This argument was refuted by some moral elites at the first time, especially in the relief clergy group in China. They kept returning first-hand information to prove that the disaster relief owners did not expand politically and territorially, and they thought that even if the region was unified, it would be a good thing that China was in charge of government management. Fortunately, this region would not pose a threat to the West. If the peace-loving country was willing to maintain peace with the West, then efficient management would bring convenience to trade, which would be the greatest luck of the West.
However, there is a relatively neutral voice that is supported by most people. This voice says that it will become a fact that they will expand their influence in Manchu territory no matter what purpose they build these two railways. If western countries want to maintain their influence in northern China, especially in the northern land, they can either build the same railway line with Daheli to lead to China land.
This kind of pertinent attitude is often that the government is idle in Beijing, and the teams of foreign ministers have expressed their willingness to build railways to the Qing court one after another, although they all told them how much benefits they would give by inducements. However, instead of being accepted by the Qing court, there was a great panic that many countries wanted railways to carve up the Qing Dynasty.
The die-hards strongly refute that not only do they say that the great powers cannot be allowed to build railways, but even those railways that have already been built should be demolished.
At this time, Li Hongzhang came out to benefit this kind of public opinion panic. He told the court that the big railway would be demolished unless there was a war, and he was bullied and lured by foreigners. Since it was possible to build a railway in Qing Dynasty, foreigners would sooner or later have to share their interests and demand reasons.
It is forced by foreigners to let them build roads, so it is not as good as my own road construction in Qing Dynasty to keep the road from being controlled by others.
In the panic of the die-hards, Li Hongzhang’s suggestion was passed for the first time, and Empress Dowager Cixi put Li Hongzhang in charge of this matter.
The Russians hope to build a Beijing-Han railway connecting Hankou from Tianjin to the south via Beixun, the French hope to get it from Yunnan to chengdu-kunming railway, Sichuan, and the British hope to build it from the sea to beijing-shanghai railway, Beijing, and let Li Hongzhang prepare for the construction.
Unexpectedly, an anti-railway wave helped Li Hongzhang get permission to overhaul the railway.
At this time, Li Hongzhang’s position also faintly surpassed Zeng Guofan’s new generation of foreign leaders.
Yu Zeng Guofan, like Yi Xin, became an Westernized faction. The flag in the imperial court and the local government became more and more symbolic. The actual driving force of the Westernized Movement has been transferred to Li Hongzhang.
Power is money, power is status, and even foreigners regard Li Hongzhang as a guest.
Ma changed from asking the Qing government to repair the railway to curry favor with Li Hongzhang. He visited the house one after another and expressed his willingness to help Li Zhongtang repair the railway. After that, he became an international friend.
And promised that Li Hongzhang would accept their loan, and they promised to help the horse in place before, which would greatly support Li’s disaster relief operation.
After Li Hongzhang decided to choose to cooperate with Americans, because some Americans did not force them, and some Americans fulfilled their promises early after completing the conditions. Therefore, Li Hongzhang felt that Americans were especially kind in the great powers.
He didn’t know that it was in this famine that Americans actually benefited the most. Compared with millions of dollars in aid, the benefits they got were only nine Niu Yi hairs. It was the benefits that Americans got, not what they took from Li Hongzhang.
But it is not so easy to bear this heavy burden.
Section six hundred and fourteen Burden and income
For disaster relief, bonds have been issued many times, with 500 million taels of debt issued in China and up to 700 million dollars of foreign debt issued abroad. One dollar is equivalent to 7 taels of silver, so the total debt is close to 1 billion taels of silver.
The money is mainly for food in the disaster area, but it can’t buy so much money.
There are 200 million people affected by the disaster, but not all of them are victims, and not all of them can get relief in the end, and not all of them can get relief.
Therefore, there are far from 200 million victims of large-scale relief. According to statistics, there are only 30 million people currently receiving large-scale relief. Although the famine is becoming more and more loyal, the number of victims moving to large-scale relief continues to increase. According to the current rate, I am afraid that it will grow to 50 million in the next two years.
Due to the high price, the world’s grain prices have increased a lot, and the biggest benefit is that the grain prices of big countries in the United States have also increased substantially, and the government has tried its best to control them, which is much higher than the reservation price. The average rice is as high as four liang.
The export price of the United States, the main exporter of grain, is much higher than that of the United States. Because the United States is a high-income country, the labor price is high, and the export of grain is mainly due to the fact that industrial countries like Europe can bear the price increase. Therefore, the price of grain in the United States has doubled to as high as five taels of silver a load.
It has raised 30 million people, and it is possible to raise up to 50 million people.
If a person carries a load of food on average, the direct expenditure will be more than 200 million taels.
And a billion taels of silver has been prepared. Obviously, there is no shortage of food, but the big government is still worried about it, because more expenditure is not to buy food, but to transport it.
In the past, there was no large-scale grain trade between China and the United States. The main trade was raw silk, cotton and other economic businesses. These business units were expensive, so they could undertake long-distance transportation. According to the data before the disaster, the water foot of raw silk exported from the sea to the United States was $174, the water insurance was $5, the commercial interest was $717, and the consulate receipt was $25, totaling $293.
Due to the two countries’ raw silk tax office, although the US government announced that it had actually dropped the formalities of entering and leaving the sea for some consulates, it was even worse.
This was the price before the famine. Due to the famine, the international freight price between China and the United States rose sharply. Although the freight rate of grain was much lower than that of raw silk, it used to be 2 dollars, and it even reached 3 dollars after the price increase, which was higher than the price of raw silk in the past.
Three dollars is equivalent to 21 taels of silver plus the purchase price. A load of grain is transported from the United States to the disaster area, which is as high as 26 taels even if the big railway company is not counted. If you give 50 million taels of grain to the disaster area, you will need 1.3 billion taels less.
Such a huge burden cannot be borne by the crude financial institutions of the Qing Dynasty, so they are not incapable of disaster relief because they don’t want to.
After more than ten years of accumulation, the big government has spared no effort to encourage and support this huge burden.
However, it is not only the financial expenditure that needs to be paid, but also the hidden price of silver is much greater than this.
Because the price of rice rose to 421 tons before the food price soared, but millions of people were eating, which was much larger than the number of relief victims, so the price paid by the people was much higher than the financial burden of the big government.
Is there no gain if there is a burden?
Of course there is!
And it’s big