The journey starts from the Titanic

The Fifth Division split up and invaded the Leizhou Peninsula, occupied Hepu, Leizhou, and Gaozhou together with the US-China Security Corps, connecting Western Guangdong and Guangxi, and also surrounded Guangzhou Bay.

The French were nervous, and from time to time they set out warships at sea to embolden themselves.

Zhang Chengdong ignored the French and continued to control western Guangdong according to the original plan.In order to cope with the shortage of troops, a division was divided into the Fifth Division and merged with the US-China Security Corps to form the Sixth Division of the Guangdong Army. At the same time, young and Zhuang soldiers were selected from the original prisoners of the Gui Army.

German staff advisor Max?Bauer served as the commander of the division, and Situ Yong, who had been trained before, was promoted to the commander of the sixth division.Bai Chongxi was selected by Situ Yong and became a battalion commander of the newly organized Sixth Division.According to the plan, the Sixth Division will land in Hainan across the sea after repairs.

At this time, the rule of the Gui family on the mainland collapsed and was uprooted by Li Zongren and Zhang Chengdong. The Gui army entrenched on Hainan Island was like a helpless child, panicking.

Hainan was poor and weak, and the munitions and supplies had to be supplied by the mainland. Seeing the Li Bingma of the 6th Division of the Guangdong Army on the opposite side, he could call in at any time. He Fuchang, the commander of the Gui Army in Qiongya, wondered whether to surrender.

In November 1920, the typhoon season had passed.The Qiongzhou Strait was rarely calm. The Situ Yong Division of the Sixth Division landed from Lingaobopu. The Gui army was caught off guard and had to surrender in the face of the overwhelming superiority of the Guangdong Sixth Division.Under the order of Situ Yong, Bai Chongxi led his army into Sanya and established political power there. From then on, Xiao Zhuge began his painstaking career in watching the sea for several years.

So far, Hainan Island has fallen into the hands of Zhigong Party and Meihua Company. The Qiaoxing Company, which has been operating on the island for a long time, has already been familiar with the situation on the island and cooperated with the Sixth Division to take over the Hainan government. Into your own hands.

The Fifth and Sixth Divisions of the Guangdong Army swept western Guangdong and Hainan. Meihua Company, American China Bank, Acorn International Company, Lee Tin Company, Qianyi Company, Nanhua Grain Company and other related enterprises moved into the local area and controlled the local area. Economic lifeline.

Objectively speaking, the economy of Western Guangdong has been underdeveloped for a long time, and it is far from the wealthy Pearl River Delta region. It is a dispensable category on the territory of Guangdong and has never been Guangdong’s center of gravity. Although it has "dipped" the Cantonese character, In fact, it is almost the same as the impoverished Guangxi, and it is not valued by the warlords.

Zhi Gong Dang's management strategy in western Guangdong Chen Jiongming on the one hand is beyond reach, on the other hand secretly happy to see it.Especially after making him jealous of the Fifth Division's initiative to leave Guangzhou, he can rest assured to rectify the prosperous Pearl River Delta region and practice his long-cherished aspiration-inter-provincial autonomy.

Chapter 146

The Guangdong-Guangxi War affected many people's hearts.After the overall situation was finalized, Lin Yimin took his newlywed wife from Shanghai to Guangzhou, and the important leaders of the Zhi Gong Party who had gathered in Shanghai for his wedding before also rushed to Guangzhou to participate in the division of war dividends according to the plan.

Especially in western Guangdong and Guangxi, the Zhigong Party dominates, and the leader of the party began to serve as the local chief executive, accumulating experience for the future establishment of Nanyang.

"This time I won a big victory, Mr. Situ made great contributions!" Lin Yimin praised Situ Meideng.

"Haha! The old man did a lot of hard work, but now he has to take over such a big stall at once, and he has to spend money everywhere, and you have to donate generously, the little god of wealth!" Situ Meideng said proudly.

"That's for sure." Lin Yimin smiled, "I just came here in a hurry to send money. You see, this is a telegram from the young master!"

Lin Yimin handed Situ Meiden the telegram sent by Situ Nan from the Pacific Ocean.

"Fangcheng, Hainan?" Situ Meideng looked at Lin Yimin with some doubts.According to him, Meihua should focus on investing in the prosperous Pearl River Delta region.

"Fangcheng Port is Guangxi's main seaport and an important hub port in the country. It is our strategic base to control the Beibu Gulf and the South China Sea in the future. It is backed by Nanning. If we want to develop and utilize Guangxi's resources, we must first expand Fangcheng Port.

