Chapter 255: Russian Conspiracy
After Chen Weiren accepted Wei Jichen's bribe, everything was easy. There were not many talents who knew foreign affairs in the three provinces of the East. Wei Jichen could completely control the bank of the three provinces of the East with just a little trick.
In the end, the two decided to recruit 7 million taels of bank shares. Like the Commercial Bank, they would first recruit half of the 3.5 million taels. Wei Jichen was going to invest 1 million taels through his own Kuaima Shipping Company and 500,000 taels in his personal name, leaving 1.5 million taels. Among them, 1 million taels was estimated to be interested in officials from the three provinces of the East, such as Yiktang'a and Changshun, and the remaining 500,000 taels could be given to private merchants.
The original currency of the three provinces of the East was in a very serious disorder. Not only were the types mixed and the exchange was blocked, but the silver coins minted by the government were of low quality and issued indiscriminately, and the commercial credit was very poor.
After the establishment of the Bank of the Three Eastern Provinces, currency reform will be carried out. The banking business will include acting as an agent for the provincial treasury, issuing banknotes, as well as foreign exchange, loans, deposits, issuing various bonds, etc., which is actually directly referring to the business of foreign banks.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Revenue can use 1 million taels of treasury silver from the Ministry of Revenue to cast a number of large and small silver coins of the Three Eastern Provinces with high quality in Tianjin Mint as reserves, and set up a copper coin bureau in Feng Province to be responsible for casting copper coins as auxiliary products for the main currency.
At the same time, the use of currencies such as furnace silver, code money, and tuntie will be restricted and gradually cancelled, and the bank will take them back to unify the currency.
In this way, the financial chaos in the Three Eastern Provinces will be greatly improved, and Wei Jichen can also control the financial market of the Three Eastern Provinces through banks.
In fact, Wei Jichen, Sheng Xuanhuai and others have to thank Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao and other reformists. It was because of them jumping up and down in the capital, shouting every day that if there was no reform and change, the country would perish, and the court would not agree to implement some reforms first, and these reforms are of course the best in the economic field.
First, it would not threaten the rule of the Qing court. Second, if it succeeded, it would greatly improve the financial situation of the Qing court.
It can be said that Kang Youwei and others were like pawns, while local officials such as Wei Jichen secretly took advantage of the situation behind them. Once Kang Youwei and others infringed on the interests of the diehards such as Cixi, it would definitely be Kang Youwei and others who were hurt, not Wei Jichen and others.
Just like in the original history, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi, Yuan Shikai and others had joined the Qiangxue Society, and Sheng Xuanhuai, Li Hongzhang and others had also funded the Qiangxue Society. However, once these people saw that the situation was not right, and they saw that Guangxu and Cixi were about to fall out, and that they would be finished if they continued to play, Zhang Zhidong, Liu Kunyi and others immediately withdrew from the Qiangxue Society and immediately cut off their relationship.
Wei Jichen is now riding on this favorable wind and soaring to the sky, because before Cixi and Guangxu fell out, everyone could pretend to be confused. The imperial edicts issued by Guangxu were all approved by Cixi. Since you, an old woman, have agreed, we all do as you say, is there any crime?
So at the end of the Reform Movement, the number of private companies increased from dozens to hundreds, and the number of newspapers increased from a few to hundreds. Many new policies were also implemented in various places. In the end, only a few people lost their lives. Unless the local officials were slow to react and lost their jobs, most of them lived a comfortable life.
When Wei Jichen was inspecting the Agricultural Reclamation Bureau and the immigration to the border in Gaiping, the general of Shengjing, Yiktang'a, also made a move, announcing the "transformation of private groups into public groups" and issued an order to transform bandits into good people. All prefectures and states in Fengtian followed his order and began to recruit bandits and mountain bandits.
Zhao Bingjun and others led the bandits to accept the amnesty, and then took the opportunity to mix into the local patrol and police teams of various prefectures.
They changed from thieves to soldiers, not only responsible for public security, but also to suppress the Hu bandits. These patrol teams were also counted as Wei Jichen's army by the system. When suppressing the Hu bandits, Wei Jichen could naturally earn merit points.
Russia, Moscow Palace.
Tsar Nicholas II sat under the throne with an angry face, and the faces of several ministers standing below were not very good.
"Witt, you said that the Chinese did not agree with us to build a railway in the Northeast, and the bank that was originally planned to be negotiated also fell through?" Nicholas II said coldly.
The Russians won over the French to jointly invest and set up the Daosheng Bank, and then planned to use the Daosheng Bank to borrow money to repay the Qing court's debts, and then induced the Qing court to take out several million taels of silver from the French and Russian loans as an investment to jointly run the Russo-Chinese Daosheng Bank. This Russo-Chinese Daosheng Bank was of course nominally a Sino-Russian joint venture, but in fact it was controlled by the Russians.
Then Russia can collect all kinds of taxes in China through the Russo-Chinese Daosheng Bank, mint Chinese currency, and lay railways and electric wires in China.
This move is very vicious, so it can manipulate and control China's railway construction and control China's financial capital.
However, this move was temporarily resolved by the joint efforts of Wei Jichen, Sheng Xuanhuai and others, using China to set up its own bank and raise funds to build railways. Therefore, the Tsar was so angry.
Finance Minister Witte had to stand up and said hatefully: "The director of the Daosheng Bank, Ukhtomsky, went to lobby the Qing government. Everything was going well and things were about to succeed, but something unexpected happened later."
"What happened!" Nicholas II did not expect that something that was almost certain would change.
