Chapter 19 of the General Staff

The rebellion in Vietnam did not spread due to Chen Congyun's deliberate suppression. Vietnam reported the memorial to the Qing court, but simply said, "The people of Saigon are confused by the laws and the foreigners, and they will be disturbed for a day." Such a formal sentence fell into the ears of the court, and it was no different from ordinary people causing trouble. Naturally, no one came to ask about the unfavorable crimes of Chen Congyun's Jingbian.

An incident that happened in 1886 also did not attract the high attention of the court and even Li Hongzhang himself.

In August 1886, the Beiyang Navy "Dingyuan", "Zhenyuan", "Jiyuan" and "Weiyuan" were moored to Nagasaki, Japan to replenish supplies. During maintenance (the ironclad ship was routinely scraped and washed the bottom of the ship to prevent rust, because China had no place to accommodate it.

The dock of the large iron-clad ship, so I had to go to Japan), "Ding" and "Zhen" two ships caused panic in the Japanese government and the people. On the 13th, on the 15th, the sailors who went on ashore for vacation had a fight with the Japanese, causing many casualties. Later, under China's diplomatic, military pressure and the mediation of Western powers, they ended in mutual compensation for losses, which was known in history as the "Skid Case". Since then, Japan has made up its mind to use "Ding" and "Zhen" two ships as imaginary enemies and created the so-called Three Scenery Ship.

When the Beiyang Navy decided to set up two huge warships of nearly 8,000 tons in the town appeared in Nagasaki Port, the entire Japanese government and the country were shocked, and the people even felt "the feeling of the arrival of the doomsday of Japan". The mountain-like body, a giant cannon of 305 mm, 14 inches of water line, and 12 inches of armor underwater, were definitely the number one giant ship in Asia.

From then on, Japan and the whole country all took the sank to sank the two ships as their mission. The emperor even paid for the purchase of warships for the navy, which formed a strong gap with the attitude of the Qing government towards the navy.

Although Chen Congyun, who was far away in Vietnam, had known that this incident would happen for a long time, he could only hope that Li Hongzhang would influence the court and increase the investment of the Beiyang Navy. Regarding this incident, Chen Congyun wrote a long letter to Li Hongzhang, repeatedly emphasizing that through this incident, Japan would play the whole country's efforts to develop the navy. Although he was a small country, he had a great ambition to dominate Asia and even the world. He started from every aspect and closely watched the changes in the Japanese Navy while increasing his investment in the Beiyang Navy.

It is unknown whether this letter worked. Li Hongzhang's call back just said "I know" lightly, and did not reveal more about his true thoughts.

Chen Congyun's judgment, Li Hongzhang and the court would have basically stopped their investment in the Beiyang Navy in the later period, just like in history. Thinking of the indispensable battle between China and Japan, Chen Congyun had to call Li Hongzhang back and implicitly said, "Congyun has received support from the Zhongtang, and this kindness will never be forgotten, but the Zhongtang has driven it and will definitely not fall behind the sun."

Chen Congyun's words meant only, laying a foreshadowing for the future. Chen Congyun would never want to see the defeat of the Beiyang Navy, a maritime power. Even if the court had no money to buy a warship, Chen Congyun planned to privately pack up his pockets and exchange some new rapid-fire cannons and some shells for the Beiyang Navy. In this case, the Beiyang Navy fought with the Japanese, and the result would be difficult to say.

1886 passed quickly. At the beginning of 1887, China and Portugal signed the Beijing Treaty, with the main contents as follows:

China insists that Portugal will permanently manage Macau and its land belonging to Macau, which is no different from Portugal's governance; China retains the right that if Portugal transfers Macau to other countries, it must be approved by China.

Portugal had to send ministers to Beijing and set up consulates at trading ports.

Portugal obtains consular refereeship

The Portuguese can enjoy the trade privileges that China has given or will give to other countries, and have the rights to live in trade ports, rent and buy land, build houses, and set up churches.

The ridiculous Qing government, facing a small country like Portugal, did not even stand up. Macau was completely sold, and it was not reclaimed in history until 1999.

Guangning!

Leading by German technicians, assisted by the national talents found by Chen Congyunneng, including Wu Yangzeng, Kuang Rongguang, Zhan Tianyou and others, a modern blast furnace began to lay the foundation. Chen Congyun, who had prepared enough money, did not want to learn from Zhang Zhidong. It took four years to build the Hanyang Iron Factory.

The scale of Guangning Iron Plant is slightly lower than that of Hanyang Iron Plant. Its design scale is a comprehensive steel mill with an annual output of 300,000 tons and an estimated construction period of one and a half years.

At the same time, the construction of the Hanoi Arsenal is also started. It is expected to be completed within half a year, with an annual production of 6,000 German Mauser guns. Stephen played a key role in this. Especially in technical preparation, Stephen used the influence of his family to successfully introduce hundreds of relevant technicians to Vietnam with the ship. Of course, these people's salaries are not low. For this reason, Chen Congyun entrusts Zheng Guanying to sign more than a dozen long-term orders with a series of German arms dealers. In the next five years, he will purchase 10,000 Mauser rifles and more than 100 artillery pieces of various caliber from Germany. Another very important one is that once Chen Congyun wants to buy a warship, he can only buy it from Germany.