There is a large natural iron in Hainan, which has now been discovered by us. The next step is to focus on the development of Hainan’s Shilu Iron Mine. The iron plant is located in Fangcheng. The coal will be Guangxi Coal or Annan’s Hongji Coal Mine. Transportation by sea is very convenient."Lin Yimin said. Originally the best choice was Guangzhou Bay, but now that the French occupy Guangzhou Bay, we have to choose Fangcheng Port.

Situ Meideng nodded.

"In addition to iron ore and fisheries, Hainan also has an important resource, salt! I heard that A Yong was very brave this time, did he not destroy the Yingge Salt Farm?"

Lin Yimin asked with a smile.

"That's not true. As soon as A Yong and the others landed in Hainan, Gui Jun surrendered." Situ Meideng replied triumphantly, "What are you going to do in Yanchang?"

"Haha! The salt field is the biggest gain of this operation so far, otherwise I would be heartbroken for the military expenses." Lin Yimin smiled.When Meihua Company occupied Hainan by the Sixth Division, it looted Hainan’s saltworks, Yinggehai Saltworks, Dongfang Saltworks, Sanya Yuya Saltworks, and Millennium Ancient Saltworks. These four major saltworks were all acquired and acquired by Meihua Company. The way is controlled.

"The Yinggehai Salt Plant is the third largest salt plant in Changlu, Hebei and Budai, Taiwan. It covers an area of ​​3,700 hectares and produces 20,000 tons of salt per year. However, according to the assessment of the American experts sent by the company, if we make every effort to transform Yingge Haiyan If we introduce large quantities of machinery for production, the annual output can reach 200,000 tons. In addition to the other salt farms in our hands, we have 250,000 tons of salt output in our hands, which can easily monopolize the salt industry in South China, and even sell it to Shanghai. ."

Lin Yimin said excitedly.

"There are so many? My god!" Situ Meideng looked at Lin Yimin in surprise.

Needless to say, the importance of salt, the monopoly of governments in the past dynasties, and the huge benefits behind it, are just like the monopoly of oil monopolized a hundred years later.

The debts owed by Manchuria to foreign countries were mortgaged with salt tax, which shows the importance of salt.Based on the current salt price of 0.1 yuan per kilogram, the annual output value of Yinggehai Saltworks alone exceeds 20 million!

Thinking of this, Situ Meideng couldn't calm down.I thought that if taxes could be levied from salt production, then Zhi Gong Dang would have a reliable source of funds for its rule in Hainan.

"Of course not so much at present. There is a lot of investment in the construction of salt farms in the early stage. The company decided to invest 2 million to expand the salt farm in Hainan. It is estimated that the output will reach 50,000 tons in three years. It will reach 100,000 tons per year in the next ten years.

At the same time, it will use Hainan's rich salt resources to invest 3 million in Fangcheng to build a salt chemical base.It is said that Yinggehai is also rich in fishery resources, and organizing a fishing company is also a good choice. By the way, sailors can also be trained.Didn’t the Dutch at the time become sea coachmen by fishing?We can't let those rascals get too free."

Lin Yimin smiled.Now that Meihua Company has administrative resources, it can sell salt openly, and he can almost see the white money flying into Meihua's pocket.

"Now Guangdong is ruled by Chen Jiongming, and we have worked well with him. We still need some means to control the salt industry in Guangdong, and we need you to move around." Lin Yimin reminded with a smile, while telling Situ Meideng this in his ear. Like.

In order to maintain the operation of the new self-governing government, under the operation of Stuart Meiden, the Guangdong Ministry of Finance provided a loan of 10 million yuan to the American China Bank under the guarantee of salt tax to deal with the reduction of the old army, the abolition of the lijin, and the consolidation of the whole body finances.

In this way, Meihua Company can freely sell a large amount of Hainan salt in the province. Similarly, the salt industry in Guangxi has also fallen into the hands of Meihua Company. From the salt industry, Meihua Company can make tens of millions of profits every year. yuan.

This not only consolidated the rule of Western Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan and other places under the Zhigong Party, but also invested in Fangchenggang's salt, chemical, steel and other industries to stimulate local economic development.With the increasing consolidation of the regime, Meihua has acquired a large amount of labor, which has greatly accelerated the development of Sumatra.

