peacetime, your The overhaul of these two ironclad ships is also going to a foreign country. So now, although they have not sunk, how different is it from the sinking of the war?" Chen Guang lifted his legs and lighted himself a cigar. cigarette. As a former bandit, seeing the Qing army, especially the Huai army, was unlucky, he also had an inexplicable pleasure. The only regret was that it was not Heishui people who killed the Huai army.

"However, if we use such an interest rate, or even a lower interest rate of 7%, we can borrow money from the British." Wu Tingfang played with the barbarian against barbarians.

"How much can they borrow from you? Ten million taels? Twenty million taels? This money is not even enough to bring those ships back from Chile. As far as I know, Japan’s military budget is as high as 200 million yen. Even if you can Borrowing 20 million taels of silver from the British is still not enough." Dell interjected on the side.

"Of course, the issue of interest rates is not impossible to talk about. If you can get reliable collateral, or other policy preferential treatment, so that the company can get more income in other areas, interest rates can be negotiated."

"We can use the customs income as a mortgage." Wu Tingfang said.

This scheme was a common tactic used by the Qing Dynasty when borrowing money from abroad in history. But after hearing the translator’s translation, he shook his head and said:

"This can't work. First of all, if you only plan to borrow 20-30 million silver, it would be nice to use your customs income as collateral. But now the loan line you have proposed to us has reached 60 million taels of silver, and your annual How much is the customs revenue? This is not a good business. Besides, we don’t have to offend the British for this business. They always regard your customs as their sphere of influence."

"So what are you interested in?" Wu Tingfang asked.

"Of course I am interested in China's modernization. We hope that your country can open more markets to us. For example, allow us to open banks that can operate deposit business in all capital cities. In addition, if your country will directly finance The plan to convert silver currency into minted currency or even paper currency, we also hope to provide services to your country. You know. One of the key reasons why your country’s fund-raising ability in this battle is far inferior to Japan’s That is, your country does not have a modern bank. There is no modern currency.” Dell said, “We are different from the British. We in the United States have never coveted the land and people of other countries. The first goal of what we do has always been In order to promote friendship between countries and mutual understanding between peoples of different countries."

If Wu Tingfang were a Western diplomat, he would immediately be wary of United States people. Because once the Macdonald consortium has agreed to these things, in a sense, the power of the entire country's financial certificates will fall into their hands. And this is absolutely intolerable for a sovereign country.

"For example, if your country agrees, we can jointly fund to establish an Asian Investment and Development Bank. Our loan can also be regarded as lent to this joint venture bank. Then, you can first transfer the operating rights of this bank Mortgage to us. We will run it first, and after the loan is paid, we can operate and manage jointly by both of us, and the proceeds will be distributed according to their respective equity. With such a bank, then we can deal with wars, famines, etc. Sudden problems will be much easier. How about, are you interested in this proposal? If you want, I can call the shots and lower the interest rate on your loan to about 6 percent. What do you think?"

Of course, Wu Tingfang was not qualified to respond to this proposal, so he said that he needed to report this proposal to the top, and someone with more authority would make the decision.

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