"The wind in the Qing government suddenly changed. Their officials suddenly became very wary of us Russians. They would rather borrow money from the British and Americans who stood aside during the Sino-Japanese War than from our country." Witte recounted the news.
The other ministers were thinking about the reason for this sudden change. Originally, the Qing government trusted and appreciated Russia for its contribution to the return of Liaodong. There was even news that they wanted to unite with Russia to deal with Japan.
^.^,
The Russians certainly did not take Japan seriously, but this would allow them to legitimately expand their sphere of influence to the Northeast, which was exactly what they wanted.
Witte saw that everyone was looking at him anxiously, and hurriedly said: "After our investigation, it turned out that the reason for the change was the strong opposition of officials in Northeast China. They wrote to the Chinese emperor, saying that the empire had a glimpse of their Northeast, and that once the empire built a railway in the Northeast, it would seriously affect their sovereignty."
Nicholas II and several other ministers were not worried at all that the Chinese had discovered their plans.
"The official in the Northeast, could it be the newly appointed Mongolian Heilongjiang General?" Nicholas II asked calmly. Heilongjiang has the largest contact area with Russia, so it should be most vigilant against Russia, so Nicholas II asked this question.
"Your Majesty, it was not the Heilongjiang General, but the Shengjing General Yiktang'a who urged this matter. However, in this incident, there is a person who played a more important role than Yiktang'a, and this person is Wei Jichen, the commander of the Dingliao Army." Witte said slowly.
Yiktang'a had been the Heilongjiang General for a long time, so the Russian emperor and several other ministers were very familiar with him.
"Wei Jichen?" Nicholas II narrowed his eyes, and a cold light flashed in his eyes.
It ruined their long-planned plan, and Nicholas II now remembered this name firmly in his mind.
"Yes, Your Majesty, this Wei Jichen is a hard-line anti-Russian. In the Liaodong area under his jurisdiction, the personnel we sent to survey were unconditionally expelled. He also restricted our Russian investment in Liaodong." Foreign Minister Lobanov was obviously very familiar with Wei Jichen and explained immediately.
"Why do I know this now!" Nicholas II asked angrily.
Lobanov hurriedly explained: "Your Majesty, I didn't expect that Wei Jichen had such great power that he could influence China's government. He was just a garrison commander in Liaodong. I didn't expect that he was very good at grasping the timing. Because we were active in the Northeast, we happened to anger the local government, so he joined these people to write a letter together."
Nicholas II was ambitious but incompetent, and he liked to hear good news from his ministers, but didn't like to hear bad news. Therefore, Lobanov would never say these things before things were settled and when he had no choice.
Seeing that Nicholas II's face was about to fall, Lobanov gritted his teeth and told all the bad news at once, and continued: "Your Majesty, the Chinese are now migrating to the northern border of Mongolia along the border of Siberia, thus replacing the peaceful nomads with anti-Russian Chinese, which is really dangerous."
In the Mongolian region bordering the three northeastern provinces, the Tsarist Russia bought a large number of Mongolian rebels. The Tsarist Russia operated the Siberian region and its influence had long penetrated into Outer Mongolia, wanting to plan Outer Mongolia's independence. The Russians were not afraid of China sending troops, but they were afraid that China would develop these areas and immigrate here.
When Nicholas II heard this, he was really cold all over, and the temperature in the palace dropped by several degrees.
Seeing that he was about to explode, Lobanov hurriedly said: "Your Majesty, now the Imperial Far East Fleet is anchored in Jiaozhou Bay, China. The Qing government has agreed to the Imperial Far East Fleet to go to Lushunkou for a temporary rest. At that time, General Alec can do something to anger Wei Jichen. If it triggers a conflict between the two countries, we can take the opportunity to ask the Qing government to punish Wei Jichen."
Lobanov hurriedly threw a look for help to Witte, and Witte stepped forward and echoed: "Your Majesty, Wei Jichen must not stay in the Northeast. This will be detrimental to our major event. This person proposed to build the railway by himself. If we can force the Qing government to transfer Wei Jichen, it would be the best. If not, we must not let him live and find an opportunity to kill him."
"Kill him? How to kill? Do we have to assassinate him like the Japanese?" Nicholas II asked dissatisfiedly. He was assassinated by the Japanese when he visited Japan. He was a little disgusted with this behavior and thought it was not worthy of being in a high-class place.
Lobanov suggested: "Your Majesty, historical experience has taught us that the peoples of the East respect strength and power the most. It is useless to give any advice or counsel to the rulers of these peoples. We have only one way to deal with Wei Jichen, which is to show our military strength in front of him and let him know that it is unwise to be our enemy. At the same time, everyone has flaws. We are looking for Wei Jichen's shortcomings. Once we find them, we will be able to take corresponding countermeasures against him. I don't believe that he alone can stop the empire's progress."
Nicholas II said angrily: "If it really doesn't work, we will directly send troops to occupy Port Arthur. I believe that the Qing government will not dare to go to war with us for a port. If we control Port Arthur, the empire will have a foothold in the Far East, and we can gradually nibble away at China's South Manchuria, and also greatly increase our influence in Korea."
Witt persuaded: "Your Majesty, this move will anger the Chinese and affect our trade with China. If we can make the Chinese realize that they need our power to balance the power of other countries, we can easily take Port Arthur."
"What do you mean?" Nicholas II stood up, very interested.
"Your Majesty, if the Germans occupied Jiaozhou Bay, how would the Chinese react? They would definitely ask for help from our country." Witt said confidently.