"Congratulations, you are now rich enough to rival a country. (p; the 6th Army of Zhili New Army, Wang Shizhen presented Wang Chenhao with the fundraising accounts for the past month. The accounts record the sales of five million shares from Zhili Steel Company. A total of 50 million taels of silver were raised. You can feel its heavy weight when you hold it in your hands.

"It's all the money from ordinary people. I just borrow it for emergency treatment first, and I will still have to pay it back to others in the future."

Wang Chenhao just smiled faintly, his face calmly just to give his subordinates a good impression. In fact, he was already happy. The money obtained from this stock is unrepaid, and the people who buy stocks cannot sell the stocks back to the company, but can only sell them to the next one. In other words, Wang Chenhao used a shell company and five million unrealized stocks to cash out 50 million taels of silver from a group of inexperienced rich people.

China did not have the first stock exchange and relevant laws and regulations until 1920. Before that, China's stock market was quite chaotic. Any company could make money by bribing the government. Under the control of the feudal bureaucratic system of the Qing government, the shareholders did not have the right to manage the company, so only Wang Chenhao could use the 50 million taels of silver, and the money was the same as his own.

Wang Shizhen is one of the few people who know the inside story. After hearing what Wang Chenhao said, he felt admiration in his heart. If it were other officials, he would have already taken out the 50 million taels of silver and ran away. What does it matter to the life and death of the stock investors?

"Sir, I admire you very much."

Wang Chenhao smiled implicitly and said, "The scholar of the military is well-deserved. He did not misunderstand you at the beginning. Shizhen, you are my blessing general."

Wang Shizhen bowed and replied humbly: "It's all adults who are so proud of their love and trustworthy than humble officials. But humble officials are not good at running a company. This credit is the result of Cao Fu's advice. Without his help, humble officials would be difficult to raise this money so easily."

"Cao Fuzhen looks really awkward, I wonder what everyone is like?"

Wang Shizhen replied: "We are a fellow villager. Cao Fuzhen has some minor personal problems, but he is still upright and can be entrusted with important responsibilities."

Wang Chenhao nodded and said, "Since it's Shizhen, you are a young man, you are upright and talented, and some minor problems have nothing to do with the overall situation. If this is the case, let Cao Fuzhen be the manager of Zhili Steel Company."

Wang Shizhen was stunned for a moment. Wang Chenhao didn't hesitate for such a heavy responsibility. He just entrusted Cao Fuzhen with the important task after hearing his words. This was obviously his full trust in Wang Shizhen.

"grown ups--"

Wang Shizhen was about to say something to think twice, but Wang Chenhao waved his hand to stop him and said, "I treat Shizhen as my right-hand man, I believe in you."

Wang Chenhao's words made Wang Shizhen feel uncontrollable excitement. He had thousands of words in his heart to say, but he didn't know how to express it when he was at his mouth. He immediately raised his robe and bowed to the end, and said loudly: "Shizhen is indebted to Shizhen's kindness and trust. In the future, he was promoted by the Lord, and he would not refuse to give up the sword and the sea of ​​fire."

What you want is what you say.

Wang Chenhao hurriedly stepped forward and helped Wang Shizhen up, and said happily, "I have Shizhen's help, why worry about the big things going on in the future? Let's go out and have a drink together."

How big is the big thing Wang Chenhao said? Wang Shizhen is not sure about this, but judging from what Wang Chenhao has done in the past year, everything is a big thing. Since he chose to follow Wang Chenhao, Wang Shizhen naturally hopes that Wang Chenhao can achieve greater things so that he can win a reputation in front of him and behind him.

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Cao Fuzhen was highly valued by Wang Chenhao and appointed him as the manager of Zhili Steel Company. Cao Fuzhen was naturally grateful to Wang Chenhao for his meticulous execution of what Wang Chenhao gave.

After having sufficient funds, Cao Fuzhen immediately planned the company in accordance with the requirements put forward by Wang Chenhao and implemented it one by one.

When Zhili Steel Company was first established, it planned to establish a large enterprise with an annual output of one million tons of pig iron and 200,000 tons of steel. All the equipment and technicians were introduced from Germany. It is planned to build 6 large steelmaking furnaces with an annual output of 20,000 tons of steel; 6 large ironmaking blast furnaces with a volume of 70,000 cubic meters, with an annual output of 10,000 tons of pig iron; 4 fuel plants with an annual output of 150,000 tons of coke, a large slag-making factory specializing in the production of synthetic slag-making agents, and a preparation factory for producing oxidants, reducing agents and carbon-enhancing agents; there are also derivative factories such as forging mills and foundries, which specialize in the production of various steel and iron materials needed in China. Overall, the first stage is aimed at meeting domestic demand.

