Now in Shaanxi, the leading figure among Shanxi merchants is a branch of the Qiao family in Qixian County.
Speaking of the Qiao family, the current head of the family is the famous George Yong. He is good at business, modest, and very honest. He once passed the scholar examination. He originally wanted to be an elegant scholar and wanted to be admitted to the imperial examination or Jinshi.
, wanted to be an official scholar, but due to the early death of his parents and the death of his brother, he had no choice but to accept the family business and start a business.
Qiaojiapu, led by Qiao Zhiyong, was one of the richest families in Shanxi at that time. It is said that the assets he owned at that time were more than half of the Qing government.
If there are more people than the government, then he must be very rich. Qiao Zhiyong wanted to be a local emperor at that time, who dared to compare with him?
What's more, when Empress Dowager Cixi passed through Shanxi this time, she borrowed money from various bank accounts in Shanxi, Taiyuanfu Lane, but each bank gave up the loan for various reasons.
Only George Yong's Dade Feng bank account lent 100,000 taels of silver to the Empress Dowager Cixi on the spot.
After that, the Empress Dowager Cixi even stayed at Qiao's house for a day. At that time, Qiao Zhiyong lent the Empress Dowager Cixi another 200,000 taels of silver on the spot.
This shows that the Qiao family supports Empress Dowager Cixi.
As for why the Qiao family wants to support the Empress Dowager Cixi who is about to sunset?
In fact, they are not without worries, but the Qiao family likes to make friends with people in the government. Since Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, they have successively served as frontier officials in Mongolia, Xinjiang, Shaanxi, and Gansu. Almost all Fu, Dao, and counties in this province have contacts with the Qiao family.
Shengjing General Zhao Erxun, Yongji County Magistrate Zhao Erfeng, Zhang Zhidong, Zuo Zongtang, Li Hongzhang and others were all guests of their Qiao family.
Look at the people they made friends with. These people were die-hard conservatives of the Qing Dynasty.
As for Liu Hai's emerging power, the Qiao family has not yet had a chance to get involved.
So now the Qiao family can only concentrate on waiting for Cixi to leave.
During this gathering, other Shaanxi businessmen were evasive. Only this descendant of the Qiao family was impassioned and spoke in front of everyone about being a loyal minister, patriotic and serving the imperial court.
In fact, everyone here is not a fool. They have already seen that the Qiao family is completely leaning towards the Empress Dowager Cixi.
But your Qiao family has a big business and a lot of money. Those of us from a small family cannot compare with you.
Therefore, no matter what the man above said, the wealthy businessman below always ignored him, and in the end the meeting ended on bad terms.
On the second day of the ceremony, wealthy businessmen from all over the world gathered together at the residence of Prince Shiduo.
Prince Li Shiduo was also very polite this time and came out early to establish relationships with these businessmen.
In the end, the businessmen thought that Prince Li Shiduo was going to ask for money, but Ronglu never mentioned the matter.
Therefore, these businessmen were relieved, but before they were happy for a long time, Prince Li Shiduo brought in dozens of pieces from outside to cherish the rare treasures.
After that, he said that the court was in trouble and wanted to sell these dozens of treasures to the wealthy businessmen present at a discount.
The businessmen below looked at each other and understood Prince Li Shiduo's plan.
This is obviously to sell things, but in fact, they still need to collect money privately, but the name is more pleasant.
After that, needless to say, everyone knew it well and each spent some money to send Rong Lu away.
But who is Prince Li Shiduo, and how could he be dismissed by these small doses?
After seeing that the merchants were not very enthusiastic, the gentleman stood up, came to these dozens of treasures, and introduced the origins of these things to them one by one.
Don't tell me that each of these things is a priceless treasure. In peacetime, each of them would have cost no less than seven or eight hundred thousand taels of silver.
But what time is it now? It is an era of war and chaos.
Youdao is an antique in prosperous times and gold in troubled times.
Nowadays, businessmen no longer pay attention to these antiques. They all regard the money in their hands as more important than their lives. How could they be fooled by the few words of Prince Li Shiduo?
By the end of the ceremony, Prince Shiduo was so thirsty that no businessman came up to challenge him, which made Ronglu very embarrassed standing in the middle alone.
Seeing that things were about to come to a standstill, the businessman from the Qiao family stepped forward to donate generously on the spot and immediately bought one of the exquisite jade pieces for 500,000 taels of silver.
This price is not low anymore. Even in the Taiping years, the price of Yu Linglong was just like this.
When Prince Li Shiduo saw someone speaking, he finally breathed a sigh of relief, and then looked at the other hurt people.
While Prince Li Shiduo looked at these merchants, he held his hand on the saber at his waist.
None of the businessmen below were smart. Seeing the behavior of Prince Li Shiduo, they knew that they would not be able to get out of his mansion without some blood this time.
In the end, these people could only grit their teeth and pay 100,000 or 80,000, and finally took out Rong Lu. They had finished buying this little thing.
After the show ended, I clicked a little and realized that today's income was pretty good. I tried hard and soft, and finally got it, about 3 million taels of silver.
With this money, I can also buy some weapons, hire foreign military personnel, and strengthen the tens of thousands of people under my command.
Prince Li Shiduo had good intentions, but the final result surprised him.
