The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 186 Wu Peifu's Thoughts
After listening to Li Yaoting's report, Teng Yuzao nodded and said to Li Yaoting, "Hanhun, you did a good job. You continue to be busy. I just came here to take a look."

Teng Yuzao looked at his watch again and said, "Time is still a bit tight. Can the shipment be completed before 1 a.m.?"

Li Yaoting said carefully, "No problem, we may even be able to go earlier, so we can guarantee that we will leave on time."

"Okay! Keep busy."

Although Teng Yuzao did not leave immediately, Li Yaoting still obeyed Teng Yuzao's request and stopped accompanying Teng Yuzao. Instead, he began to greet the people from the Security Department attentively but calmly and continued their work.

The full name of this Salt Administration is the Ministry of Revenue of the Qing Dynasty, the Ministry of Salt Transport, but now, except for the official position, no one in the market uses this confusing name anymore, and they just call it the Salt Administration according to its function.

Tianjin has been a salt-producing area since ancient times. In the Tang Dynasty, a county was set up here to manage salt affairs. The salt bricks produced here at that time were tribute to the courts of the Ming and Qing dynasties. It is one of the three largest salt fields in the country and also the largest one.

The so-called Changlu Salt Field is actually not just one place. It is composed of large salt fields such as Hangu, Tanggu, Daqinghe, and Nanbao, stretching for hundreds of miles along the coast. The salt produced is not only supplied to Zhili, but also to Shandong, Rehe, Chahar, Shanxi, as well as northern Henan, Northeast China, Mengjiang and other vast areas.

Due to its large output and wide supply area, Changlu's annual salt tax is extremely generous, and more than two million taels here are salt tax.

However, although the Salt Administration had great power and lucrative profits, it was not under the jurisdiction of Zhili, so Yu Lu forgot about it when he was busy evacuating Tianjin.

To the extent that, in history, more than two million taels of silver here were taken away by the Japanese army that attacked here after the city was captured.

This is also the reason why Teng Yuzhao was thinking about this large amount of silver deposited here. Instead of letting the Japanese army rob it, it would be better to leave it to him as military expenses for the vanguard army.

It’s just that no one would say anything if the huge amount of silver here was robbed by the Japanese, but if he, Teng Yuzhao, used it for military expenses, it would be a serious crime.

Therefore, if he wanted to snatch the money back from the hungry wolf of the Japanese, he had to do it perfectly.

This is also the reason why Teng Yuzao not only had people spread rumors that the coalition forces were going to massacre the city, but also provided financial assistance to poor people who could not afford to flee with their families for refuge, forced the officials guarding the various government offices to move out of the city, and searched the entire city twice.

The silver here includes not only ingots, but also silver dollars.

Since Teng Yuzhao traveled through time, he has been very interested in silver dollars, because a hundred years later, the more common silver dollars are Yuan Datou and Sun Xiaotou, while Longyang is much rarer.

The silver coin that Teng Yuzhao was holding and examining carefully at the moment was an extremely rare Guangxu Yuanbao silver coin in later generations. There was an inscription of "Hu Ping Yi Liang Yuanbao" on the back of the silver coin and a five-clawed golden dragon with bared fangs and claws on the front.

This silver dollar made Teng Yuzhao so excited that his blood almost boiled.

Because Teng Yuzhao remembered very clearly that a set of five of these Guangxu Yuanbao silver coins were sold at a high price of nearly 8 million yuan in later generations, and a Guangxu Yuanbao silver coin that was said to be a sample coin was sold at a sky-high price of 13.34 million yuan.

Although he knew that it was impossible for him to return to the afterlife, Teng Yuzhao could not let go of the Guangxu Yuanbao silver coin and rubbed it in his hand for a long time.

In the end, he was even reluctant to put the silver dollar back, but carefully kicked it into his own shirt pocket.

"Zi Yu, the Qing Dynasty still has a lot of silver! Such a large amount of silver was just thrown here without anyone telling us to keep it safe! Didn't they think that once the city is breached, the silver would be given to the foreigners?"

