readx; Under the name of the China Railway Company, the Ministry of Communications soon established two companies, the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway Branch and the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway Branch, and then began to contact the representatives of the consortiums, that is, diplomats from various countries. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Although this contact is only a matter of railway construction, it involves all aspects, and the Ministry of Communications does not have the ability or the right to make direct contact with the consuls of various countries and sign contracts. First, the people of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs have a preliminary conversation with each country, and then the two sides have listed almost the conditions, and there is a possibility that the negotiation will be reached, then the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will ask Chen Jingyun to make a final decision.

This matter lasted almost the whole of September, and in the loan negotiations with various countries, Russia and France were abandoned at the beginning because the asking price was too high, and the consortium of these two companies tried to unite and then jointly bid for the construction rights of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway and the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, and they had already made a good internal distribution, that is, France got the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway, Russia got the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway, and the asking price was extremely high, except for requiring the capital of the two countries to occupy an absolute 90% of the shares of the railway company. In addition, the Chinese side was also required to appoint foreigners from both countries to the middle and senior positions in the two branches, while Chinese employees could only hold middle and lower-level positions, and the Chinese side was denied a condition that the Chinese side strongly demanded that at least half of the rails needed for the railways be made of at least half of the Chinese rails, citing the low technical ability of the Chinese steelworks and the inability of the rails to meet the technical requirements.

And it is not satisfied with China's proposal of 30-year operation rights, but proposes to operate for up to 50 years.

Naturally, China will not use real money to expropriate these land, but can only use state bonds to repay or pay with Huaxia Bank's banknotes, plus the money raised by the railway construction bonds, which is enough for the republican axe to occupy about 30 percent of the shares in the railway company. In terms of the right to appoint branches, China insists that the candidates for the branch must be Chinese, even if the Chinese is actually an employee of various foreign bank consortiums, but his nationality must be Chinese, and in addition, the board of directors of the branch requires 30% of the candidates according to the share of shares, and a considerable number of middle and high-level positions also need to be held by Chinese.

As for the time of the operation right, 50 years is definitely not enough, even 30 years is unbearable, and foreign countries must make sacrifices in other aspects if they want to get the operation right for 30 years, such as the use of Chinese-made rails for railway projects.

In this way, it returns to the most insistent conditions put forward by the Chinese side, that Chinese steel ladder companies must obtain at least half of the rail consumption of these two railways, and that Chinese steel companies also have priority in bidding for the remaining rails, and must give priority to the purchase of rails from Chinese steel companies under the premise of the same price and quality.

Railway and steel, these two industries are almost symbiotic with each other, especially in the modern steel industry, the reason why the rapid development of the steel industry is not only after the development of steelmaking technology, but more importantly, in modern times, countries around the world are building railways on a large scale, such as the developed railway network in the United States, which almost supports the development of the modern American steel industry.

In the non-war era, infrastructure construction will always be the largest market for the steel industry, and in this era, China's so-called infrastructure is the railway, as for the most important real estate market in later generations, it has not yet formed a scale, reinforced concrete buildings are not too common, and the price is not affordable for ordinary people.

In China's future heavy industry system outlined by Chen Jingyun, steel is undoubtedly the most important part, and the steel enterprises with Southeast Iron and Steel Company as the core will support the foundation of China's heavy industry.

At this stage, the Southeast Iron and Steel Company's plant in Fuzhou has been put into operation on a small scale, although it is still far from the design scale, and can only produce 130,000 tons of pig iron and 80,000 tons of steel, not even one-third of the design output. This is because after the Nationalist Army occupied southern Jiangsu, Chen Jingyun did not plan to continue to develop a large-scale steel industry in Fuzhou, and suspended the construction of the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant in Fuzhou, but put the later project in Shanghai. But this is enough to meet the ordinary steel needs of many arsenals under the national army system, after all, there are probably only a few military enterprises under the national army system, one is Fuzhou Arsenal, one is Fuzhou Aircraft Factory, one is Mawei Shipyard, and one is Jiangnan Shipyard! Among them, the steel demand of Fuzhou Aircraft Factory is very small, Mawei Shipyard and Jiangnan Shipyard are a lot of steel demand, this year has built many civilian ships, and has also consumed a considerable part of the ordinary steel output of Southeast Iron and Steel Company, but it is impossible to meet the steel for warships. As for the Fuzhou Arsenal, it is the largest user of Southeast Iron and Steel, and the Fuzhou Arsenal has many subordinate factories, although many industries have been split, such as two shipyards have been divested, and the aircraft factory has also been read, and their chemical department, the gunpowder factory, has joined forces with the chemical departments of several other arsenals to form a new chemical enterprise. The Fuzhou Arsenal was almost merging many industries at the same time as splitting up, and finally the subordinate departments of the Fuzhou Arsenal formed and constructed a basic but complete heavy industry system of this era.

