The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 323: Foreign sir, bring the Qing Dynasty to bully the little Japan! (Please vote, please subscribe)
"Lan Qing, come here quickly. Take a look, what is this?"

In the cafe of the Brown Hotel, Lord Li Hongzhang, who was yawning and eating breakfast, saw Wang Libin coming in from outside with a roll of "paper". He loudly called him to his side, then took out a check from the Bank of France and showed it to Wang Libin.

"This is a bank check. Where did it come from?"

Wang Libin came to England with a large sum of money from Luo Xueyan, and had to do banking business after arriving in London. So, accompanied by Wade, he opened an account at Rothschild Bank, deposited a large sum of pounds, and opened a check business, so he recognized at a glance that what Li Hongzhang handed him was a check.

"It's from the Bank of France."

Li Hongzhang did not tell Wang Libin where the check came from, and Wang Libin pointed to the Arabic numerals on the check and said, "These are numbers, ones, tens, hundreds, and five thousand! It should be French currency, called francs. Twenty-five francs equals one pound. Your five thousand francs equals two hundred pounds, which is eight hundred taels of silver! By the way, who gave you this? The signature is in French."

"Eight hundred taels"

Li Hongzhang was stunned. What was going on? Why did Mathilde give him so much money? He worked as an editor in the Imperial Academy for Emperor Xianfeng in Beijing for only 45 taels of silver a year. He made 800 taels of silver last night!
Is this the reward for sleeping with the princess?

Didn't she give too much?

That's not right. How come this is like selling one's body? How can Lord Li, a real man, be like a prostitute in the Eight Great Hutongs?
While Li Hongzhang was stunned, Wang Libin had already taken out a dictionary and started looking it up: "I found out that the signature on the check is Mathilde de Bonaparte. There are words on the back of the check! It's written in English: Li, thank you for your love, goodbye in Paris. Love you Mathilde."

Wang Libin put down the check in his hand and stared at Li Hongzhang blankly: "Shaoquan, what are you doing?"

"This, this is..." Li Hongzhang blushed, but he was a capable man who had made it to the top of the government in history, so he was quick-witted and thought of an excuse immediately. "This is what Princess Mathilde exchanged for the second volume of the Great Prophecy! I gave her the second volume of the Great Prophecy that you gave me, so she gave me 5,000 francs!"

"Oh, is it so?"

"Yes! The prophecies in the second volume of the Great Book of Prophecies are all for next year. Any piece of information is worth hundreds of dollars. I only charged her eight hundred for all of them. It's really a bargain."

Wang Libin frowned slightly and thought, "It turns out that I was at a loss. I also gave Sister Maria a copy of the second volume of the Great Book of Prophecy, but she didn't give me a penny and just took it and left!"

Seeing that Wang Libin was silent, Li Hongzhang quickly kept the check given by Mathilde - it was worth eight hundred taels of silver!
Of course, what Li Hongzhang was interested in was not Mathilde's money, but Mathilde's body, which was really good. No, what he was interested in was her connections!
Mathilde is a princess of the French Empire and the sister of the French Emperor. If we get in touch with her, how can we be afraid that we can't handle the Westernization affairs well?

Thinking of this, Li Hongzhang asked Wang Libin: "Lan Qing, our mission in England is almost over, right? The next stop is Paris, right?"

When Wang Libin heard this question, he handed the roll of "paper" in his hand to Li Hongzhang and said, "Shaoquan, take a look at this."

"This is."

"This is a newspaper called The Times. Look at the front page. It's about the Battle of Sinop. The Russian Black Sea Fleet slaughtered the Turkish Navy!" Wang Libin pointed at the content in the newspaper and said to Li Hongzhang, "This is in the first volume of the Great Prophecy Book, and now it has come true!
It seems that the Queen of England will send someone to summon you to the palace soon!"

Li Hongzhang suddenly remembered something and looked at Wang Libin: "Lan Qing, do you still have the English translation of the second volume of the Great Prophecy? Give me another one!"

Shanghai, Suzhou River.

The steamship rumbled, dragging a 2,000-ton passenger boat, stirring up waves on the river from Suzhou to Shanghai. The flag of the Minister of Nanyang fluttered in the north wind. On the Suzhou River, ships came and went, and it was busy. On both sides of the Suzhou River, construction sites were connected and in full swing.

Luo Yaoguo was now riding on the 2,000-ton passenger boat, discussing with Luo Dagang, Jiao Liang, and Wu Chaoyue, who had just fled to Suzhou from Shanghai a few days ago, how to hitch a ride with the foreigners, no, it should be said that they could hitch a ride on the boat and go together to bully the Japanese.

He originally wanted to stay in Suzhou until after the Spring Festival and then return to Shanghai, not only to accompany his wife, but mainly because he had a lot of things to do in the Prince Wu's Palace!
Now the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's Wu Wang Mansion in Suzhou controls a total of six prefectures and one state, including Suzhou Prefecture, Changzhou Prefecture, Huzhou Prefecture, Jiaxing Prefecture, Songjiang Prefecture, and Taicang Prefecture.

