Australian Storm 1876

   Chapter 327

   "Oh, by the way, is your eldest son 7 years old this year and has already gone to school?" Li Fushou asked.

   "In the first grade of elementary school, this kid speaks Spanish better than me. He learned Spanish from his mother. He wanted to be a diplomat when he grew up." Speaking of the child, Fan Zhongzhai showed a smile on his face.

   "Yes, ambitious. Now that children can receive the best education, their future achievements will not be bad."

  "Lord Yuanding, thanks to your good words." Fan Zhongzhai replied with a smile.

  His first wife was a Cuban white woman named Natalia, she was very beautiful, and this eldest son was the first child of the two.

  But two years later

  Through a show operation, the original first wife, Natalia, inexplicably became a concubine. It was really bad every day, the ground was not working, and there was nowhere to redress the grievances!

  This situation is not uncommon among Chinese bigwigs. It can only be attributed to the imperfect legal system in the past few years.

  Fan Zhongzhai Ming's media is married to a Chinese wife. The original maid by Li Fushou's name is Shi Shu. After marriage, she changed her maiden name to Nie Hongzhi. The two had known each other when they worked alongside Li Fushou, and they didn't know when they looked right.

  Nie Hongzhi gave birth to a son for Fan Zhongzhai this month and danced with his joy.

  "Brother Zhong Zhai, how has the social response been after the "Marriage Law" was promulgated?" Li Fushou asked.

"Our secretariat has been tracking and collecting social opinions in this regard, and requiring the civil affairs department to submit regular reports. Generally speaking, Chinese immigrants are still supported. Of course, there are also many complaints, mainly about the division of property clauses and support. The clause that children reach the age of 18. These people used to be carefree before. At first they felt uncomfortable with the introduction of regulations to restrict it. It is not a mainstream opinion. The opponents are mainly white Christians who believe in Christianity. They are very dissatisfied with the ability of Chinese to marry concubines. , Which is regarded as a kind of discrimination in disguise."

   "Hehe... If they are dissatisfied, they can be allowed to convert, so that they will not violate the Christian doctrine of monogamy, and we have not blocked such a door."

  Li Fushou said very lightly, Fan Zhongzhai was speechless;

  How can it be as simple as what you said?

In fact, the provisions of the "Marriage Law" did leave a back door for Chinese Americans. First, they started from respecting the traditions of the Chinese society for thousands of years, and did not make a 180-degree change or impose monogamy, so accept it. It will be difficult, and there will be great resistance to opposition.

  Secondly, it is to create conditions for the growth of the Chinese population. After the suspension of the large-scale immigration policy one day, the natural population growth alone will greatly surpass the white population, consolidating and increasing the basic disk, which is the foundation of social stability.

  When the white ethnic group becomes an absolute minority, it will not be able to make waves.

  Talked for a while

  Li Fushou asked; "What document do you hold?"

  Fan Zhongzhai took the documents and handed them up with both hands, and explained, "Oh... here are three documents.

  A grant for the construction of the first Majesty-class battleship dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Her Majesty’s enthronement, the Majesty at the British Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

  The British side asked for a down payment of £620,000 before the end of April to make full preparations for laying the keel in May. This money is very tight in the UK and can no longer be delayed. "

   "British guys are really troublesome, okay, let me see for myself."

  Li Fushou reached out and took the document and turned it over. This is the only battleship "Majesty" that started construction this year and the only battleship "Majesty" built at the British Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.

  The other three ships will all be built at Hongshan Shipyard according to prior agreement.

  In this era, the British man-made ships have amazing capabilities. How long is the construction period for the "Majesty" class battleships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons in the shipyard?

  You don’t believe it, you can go to the water for outfitting in 5 months.

  This is not the fastest. The fastest is to build a 10,000-ton-class battleship in less than 4 months (referring to the construction of the berth, excluding the time for launching and fitting out).

Therefore, before construction, a sufficient amount of down payment must be allocated for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in the United Kingdom to purchase special thick plates of no less than 3000 tons for ships, order new steam boilers and steam engines, and order windlasses, A large number of equipment for ships, including artillery, are not readily available and must be ordered in advance.

  "TNND, this year's finances have just returned a little blood, and the Royal Navy's urging ghosts are coming to charge again. What a headache!"

  Li Fushou couldn't help but uttered a grumble, and threw this document aside, picked up the following document and looked at it.

  Fan Zhongzhai beckoned to the maid to offer him a pot of hot tea, and then turned and left. The affairs of the Secretariat were very complicated, and he was really busy sitting in the position of Secretary-General, but he was much busier than the Lord Earl.

   In the 4th shearing season of 1882, the purchase price of high-quality merino wool was one pound and one penny, which was 10% higher than the third quarter and basically stabilized at the current price level.

   After deducting various expenses, this brings a net income of 2.91 million pounds to the Red River Valley Ranch.

  In 1879, 1880 and 1881, when the price of wool was strongly suppressed, the farm income was 2.12 million pounds, 510,000 pounds and a loss of 170,000 pounds, respectively. There was a strange phenomenon of rapid growth in herd size, sharp decline in income and even loss.

   After abandoning the policy of suppressing the purchase price of wool, starting from the second shearing season in 1882, the price of wool has soared from the lowest of 3.1 pounds per penny all the way to one pound per penny, and the price soared 310%, returning to a reasonable range as it should be.

