Zeng Disheng's study room is very simple. There are only four treasures of the study on the desk, and there are some books that have not been collected, but they are all neatly placed on the table.
The bookshelf is also full of books, and every wooden frame is tightly packed. There is not even a single decoration on the entire bookshelf.
A very simple and practical study room.
It can be seen that this person usually does not like luxury.
"President, please sit down." Zeng Disheng seemed a little uncomfortable with this title.
Because the word president used to be used as a temporary official position in the military. For example, the presidential officer of a certain military, some people would call it "president" for short.
Dong Shuheng obviously already holds the position of emperor, but he insists on using this name, and he has not officially ascended the throne.
This is something Zeng Disheng has always puzzled over.
Until these few years, I read newspapers and some foreign books.
Only then did Zeng Disheng discover that many countries in the world no longer have the final say with the emperor or king.
The leaders of their countries will no longer be hereditary and have no immunity beyond ordinary people.
All people must act within the framework of the law.
Only then did Zeng Disheng gradually understand Dong Shuheng's plan.
Perhaps Dong Shuheng was thinking more long-term.
As he read more Western books, Zeng Disheng became more and more sure of his judgment.
"Mr. Di Sheng, you are really knowledgeable." Dong Shuheng glanced at the piles of books on the bookshelf and praised.
In the past two years, Dong Shuheng has read fewer and fewer books.
On the one hand, it is because there are too many things, and on the other hand, it is also because many books of this era cannot arouse his interest.
"The president has given me the award. I just looked around casually. After arriving at the academy, I have more free time, so I can read more books. In the past few years, I wasted a lot of time hanging out in the officialdom of the previous government."
"There is no need to belittle oneself, Duke Di Sheng. In fact, I have always believed that you took the lead in returning to your hometown to organize and train the regiment, and you set an example for the Han ministers. You made a contribution to the nation by allowing the Han ministers to control power locally. If it hadn't been for you back then, The Duke was doing regiment training in southern Hunan, and our Renaissance Army could not rise in the cracks. If Hanchen had not controlled the local power, the Renaissance Army would not have regained the country so easily." Dong Shuheng was telling the truth.
He was planning to come to Zeng Disheng to talk to him about the truth today, and he didn't want to be polite to him, so he chose to tell the truth.
Zeng Disheng also heard it.
"The rise of the Renaissance Army is due to your effective leadership, President. I have only gradually gained a little understanding of the Renaissance Army in the past few years. There are reasons for the success of the Renaissance Army."
"First of all, you chose to rise in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. That was where the Qing army was at its weakest and banditry was the most rampant. This way you will gain the support of the Qing court."
"Secondly, Jiangsu and Zhejiang are important places for commercial trade, and there are many rich households in the area. When the president commanded the army to resist the bandits, the local wealthy households would definitely give their full support, and military resources were guaranteed. In addition, the president did not rely on local merchants, but Develop your own industry and trade with the Western Barbarians, so as to avoid being constrained by wealthy local merchants, and you can also obtain foreign guns, cannons and other sharp weapons from the Western Barbarians."
"Then, President, you made your own guns and recruited talents. You also didn't trust the Westerners, and in the end you were able to be self-sufficient in guns and guns."
"If you relied on the Western Yi for guns and artillery, then you would be just a warlord at best and would not achieve what you have today."
"Yes, I'm not hypocritical about this. If I want to make enough food and clothing by myself, the local gentry cannot rely on me, and the Western barbarians cannot be trusted either."
"At that time, if the Western Yi wanted to make money from the Qing Dynasty, they could not let the Qing Dynasty be too stable. We had goods that they had to buy, but we did not need to buy their things. They had to find ways to sell more things to us. At that time, the Manchu and Qing Dynasties were against
They were dissatisfied with the resistance of the Western Yi. Not only us, but also the Taiping Army and the Western Yi at that time began to come into contact."
"Xiyi really has no good intentions." Zeng Disheng agreed.
