At that time, when Foshan elections were elected, Zhong Jialiang was in charge of command, but under his command, it was not the elites of the foreign medicine guild who clashed in front of him under the scorching sun, but Fang Bingsheng from the railway industry.

From standing in the sun to hand out flyers, using loudspeakers to shout slogans in the eyes of citizens who look at madmen, to privately contacting every person who is not Zhong Jialiang Group who wins the primary election and bribing votes, Fang Bingsheng led a group of people to do it.

He did a good job, and Zhong Jialiang remembered him.

Why would Fang Bingsheng, the new railway priest, run for the Zhong Family, run in front of the horse, not even a big deal?

At that time, the senior executives of the entire Songyou Railway Power Company were all around Zhong Jialiang. Needless to say, the eldest brother Weng Jianguang, in order to make connections, Shengsheng bought a villa near Zhong Jialiang's house to meet Zhong Jialiang frequently. Not to mention Fang Bingsheng, as the boss's confidant, squatted at Zhong Jialiang's house every day, hoping to steal all the errands from the butler to the grocery shopping cook.

The reason for this is very simple: for money.

The construction of railways is by no means difficult, but it is just a physical work of coolies. Chinese workers who built the American trunk line at the Pacific Railway Company have proved that hard-working Chinese people are good at building railways;

Technology is not a problem at all. When building mountains and rivers, there are guidance from foreign engineers when building high-tech construction; from railway tracks to locomotives, it does not require the railway company to worry about it; the main reason is that this project is too huge, it is a tiger that makes money.

It costs 40,000 taels of silver per kilometer.

The telegraph line project started by Songyou Tielectronics at that time cost only 200,000 taels of silver. This amount of money is only enough to build a railway for five kilometers. Perhaps even Haijing City in the suburbs cannot be connected!

Therefore, Songyou Company is not afraid of the difficulties of the project, the death of the people, the troublemakers hinder the project under various names, and the fear of having no money!

The imperial court often has no money, so it stops the project if it doesn’t have money.

So from 1860 to 1870, for a full ten years, Songyou Railway and Electric Company, the "largest" railway company in the Song Dynasty, the Chinese literary circle, and even East Asia, only built the 500-kilometer railway trunk line of Haijing-Dongguan-Huizhou-Heyuan-Longchuan-Ganzhou.

The project was working hard, waiting for the court to give money, waiting for the senior management of the company to find wealthy people from all walks of life to cry for their parents to raise funds, waiting for the lower-level employees to pay for railway bonds without paying wages, waiting for foreign scammers to go global to persuade Songyou Railway bonds, and even mobilized a group of subordinates to hold signs at the gate of the Governor's Office to demand a war with the Qing Dynasty immediately, the reason was that the newspaper reported that the Qing diplomats were used to spitting out naturally in the Song Dynasty Palace. Why?

There will be war compensation for war!

"If I hadn't short of money, I would have built the railway to Beijing City!" This is Weng Jianguang's catchphrase.

But even so, the construction project payment for 500 kilometers of railways alone is 20 million taels of silver.

Moreover, it does not count the profits obtained by Songyou Tielectronics during the construction. After the construction was completed and started operation, the proportion of the railway's operating profit to the investment reached an astonishing 7.5%, which means that the annual income of the Haigan Line is as high as 1.5 million taels of pure silver!

Excluding the average annual interest rate of foreign and domestic debts, considering that the debt interest is calculated before tax, there is no need to pay taxes to the court, that is, even if the debt repayment period is still in the debt repayment period, the annual railway income will have a net profit of more than 300,000 taels!

This is just the premise that Songyou Teflon was just starting out and was not familiar with and was not proficient in railway management and operation!

This mere five hundred kilometers of railway pushed the Song Youti Electric to the height of the Song Dynasty upstart.

Compared with Song You, the other two railway companies only built 150 kilometers in total, and even Guangdong Province did not build them out.

After completing the Haigan Railway, the court had no money again, and the "Iron River Plan" was unlimitedly delayed unless Song You raised funds himself.

This account is easy to calculate. As long as you can borrow a debt with a compound annual interest of less than 7%. You can borrow as much as you want! You can build as much as you want, and you can make any profit without losing money!

Therefore, after tasting the sweetness of the railway, the entire railway company turned into a group of red-eyed wolves. In addition to digging soil and building roads, they would beg their grandfather and grandma to sue their grandmother every day, as if they were a group of scammers trying all kinds of ways to find money.