  The income of the Red River Valley Ranch showed a steep upward curve. The net income for the whole year of 1882 was close to 7 million pounds, which greatly eased the financial pressure.

  This huge income, coupled with the annual dividend income of over 10 million pounds from various companies in the Red River Valley, Li Fushou can finally fill in the multimillion-pound loan hole of Huitong Bank.

Don’t look at the huge sum of over 13 million pounds in hand at the end of the year, minus the loan repayment, minus the investment scale of one million pounds in the Jinli Copper and Gold Mine, minus the follow-up investment of more than 600,000 pounds in Qixing Township in the Qingshui River Basin, and minus the investment in three east-west railways. A total of 57 pounds, minus more than 500,000 pounds in the Songjiang Strategic Reserve, and less than hundreds of thousands of pounds in various municipal investments here, there are tens of thousands of pounds, the funds that can stay in Li Fushou's hands do not exceed 3 million. GBP.

  This time, he had to spend £620,000 for the gift project. Li Fushou was so painful that Li Fushou was pumping, but he had no choice but to spend the money.

  By June, a second installment of as much as £500,000 has to be paid.

When the outfitting of the battleship "Majesty" is completed in December this year, the remaining balance of 320,000 pounds must be paid to the British Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, otherwise the Royal Navy will not be able to get the warship, so much money will almost be in 1883. List expenditures.

  Considering the large-scale battle that will be held in April, the pensions for the soldiers killed and wounded in the war are a large sum of money, and the money in the hands can not be spent anymore to prevent the recurrence of the income.

  Whenever the money is not enough to spend, Li Fushou will think of the Koi Copper and Gold Mine, and he feels happy in his heart, but all that is mined there is money!

Brass is mined to make copper pennies, which can be directly circulated in the market, and silver mined to make silver shillings, can also be directly circulated in the market. Gold is directly income from Huitong Bank reserves, and Huitong gold tickets are issued to enter social circulation. So much money flows Entering into society will surely push the entire Queensland economy to a higher level.

  After the mine is put into production, the annual income will be tens of millions of pounds.

  At that time, you won’t have to worry about the money and you won’t be able to spend enough. If you count the days, it will be around this time next year. There will be more than one million pounds in your account every month. You can wake up with a smile in your dreams, so don’t be too chic!

The second report is also expensive. This is the Queensland Coast Guard’s construction of four 8,800-ton "Qinglong" heavy cruisers. The first ship is named "Qinglong". The keel is planned to be laid in July. The initial investment is up to 360,000 pounds.

  Li Fushou frowned and considered for a moment, and signed the “suspended execution” opinion on the report.

The "Qinglong" class heavy cruiser is an important battleship that Hongshan Shipyard has achieved a leap in shipbuilding capabilities. The construction period of the slipway is 11 months. Now, under the guidance and training of German experts, a large number of skilled workers have the qualifications for construction. What is lacking is Actually.

According to the plan;

Hongshan Shipyard will build two 8800-ton heavy cruisers of the "Blue Dragon" and "White Tiger" in July and December of this year. After proving their own construction capabilities, they will begin construction of the 10,000-ton-class "Majesty"-class battleship for the Royal Navy of the British Empire. The following three sister ships in China.

   Therefore, the "Blue Dragon" class heavy cruiser is an important project that must be launched. However, considering the large-scale battle in Borneo in April, this important project with low timeliness requirements can be postponed until the battle is over.

  The third document is good news. The Goodyear Rubber Company, which was established in May 1882, was officially put into production after a year of preparation. It has already received large orders from North America and is off to a good start.

  The US order is 200,000 sets of bicycle pneumatic tires (including inner tubes) and 10,000 sets of carriage tires (including inner tubes), worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

  Goodyear Rubber’s largest customer comes from tractor tires produced by Cargill Steam Machinery Company and General Machinery Company. The innovative pneumatic tires greatly reduce the amount of natural rubber, lower the price and improve comfort.

  The bottleneck of the company's production is insufficient raw materials, which restricts further development.

  The company’s natural rubber comes from rubber plantations in the Malayan area of ​​the British Straits Settlements, but the supply is insufficient to cope with the rapidly increasing demand.

  As a solution, large-scale natural rubber forests have been planted on Shangri-La Island to solve the problem of raw material supply.

  But as early as 10 years, the situation of relying on imported natural rubber will not change.

  Under a suitable natural environment of tropical rainforest, the growth cycle of rubber trees will take at least 7 to 8 years before the first rubber tapping can be carried out, and the initial yield will not be high.

The large-scale development of natural rubber plantations is still after the vigorous development of the automobile industry as a large user. At this stage, the demand is not large. Therefore, the supply of natural rubber plantations is very limited, mainly concentrated in Malaya in the Straits Settlements, northern Thailand and The Cuban region, of which Malaya accounts for more than 70% of natural rubber production, and is the main producing area of ​​the world's rubber production.

  Li Fushou considered it for a while and immediately recruited a secretary to give clear instructions on the large-scale development of natural rubber plantations;

  Require it to formulate a detailed plan, formulate a feasible plan from natural rubber plantation planning, resettlement arrangements, professional management organization configuration, etc., and put it into practice as soon as possible.

  According to the calculation, it will be ten years before this batch of natural rubber forests can produce rubber on a large scale.

  If we don’t make arrangements now, where can we find so many natural rubber resources?

  (End of this chapter)