"This is natural. The Western barbarians pursue profit. For their own benefit, they will not care about the life and death of our Chinese people. I think Zeng Gong also saw the harm of opium. If opium is allowed to spread, then our Chinese people will have
The danger of national subjugation and annihilation of the species. No matter how much the Manchu Qing Dynasty said, there was a bottom line, but the Western Yi people would not go down the line in order to make profits." Dong Shuheng said.
"President, you actually have a third magic weapon, that is, you use those salt collectors and refugees as your sources of troops. These people have nothing, and they can be grateful by giving them a little profit."
"However, those without permanent property have no perseverance, so you give them land, or arrange their families on farms so that they have property and a home. Only in this way will these people fight without fear of death."
After Zeng Disheng said this, he motioned to Dong Shuheng to drink tea and took a sip of tea himself.
"President, there is just one thing. How did you confiscate so much land without triggering a strong counterattack by the gentry?" Zeng Disheng then asked.
He originally established an army in southern Hunan in order to make money, but he offended many gentry. Otherwise, why would people call him "Zeng Shatou"? This was not just because he killed many Taiping soldiers.
In fact, he killed many local gentry for compensation.
But Dong Shuheng acquired so much land and distributed it to Yanding and the refugees, which obviously affected the interests of the local gentry.
Jiangsu and Zhejiang were originally developed areas, and the power of the gentry was even stronger, but behind Dong Shuheng there was always a team of gentry supporting him.
"Mr. Zeng, most of the land I acquired at that time was actually obtained through the construction of water conservancy projects. There were a large number of saline-alkali lands in the salt area at that time. It was actually not difficult to transform these lands. This corner was actually dug at that time.
From the imperial court.”
"Of course, this requires a lot of money. So where does the money come from? We must also thank the Taiping Army, because they wreaked havoc on the Yangtze River, blocking trade routes, and allowing us to monopolize trade with foreigners."
"Of course, just having money is not enough. In the end, I actually took advantage of the local gentry."
"Another method I used at this time was to guide them to transfer their industries. The term "industrial transfer" means to find new ways for them to make money, that is, to take them with them to engage in Westernization."
"Because I have set up farms here, recruited refugees in large numbers, and lowered the price of food, these landlords and gentry have no way to make money from the land. These people will definitely be resentful. At this time, I asked them to cooperate in setting up a factory.
At that time, the south was in a mess. We didn’t have to worry about selling the things we produced. They found that this was more profitable than farming, so they stopped focusing on it.”
"In engaging in Westernization, the interests we compete for are foreigners. There were no factories before, and these things were imported from foreigners. But after we produced them ourselves, the transportation cost was one less than that of foreigners, so the people preferred to buy our things. In addition, at that time, the South
production was disrupted, so what we produced was very popular everywhere.”
…
Zeng Disheng was a little surprised, not just because what Dong Shuheng said contained profound truth.
It was also because Dong Shuheng actually told him all these things.
"After listening to what the president said, I was really enlightened."
While Zeng Disheng was listening, he was also thinking whether he could do the same in southern Hunan at that time.
But he still denied himself. Not only did he not have such talent for business, but the situation in southern Hunan was not suitable for foreign trade.
Dong Shuheng actually uses external forces to solve internal problems.
At that time, there was a general shortage of food in the country, and famine was a common occurrence.
But Dong Shuheng was able to find another way to obtain a large amount of grain from Nanyang.
If we are short of money, we will monopolize foreign trade, then engage in trade wars with foreigners and raise the prices of exported goods.
Earn foreigners' silver.
In this way, Dong Shuheng used the money transferred from the foreigners to buy weapons and equipment from the foreigners.
Then formed an alliance with the Chinese in Nanyang.
At that time, the Chinese in Nanyang were humiliated overseas, and they were eager to gain support from their mother country.
And the local officials of the Manchu Qing Dynasty regarded them as abandoned people and treated them worse than those foreigners.
At this time, Dong Shuheng stood up. He had real power and territory in his hands.
He gave these Nanyang Chinese merchants some trading privileges in exchange for their support.
Those Nanyang families not only gave him people, but also gave him money.
The most important thing is to constantly help Dong Shuheng transport grain. Although these Nanyang Chinese businessmen also make money in this process.