Although many departments of the Fuzhou Arsenal have been split, only the core weapons manufacturing and ammunition production, such as artillery, guns, and ammunition, are retained. However, the current Fuzhou Arsenal is still an extremely large military enterprise, with artillery factories, gun factories, gun and ammunition factories, and artillery shell factories in Fuzhou. In addition, it also has four subordinate arsenals, Guangzhou Arsenal, Shanghai Arsenal, Nanjing Arsenal and Nanchang Arsenal. The three arsenals in Guangzhou, Nanjing, and Nanchang in these sub-factories only have a small production capacity, and can only mass-produce ammunition and the ability to repair rifles and artillery, but lack the ability to manufacture rifles and artillery, but the Shanghai Arsenal is an exception, due to the heavy investment of the navy and the hope to build the Shanghai Arsenal into an exclusive arsenal for the navy, so that the Shanghai Arsenal has vigorously developed, and now the production lines used by the army such as rifles, machine guns, and bullets have been gradually transferred to the Nanjing Arsenal. It focuses on the research and development and production of naval weapons and ammunition, such as naval guns and large-caliber ammunition for naval guns, torpedoes and other weapons.

In fact, from beginning to end, Fuzhou Arsenal can not be regarded as a standard enterprise, although Chen Jingyun used various means to commercialize the Fuzhou Arsenal, but this commercialization is only controlled by Huaxia Bank, and whether it is the shares in the hands of Huaxia Bank or the state-owned shares of the Republican Political Axe, Chen Jingyun has the final say, so this Fuzhou Arsenal is basically a commercial state-owned enterprise, otherwise it will not be continuously integrated and split because of Chen Jingyun's order. Use many subordinate departments to create the entire heavy industry system.

Although only the core department of the Fuzhou Arsenal remains, its steel demand is still the largest, consuming almost half of the output of Southeast Steel.

But no matter how big the Fuzhou Arsenal is, it is only a military industrial enterprise, and the steel needed is not endless. So far, although the Fuzhou Arsenal and the two shipyards have digested all the production capacity of the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant, in fact, their demand is still increasing day by day, but the future growth demand is in special steel, not ordinary steel. And special steel is still a weakness for the current Southeast Iron and Steel, the latest production of Southeast Iron and Steel barrel with steel surname can not reach the technical indicators, used to make low pressure howitzer is good, but try to manufacture a long-barreled cannon found that it can not meet the demand, for this Southeast Iron and Steel Company experts are puzzled, and to the United States company for help, and Southeast Iron and Steel Company to cooperate with the United States company said, don't teach you, even if you directly help you open a machine production, Just give money, and the lion asks for a million-dollar price. According to the Americans, the equipment has arrived, and they have taught you to install and debug, and the technical documents of various patents are piled up in the entire warehouse waiting for you to look through them, our responsibility has been completed, and the rest is your own Chinese business.

Not only did there be problems with the steel used to make artillery, but the armor steel for shipbuilding was also slow to be imitated, and the test products came out in batches, and then failed again and again. Faced with this situation, Chen Jingyun was naturally dissatisfied, he called Shi Xing to criticize him severely, and hinted that if he did not have the ability to imitate the special steel, then he would replace it with someone else.

Under no choice, the Southeast Iron and Steel Company, headed by General Manager Shi Xing, organized a large number of steel experts to tackle key problems, several of which were children who studied in the United States like Shi Xing, and the others were steel experts from all over the country with high salaries, such as several engineers from Hanyang Iron Works, including many foreigners, and even an Austro-Hungarian engineer who was dug up by Shi Xing from Hachiman Iron for a high salary.

To tell you the truth, I really don't blame the Americans, they shipped the equipment to you, and they helped install and debug it, and other various patented technical materials were piled up in a warehouse. The Southeast Iron and Steel Plant still can't be imitated, it's not someone else's problem, but your own problem.

In the final analysis, what is lacking is only experience, engineering technology is not the patented technology to buy on the line, not to mention that everything is fine with equipment, many times, even if the screws on the equipment are twisted one more circle, then the result is completely different, and this kind of experience in the details will not be said, you need to rely on your own slowly to explore, little by little to accumulate.

