Perhaps because they saw the tragic situation in Shanghai and the Japanese army was marching towards Shanhaiguan, a large number of Jin merchants discussed with their elders as soon as they returned home, and greatly increased the area of land purchased overseas.

And the Qiao family, who was quiet before, also invested a lot of money to acquire a large piece of arable land in Canada after other Jin merchants returned home.

In this era, silver is still a precious metal, but because it is the gold standard, gold is the mainstream.

Although Guo Jiaqi asked for settlement in silver, because China's silver standard system has been used for nearly 2,000 years, no one doubts that Guo Jiaqi has anything to do with silver settlement.

Many small merchants and small landlords have joined forces to buy silver and land, which has led to an increase in the price of silver, and Guo Jiaqi has long been prepared to sell the silver purchased from abroad using fake pounds to suppress the price of silver.

By the time China and Japan signed the Songhu Armistice Agreement, Guo Jiaqi had already exchanged almost all the silver in the hands of the Jin merchants, and there was still a lot of land left in his hands by taking advantage of the financial crisis in various countries......

It would have been a matter of joy that we had fulfilled the task of diverting the attention of various countries and successfully forced the governments of the three peoples to sign an agreement.

However, the Japanese consul general in Shanghai, Shigemitsu Aoi, was not happy: because he did not know which Chinese had played tricks under his nose and loaded thousands of tons of silver on ships.

And Jiang Ruiyuan, who could have breathed a sigh of relief, had a headache because he received information from his loyal dog, He Jinhan, the soul of the Fuxing Society: there is a large amount of arms production equipment in the port of Modu, which is preparing to be loaded onto the train and ready to be sent to Taiyuan.

As for the exchange of silver, He Jinhan's intelligence officers couldn't get into the small group of Jin merchants at all: the Jin merchants in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties were all engaged in arms and military food business, and the news was inflexible, so it had long been buried in the ground.

After nearly 300 years of fighting with the government and peers, the way for Jin merchants to obtain intelligence is no longer to inquire about what happened, but to establish a special intelligence agency to collect intelligence professionally.

Compared with the Three People's Party and Japan, the Chinese Communist Party was highly motivated, and although the just-concluded Battle of Ganzhou failed, "the future of the organization is still bright", because the general secretary summed up the factors of the victory of the revolution in the North Soviet Union: attacking the big cities, gaining and exerting the power of the proletariat.

Mao Yongzhi, a well-informed person in the CPC, is not as optimistic as Chen Shaoyu, general secretary of the CPC: Not to mention that the Three People's Party detained the black pot that blocked the reinforcements from the magic capital to the head of the Red Chinese Army, it is enough to worry people that Jiang Ruiyuan took office as the "commander-in-chief of the suppression of bandits" in Hubei, Henan and Anhui less than 20 days after the signing of the armistice agreement.

And Liuyun, who is in the northwest, doesn't have so many worries: after the New Year, Ma Xuanzhong was assigned the task of purchasing medicinal materials, and he led the craftsmen collected by Ma Xuanzhong, and a cavalry company went on the road.

The iron mine is there, and the coal mine Liuyun also knows where it is, but it is the first time to build an industrial base from scratch.

Later, Jiuquan Iron and Steel was built by New China because of the railway, which was convenient for coal and iron transportation, and then established a large-scale production steel group.

Knowing where the mine is, there are other problems: after the iron ore site is selected, mining and beneficiation must be considered; Coal mines are simple, and organized mining has become, but coking alone is a big problem; Animal power can be used for transportation, but the construction of blast furnaces, open-hearth furnaces, and converters in steel plants is still a big problem.

After more than a month of going back and forth between Jiuquan, Jingtieshan, and Jinta, Liuyun sorted out a plan for the cavalry to bring back to Xining, while Liuyun himself led the rest of the people to Jinta County, which was more than 40 kilometers away from Jiuquan City.

Although the coal reserves in Jinta County are not very large, the proximity to Jiuquan allows for a lot of unnecessary savings before the initial stage of the steel industry.

Ma Xuanzhong is still quite obedient, on the line from Wuwei to Jiayuguan in the Hexi Corridor, the top leaders or city defenses of large and small cities and counties are all their own people or acquaintances.

Thanks to his son's blessing, when Liuyun rushed to Jinta County again, the county magistrate and the head of the militia still greeted him with a smile.

Liuyun was not polite, and at the reception banquet, a satellite was placed: to open a mine, all those present had dry shares, and invested manpower and material resources according to the shares.

The rich people present were stunned: The emperor takes turns to do it, and this year he will come to my house, ah, no, it is finally our turn to do good things......

After eating, Liuyun led the county magistrate to see the selected mine site, left a few technicians who had been trained for several weeks, and began to return to Jiuquan, and then went west out of Jiayuguan and went straight to Hami.

After directing the New Year's drama and meeting his in-laws, Liuyun returned to Jiuquan and walked around while waiting.

In early May, Liu Xuanzhi arrived in Jiuquan with more than a dozen trucks pulling equipment, and the active landlords of Jinta County had already dug up tens of thousands of tons of coal.

When cholera began to circulate in Shaanxi and Gansu, the Jiuquan Iron and Steel Plant, which was assembled by Liuyun and claimed to have an annual output of tens of thousands of tons of steel, began trial operation.

The blast furnace with an area of less than 10 meters, the open hearth furnace covering an area of only 10 square meters, and the black smoke billowing and dirty coking workshop constitute the main force of the steel plant.

Liu Xuanying looked at the smoky steel plant with disdain: "This kind of scale, even Pittsburgh's little finger can't catch up." ”

However, seeing that the old man's face was not good, Liu Xuanying hurriedly changed the topic: "Think about building a steel plant by ourselves, just think about it, by the way, Dad, when will we go to electroslag recasting and self-tightening equipment?" ”

What do you think? There are no bicycles yet, Liuyun sighed: "The key now is to expand production capacity and build railways. ”

Liu Xuanliang, who was standing on the other side, smiled: "Then you have to go to the cement production line!" And you have to dig another manganese ore. I don't think you're going to get on the light rail, you should go straight to the heavy rail. ”

Liuyun nodded: "The manganese ore in the Golden Tower should be enough. ”

Ma Xuanzhong listened to his father talking to his younger siblings with a confused face: he knew every word they said, and once they combined it, he would be blind.

Then, Ma Xuanzhong felt a deep sense of frustration. However, because he was hit by an unscrupulous partner since he was a child, Ma Xuanzhong has become accustomed to it.

In the small rolling workshop, the rolling equipment driven by the steam engine rolls the red-hot round steel rods into red rails. After the rails cooled, Liu Xuanying instructed the workers to lift the rails onto the car and transport them to the physical and chemical laboratory.

After a while, Liu Xuanying took a test sheet and handed it to Liuyun.

Liuyun glanced at it and nodded: "It's okay, let's gradually increase the output, at least we have to repair the railroad to the iron mine and coal mine first, otherwise those cars can't withstand the toss." ”

"Yes," Liu Xuanying nodded, "Remove the steam engine on the car, at least the rolling workshop can be expanded." ”