In fact, the beginning of 1873 was like this, secretly turbulent, but on the surface the Qing Empire was calm!
Zai Chun kicked out the three leading conservatives, Yi Min, Yi Xuan and Yi Kuang. No one could stop his new policies. Even if they were unhappy, the ministers would not dare to say anything.
The Jingshi Iron Works and the Beijing-Tianjin Railway have accelerated the construction progress. Although there are still problems of one kind and another, and there is still great resistance among the people, at least they are taking action!
Zaichun exerted strong pressure on local officials. He didn't care whether the people below him were rebellious. As long as you brought me workers, you would be a loyal minister and capable official!
Under the strong pressure of the government, by July 100,000 people had gathered on the railways and ironworks, and the entire Shuntianfu area was in chaos!
This is really a big test of the administrative ability of a court. Every day, materials like seawater are pumped back and forth, including cement, sand, stones, wood, steel bars, bricks and tiles... and various tools used by workers.
The daily needs of vegetables, meat, eggs, rice and noodles include water for 100,000 people to drink, fuel for burning, and even toilet cleaning is a big problem!
In the hot July, even some road construction sites close to Tianjin were infected with dysentery, which made the court panic. In the end, the Chinese Industrial Zone sent a medical team to intervene and control the epidemic!
The Manchu Qing Dynasty had not organized such a major project for many years. In the previous decades, they were basically preparing for wars. Once economic construction began, these officials were a little uncomfortable.
Maybe it’s not that they don’t adapt, but that these people are born to be freeloaders and don’t have any experience at all!
Zai Chun, who was stumbling, also got angry many times, but after the initial panic, the project really started to move forward after July.
Zai Chunqian was in full swing, and on the Chinese side, the whole people were mobilized to start the construction of the special concession area. The Yangtze River Basin was the most important area for Chinese penetration, and the industrial zones along the Yangtze River were the first to start construction.
The people in the Yangtze River Basin have never seen such a busy and spectacular scene. The wide Yangtze River is almost filled with all kinds of ships. Chinese officials and businessmen started to flow upstream the supplies that had been prepared for two or three years in advance according to the schedule. Transport it upward!
Ship after ship was filled with steel, cement and talents. Each industrial zone began to place orders with surrounding Qing Dynasty merchants, purchasing large quantities of wood, sand, gravel, and bricks!
The monthly investment in infrastructure funds by the Chinese central bank, including loans, has exceeded the 50 million silver dollar mark. Jiangnan society has been flooded by such sea water, and has burst into a great prosperous era, an era of great expansion with flooding liquidity. !
Future generations can never imagine what happened in those years. He was originally a rich man from the countryside, but he ended up taking over part of the sand and gravel business in the Wuchang Special Economic Zone. As a result, he earned 1.5 million silver dollars in half a year!
The crazy myth of wealth caused the surrounding landlords, rich peasants, and local tyrants and evil gentry to frantically excavate sand and gravel. All the rivers producing sand and gravel were occupied!
River sand and stones that were worthless in the past have all turned into gold!
After July, serious armed fighting began to occur in the local area. The scope was very wide and the scale was getting bigger and bigger! They were just ordinary sand and gravel merchants before, but stimulated by huge profits, they began to have conflicts!
It’s just a word grab! Block the river and make yourself king, occupy the mountain top and not allow anyone to approach. If you dare to dig a basket of sand and gravel from me, I will risk my life for you!
The armed fights soon resulted in lives. At first, one or two people died, but in the end, more than a dozen people died in each armed fight. Villages that had been close friends in the past became enemies, and neighbors who had been intermarrying for hundreds of years suddenly became Enemy country!
At first, the government was able to suppress it, but it didn't take long for them to find that the scale of the fighting was getting bigger and bigger, and some retired Hunan Army veterans even appeared in it!
The weapons began to be upgraded, and muskets secretly appeared among the people fighting!
The government doesn't dare to take care of it now. The county government has become a negotiation place for these sand and gravel merchants. The county magistrate is completely the middleman to resolve conflicts for these powerful people!
The Chinese don’t care how many of you die, grabbing time is the first priority. If the infrastructure of the industrial zone is not built, the factory will not be able to move in!
If the strict city wall fortress is not repaired, it will not be able to exert strong psychological pressure on the surrounding Qing people!
You can fight as you like. Anyway, I am the one who paid for the sand and gravel. Sufficient supplies are the most important thing!
There is an overflow of money, people’s hearts are not as good as before, prices are soaring, and people are in dire straits! This is the color recorded by the scholars at that time!
Indeed, the small-scale peasant economy has never experienced the impact of such a huge capital frenzy. Countless small-scale handicraftsmen have been wiped out, and the fate of many farmers who have been farming all their lives has also been reversed!
Some went bankrupt and sank to death, some took advantage of the trend and quickly changed their fortunes and promoted their class through this purchasing trend, and some had no choice but to find refuge in industrial zones and became the first batch of workers!
Only then did the world know how rich the Chinese people were. France’s billions of gold francs in compensation were the biggest motivation behind it!
The silver mines in Central and South America, as well as the wealth accumulated by the people in the Qing Dynasty, including the colonial gold and silver expanded by the Chinese, were all mobilized!
This is why the head of state's 'Fortress Plan' has already involved one-third of East Asia's currency as soon as it was launched.
When money starts to make noise, it is difficult for humans to hear other sounds. As for the Chinese digging more than 20 oil wells in the Brunei region of Borneo, the No. 0 internal combustion engine has been upgraded to the third or even fourth generation internal combustion engine. Riveting has begun on the experimental ship!
No one cares about these news. Everyone in the world, including foreign devils, are all focused on money!
The British, Americans, Germans... and even the newly defeated French and the newly unified Italians. European and American adventurers are running to Shanghai and Naha like crazy. Who doesn't want to make a fortune?
Banks in Europe have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain. Wherever the Chinese special economic zones are built, they buy land at high prices to build their own banks. Various investments are pouring in from Europe.
The Chinese stock market has grown to a large scale. It is certainly not comparable to the City of London, Amsterdam and New York. However, compared with stock markets such as Berlin, Hamburg, Rome, and Madrid, the Chinese stock market is like the boss!
How could Europeans let go of such a piece of fat? The dream of getting rich is calling them to rush to Asia. At this moment, the Chinese have replaced Shanghai and become the paradise for adventurers in the hearts of foreigners!
The great 1873! God really gave East Asia a God-given opportunity to make a comeback. On the last day of July, a shocking news exploded on the telegraph network of the Qing Dynasty and the Chinese!