From Zheng Guanying to Europe until he left in mid-1887, Zheng Guanying and Stephen were undoubtedly the most popular guests in the entire European arms industry. In order to kill the Germans, Zheng Guanying traveled around Britain, France, and other countries one after another, and even threatened to go to the United States and Russia, which made the arms merchants with a keen sense of smell in both countries particularly excited.

The orders totaling 15 million taels were eventually all fallen into the pockets of German merchants because of Stephen's "mandate", which greatly improved Stephen's status in Germany and even Europe.

The purpose of spending less money and doing more is achieved. Zheng Guanying still said with great pain, "I can't bear to leave my child and can't trap the wolf." After translation into English, Stephen understood it as "using children as bait to catch wolves." What if the child is eaten by the wolf? Zheng Guanying was too lazy to care about Stephen's stubborn problem.

Such a big thing can naturally be hidden from the court and Li Hongzhang. Chen Congyun's explanation was that a group of funds, including the Vietnamese royal family invested 10 million yuan and paid in five years, and the Rothschild family invested 5 million yuan to cooperate in the investment, with the prerequisite of obtaining the operating rights of the Vietnam Railway.

Chen Congyun's explanation became a waste of money from foreigners to deal with Chen Congyun's own affairs, and he could be said no matter what. In a word, Chen Congyun is not a rich man, so of course Chen Congyun has made a lot of money from this series of activities, which is another matter. Gangyi will not criticize the middle things, because Chen Congyun stuffed 100,000 taels of gold to Gangyi. Li Hongzhang had no objection to this matter. Chen Congyun promised to provide two million bullets to the Huai Army at a low price in the future. The ministers in the Military Affairs Office had no objection. Poor Tang Shaoyi ran around the capital for a month, and the 500,000 taels of silver flowers were not pulled down. Yi Li, Shi Duo, Yi Huan, and Li Lianying were not one of them.

Only those Qingliu were clamoring and impeaching Chen Congyun to occupy the mountain as king, especially against Chen Congyun's expansion of the army to the three towns at the beginning of the year, with nearly 50,000 people. Although this was within the scope allowed by the court, does a small Vietnam use so many soldiers?

The impeachment memorials of the Qingliu people were piled up in front of Cixi's case. Cixi frowned and said angrily: "A group of nerds who do not do serious business, do you think the French are mud? Without a 30,000-50,000 soldiers in the battle, how can the French not cause trouble?" No matter how much the scolding was, the memorials were kept simply left to deal with. The governance of these Qingliu people was still indispensable. When someone needed to attack, the public opinion role of Qingliu people was still very effective.

Things passed like this. The whole Vietnam began to become a large construction site and a military camp in 1887. Since the Qing government did not allow foreign capital to run businesses in China, of course, renting was an exception, and renting a little bit could not make any name for renting a place. Stephen pulled Zheng Guanying into a big circle in Europe and the Americas, and used lending to get back a large number of machinery and equipment. Then, in the name of Zheng Guanying, he bought a large piece of land in Jiading, Shanghai, and decided to build a series of enterprises, textile factories, garment factories, shoe factories, match factories, cigarette factories, etc., which will be effective in the short term.

In addition to military factories, railways, mines, and other companies, Stephen all owns 10% of the shares. The money was borrowed jointly in the name of Stephen and Zheng Guanying, and the money was paid back was exchanged in installments and batches. Due to the precedent of Zheng Guanying spending a lot of money in Europe, banks mainly controlled by the Rothschild family in Europe undertake these loan businesses, which greatly alleviated Chen Congyun's tense capital chain. It is impossible to say that this was Stephen's credit. Of course, these contributions made by Stephen also won him a huge net worth.

Building railways, mining, and enterprise all require people. A series of actions have a bit of aroused the smell of domestic demand, adding hundreds of thousands of jobs to the Vietnamese people, making money. Although they have a little harder, they cannot get hungry. It can be said that they have spent a lot of money, which indirectly played the role of quickly stabilizing the situation in Vietnam after the Saigon turmoil.

I believe that with the big moves made by Chen Congyun in Vietnam, everything in China seemed to be very old. The Taiwan Railway, the Tangshan-Shanhaiguan Railway, all of them were progressing slowly in the face of various resistances. Li Hongzhang and Yi Li barely built the railway from Tangshan to Tianjin this year, and it was difficult for them to make progress.

At the end of 1887, the note on Liu Mingchuan's railway construction in Taiwan was finally approved. The preliminary survey work was expected to be about half a year. By then, Shen Congyun's steel plant in Vietnam could be officially put into production. Because of Li Hongzhang, although Liu Mingchuan and Shen Congyun had never met, the two parties signed a contract. More than half of the railway tracks on the Taiwan Railway were purchased from Shen Congyun's steel plant, and other railway tracks had to take care of all aspects of their relationship.