But this is building a railway, not a toilet. Who can raise so much money at once? The court is in charge of the international bond market, and it is monopolized by several railway powers. Just as the Song Dynasty wanted to build a railway, he deliberately raised the price of the Song Dynasty. The interest rate was abnormally high. The court felt that it could not be a sucker and was played by foreigners and insisted on not borrowing it. Not to mention a few opium in China, the richest man in cloth merchants could not support the silver sea of ​​railway construction even if the money shop had the ability to make money.

The court said: We have no money! If you find money, you can repair it, and we support you;

It’s easy to say, where can I find so much money? I have no money and have to pause. Weng Jianguang sighed every day.

In the past two years, the Qing Dynasty did not dare to come to find trouble. Weng Jian was so angry that he sneered barefoot and scolded the Qing Dynasty. He came to beat us. If you beat you, you would have to pay the war compensation. The emperor would not be able to give us a piece?

The big creditor France is said to be preparing to challenge Prussia. Napoleon III was also short of money and forced Hai Song to pay the principal and interest of the early years of loans every day, which made the emperor so angry that the emperor cursed in the palace. After Weng Jianguang heard about it, he even sweared, scolding Prussian bastards. Such poorer than a small country actually caused trouble for our big creditor Wei, and had to fight with the strong Wei and France. He was as mentally retarded as the Qing Dynasty. He was looking for your mother! He was so poor that he had no money to borrow money!

At this time, Zhong Jialiang, a wise master of Western learning in the Song Dynasty, had a new solution. He joined forces with a group of wealthy businessmen to establish the first private bank, "Song Shang Bank", which followed the official bank. The registered capital was 10 million silver dollars, equivalent to 8.9 million taels of sterling silver.

Originally, Zhong Jialiang was the major shareholder of Song You. After Weng Jianguang heard that Western Bank could raise a lot of money, he even stuck with Zhong Jialiang. He did not do it every day, but instigated Song Shang Bank to purchase railway bonds every moment. He originally called Teacher Zhong, but in the past year he changed his words to be Brother Zhong. The two of them were so good that they wore a pair of pants.

Now, I heard that the election was chosen by the people of the people. Although I didn’t know what the election was for, Weng Jianguang immediately recommended his confidant Fang Bingsheng. He said to Zhong Jialiang: "Brother, since this election is for the people, we are experts. My little party specializes in dealing with all kinds of troublemakers: poor, rich, illiterate, and educated people; there are no power, some power and powerful; some believe in Jesus, some believe in Mary, and some specialize in hell. Anyway, we have no money to build railways recently and are all idle at home. Why don’t I ask Xiao party to help you with this thing? It’s always good to have multiple people.”

Zhong Jialiang naturally agreed that he actually wanted the guy who stayed here with a briefcase full of bond plans every day to leave his house. Although Fang Bingsheng was wearing a suit and a silver watch and diamond ring, he did not have an authentic London accent, nor did he wear a silver wig on his head, and he always helped the housekeeper receive customers. When people said it, they thought he was looking for a local to be a servant, which really cost his own price.

As for other considerations, it is naturally more important.

This railway has invested a lot of money in the early years. Although it has made a lot of money, the new bank has just opened itself, which is a critical stage in building a reputation to absorb deposits and invest in high-yield industries. How much can it be? Which company is not short of money for the cotton spinning, arms, and sea transportation that I have been involved in?

Besides, I also want to invest in a newcomer like the railway, but I don’t want to buy bonds, but I buy Song You’s equity. This is the difference between buying a golden egg and buying a chicken that has a golden egg;

But Weng Jian barely gritted his teeth and refused to sell: This is not the policy set by the court when Huichuan Telegraph Hall first started to build the railway, which was to allocate funds and have the responsibility of finding money by himself. At that time, you gave him some money and asked to join the gang, and he wanted to kneel down to thank you. Now, a fool sells his shares.

Not to mention that Weng Jianguang refused to give up the company's equity, even on the Song Dynasty Exchange, Songyou Tielectron has a price but no market. After seeing the power of those hundreds of kilometers of railways, no shareholders would sell such tickets; even small companies like Song Bei and Song Zuo benefited from it. In the past five years, the stocks of the two companies have increased five times with Song You, from 400 yuan to 2,000 yuan (Note: When the stock markets of various countries first started, the denomination per share was very large); the group of grandsons on the exchanges in the past two years actually even Huizhou Tonghe Tiel Stores were hyped, but they only produced rail sleepers! Unexpectedly, the boss saw that Qian Tu Guangming was delisted and wanted to leave this sleeper company to his son. The dividend was given to a group of shareholders. You didn't call me my father.