The production of special steel is sluggish, but the output of ordinary steel of Southeast Iron and Steel is rising rapidly, and the output of Fuzhou Steelmaking Plant under Southeast Iron and Steel Plant has not yet reached its peak, and it should be able to reach 150,000 tons of pig iron and 100,000 tons of steel output if it is designed to the design level. This output is already able to roughly meet the ordinary steel needs of the existing military enterprises under the national army system, but the Shanghai steelmaking plant of the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant is already undergoing preliminary construction projects, in addition to moving the equipment originally scheduled to Fuzhou, the Southeast Iron and Steel Plant also intends to increase the scale of the Shanghai Iron and Steel Plant, and finally design and build a large-scale steel plant with 500,000 tons of pig iron and 200,000 tons of steel output, and this construction time is extremely fast, and it will be able to be put into operation on a small scale after a year. Large-scale production will be possible in two years, and the design output will be reached within three years.

Obviously, unless Chen Jingyun makes a lot of munitions, the military industry alone will not be able to digest the output of these steels. The civilian market is also very small, and it is unlikely to digest too much, so Chen Jingyun has to find a market for these steels to digest, and the best and largest market is naturally the railway.

And this is also the reason why Chen Jingyun requires that as many domestic rails as possible must be used in the construction of the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway and the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway. At that time, if the output of the Southeast Iron and Steel Company is sufficient, he even wants to make all domestic railway construction use domestic rails.

However, France and Russia did not agree to the request to include domestic rails and Chinese to take up the post of general manager of the railway branch, and in addition, France and Russia did not have much influence on Chen Jingyun's republican political axe in recent years, and they were far less jealous than Ben and Britain made Chen Jingyun, so they were directly excluded after everyone could not get along.

In fact, among the conditions put forward by the other countries, the conditions proposed by France and Russia were quite modest, at least they did not propose the right to garrison troops and the exclusive right to exploit minerals along the route.

You must know that the company in Shanghai said to Chen Jingyun coaxingly: railway loans? No problem, the right to operate is only thirty years? No problem, the senior staff is Chinese, no problem, half of the rails must be domestic, no problem. He said, "There are only two requirements for this empire: the right to garrison troops along the railway line and the exclusive right to mine minerals along the railway!"

The angry Chen Jingyun and Sir Fareth almost vomited blood on the spot, and before Chen Jingyun could open his mouth to refute, the British Consul General in Shanghai, Sir Fareis, said: "If we insist on stationing troops in the traditional British trading areas in China, the Empire will re-examine the necessary surname of the British Alliance!"

He said, "It's a bull', but Britain is even more bullish", so as soon as Sir Fareth spoke, he said, 'The face of the skill has changed and changed, and the red face is as cute as the ass of an African monkey, and he held back a sentence after a long time: "The empire has no intention of offending the interests of the British Empire, and the stationing of troops along the line is just for me to ensure that my country's commercial interests are not violated, but if the man's political axe can ensure the interests of our businessmen, the matter of stationing troops along the line can not be mentioned!" ”

The Yangtze River basin, and even the entire Yangtze River region, except for Yunnan and Guangxi, are all so-called traditional British trade areas, and Britain will not allow this area to be touched by other countries, let alone allow China's Jiangnan region to become an exclusive economic colony like the Northeast.

Before the Russo-Russian War, Britain supported the war against Russia in the Far East because of the contradictions between the interests of Britain and Russia, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East, and out of the attempt to block Russia so that it could not obtain ice-free ports and access to the sea. And with the support of the British boss, and also the loan from the United States, he said, "Although Ben owes a lot of debt, he has defeated Russia."

After the victory of the Russo-Russian War, it occupied the northeast and Liaodong regions, and the original Korea had greatly expanded its colonies, and Britain had always regarded itself as the world leader, and the balancing policy had been played for hundreds of years, so as soon as the war ended, it exerted pressure on the war, forcing it to return the Liaodong region to China, and at the same time supporting Russia not to pay war reparations, which put the pressure of heavy foreign debt. It has to be said that Britain's policy was extremely successful at the beginning, which weakened Russia and allowed Ben to achieve only a superficial victory, and almost collapsed Ben's finances, and if there was no war, Ben might have been crushed by these foreign debts and could not turn over, and finally obediently became a stepping stone for Britain's global interests.