Zhi Gong Dang also obtained high-quality troops from Guangdong and Guangxi.Although short in stature, the soldiers of Guangdong and Guangxi are hard-working and tough-willed. They are most suitable for tropical jungle warfare. Therefore, after the establishment of Western Guangdong and Guangxi, Meihua Company recruited a large number of workers. On the one hand, to develop saltworks and iron ore in Hainan and build Fangcheng steel At the same time, it organizes worker training and establishes reserves, selects elites from them, and secretly imports them to the Southeast Asian Dutch islands in the form of labor, and strives to establish an elite army of 100,000 in the First World War against the Netherlands.

After the Guangdong-Guangxi War, the Zhi Gong Party established the Nanning Non-commissioned Officer School in Nanning in the name of the Guangxi government, and opened the army, navy, air force and other majors, secretly transferred part of the military talents from Nanyang to Nanning, and introduced a group of military instructors from Germany. Lower-level officers who are well prepared for future army expansion.

In short, the lions fight the rabbits and do their best. In order to win the war against the Netherlands, Zhi Gong Dang and Meihua Company will spare no expense to build this Hope School....

After the success of the Guangdong-Guangxi War, with Chen Jiongming moved to Guangzhou, monopolizing the financial industry in Guangdong became a top priority for Meihua, and it was also Meihua's established strategy.After working hard and paying so much, now is the time to receive rewards.

The establishment of the autonomous government, political reform, medical education, urban construction, industrial development, etc., have to spend money everywhere. For the Guangdong finance, which has been squandered by the Guangxi system, it can no longer withstand any exploitation...

You can't do things without money, so what about building a model province?How to raise funds became Chen Jiongming's biggest headache.

Stuart Meideng proposed to establish a province-wide bank. He proposed a plan for the government to take a stake in the Guangdong Bank and publicize the joint-stock bank to a certain extent, making it the "central bank" of Guangdong and controlling the banks of the province. financial.

Chen Jiongming did not object. Before the war, he had acquiesced to this condition as a condition for Meihua to support his unification of Guangdong.He has no money now and has to rely on Meihua Company.

In order to avoid suspicion, Chen Jiongming, on Situ Meiden's suggestion, referred the matter to the parliament.

Chen Jiongming implements inter-provincial autonomy, so the status of these congressmen has improved a lot. Facing the "reasonable" requirements put forward by the Ministry of Finance, in order to rectify Guangdong's finances quickly and effectively, the parliament passed this bill with extremely high efficiency.

Those who can be councillors are not the poor, and they will also profit from the incomplete "publicization" of Guangdong Bank.

Members of the Stuart Meideng organization shouted at the front desk, and Lin Yimin operated secretly. They operated the controversial 1920 Guangdong Bank incident in Guangdong history.

In December 1920, following a loan of 10 million yuan from American and Chinese Bank with a salt tax guarantee, the Guangdong Provincial Government invested 10 million yuan into the Guangdong Bank, accounting for 30% of the shares, and became the largest single shareholder of the Guangdong Bank.

The government has given Guangdong Bank many conveniences, such as issuing currency, managing government taxes, preparing military supplies, issuing government bonds, etc. It has almost become the "central bank" of Guangdong Province.

The government has no money and can’t provide 10 million at all. The so-called 10 million is only on the books. It was lent interest-free by Meihua to the Guangdong government. Guangdong Bank was originally controlled by Meihua, which is equivalent to The Guangdong government used 1,000 yuan in debt in exchange for a 30% stake in Guangdong Bank from Meihua Company.

Guangdong Bank originally had total assets of more than 10 million yuan. Meihua Company sold 30% of the shares to the autonomous government at a price of 10 million. The original 3 million shares were sold to 10 million. This is really a lion's mouth and the net profit is tripled. !

Of course, this is designed by the financial experts of Meihua Company. Without superb financial talents, one cannot understand the mystery. Most people who know the inside story are also involved in this stolen spoils case, so they won't be able to speak up.

However, considering that the government's resources are combined with the financial resources of Guangdong Bank, it is normal for the value of Guangdong Bank to increase several times.

The government didn't pay a penny, and got a bank with branches in the whole province with a debt of 10 million, and thus easily established a banking system. The gains and losses were not well-received.

But the fact is that this happened. When many people did not react, the capital power of Meihua and the administrative resources of the government colluded to carve up the banking and financial industry in Guangdong.

In addition to the government's shareholding, Guangdong Bank also issued stocks to the public to raise funds. From business magnates to marketers eagerly purchased, with a capital of more than 20 million at a time, which greatly enriched the originally dry Guangdong finances.