Although Li Cunwen and Li Cunxun are brothers, Li Cunwen is much older.
Li Cunwen, 45 years old, was a Jinshi in the 25th year of Daoguang reign. At this age, he was already considered a young talent at that time.
After all, the Li family was a Yangzhou salt merchant with a solid financial background. Under the family's silver bullet offensive, Li Cunwen was assigned to work as a county magistrate in Huzhou.
When the entire Li family defected to the Huaihai Navy, Li Cunwen had already become the general magistrate of Huzhou Prefecture.
Of course, it is also inseparable from the support of his family. With his family's strong financial resources, Li Cunwen has a good official reputation in the local area. He has never taken corruption or bribery and has a good reputation for integrity.
In fact, it's because people like Li Cunwen don't need to be greedy at all. What he pursues is higher power and higher prestige.
As for personal enjoyment of life, with the financial support of the family, I can already satisfy myself.
When his family asked him to join the Huai Navy, Li Cunwen hesitated.
After all, he read the books of sages and received a traditional education. When the power of Huai Haijun was not strong at the beginning, his family took refuge in Huai Haijun, which made him a little confused.
Moreover, Huai Haijun secretly recruited himself to join him, which was suspected of rebellion.
At that time, although the long hair was raging in the south of the Yangtze River, Li Cunwen judged that the strength of the imperial court was still there. The Huai Navy was not worth the risk of the entire Li family.
However, after all, Li Cunwen is only a descendant of the family, and he still has to obey the clan leader's decision-making.
At the beginning, Huai Haijun only used his influence to launch the raw silk business in Huzhou, which was completely within his acceptable range.
It was very common for local officials to protect the interests of a certain businessman in the Qing Dynasty.
At the beginning, Huaihai Company only purchased raw silk locally in Huzhou. However, the purchase price was half a percent higher than that of local raw silk merchants.
This is something that brings benefits to silk farmers. However, this kind of thing will definitely be suppressed by local silk merchants.
Fortunately, Li Cunwen was there at this time, and he used his power to prevent Huaihai Company's business from being affected.
But this is not a long-term solution after all.
Li Cunwen alone cannot defeat the local gangsters every time.
Later, people from the Huaihai Company gave Li Cunwen the job of being a peacemaker.
This is a good thing for Li Cunwen. If this matter can be facilitated, Li Cunwen's local prestige will definitely rise to a higher level.
Why do you say that? Because in this negotiation, Huai Haijun was completely giving profits to the local silk merchants.
Huai Haijun is planning to directly invest in setting up a silk reeling factory locally, and it will be a machine-type silk reeling factory.
The matter that Li Cunwen was asked to mediate this time was the matter of cooperating with local silk merchants to set up a factory.
The two parties finally sat together, and Huaihai Company's technicians set up a machine reeling machine directly on site.
As the steam in the boiler spurts out, it indicates that the boiler has heated up. The steam in the boiler is passed into the flat-bottomed water tank to quickly boil the water, and the cocoons are placed in the water tank for heating.
A worker skillfully operated in front of the machine. The metal wire-wrapped wire frames automatically rotated under the drive of the steam engine, and the worker hung the extracted silk ends on the wire frame. The wire frame automatically completed the action of pulling out the silk and peeling off the cocoon.
They are all knowledgeable, and you can tell at a glance that such a machine will definitely reduce the cost of producing raw silk.
If Huaihai Company uses such machines elsewhere, Huzhou's raw silk will be completely uncompetitive.
Because labor costs account for a large proportion of raw silk. In the past, silk reeling was a sideline business for farmers, and women generally completed the silk reeling work at home.
This takes a lot of time, and if women have this time, they can weave more silk at home.
Therefore, the time these women spent reeling silk must be valued.
This value is the difference between the reeled silk and the cocoon.
If there are many such machines, then silk merchants can just buy the cocoons at a lower price and let you hire people to reel the silk.
If this kind of machine is efficient and durable, the cost of reeling will inevitably be reduced.
Foreign merchants will not purchase cocoons directly. They only want raw silk and silk.
The businessmen looked at the speed of this worker and quickly calculated in their minds how many silkworm households this worker could be worth.
These businessmen naturally know how fast silkworm farmers can reel silk at home.
This calculation shocked them.
The subsequent negotiations went much smoother.
This matter basically did not require much effort from Li Cunwen.
On the contrary, Huai Haijun's negotiation method taught Li Cunwen a good lesson.
Finally, all silk merchants in Huzhou agreed to cooperate with Huaihai Company. The two parties also discussed establishing the Huzhou Silk Industry Guild and initially monopolized the silk industry in Huzhou.
However, with the establishment of silk reeling factories one after another, this silk industry guild is no longer satisfied with Huzhou.
They use their technical and price advantages to continuously erode the cocoon market in other places in Zhejiang.
In this way, under the leadership of Huaihai Company, Huzhou's silk reeling industry developed rapidly.
Not only are these businessmen growing bigger with Huaihai Company, but local silkworm farmers are also enjoying benefits.
Because the guilds constantly increase the price of silkworm cocoons in order to purchase silkworm cocoons from other places. As the saying goes, low grain prices hurt farmers, and farmers naturally hope that their output will be as expensive as possible.
The cocoons raised by the silkworm farmers can be sold at a higher price. And now the silkworm farmers do not need to reel the silk themselves, although the income from this aspect is gone.
But they can work in silk reeling factories, or spend their time on other side jobs such as silk weaving or embroidery.
At first, only men worked in the silk reeling factory. Later, because men had to take care of the farmland at home, the factory set up a special workshop for women to work, and began to use female workers after imitating Yangzhou.
The Industrial Revolution replaced human labor with machines, allowing women to be qualified for more positions, allowing women to truly step onto the social stage.