In this case, it is said that "the original is outside to improve one's own situation." It also intensified the exclusive colonization of the Northeast Korean region, and almost excluded the capital of the United States, Britain, and all Western countries, and this situation made the relations between the United States and Britain and other countries deteriorate rapidly, and it can be said that before World War I, the international relations between the United States and Britain were extremely poor, and the United States regarded him as the biggest threat to the Pacific, and Britain regarded him as a potential force for instability in the Far East and tried its best to suppress it. This is also the reason why Ben has no money, but he has formulated one more and more massive naval development plan, striving to build a navy that can compete with the United States' maritime power in the Pacific. If there had been no World War, it would have been said that the economy would have collapsed in a few years, and if there had been no World War, the title of the world's third navy would not have been on their heads.

Therefore, the current situation is very bad, and in the face of China's civil war, there is no military intervention, and can only adopt the support plan of agents, and want to slowly penetrate into East China and South China.

But they still underestimated the sensitivity of the British, so they said, 'As soon as Ben proposed the right to garrison troops along the railway, the British jumped up like a cat with its tail trampled, and then did not hesitate to force Ben to dispel this ridiculous idea.'

Britain's emphasis on the Yangtze River basin is that everyone knows that the Chinese civil war has affected their interests, but this is China's civil war, plus they still support Yuan Shikai's unification, so they were forced to pinch their noses and admit that they were fighting in the Yangtze River basin, but in this case, whether it is the southern republican political axe or the Beiyang political axe, did not intercept foreign steamship activities and the Yangtze River basin, for example, some ridiculous is that although the national army and the Beiyang army are in a state of war, However, the railway traffic and sea traffic from Shanghai to Yanjing have not stopped, every day Jiangbei and Nanjing have ferries carrying passengers to the south or north, and the traffic on the north and south roads has been cut off only in the days when the war in southern Jiangsu affected Nanjing last year, and at other times the national army and the Beiyang army carried out military confrontations, but the traffic did not stop.

Although Britain has colonies all over the world, and Britain with global resources does not need to pay too much attention to some of China's mineral resources, Britain has paid attention to free trade these years, and although Britain itself does not need these resources, it cannot prevent British businessmen from investing in minerals in China to make a fortune.

So there was a very funny scene, France and Russia were rejected by Chen Jingyun, and said, "I was kicked back to my hometown by the British, and before Chen Jingyun could react, I was told by Sir Fareis, 'I no longer plan to participate in the bidding for the Guangdong-Hanzhou Railway and the Zhejiang-Jiangxi Railway.'"

Indeed, if there is no right to garrison troops along the railway, then these railway investments will not be attractive to the people, and if there is no exclusive right to mine minerals along the railway, then why should he spend a lot of money to invest in China's railways, you must know that he himself does not have so much money, and if he wants to invest hundreds of millions of yuan, he must first go to France and other countries for financing and then invest in China's railways. Now these two have been blocked by Britain, and the saying "Ben does not dare to turn his face with Britain, and the saying of the past few years is that Ben has been more difficult than the man who has been hit by nuclear bombs in later generations, and the heavy foreign debt has forced Ben to dismantle several divisions and regiments of the army in succession, and the expansion plan of the navy cannot be stopped, and the current financial balance cannot even be repaid with the annual interest on foreign debts."

Therefore, after losing the two conditions that he paid the most attention to, he quickly lost the construction of these two railways, but he was not idle, and if the south did not succeed, he would go to the north, so he was ready to find Yuan Shikai to go, and he was ready to build another railway in the northeast, or the construction of those railways in the north, and asked for the right to garrison troops or the exclusive right to mine minerals along the railway.

After this time, before the preliminary negotiations began, France, Russia, and the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and other countries were already out. The requirements of these countries are much more normal, referring to the model of the Longhai Railway, mainly using commercial cooperation plans.

In addition, Chen Jingyun also expressed limited agreement that half of the rails must be made of domestic rails, and also said that Chinese can be the general manager of the branch, but there are differences in some investment amounts, operating years and other details.

However, it is absurd to say that none of these conditions are beyond the scope of sovereignty, and there are no garrisons and exclusive rights to mine minerals.

Of course, this does not mean that Germany should rely on Germany or support Germany, but because according to Chen Jingyun's understanding, Germany lost the First World War, and then he would have to declare war on Germany, and then he could justifiably confiscate all German investment, and he could also have good relations with Britain.

No matter what the year, it is very necessary and beneficial to have a good relationship with the world boss, although it is now hugging the thigh of the United States, but the current United States still lacks the foundation, except for money, there is nothing left, and Britain as the world boss is still very confident, in the future, China will take back the sovereignty of concessions and tariff sovereignty and abolish other unequal treaties, without the nod of Britain is not possible.

Therefore, Chen Jingyun instructed the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to contact Germany more, and take as much as they can to see if they can pit them!