The Procuratorate of Liuzhou City has been heavily guarded in the past few days. There are two groups of guards. The outer layer is the guards brought from Guilin, and the inner layer is the Gao family's servants. Putting aside the soldiers at the guard station, the servants of the Gao family here are all northern men brought from Gyeonggi Province. They are all tall and strong, and everyone speaks northern Mandarin. It is impossible to fake it, so the procuratorate's No matter how much people inquire about the news, there is not much that they have seen with their own eyes.
Any news that the outside world can get is spread from a few big guys who met Gao Pragmatic that day. In fact, it is not spread. The number of people who can get the slightest bit of news is limited, and almost all of them are called Guangxi. The prominent figures who deserve their names are especially the chieftains from Youjiang in western Guangxi.
Very few people knew about the meeting between Mr. Cen Qi and Miss Huang. It can even be said that the news that they came to Jinghu Villa in Longtan Town, south of Liuzhou City, was limited to a very small range, and the outside world was not allowed to know about it. Know.
The pragmatic news in Liuzhou City is actually very limited, but there is nothing that can be done about it. Originally, he did not expect that one day he would come to Guangxi to work as a patrol officer, and it was not too early to set up his intelligence agency. It is mainly located in Gyeonggi, Xuanda and Jizhen, and is also distributed in Shanxi, Henan and Shandong. South Zhili is slowly strengthening, and Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangzhou are gradually developing based on the three major ports of Ningbo, Quanzhou and Guangzhou. , but overall it is still in its infancy, and it is too late to expand in this province. Where can we take Guangxi into account?
Since he was on patrol south this time, which was generally only for one year, he didn't take Gao Mo with him. He only had Gao Zhang and Cao Ke with him. Gao Zhang only knew how to lead troops, but he didn't know much about intelligence. of. Cao Ke was the person he trained, but he was still young and temporarily helped him handle Guangxi intelligence affairs. This was also because Guangxi had no foundation and made little progress.
"Master, now we still have no one available in Guangxi, and the main reason why no one is available is that we don't have a point of support." Cao Ke analyzed, "The reason why we know everything in Gyeonggi is not only because of Cheng Guogong and others. Support, but also because Jinghua has a huge industry in Gyeonggi, and there are countless people serving the master directly or indirectly, so not only is it easy to select the right people to provide information, but when you find people to inquire about information, they have to give face."
"But in Guangxi, we don't have this advantage because Jinghua doesn't have any industry in Guangxi. So far, Jinghua doesn't have any direct partners in Guangxi. Even if it sells some cement, it's only through a small amount of transshipment from Huguang. , is a resale transaction made by Huguang businessmen and has nothing to do with Jinghua itself."
Gao Pragmatic nodded, but immediately said, "What you said is correct, but the question is, is it necessary for Jinghua to invest in Guangxi? We don't have any strong support in the entire south. At present, we can only rely on the three ports in the south to slow down the investment." It is developing slowly, and the Guangzhou Port, which is closest to Guangxi, has only been acquired for about a year. It is still in the stabilization stage. How much support can it be expected to give to Guangxi?"
"Perhaps we can consider letting Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd. open up the southwest trade route." Cao Ke is worthy of being Cao Gan's son. Since Guangzhou Port could not provide support, he immediately thought of Jinghua Trading Co., Ltd., which his father was in charge of.
"The Southwest Trade Road can be opened up, there is no doubt about it." Gao Pragmatic nodded, but then said, "The problem is time. I can only stay in Guangxi for about one year. Is one year enough to open up the Southwest Trade Road? I think it's very difficult It’s difficult. It can even be said that even if your father can do it within a year, I will return to Beijing to resume my duties after a year. This trade route will at most add another source of income to Jinghua, which is not good for us. Things are not helpful right now.”
Cao Ke scratched his head and said hesitantly, "Then directly invest in mining or building a factory?"