Teng Yuzao looked at the silver pile in front of him, and said with emotion, while taking out his silver cigarette case from his pocket and taking out a cigarette from it. Seeing that Teng Yuzao wanted to smoke, Wu Peifu quickly took out a shiny silver lighter from his pocket, and with a "click", he lit the lighter and lit the cigarette for Teng Yuzao.

Then he exhaled a breath of foul air and said, "Few Qing officials think about their work, and most think about intrigue and how to make money for themselves. The fate of the Qing Dynasty should come to an end!"

Wu Peifu was deprived of his title of scholar, which he had worked so hard to obtain, by collusion with county officials over a trivial matter. This made him hate the local officials of the Qing Dynasty, and it was understandable that he spoke disrespectfully to them.

But it is somewhat surprising that Wu Peifu, a scholar, would say such treasonous words as "The Qing Dynasty's fate should have come to an end."

Teng Yuzhao seemed not to hear Wu Peifu's words. He smoked a cigarette and stared at the shiny silver that was being packed into ammunition boxes and sealed by the people from the Security Department.

He brought Wu Peifu here today, who had never been involved in the secret things he did. In fact, there was another deeper meaning. This was his final investigation and confirmation of Wu Peifu.

He was not worried that Wu Peifu would be ungrateful. History had proven that Wu Peifu's character was absolutely fine. He now wanted to know Wu Peifu's attitude towards the Qing court. He wanted to test Wu Peifu with the silver issue, but he did not expect Wu Peifu to express his true feelings in one go. This forced him to reorganize the words of test he had already prepared.

While Teng Yuzao was still thinking about how to bring up the topic, Wu Peifu came up to him and asked in a low voice, "Teacher, do we have to send this money back?"

Teng Yuzao smiled bitterly and said, "What else can I do if I don't send it back? I can't keep such a large sum of money for them forever!"

Teng Yuzao pointed at the silver that had been put into the ammunition boxes and said, "We put the silver into the ammunition boxes because we were worried that it would attract too much attention on the road. Not to mention the foreign spies and cavalry patrols around Tianjin, even our own people might be tempted by the money. We had no choice but to disguise it before transporting it away."

"No!"

As soon as Teng Yuzao finished speaking, Wu Peifu rushed to say, "Teacher, now those governors of the southern provinces have signed the Southeast Mutual Protection Agreement with the foreigners. Not only will they not send a single soldier, they will only watch from the sidelines. They will not even send a single gun or bullet to the court. As for this year's tax revenue, it is naturally impossible for them to send it to the capital."

"In this case, I'm afraid our military pay will be gone."

"But war waits for no one. To fight, you need money, food and weapons. As for the ammunition and weapons of our vanguard army, it's not a big deal. As long as we win a few more battles, we will always have some spoils. Food is also not a big deal. Since the teacher's order says so, the relevant prefectures will always give us some support. But I can guarantee that those corrupt officials will at most give us a small amount of silver to get by. They will keep the large sums of silver for themselves to embezzle."

Wu Peifu said angrily, "For example, when Ning Xingpu raised funds for our vanguard army, no government office in the city showed up. The huge city of Tianjin only raised more than 200,000 taels of silver, and those were all donated by big merchants. Even the teacher took out tens of thousands of taels of silver to help the people escape from the looting and slaughter of foreigners, but the government did nothing."

Wu Peifu exhaled and continued, "Teacher, what I want to say is that for the sake of our vanguard army in the future, this money should never be returned to them. Teacher, you can keep it as our vanguard army's military pay."

Teng Yuzhao's slightly anxious heart finally settled down. He nodded and instructed Wu Peifu.

"Zi Yu, don't tell anyone about this anymore. I have my own arrangements."

"besides."

Teng Yuzhao felt that since he could rest assured about Wu Peifu, there were some things he needed to explain to him.

"There are some secret things that can only be mentioned to Yuxuan, Kangnian, General Manager Li, Deputy Chief of Staff Wei, and Hu Huazhang, besides Hanhun. Do you understand?"

(End of this chapter)