Weng Jianguang was reluctant to give up shares, so Zhong Jialiang naturally became angry: If you don’t give me shares, I will ask you for money. Isn’t this my bank immediately turning into a railway bank? Isn’t this not working for Weng Jianguang, this bastard? It’s outrageous! I will hang you until you give me a batch of stocks.

Despite this, the other party's hands are not useless. Although Fang Bingsheng is very depressed when he is a housekeeper, helping the chef carry a big fan of pork leg meat still shows the power of the Zhong family, so Zhong Jialiang took Fang Bingsheng to Foshan to assist in the election.

Unexpectedly, Fang Bingsheng did it easily, and the black and white were playing around, so Zhong Jialiang became concerned.

You should know that although the foreign medicine guild is a wealthy place, it is also a place to ruin people. If you are a talented person, after working in it for three years, besides being fat and opium, you may even forget to walk because they found their money by themselves.

Zhong Jialiang's other industries have just been invested, and he still has no idea of ​​the depth and has not produced any capable players. The railway company is a treasure pot for him to invest in, and it is also regarded as one of his own industries. Since the other party has a player, it is not useless.

After the Foshan election was over, although Zhong Jialiang was very happy, he was joked by foreigners from all walks of life, so the emperor was of course very depressed.

Zhong Jialiang felt strange: When the emperor first agreed to the election, he was like a great enemy, and even attended the meeting in formal clothes and red turban. He seemed to be treating the parliament as a beast. He was forced to agree for some reason, but why did this guy obviously become angry after the election failed?

Now it seems that the emperor is more active than Zhong Jialiang.

After the election in Foshan, he immediately issued a full-page imperial precept in the royal newspaper "The Great Song News" in the royal newspaper: it clearly states the benefits of the election and has no intention of taking the opportunity to collect taxes, so that all elites can run for the election with peace of mind. The good people of the Great Song Dynasty voted enthusiastically, and even the following statement appeared in the instruction: Actively running for election and voting is a sign of allegiance to Jesus, and a manifestation of the loyalty and patriotism of the people of the Great Song Dynasty.

This shocked Zhong Jialiang: Why did this emperor suddenly change his personality? He made a big turn of 180 degrees! He used to be afraid of parliament or something.

Moreover, not only that, the emperor also used his influence in various major churches to allow pastors and bishops to inform their subordinates of all pastoral areas, and the church inspired their followers to participate in the election.

The second election pilot is Dongguan.

This election is much more intense than the first time, and Fang Bingsheng has been officially granted the election by Zhong Jialiang.

He easily defeated the Dongguan people and the emperor and won the city for Zhong Jialiang!

The method is very simple, buy tickets with money!

The procedure for the election of civilians in the Song Dynasty was as follows: as a voter who was eligible to vote, he would receive an entrance ticket, which contained the person's name. On Election Day, take this ticket and enter the voting point. After checking, he would receive a ballot. One to six candidates can be written on the ballot, and then voted in the ballot.

If there is no error in filling out the bill, it is not aborted votes, and each candidate is given a vote.

This time, Fang Bingsheng ignored the statements of Zhong Jialiang and his foreigners and the advisers who returned from studying abroad. He believed that Western elections were nonsense, such as standing on the street to speak, such as making the people think that you are profiting for his interests, and facing anyone with a smile. Isn’t this nonsense?

"I have never been to the Western world, but I am familiar with this place! This is not the Western world!" In front of Zhong Jialiang and his counselor, Fang Bingsheng pretended to be taught on his face, but he had completely different ideas in his stomach.

As soon as he entered Dongguan City, Fang Bingsheng threw out the loudspeaker that Zhong Jialiang gave him from the carriage window: Then he stood on the streets of Foshan like he did last time and shouted? Isn't that stupid?

He went directly to the voting site in the center of the city. Because the Song elites who had just organized the elections from the emperor to Zhong Jialiang, they naively believed that the voting site would be overcrowded, so they stipulated that there was a large empty space around each voting site, which was to facilitate crowds to gather without blocking the road.

Without saying a word, Fang Bingsheng asked his subordinates to build a large shed in the open space, put on the stage inside, and set up tables and chairs in the middle, and invited a better Cantonese opera team in the city to sing opera.

Let your men go on the way to attract people, listen to opera and drink tea, and just vote for admission.

In just half a day, the shed was crowded, and the people watching outside stood in a big circle. I heard that as long as this person had a ticket, someone turned around to sign up for a voter qualification.

