Tang Tingshu first met Gou Fugui, the assistant minister in charge of clearing up the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, as the prime minister of the railway company, and then presented his shares to the other party as a sign that he is now the major shareholder of the railway company and should have a speech in the railway company.
He asked for the establishment of a board of directors to discuss the issue of railway stock issuance, and he believed that the railway company was sold at a low price, which greatly harmed the interests of shareholders
Gou Fugui was very curious that the railway company had just sold the first batch of shares. I heard that the sale went well and the financing was sold out in one day. Before 12 million, it was all official property. Where did the board of directors come from and there were no shareholders? But this person is obviously a knowledgeable person who knows these things about the board of directors.
Gou Fugui is also knowledgeable. He studied accounting in England and was in charge of managing the official property before he came back from the technical bureaucracy. Let alone the railway company and the arsenal, he is in charge of it. It’s just that Hao Kejiu can’t get in his hand.
There were no shareholders before, but now there are. Obviously, the stocks sold today have all been bought by this Premier Tang. Gou Fugui can’t help but sit up and take out 12 million silver people at a time, and you can’t underestimate where they put them.
So I seriously talked to Tang Tingshu about the railway company.
The emperor insisted on selling the railway company. First, it was convenient to raise funds in the future. Second, he hoped that the public could hold shares in the company. The emperor said that this kind of public utility should be owned by the public.
In fact, the government paid little attention to it. Most people thought that the railway should not be sold privately, so after the articles of association were published, they hastily went to the market. There were many people waiting for him to have a hard time. Some people wanted to see his jokes. The second arsenal dared to recall himself, man. Hao Kejiu didn’t dare to do things so well without the support of big shots.
To put it bluntly, it is this Premier Tang who has blocked too many people’s roads.
However, Premier Tang’s views are really unique, which makes Gou Fugui feel like a bosom friend. Where does he know that this is the comprador’s business? It is exquisite and pleasing everywhere.
So Gou Fugui decided to report that Premier Tang was also a shareholder of Tang.
However, Premier Tang has not been idle through so many things. He has probably figured out what the situation is. Anyone who wants to trip him up can guess whether there are too many talented people. I’m afraid there are not so many things when this matter is put in the Qing Dynasty, because the adults in the Qing Dynasty don’t know much about it. It is because too many people know this that they secretly dug a hole.
Can the railway company sell the price? These adults don’t mind that money can’t get into their pockets. But if the railway company can’t raise enough funds, these adults can have reason to think that Tang Tingshu is not effective. At the same time, they can prove that the railway company should not be privately owned, and then the railway company can be nationalized by a levy.
After Tang Tingshu figured out these problems, he knew that he might not get anything out of his showdown, and there would still be no one to support him. Even if he could really call the board of directors and the government to send a symbolic person in accordance with the law, he probably wouldn’t put in a good word for him. Tang Tingshu still has 90% of the official shares. This is still an official speaking company.
Tang Tingshu needs more money.
So he mortgaged the shares of the railway company he had just bought. He found three banks, Standard Chartered, Yili and Liru. These three British banks knew more about railways. After they confirmed that these were shares of big railway companies and the total amount was as high as 10%, Malaysia decided to give Tang Tingshu a large amount of credit.
I got 12 million from these three companies and borrowed 12 million from my old club Jardine Matheson. Of course, these are all at interest and not low.
A few days later, Tang Tingshu, the second batch of stock market of the railway company, ate a lot and sold it at a high price. To put it bluntly, he was selling it personally for the purpose of raising the price, and the purpose of raising the price was to attract attention. As expected, abnormal price changes attracted a lot of attention in the exchange, and some spare money merchants followed up with the face value of 100 and got 220.
But this is not Tang Tingshu’s real purpose. He wants to create a stunt for the newspaper and then secretly buy two newspapers to write soft articles and report on the prospects of the railway company. Soon, more newspapers will report that there are people paying attention to these new things.
And in the end, it turned into a big debate, that is, whether the railway should be privately owned or privately owned is more promising. Some people also led to the situation of railways in various countries in the world. Germany is mostly government-run, and Britain and the United States are more private. Some people think that government-run is better because German railways are more punctual and have better benefits. The skyrocketing and plunging of American railways often trap investors in bankruptcy.
If there is an argument, it will become a hot spot, and those adults can’t manipulate it secretly.
The next step is to advertise the railway company’s super-high stock newspaper, but in the end, someone has to invest. Foreigners are very interested, but it is written in the prospectus that foreign investors are not allowed to buy railway stocks only for Chinese people.
So Tang Tingshu still has to find rich people, such as Wu family and Pan family, who are political and business people. They will not participate in this game, knowing that there are political forces behind them, and the rich people are alienated from the government. It is not their comprador.
Tang Tingshu secretly called on dozens of comprador groups in Xiangshan, some of whom were comprador in Hongkong, some in Guangzhou and some in Japan. All those who had friendship lobbied these people, and most of them were optimistic about the railway benefits.
But these comprador businessmen are still not strong enough. These people will not crush everything like Tang Tingshu, so they can raise 20 million to 30 million yuan at most.
Tang Tingshu still needs to find more money. He rummaged through the books of the railway company to find investors from the big customers. Those foreign firms, politicians and businessmen left the big customers to visit Dongguan Yongtai cotton yarn factory one by one. They still have friendship. When they were old, they didn’t deal with each other less and lobbied them to invest in the railway company. They told them that they would definitely find a way to give Yongtai cotton yarn preferential prices in the future.