But these people used their wisdom, their many years of experience and connections in Nanyang to ensure the safety and stability of Dong Shuheng's grain road.
Under the circumstances at that time, food had become hard currency in the Qing Dynasty.
At that time, Dong Shuheng could recruit as many people as he had as much food as he had.
When everyone had no food in their hands, Dong Shuheng had enough food, which was a rare commodity.
"Mr. Zeng, there are only two of us here today. Dong hopes to be honest with Mr. Zeng. In fact, Dong came here today because he wants to ask Mr. Zeng some questions."
Zeng Disheng raised his somewhat cloudy eyes and looked at Dong Shuheng.
After Dong Shuheng came over today, he was able to give him a good impression without using his identity to pressure others. He was called Corporal Li Xian.
In the previous chat, Dong Shuheng was indeed honest with each other, so at this time, when Dong Shuheng told him this, Zeng Disheng had no reason to refuse.
Although he usually likes to hide his capabilities and bide his time, likes to be reserved, likes to keep his thoughts in his heart and work behind closed doors.
But at this time, for some reason, because of Dong Shuheng's few words, he opened his heart to this young man.
It seemed that he still underestimated this young man.
"It is my honor to ask the President about something. I must tell you everything I know." Zeng Disheng stood up and bowed slightly.
"I saw that Mr. Zeng has many newspapers here. I think Mr. Zeng must be paying attention to current affairs."
"I would like to ask Mr. Zeng, who are the enemies of our Fuxing Army?" Dong Shuheng came up with a big question.
Zeng Disheng was silent for a moment, this question was indeed too big.
Fortunately, he has actually thought about this problem usually.
The study of the Renaissance Army has always been a matter of personal interest to him.
The Renaissance Army's ability to quickly unify and quickly subjugate surrounding forces relies on its powerful army and efficient organizational capabilities.
But this also puts it on the forefront.
Zeng Disheng knew that now Tsarist Russia and the Great Empire were considered enemies of the Renaissance Army.
Needless to say, Tsarist Russia is the life and death enemy of the Renaissance Army.
Zeng Disheng has studied Tsarist Russia. This country is prone to expansion and claims that every inch of its land is indispensable.
Other countries in Europe have engaged in colonial expansion, and in many cases they have supported local forces.
As for the immigration expansion carried out by Tsarist Russia, every time they occupied a place, they either massacred or expelled the local indigenous people, and then immigrated and occupied the place.
This is very similar to that of the Renaissance Army. However, the methods of the Renaissance Army are much gentler.
China has a large population and a splendid culture.
Dong Shuheng is obviously confident that he can assimilate local people through immigration.
Therefore, the Renaissance Army generally does not expel local people, but only allows them to learn Chinese culture.
Then let them identify themselves as members of the Chinese family.
As long as the local Han population can account for the majority, Dong Shuheng believes that this will be enough to stabilize the local area.
But Tsarist Russia itself did not have enough population.
And apart from religion, they don't have much culture that the ethnic minorities below can identify with.
Therefore, they can only adopt such radical methods to consolidate their control over the local area.
This also limits their local development because they lack population.
Why was it so easy for the Renaissance Army to recapture the Yuehu, Far East and Eastern Xianbelia regions that had been occupied by Tsarist Russia for hundreds of years?
The main reason is that Tsarist Russia was too backward in the development of this place. They only moved a few people here through various means for hundreds of years. How to carry out infrastructure construction?
This makes it difficult for them to provide support here from home.
The Renaissance Army, which has occupied sea control in the northwest Pacific, can more easily supply its own troops.
Compared with the inefficiency of Tsarist Russia, the Renaissance Army's investment in construction here in just a few years exceeded the combined investment of the Tsarist Russians in the past hundreds of years.
But will Tsarist Russia really give up here?
This is impossible. As long as it is still under the rule of the Tsar, Tsarist Russia will definitely fight back.
Therefore, the Renaissance Army and Tsarist Russia must fight sooner or later. From this point of view, Tsarist Russia is the enemy of the Renaissance Army.
ps: The second update is here, please give me monthly votes and recommendation votes. As long as there are enough votes, there will be a second update every day, woohoo!