In order to prevent anyone from gossiping, all the managers in the factory were women. In order to reassure the people, the government also sent people to supervise the matter.
The first benefit brought by Huzhou's economic development is that the tax burden can be paid in full. Nowadays, natural and man-made disasters are happening all over the country, and there are few state capitals that can pay the tax in full.
Soon the prefect of Huzhou was promoted because of this political achievement. Li Cunwen, who had made the most contributions in the prefecture, naturally took over the position of prefect.
After Li Cunwen took over as the prefect, he placed his cronies throughout Huzhou and quickly took control of Huzhou.
Some of them were even sent to him by the Huai Navy.
By this time, the Huaihai Navy had formed a climate and was no longer a small force.
It was at this time that Huai Haijun sent Niu Jie and a group of sub-officers to Huzhou to help Li Cunwen organize a team training.
Li Cunwen was now completely tied to the forces of Huai Haijun.
The local government in Huzhou raised funds to organize team training and received strong support from the governor of Zhejiang.
Huzhou is the gateway to the northwest of Zhejiang, and is very close to the Taiping Army.
At the beginning of the Huzhou League Training, there were only two thousand people. They only moved within Huzhou, captured several bandits, and gradually gained a reputation.
Later, when the surrounding prefectures and counties had unstoppable bandit rebellions, they all came to Huzhou for group training.
When it comes to military training, the Huai Navy is really good at it.
Li Cunwen is the prefect and a partner of Huai Haijun, so he can naturally go and see how this regiment trains troops.
They all use firearms. A farmer can learn how to use them in a few days. The main time they spend is training the ranks of soldiers.
They even taught the soldiers how to read and had them memorize regulations.
As a local official, Li Cunwen naturally knew something about military training. But he had never heard of the Huai Navy training troops like this.
The rapid rise of the Huai Navy probably has something to do with their military training methods.
After the Huai Navy completely occupied the land of Liangjiang, the Huai Navy held an armed parade in Zhili.
Li Cunwen was not stupid, he knew that Huai Haijun was completely on the front line of confrontation with the imperial court.
Now that the Taiping Army is falling apart, the imperial court will inevitably target the Huaihai Navy.
Li Cunwen knew that Dong Shuheng would also take action soon. People like Dong Shuheng are called heroes in history books. How many heroes would sit still and wait for death?
as expected!
The first thing Huai Haijun did in Huzhou was to expand the army. The regiment training in Huzhou was expanded to 5,000 people.
Naturally, this reason for military expansion gave him, the prefect, a headache.
In this expansion of the army, the Huai Navy not only sent officers, but also many soldiers.
Li Cunwen knew that Huai Haijun was worried that if the army was mainly composed of locals, it would be difficult to manage. This is a very simple way to balance.
In the second step, Huai Haijun sent a large number of officials to Huzhou, and these people were naturally placed in Huzhou as Li Cunwen's staff.
Li Cunwen knew what he should do, and he had already made his choice.
He has been studying Huai Haijun's management style. Since he wants to follow Huai Haijun, he will definitely not be willing to be a tool man.
He treated the staff assigned to him by Huai Haijun with courtesy.
And be able to ask them for advice humbly.
Not only did he have Huai Haijun's staff around him, but he also used his influence to place these people as officials in the lower counties.
In addition, all the patrolling and guarding soldiers in various places were replaced by people from the Huaihai Navy.
Nowadays, Huzhou, except for a few magistrates who do not care much, is basically controlled by the Huaihai Navy. As long as Dong Shuheng gives an order, Huzhou can change its flag.
Dong Shuheng had no contact with Li Cunwen, but judging from the feedback from people below him, he was a capable traditional scholar.
Being able to pass the Jinshi examination at such a young age shows that he is capable. Working hard in the officialdom for so many years and rising step by step shows that he has experience.
The fact that he had cooperated with Huai Haijun for so long without being noticed by the Qing court shows that Li Cunwen was meticulous and knew how to adapt.
If this person can perform satisfactorily during the occupation of Zhejiang.
Dong Shuheng would not mind reusing this person in the future.
Li Cunwen also had such thoughts. His younger brother stayed with Dong Shuheng for more than a year, and recently became the person in charge of the Yuanzhou Prefecture of the Huaihai Navy Military Government, just like his own prefect.
You must know that the brother of your clan is only in his twenties.
In just two years, he was able to rise from a white body to the prefect level. This speed really made him a little envious.
It's not that Li Cunwen is arrogant, he feels that he is still a capable person. Now he is in his forties, which is the peak of a man's career. If he doesn't work hard, he will prepare to retire.
He also has thoughts of advancing to a higher level in the Huai Navy.
The opportunity finally came, and Huai Haijun finally took action against Zhejiang. This was his best opportunity and his only chance.
Li Cunwen knew that the regiment training in Huzhou had been renamed the Zhejiang Garrison Brigade, and Niu Jie was the commander of this army.
Li Cunwen took the initiative to ask to go with the army this time.
Because his identity was of great help to the army's successful capture of Hangzhou.
The Huaihai Navy's headquarters readily agreed to Li Cunwen's request. If Li Cunwen could step forward, it would be of great help to the Huaihai Navy's rapid control of Zhejiang.
Even if the Huaihai Navy could make good use of Li Cunwen's move to capture Hangzhou without bloodshed, it would not be impossible.
At this time, Peng Yulin was already stationed in Huzhou, and the instructors, except for one group, had also gathered in Huzhou, and were now waiting for news from Dong Shuheng.
The telegraph line from Changzhou was also extended to Huzhou. There was a temporary telegraph station in Huzhou. Dong Shuheng and others would calculate the time to send a telegram to Peng Yulin after they set off.
At that time, both sides will be able to basically act at the same time.