1928: The rise of giant merchants

November 6, the seventeenth year of the Republic of China (1928).

No. 264 Guofu Road, Jinling, Jinling National Great Hall.

The former site here is the Central University Auditorium. The existing building area is 6,600 square meters. It is basically in the form of a modern theater. The building facade adopts the three-section division method of leg, wall and top commonly used in modern Western architecture. However, in appearance, Window grilles, awnings and door leaves are all treated with simplified Chinese patterns.

There are 3,072 soft seats in the auditorium, and a large stage of nearly 800 square meters in the center.

As long as it is a large-scale meeting held in Jinling, it is usually held here.

Ye Luo was wearing a Chinese tunic suit, a slicked back hair, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses without prescription, a red flower and a nameplate on his chest, with the words "Ye Luo, Representative of the Shanghai Bund Business Community" written in small letters.

He walked into the synagogue mixed in with the crowd.

Shi Jianqiao, Heng San and others could only stay on the outermost side of the cordon, near the auditorium and Guofu Road. They were heavily guarded by elite troops of the National Army, as well as police officers from the Jinling Police Department and soldiers from the Security Headquarters. The Great Hall was completely surrounded.

A total of 2,729 people attended the conference, coming from all walks of life across the country, and they were all prominent figures.

Ye Luo mingled in the crowd, and attracted countless people's attention because of his height of over 1.8 meters and his young and handsome appearance. There was nothing he could do about it. Who gave him a face comparable to that of a film and television star?

When they saw the nameplate on his chest, more people came to chat with him.

Some wanted to take the opportunity to make acquaintance with this newly rising business tycoon, while others were more direct and asked in person if they could do business together.

Before even entering the auditorium, Ye Luo had gained a large number of connections.

"Senior Ye, what a coincidence." Sun Liren squeezed out of the crowd and walked quickly towards Ye Luo. Beside him was a young man in military uniform who looked shy and was short.

"Oh, don't call me senior. Brother Sun, you are six years older than me. I call you eldest brother and senior. Just call me A Luo." Ye Luo smiled and walked over to shake hands with him, then looked at The young man in military uniform asked, "Who is this?"

"I am Liu Fangwu, an infantry student of the sixth batch of Huangpu Army Military Academy. Hello, second young master!"

The shy young man stood at attention and spoke to Ye Luo as if talking to a superior.

Ye Luo was stunned for a moment, and then suddenly remembered who this young man was.

He is the prototype of Captain Long Wenwen who is loved and hated in "My Captain, My Group"!

After the end of the Songhu Anti-Japanese War, Liu Fangwu officially transferred to the Tax Police Corps of the Ministry of Finance and served as the commander of the 5th Company of the 4th Infantry Regiment.

It turned out that he was already familiar with Sun Liren at this time.

"Hello." Ye Luo also shook hands with him.

Sun Liren led the two of them to sit down and explained his relationship with Liu Fangwu as he walked.

Compared with those politicians who are chatty and vague, Ye Luo prefers to chat with these soldiers who are talkative and relatively upright.

He has seen too much beating around the bush in the shopping mall. If this kind of communication persists, Ye Luo will become even more exhausted.

The three of them were chatting happily. After a while, the principal, his wife, Song Ziwen and other powerful figures followed the guards into the auditorium. The atmosphere suddenly stopped and everyone's voices gradually disappeared.

Ye Luo and the other three also stopped talking, sat up straight and looked straight ahead, waiting for the opening ceremony of the meeting.

Like other major meetings in later generations, the opening ceremony was lengthy and cumbersome, making Ye Luo drowsy.

This time it was not an important meeting in the military and political circles, it was just an anti-smoking meeting held in line with the public sentiment. Many people attending the meeting simply took a nap, completely ignoring the impassioned principal on the stage.

After reading out some of the principles as usual, the principal also left the podium with his wife, and Zhang Zhijiang took the stage again.

He held the speech, spitting everywhere, and spoke passionately about the origin of smoke and the current situation of smoke in China.

"From February 1st to 26th, 1909, the first international anti-smoking meeting was held in the conference hall on the fifth floor of the Huizhong Hotel in Shanghai. The meeting was attended by China, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and the United States. , Portugal and other 13 countries. This is the world's first international anti-smoking conference. The conference gave birth to the conclusion of the first international anti-smoking convention-the 1912 "Hague Smoking Convention", which effectively promoted the development of the world's anti-smoking struggle. Therefore, The International Anti-Smoking Conference is a milestone in the history of international anti-smoking.”

Zhang Zhijiang started from the World Anti-Smoking Conference and went all the way to the two national anti-smoking conferences held a few years ago, expressing the determination and goals of the National Government on smoking bans. In fact, everyone knows that these slogans have been shouted for nearly two decades. , Has the smoke disappeared?

No.

It just changed from blatant to sneaky.

In some big cities, such as Shanghai, you can still see opium dens with various appearances everywhere in the suburbs and county towns, where a large number of poor smokers gather, lying on the ground like mud and smoking.

Smoking has been banned repeatedly, which shows that there must be huge interest groups behind it, and there are even problems with customs and imports. After all, the smoking ban is just a slogan and an unrealistic fantasy.

Zhang Zhijiang knew that the problem of opium was more serious and difficult to solve than the problem of martial arts, but in his position to pursue his political goals, he could only bite the bullet, talk the talk, and act.

"What do you think of the smoking ban?" Liu Fangwu, who was relatively silent, suddenly asked, "Smoking poisons the country and the people. If it is not banned, the harm will become more and more serious in the future."

"This method of banning smoking is useless." Ye Luo shook his head and expressed his true feelings, "If you want to truly ban smoking, firstly, the National Government must increase punishment, and secondly, it must have a positive effect. Who smokes the most tobacco? ? It’s not the people who can’t afford it, but the upper class who can afford it.”

"For example, Pu Jun, the eldest brother who was deposed by Cixi, once entered the Republic of China and served as a counselor in the presidential office. In fact, he did not do any official duties. He just ate, drank, had fun, and smoked. In the end, he sat for nothing and died miserably in someone else's home. .

Wanrong, the empress of Puyi, the last emperor of the Qing Dynasty, after the founding of the Republic of China, had nothing to do in the Forbidden City and became mentally decadent. She also began to smoke opium. It is said that she took eight puffs of opium after every meal, one puff for each puff, and someone knelt down to serve her while taking two puffs. ten minutes.

In addition, warlords, political figures, celebrities, etc. all have this bad habit. I just raised my fingers and counted, you see, Zhang Hanqing, the troops of the noble warlord Wang Jialie, Professor Liu Wendian and so on. I even saw people cooking and smoking in refugee shelters! "

Ye Luo sighed and said calmly: "If the people above are not good examples, how can we expect the people below to do the same? If so, what qualifications do you have to sit on top?"

There was something in this sentence, but Sun Liren and Liu Fangwu both remained silent and did not dare to respond.

That's just the way it is.

At this time, Liu Fangwu looked at the impassioned Zhang Zhijiang on the stage, and suddenly felt uninterested.

"I am a businessman and I don't understand politics or military affairs. But when it comes to business, do you know how profitable the tobacco business is?"

Ye Luo changed the topic and looked at them with a smile.

The two shook their heads.

This is really unclear.

"On the twenty-eighth day of the first month of the sixth year of the Republic of China, the "Shenzhou News" recorded: The Beiyang government at that time purchased 2,100 boxes of tobacco and soil hoarded in various places. Each box was worth 2,800 taels, and was priced with treasury bills. It was estimated that each box could net a silver profit. 20,000 yuan, so in addition to the cost of treasury bills, one thousand boxes can net a profit of 20 million yuan."