Several cotton yarn and cotton factories in Dongguan visited each other and promised preferential prices to lobby them for investment.
Silk reeling factories in Shunde and other places are all by water, so there is no way to lobby.
However, there are not only Guang-Jiu Railway Road, Guang-Jiang Railway and Dong-Qing Railway, which are profitable railways. Guang-Jiang Railway is mainly visited by various firms, but its strength is not much, because Jiangxi’s goods are mainly tea, ceramics and copper mines. Tea is mainly made by the Wu family, but its strength is limited, while copper mines are made by arsenals. Obviously, it is impossible to invest.
However, there are a group of powerful people in Dongqing Railway, Shanxi merchants.
The Russians took the tea business from the Shanxi merchants by relying on the Qiatu Zhangjiakou Railway. The Shanxi merchants dominated the tea business, and the Dongqing Railway transported the tea from Dalian to Manzhouli to check and balance the Russian merchants. At present, the commercial war between the two sides is fierce and they are in a state of anxiety.
At present, a large number of Shanxi businessmen, especially tea businessmen, build tea factories in Fuzhou to make brick tea, and then go directly to Dalian by sea to avoid a series of cards from the Qing government and hand over their old base area Hankou to Russian businessmen. It is time for last stand.
The largest two of them are Dadeyu and Dashengkui, both of which were engaged in making tea bricks of old size during the period of Kanggan, which were very popular among Russians and Mongolians. However, since the Russians made tea by machine in Hankou, they lost their monopoly position and had to compete fiercely with the Russians, but the Russian tax rate in Manchu was half lower than theirs, which led them to find more convenient business routes. They had tea houses in Fujian in their early years, and it was logical to buy tea from Fujian to make tea. It was also natural to make tea in Japan and then go to Dalian by sea.
However, if they can’t bypass the Dongqing Railway, it is the key moment for them to compete with the Russians. If they lose this battle, maybe they will launch the Russian market that has been operating for hundreds of years forever. This is a matter of life and death.
Tang Tingshu knows that this kind of Shanxi local rich man, who has been in business for a hundred years, is very strong. No one knows how much silver is buried in their deep compound.
However, it is obvious that the railway can enable Chinese people to subscribe for Shanxi merchants, which is not something that big countries can borrow
The condition is still preferential freight rate. He is the new prime minister of the railway company and the major shareholder of the railway. But these Shanxi businessmen are not nationals, so that they can believe that Tang Tingshu directly signed contracts with them on behalf of the railway company and borrowed money to give them interest.
After these Shanxi merchants got the preferential freight rate contract, they lent Tang Tingshu more than 30 million taels of silver, which is really rich. In fact, Dashengkui and Dadeyu Changjia are both giants with an annual turnover of 20 million yuan and assets of 10 million yuan. What’s more, the same business of tea can be more than a large number of such businessmen in their two Shanshan guild halls.
Then I visited several grain merchants who are engaged in rice grain business in Northeast China. These people have few net assets, but they are also big railway customers with stable trading. If they are willing to borrow and invest, it will be a lot of money.
A circle came to Tang Tingshu and said that the total investment of old friends has reached 100 million yuan, which is enough for him to launch a commercial war.
When the railway company was listed for the third time, the share price quickly rose from 220 to 32420, and finally the closing price of 520 caused a sensation in the market again.
When the rear of the railway company was listed for the fourth time, it was finally no longer safe. The Ministry also personally met with Tang Tingshu to discuss with him the matter of calling the board of directors and handing over the afternoon exercise to the board of directors.
Tang Tingshu heard that this matter has alarmed the Emperor’s Department, and it has been unable to withstand the pressure.
Section six hundred and sixty-six Bureaucratic Regiment Emperor
Zhu Jinglun can’t be unaware of this. He has the habit of reading newspapers. He regards newspapers as a channel for him to understand people’s feelings.
The railway affair has been quarreling for many days, and he can see that something is wrong with it. Although he doesn’t know the reason, he can see that the railway sales department, which is dominated by the end, is very low-key, passive and clumsy.
Others don’t know that Zhu Jinglun knows that there are a large number of accounting talents in the Ministry. Don’t say that the accounting department of the imperial examination department is compulsory now. It is difficult for accounting candidates to get into the Ministry. Just studying in Europe and the United States is like crossing the river.
Like other undertakings, the program of sending overseas students by high officials is not obvious, but in fact, the number is considerable. At that time, the first batch of international students went directly to consulates in various countries with comprador who knew foreign languages. At that time, everyone knew nothing. It was only by hiring western consultants that big consulates were set up in western countries. How many jokes were made? No, the first batch of international students just walked out of these consulates. At that time, Zhu Jinglun’s policy was to let the consulates come forward and arrange them to study in local universities for as many years as they liked.
When these international students returned to China, they all entered the government departments according to their learning arrangements. With the first batch of students, the consulate will have more directions for selecting international students. Each department will apply for the government to select the talents they need, then enter the national phase schools to study, then enter the western companies and even government departments for internships, and finally return to each department for their own control.
For example, in the early days, the Ministry of Industry’s Department of Railway Management and Shipping sent overseas students to American universities to study railway science through consulates. After three to four years, they entered the American railway internship for two years, and then entered the American railway department for two years and seven years before they returned to China, but their professional skills were solid enough.