The construction goal of Zhili Steel Company is based on the design of the world's most advanced German Flklingen Iron Factory in the late 19th century as a reference. It covers an area of ​​60,000 square meters. The entire project is expected to be completed in 28 months. The preliminary budget is 350,000 taels of silver. The first phase of the project investment is 20,000 taels, the second phase of the project is 120,000 taels, and the third phase of the project is 30,000 taels.

The Flklingen Iron Factory, located in Flklingen City, Sachs, Germany, is the only comprehensive steel factory built and equipped in Western Europe and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries. Although the Zhili Steel Company was built by imitating the Flklingen Iron Factory, the Flklingen Iron Factory invested more than 100 million taels of silver at the time. Wang Chenhao did not have that much money, and the domestic steel factory did not need that large steel factory for the time being. Therefore, the Zhili Steel Company is just a smaller version of the Flklingen Iron Factory. In the future, as domestic demand expands, it will be able to expand after it becomes competitive internationally.

The factory of Zhili Steel Company is located on the southern foot of Yanshan Mountain in Qian'an County, on the bank of Luan River. It has a superior geographical location. It is 16o kilometers away from Tianjin in the west, 75 kilometers away from Qinhuangdao's estuary in the east, and less than 30 kilometers away from Kaiping Railway Transportation Line in the south, and has high transportation. It is easy to extract raw materials, so that the factories can be concentrated together. The water is abundant, the transportation is high, and it is close to Tianjin, the center of Beiyang. Therefore, it has all the conditions for a heavy industrial base. Once built, it is the most important country in terms of economic benefits and strategic position.

The Qian'an area was built in large quantities, and its scale was far from that of Zhangzhidong, Hanyang Iron Plant and Daye Iron Mine, which soon alarmed the whole world.

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, Jiangnan Machinery Manufacturing General Administration.

Since Li Hongzhang ordered the Dengyun-class battleship from a British shipyard, in order to imitate the Dengyun-class battleship and produce related maintenance equipment when the Dengyun-class battleship returns to China for service two years, and to rectify the serious corruption of officials in the manufacturing bureau and the production cost of equipment higher than direct purchases and losses over the years, Li Hongzhang personally dealt with it.

Computer~博] The interview is all thanks to the "Self-blame Record" published by Wang Chenhao some time ago, which violently criticized a series of disadvantages of domestic foreign affairs enterprises under the official system. Although the original text criticized a series of factories established by Zhang Zhidong, Nanyang, and did not criticize Beiyang by name, Li Hongzhang knew that it was Wang Chenhao who left him face. Since the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, a series of foreign affairs factories founded by Li Hongzhang for decades could not support the Beiyang Navy's operations, and the relevant maintenance equipment and ammunition supply were all tied by foreigners. This feeling of being controlled by others made Li Hongzhang constantly reflect on himself and determined to rectify the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau first, and then rectify other factories.

Li Hongzhang has been away from Tianjin for more than a month, but he has always paid attention to various tasks in Zhili and has online reports every day.

Recently, Li Hongzhang received all the tips about Zhili Steel Company. Since the failure of the plan to build a Cizhou Iron Factory, Zhang Zhidong later came to establish the Hanyang Iron Factory. Old Li has always dreamed of starting a steel company every day, so that Zhang Zhidong could make him laugh. But he has been operating Zhili for more than 20 years and never knew that Qian'an County was buried in huge iron ore mines.

Li Hongzhang immediately sent someone to verify the situation. When he learned that there were indeed a large number of iron ore veins in Qian'an's territory, Li Hongzhang almost jumped up happily. However, when he sent someone to investigate Cao Fuzhen's background, he unexpectedly learned that it was Wang Chenhao, which made him unhappy because Wang Chenhao didn't tell him first.

Yang Shixiang was in charge of Li Hongzhang's intelligence. When he saw that Li Hongzhang was unhappy, he was also a little dissatisfied with Wang Chenhao's actions this time. However, Yang Shixiang was very optimistic about Wang Chenhao and cherished his talent, so he secretly sent a telegram to Wang Chenhao to report the matter.

Wang Chenhao realized this after receiving the telegram and thought that he was a little too complacent. He was not rich at the moment and had to rely on Li Hongzhang's support to show his strength. He must not make Li Hongzhang unhappy.

So Wang Chenhao immediately reported to Li Hongzhang about the construction of Zhili Steel Company this month. He also said that the reason why he didn't tell him first was to give Li Hongzhang a surprise. At the same time, Wang Chenhao himself was not sure of doing it, for fear that he would not do it first but lose face. Now that he succeeded, he reported to Li Hongzhang as soon as possible.

After reading the telegram, Li Hongzhang wrote a letter for half of it, and Yang Shixiang said good things to Wang Chenhao from the side, which made Li Hongzhang calm down and called back to praise Wang Chenhao.
Chapter completed!