"What kind of mines and factories should we open and what market should we rely on to make profits?" Gao Pragmatic rolled his eyes. "The capital is densely populated, has many wealthy people, and the people are relatively affluent, so I could start a business with soap and briquettes. And because the capital is near It is an important town in Jiubian, so I can open a coal mine and iron factory nearby in Kaiping, and build a gun and artillery factory to seize the military industry market. But what about Guangxi?"
Gao pragmatic sighed, "Even if I dig mines, smelt iron, and even make firearms, the uniforms of Jiubian and Jingying have not been completed yet. It is impossible for the imperial court to be interested in changing the uniforms of Guangxi officers and soldiers. I can't sell it to those chieftains. Guangxi's wolf soldiers are already fearless of death. I will equip them with firearms. If Guangxi rebels in the future, will I raise my head to see the emperor?"
This truth is very obvious. Cao Ke can understand it when Gao pragmatically talks about it. Those chieftains are not Jinghua's servants. Once the force is strong, who knows what will happen. This responsibility cannot be shouldered.
However, Cao Ke didn't know that Gao Pragmatic was actually not very worried about giving firearms to the chieftains. The chieftains would really be invincible, because firearms are not as good as cold weapons, and they cannot be used all the time once they are in hand.
Jinghua's firearms must be matched with ammunition produced by Jinghua, such as the Longqing II musket. Its caliber is Jinghua's unique design. In order to match this caliber, the projectiles are also specially supplied by Jinghua. At the same time, in order to ensure that the design power is achieved, Jinghua must also use Supporting production of gunpowder and custom-made paper cases.
In a word, if you buy the Jinghua Longqing II musket, you will have to buy the gunpowder, projectiles, custom paper cases and other supporting combat parts from Jinghua in the future. This is like the car 4S shop in later generations that sometimes does not make money by selling cars at all, but Just like making money from maintenance and repairs, you will make a profit as long as you don't lose money by selling a car.
So in other words, even if the chieftains really bought Jinghua's firearms, would they be able to use these firearms to rebel? In fact, Jinghua would know by looking at the delivery list that you didn't even buy enough ammunition, so you could just use those fire sticks. If you rebel, you might as well just use the swords and spears you used before.
In fact, Gao Pragmatic's main focus is that there is no profit in doing this. These chieftains may not be bad in terms of strength, but their strength does not lie in how much gold and silver they have, but in the native people under their rule. These natives were numerous, honest and obedient, but they were not afraid of death when fighting, so the chieftains had their current status and influence.
Without gold and silver, it would not be attractive to Gao Pragmatic. No matter how good the local people are, he has no intention of coming to Guangxi to be a chieftain, so what's the use?
Of course, if there is no gold or silver, it would be fine if there are good goods of equal value, but it seems that these toasts have no particularly advantageous goods to exchange, so doing business with them does not seem to be a good idea.
But in this way, Gao Pragmatic's most effective control method cannot be used. The interest alliance that he relies on to control the situation in the capital cannot be used in Guangxi. This really gives Boss Gao a headache.
For these chieftains, if they are not suppressed, they may not be honest and obedient, but if they are suppressed too hard, it is easy to cause trouble, and the most important thing is that once an accident occurs, Guangxi's own military strength may not be able to handle it. This is really a dilemma.
The "internal strength" is not enough to rely on, and the benefits cannot be obtained. After much pragmatic thinking, it seems that there is only one way left, and that is to use the internal conflicts among the chieftains to cause trouble, not to make a fuss.
In fact, he has not been idle these days. He has been understanding the information of the Guangxi chieftains through various channels. Directly expanding the intelligence business is only one aspect. Others, such as querying various historical documents and current official documents, can also allow him to learn about the Guangxi chieftains. Let’s have some understanding of the historical origins and current situation between them.
Through this information, he discovered an interesting phenomenon. Although the Cen and Huang families are strong, they are not invulnerable. They also have interest factions within them, and they are not all monolithic. The Cen and Huang families also face other weaker ones. The joint confrontation between the chieftains
This may also be an opportunity.