Although most of the territories of Songjiang Prefecture and Taicang Prefecture are under the jurisdiction of the Shanghai Military Governor's Office, and are "one master, two systems" with the jurisdiction of the Prince of Wu's Office, the territory directly under the jurisdiction of the Prince of Wu's Office is still very large, and there are many things that need to be dealt with. It is simply impossible to manage it relying on the small team that Luo Yaoguo brought from Hunan.

Fortunately, Luo Yaoguo's "land policy" in southern Jiangsu was much milder than that in Hunan, and he had begun to win over "enlightened landlords" and foster the "national bourgeoisie". Moreover, it was very effective, and he successfully won over the two major business groups in Suzhou and Lake Tai, the Dongting Mountain Gang and the Nanxun Silk Merchants, as well as a group of Huizhou merchants, Guangdong merchants, and Fujian merchants doing business around Taihu Lake, and they all joined Luo Yaoguo.

With these business groups joining him, Luo Yaoguo no longer lacks talent for industrial and commercial cadres.

However, he couldn't just use the children of the business gangs. He had to open a lecturer class and personally serve as the "principal" for several months to give them a sense of belonging to the three intertwined systems of the God Worshipping Society, the Wuwang Palace, and the Taiping New Army. He also conducted assessments and divided them into different groups, so that they could find the right positions in the three systems and then play a greater role.

In addition, Luo Yaoguo could not only employ the children of the merchant gangs, otherwise the land distribution in southern Jiangsu and Taihu regions would not be possible.

Therefore, while recruiting a large number of industrial and commercial cadres to participate in the training, Luo Yaoguo also did not forget to select a group of young, smart and educated peasant cadres from Kunshan County, which was the first to implement the "division of land" in the jurisdiction of the Prince of Wu's Mansion, to come to Suzhou for training - these people are the seeds for the full implementation of the "division of land" in southern Jiangsu, and they are also the capital for the Prince of Wu's Mansion to build grassroots political power in its jurisdiction.

While Luo Yaoguo was running a large lecturer class in Suzhou to train cadres, he still had to worry about and maintain the area under the jurisdiction of the Prince of Wu's Palace.

His method of maintaining the situation on the ground was to send troops down to impose "military control" while retaining the original advisers and clerks.

In short, everything was kept as it was, and the policies of the Wu Palace of "dividing land", "protecting industry and commerce" and "encouraging mulberry and silk" were widely publicized, and the door was opened to the gentry and landlords who wanted to "enrich" Shanghai.
This series of operations was not simple, and Luo Yaoguo was a little worried about handing it over to his disciples. So he wanted to stay in Suzhou for a few more days, even if it was just to teach a few classes himself and explain the principles of the "Anti-Scripture" to the students below.

But in December of the Gregorian calendar, Luo Dagang, Jiao Liang and Wu Chaoyue, who had been staying in Shanghai preparing for a diplomatic mission abroad, came to Suzhou together. They also told Luo Yaoguo that the foreign dignitaries in Shanghai were discussing how to visit Japan together and prepare a set of "unequal treaty" packages for the Japanese.

Luo Yaoguo, no, it should be Luo Xueyan who must not miss this matter.

How can the foreigners bully Japan? The "True Treaty Faction" of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the "Qinglue Army" of the Qing Dynasty were arranged for the little Japan. If Japan wanted to sign an unequal treaty, it must also include the Qing Dynasty.

At this time, he was sitting in the warm and comfortable cabin, tapping the teacup gently, and quietly listening to his three subordinates' suggestions.

"King Wu, several printing houses in Shanghai have received orders for The True Covenant and are working overtime to print it. They have already printed tens of thousands of copies. I heard that the Japanese can read Chinese characters, so the True Covenant does not need to be translated and can be sent directly to Japan. It will surely be widely spread in Japan before the Catholic Church and the London Missionary Society!"

"General Xue, these four provisions, namely, tariff agreement, unilateral most-favored-nation treatment, extraterritoriality, and concessions, must be arranged for Japan! Otherwise, we will definitely suffer losses when competing with Japan in the future."

"My Lord, it would be best for the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom to pretend to be a good person after the Qing Dynasty joins the Four-Nation Alliance and send envoys to Edo and Kyoto to convey that our Heavenly King wants to work together with their generals and emperor to deal with the foreigners. Even if their generals and emperor are unwilling to cooperate with the Heavenly King, the people below will definitely have different ideas."

Well, Luo Yaoguo nodded gently: Now these three seem to have some ideas! It seems that they really put their heart into learning "American diplomacy" from Major Ma Hui, the foreign affairs adviser of the Governor's Office, in Shanghai these days.
(End of this chapter)