In October, Zheng Guanying boarded the ship from the United States and finally embarked on the road to return home. Stephen quietly slipped back to Germany with more than 500,000 US dollars in his pocket.

…………………………

On Christmas Eve, it was snowing heavily in Cologne.

"Keze" hardware store for most of the day, but there was no customer. Laura and Keze sat bored on the counter trembling.

People are busy celebrating the festival. The 14-year-old girl Laura and Kezer have to work hard to guard the shop. Laura is a very sensible child. Her family’s poverty caused her to drop out of school last year and help her father look at the shop.

Five years ago, Laura's family lived a very prosperous life. At that time, Laura's father, Colonel Kerze, was a young and promising colonel in the General Staff of the German Army. He was deeply appreciated by the Chief of General Staff Moltke and had a bright future. What is heartbreaking is that a dispute broke out between Keze and his colleagues. In an emotional excitement, Keze shot and injured his colleagues and sent him to the hospital for rescue but died ineffective. If it weren't for the Chief of General Staff Moltke, who admired Keze, who tried his best to rescue him, Keze would have been in prison for ten or eight years.

Keze, who was sentenced to two years in prison, lost his position in the army after being released from prison and could only run such a small shop with the help of his former colleagues. After being released from prison, Keze cheered up again. He didn't have much business in the small shop, and his life was acceptable. Unfortunately, two years later, he encountered a major blow and his beloved wife died of illness. This made Keze, who had a deep relationship with his wife, never recovered from then on. He spent most of his day in the bar, drunk, and the business of the small shop became worse and worse, and his life became more and more difficult.

A gust of cold wind was like the inside of the store. Little Laura chilled in the cold, quickly stood up and stamped her feet, rubbing her hands constantly. The sky was already a little dark, Little Laura looked outside in disappointment, then looked back at the wall clock. It was already 4:30 pm. In another hour, Laura planned to close the door and go to the bar to find her father to go home. Tomorrow is Christmas.

With a squeak, the door was gently pushed open, and a young man came in. After patting the snowflakes on his body, he turned around and smiled brightly at Little Laura, which made Little Laura's nervousness relax.

"Hello, what can I do for you?" Little Laura smiled very politely. She waited for such a customer in one afternoon. Little Laura didn't want the sale to be ruined. Even if she sold a screw, it would be good.

"Hello, dear Smiling Girl. My name is Stephen. Are you here, dear Mr. Kerze?" Stephen used the word respect. In addition to the slight disappointment of the little Laura, she couldn't help but ignite another hope. After her mother passed away, Keerze's former friends gradually stopped interacting. Stephen's polite words made Laura feel that he should have a request to his father. Maybe his father could make some money from it and spend a good Christmas. Maybe he could also get back to school.

However, when little Laura thought of her father in the bar, she was soon disappointed. Who would ask him for help when his father is now?

"I'm sorry, my father is not here. If you want, I'll take you to find him." Little Laura still answered with a glimmer of hope, her eyes still full of hope.

"Well, there is no problem!" Stephen agreed very simply and began to help Little Laura clean up and close the door. At this time, another gust of cold wind outside the door swept in. A burly man almost rushed in. When he entered the door, he shouted: "Laura, see what I brought back to you."

"Oh, it's the cake!" Little Laura rushed towards the person who came happily. The two hugged each other, and Little Laura laughed happily.

"If I guess correctly, you respect Colonel Kerze, right? Stephen, Rothschild, it's a pleasure to see you." Stephen smiled at Kerze very politely, and Kerze glanced at Stephen suspiciously and said, "You are the Stephen who blocked a large number of orders from the East?"

When Zheng Guanying was spending a lot of money in Germany, Stephen often went to newspapers and was a German celebrity.

"It's right down!"

"It's an honor to see you. What can I help you?" Keze shaved his beard today and looked very energetic. After his daughter dropped out of school, he suffered a while and decided to cheer up. So he didn't go to the bar today, but went to find some friends from the past and borrowed some money to celebrate a sumptuous Christmas for his daughter.

"Dear Mr. Kerze, if possible, I would like to invite you to have Christmas with your lovely daughter and talk about something else. Of course, if the conditions I offer cannot satisfy you, you can refuse." Stephen first invited Kerze to celebrate the festival with him, and did not directly say his intention.

"No, no! I only plan to spend Christmas with my daughter this year, and I can't agree to your invitation. However, I really want to know what happened to you when you found me?"

"Since that's the case, I will tell you frankly. On behalf of the Chinese Governor to Vietnam, Mr. Shen Congyun, I invite you to Vietnam to serve as the Chief of General Staff of China's newly formed First Army. The monthly salary is 1,500 taels of silver." (One thousand taels of silver is approximately equal to 4,500-5,000 marks, and the specific comparison cannot be found.)
Chapter completed!