The person at the voting site next to him saw that his open space was occupied and was about to drive people away, but after Fang Bingsheng gave him a warm piece of Song Dynasty silver dollar, he immediately smiled and went back.

Then Fang Bingsheng ordered his men to go to the crowd and say that he bought tickets, one cent or two cents.

In just a few days, Fang Bingsheng collected 2,000 tickets around each voting site.

And everything costs only a few hundred yuan.

Then there was the night trading. This time, Fang Bingsheng no longer chose the voting center in the bustling area of ​​the city center, but deliberately found several voting centers in the city side and even in remote areas outside the city.

No birds come to shit in these places, and there are slums around them, but there is no missing one voting site staffing. To be honest, a few supervisors only have some things to do at the voting site, and they are mostly dazed.

Fang Bing is born.

In the downtown area at night, there were a few girls, plus a few ten-yuan banknotes that were most suitable for bribery. These drunk supervisors called Fang Bingsheng brothers.

On the voting day, Fang Bingsheng asked each of his subordinates to come to the voting with more than a dozen tickets, and they received more than a dozen votes at a time. After writing and voting, they voted at the front door, went out on the back door, and then circled around, and received more than a dozen tickets from Fang Bingsheng who was sitting under the awning, and then went in to vote.

The supervisor will not care, and the residents and even voters will not care even if they see it.

With such a continuous cycle, Zhong Jialiang's primary election was once again selected.

For candidates for membership who entered the primary election circle, Fang Bingsheng used two yuan, ten yuan, and twenty yuan. The most expensive offer was just a tuxedo worth 60 yuan. In short, it was not wasting silver to buy tickets. He used two thousand silver dollars, which once again made Zhong Jialiang Group win a complete victory in the re-election.

His actions could not escape the emperor's eyes using the agents of the Mission Division in the first elections of Foshan and Dongguan where the emperor was staring at.

The emperor was stunned, shocked.

Not to mention that they could not escape the emperor's eyes, even the news newspapers found that the elections in the two places were a bit strange, but the newspapers of the Zhong Jialiang faction were naturally praised, such as the first opportunity to create the world, and the country finally got in line with the West. There are naturally many opposing Zhong Jialiang, but they don't understand and are not familiar with the election. Seeing Fang Bingsheng doing so, they don't know what was wrong.

The foreign newspapers of the Song Dynasty ridiculed the so-called No. 1 power in East Asia, with a gloating and racial discrimination.

Americans don’t care about the fact that their families also have bribes in this era. They proudly said in the newspaper: “Now we all understand why the Sea Emperor supported the liberation of black slaves in the civil war between the north and south of our country…”

Russian newspapers directly attacked racially: "It seems that in addition to Jewish monkeys, black monkeys, and Tatar monkeys, yellow monkeys are also needed to add yellow monkeys..."

French newspapers are more polite because they are busy and have no time to laugh at them. The headlines have always been: "Napoleon III, who supports justice, will kill the Prussian clown!"

British newspapers are still the same: "The Song Dynasty should use our loans to build railways (the right of road is given to us!)" "The Song Dynasty should buy our steam warships!" "The Song Dynasty should use our breech guns, you can't make good guns!" "The Song Dynasty requested the revocation of consular judgment rights, and we'll talk about it when you have a code!"

Regarding the election, British gentlemen would not openly humiliate the Sea King, but instead reprint articles from American and Russians in the corner with a sneering smile.

Fang Bingsheng didn't care about his decisive approach. He had been working on telegrams and railway construction for more than ten years. His company was mostly court friends and lawyers. He knew that there was no election law at all, only one election rule. Even if there were rules, he had to do this here!

China's laws and regulations have only restricted inferior people for thousands of years and used to exploit loopholes for everyone in the best? Whoever jumps the rope well will be the best.

Besides, if they and Zhong Jialiang don’t play like this, then there will be no civilians coming to vote. A city can be elected as a primary member with more than ten votes, which will make the emperor look dirty. Is there any light on the court?

"I am sharing my worries for the Holy Lord." Every time I think of this, Fang Bingsheng always sighs quietly and thinks: "But why can't I be an official for such a talented and loyal person?"

Zhong Jialiang was overjoyed, so happy that he was stunned. He was shocked to find that he was wrong. This is the Song Kingdom in China, not the British, French, and American, and foreigners who are unable to enjoy the trick here, but Fang Bingsheng is so sharp.
Chapter completed!