Because when Prince Li Shiduo went to look for the Russian businessman who had been selling to him a few days ago to buy weapons, the Rakshasa businessman now shook his head like a rattle and did not take issue with Prince Li Shiduo at all.
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Prince Li Shiduo asked in every possible way, but this Rakshasa businessman did not sell to Prince Li Shiduo, one shot at a time.
When Prince Li Shiduo arrived here, if he didn't know that Rakshasa Kingdom had turned against him, then he would have spent so many years as an official in vain.
In the end, when Prince Li Shiduo was desperate, someone came to him in need.
It turns out that this person is no one else, but Jon Eberk, the consul of Geely State who lives in Xi'an.
Prince Shiduo was both surprised and happy at the arrival of this person.
Surprisingly, Prince Li Shiduo knew in his heart that this man would go to the Three Treasures Hall for no reason, and there would be no good fruits for him this time.
Fortunately, although there may be some blood on my side this time, it seems that the weapon is in place.
Sure enough, Prince Li Shiduo was right. This Jon Aiboike, after Prince Li Shiduo and his guests sat down, said directly: "Your Excellency General, I heard that you are collecting weapons everywhere, so I
Your Majesty the General has prepared a batch of munitions."
Prince Li Shiduo smiled bitterly, and then asked about the price of the arms.
Sure enough, Prince Shiduo of Rangli got what he expected. This time, the price offered by the other party was twice as high as the market price. In addition, there were some political conditions, which was to make the border between India and Tibet look like Tibet.
On one side, it expands 100 kilometers.
How could Prince Li Shiduo agree to such an exaggerated request?
Therefore, Prince Li Shiduo refused on the spot, but the consul of the Geely Kingdom calmly said to Prince Li Shiduo: "No country in the whole world will help the Qing Dynasty now. If Mr. Prince refuses my request again,
, I’m afraid you are really in dire straits.”
After hearing this, Prince Li Shiduo originally wanted to see off his guests, but his thoughts immediately stopped.
After thinking about it, Prince Sedo thought about what he could not sell at this critical moment. As long as the crisis was over, it would not be too late to start arguing with the British slowly.
If the Qing Dynasty is finished after this time, then it will leave a disaster for Liu Hai, the traitor, and let him quarrel with the Geely Kingdom.
After thinking about it, Prince Li Shiduo smiled and said: "Well, since Mr. Consul has such good intentions, I will accept your recommendation."
In this way, Prince Shiduo of Li and the consul of the Gili Kingdom reached a treasonous intention at the home of Prince Shiduo of Li. They used the land in western Tibet and a large amount of silver to purchase weapons from the Gili Kingdom that could equip 30,000 people.
The Geely people did not delay this time, and on the second day after the agreement was reached, batches of weapons were delivered to the military camp of Prince Li Shiduo.
In addition to weapons, the Gili people also sent more than 100 instructors to help Prince Shiduo's army train.
After Liu Haizhen sent away the soldiers of the Rakshasa Kingdom, he immediately started again, mobilizing troops and generals.
There is no need for so many troops in the Northeast now. Except for the two divisions stationed in the Northeast, the other hundreds of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks have begun to move westward.
Since the transportation conditions in this plane are very weak, it will still take some time to mobilize hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
During this time, Liu Hai began to build airports in major cities and transportation thoroughfares.
Through this war, Liu Hai has discovered the incomparable role of air strikes in war.
Had it not been for several air strikes in the north this time, the Rakshasa army would not have been defeated so easily.
Therefore, Liu Hai thought about using the air force extensively in the next civil war to speed up the process of national unification as much as possible.
Liu Haizhen gave the order, and construction began immediately on the territory controlled by Liu Hai.
If other local forces dare to carry out such large-scale construction projects, they will soon run out of money, and by then they may not even be able to pay their soldiers.
But Liu Hai took advantage of the convenience of traveling between the two worlds and didn't care about the money at all.
Therefore, in the dozen or so large cities controlled by Liu Hai, from south to north, large-scale construction of airports on the edges of the cities has begun.
Since Liu Hai had already urgently repaired simple airports several times, this time he used a ready-made template from the previous one, so he moved very quickly.
After only a dozen days, simple airport runways were put into use.
In addition to these airports, Liu Hai began to travel back and forth between the modern and Qing Dynasty planes again, providing enough food and ammunition supplies for hundreds of thousands of troops.
By the time hundreds of thousands of troops arrived near the capital after a long journey of more than ten days, various supplies were already piled up in the warehouses on the outskirts of Beijing.
With these things, we can guarantee that an army of 600,000 to 700,000 can fight for a year.
At this point, all Liu Hai's preparations for the Western Expedition have been completed.
This time Liu Hai planned to personally serve as the commander-in-chief of the Western Expedition, and at the same time handed over the affairs of the capital to his confidant Zhao Jiahua to control.
However, Liu Hai did not place his hopes on Zhao Jiahua alone. He also arranged for his intelligence chief Xiao Kun to secretly monitor every move in the capital.
On the fifth day of February in 1899, the large teaching field on the outskirts of Beijing was surrounded by soldiers. Nearly 80,000 people had gathered here.
These people all participated in Liu Hai's oath-taking expedition.