Chapter 48 Trapped Coal Mine Changes Owner

After the 1890s, Kaiping Coal Mine experienced drastic changes. The death of Tang Jingxing (Tang Tingshu) in 1892 marked the beginning of massive corruption in the Kaiping coal mines and the gradual bureaucratization of the enterprise.Overseas scholar Fei Zhengqing outlined the beginning of the Kaiping Mining Bureau from glory to decline ten years before the Longqi incident in the book "Cambridge History of the Late Qing Dynasty" in a dark and low tone. Jiangsu alternate Daoist Zhang Yi became Tang Tingshu's successor.After Zhang Yi took over the Kaiping Coal Mine, he was eager for quick success and comprehensively expanded production and sales.He newly opened the Xishan Coal Mine and the No. 3 Coal Mine, which greatly increased the output of the Kaiping Coal Mine, from the original 252,538 tons per year to 778,240 tons in eight years. More than tripled.In order to sell all the extra coal dug up, Zhang Yi set up coal mines all over the country, especially in important ports along the coast and along the river, such as Tianjin, Tanggu, Yantai, Niuzhuang, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Hankou, Suzhou, Qinhuangdao and other places. offices, docks and warehouses.Take Qinhuangdao as an example. The Qinhuangdao port has a large throughput and is not frozen all year round. The Tangxu Railway has been built to a place five miles away from Qinhuangdao. Kaiping coal can be directly transported to Qinhuangdao by railway, and then exported by ship to be sold abroad. Much more convenient.Zhang Yi sent people to buy more than 40,000 mu of land in the local area to prepare for the construction of a wharf, and the Prime Minister's Office came forward to ask Qinhuangdao to be China's self-opened treaty port, and the approval was obtained on the same day, making Qinhuangdao a self-opening port due to the needs of China's industrial and commercial development. treaty ports.In the eyes of outsiders, Kaiping during this period is full of flowers and brocades, and it is much more lively than the steady development of Tang Tingshu's era.In fact, the consequences of Zhang Yi's blind expansion, mining, and investment are very serious.Due to the excessive consumption of funds, it didn't take long for the Kaiping Mining Bureau to exhaust its capital.Zhang Yi had no choice but to borrow money everywhere.Zhang Yi was unable to raise enough funds for the expansion of Qinhuangdao Wharf, so he had to pin his hopes on foreign firms.He first borrowed 600,000 taels from the Deutsche Bank through the German-British Detriline, who had served as the Customs and Taxation Department, and pledged the coal warehouses at the wharves in Tianjin and Shanghai.Afterwards, De Cuilin introduced an international consortium named Molin to Zhang Yi.

Their cooperation was pleasant and full of prospects. Merlin first generously provided a loan of 200,000 pounds, and then proposed a grand plan to raise new shares to expand mine development.Zhang Yi was very grateful for the generosity of his western partners.In view of the problems existing in the Kaiping Mining Bureau, Mo Lin began to help find an engineer for the Kaiping Mining Bureau around the world.Soon after, their eyes focused on a young American. His name is Herbert.Hoover was born in Iowa, USA.His father, a blacksmith, died when Hoover was six, and his mother three years later.Hoover, who became an orphan, first lived in his uncle's house, and moved to his uncle's house two years later.Hoover worked as an office boy in the Oregon Land Company run by his uncle during the day, keeping accounts and typing, and attended business night school at night.After graduating, he worked as a miner in California for two years, working ten-hour shifts for a pitiful two dollars.Perhaps even he himself would not have imagined that it was such an orphan who would rise to the top of American power and become the master of the White House in 1929, the darkest spring of the global economy.Although his legendary experience has been obscured by the economic turmoil, his history of fortune is closely related to the reselling of the Kaiping Mining Bureau.

In 1897, a job advertisement changed Hoover's fate. The British mining giant Bewick︱Merlin planned to recruit an experienced geologist, and specifically required the age of the applicant to be thirty-five over the age of.Hoover, who was only twenty-three years old at the time, decided to falsely report his age. The god of fate favored him.He was hired, and has a Chinese name Hu Hua.After that, his work experience was smooth and full of opportunities. Hu Hua was first sent to work in some mining areas in Australia and South Africa, and won the appreciation of Mo Lin by virtue of his shrewdness and tact.In February 1899, 24-year-old Hu Hua came to China and worked as a manager and coal mine technician at Molin Company︱China Machine Mining Company.His public identity is the mining technical consultant of Zhili and Rehe provinces, and he is actually the agent of Molin Company in Tianjin, China.

After Hu Hua arrived in China, he traveled all over North China, extensively collected information about the Kaiping mines, and in just five months submitted to Mo Lin successively two plans for reorganizing the Kaiping Mining Bureau.The actual assets of the Kaiping Coal Mine are estimated to be 7,159,600 taels, equivalent to 1,040,000 pounds.And from this it was concluded that the industry must be worth a million pounds; that the enterprise was by no means a speculative enterprise, but an industrial enterprise which would produce very high profits.At the same time as this report was completed, an event that could affect the fate of modern China happened.

In 1900, the Boxer Movement developed vigorously.In January 1900, Cixi ignored the protests of Western diplomats and issued an edict to safeguard the Boxers.Zhili Governor Yulu then changed from destroying the Boxers to supporting the Boxers.In addition to distributing salaries to the members of the regiment, Yulu also invited the leader of the Boxer Regiment, Senior Brother, to open an altar in Tianjin to gather the crowd.So the boxers from Shandong poured into Zhili.From Tianjin to Zhuozhou and Baoding, boxers set up altars to pray to gods, burned churches, killed foreigners, killed Qing troops, and destroyed railways, telephone poles and other foreign objects everywhere.The prefect of Zhuozhou was even occupied by 30,000 Boxers.Empress Dowager Cixi sent the minister of military aircraft to co-organize the university scholar Gang Yi and Shuntian Prefecture Yin Zhao Shuqiao to investigate in Zhuozhou.As a result, after Gangyi returned to Beijing, he reported to Cixi that the boxers were loyal and that magic spells were available.Zaixun, Prince of Chaozhongzhuang, Zaiyi, Prince of Duanjun, and Zailan, Duke of Fuguo also advocated the Boxer Regiment and started war against foreigners.

In order to protect the interests of various countries in China, the foreign powers decided to intervene armed.On May 30th, gunboats from various countries gathered in the Dagu sea in Tianjin, and the war broke out. A few days later, the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded and occupied Kaiping Mine, Qinhuangdao Port and Tianjin City.The British patrol team stationed in Tianjin arrested Zhang Yi in a private house in the concession, on the charge that he was suspected of communicating with the boxers and feeding pigeons to pass the news.Zhang Yi was imprisoned in a room in the basement of Jardine Matheson Co., and the normally extravagant and promiscuous supervisor fell into panic.

The appearance of old friend De Cui Lin relieved Zhang Yi's tense nerves.Detriline's assurance that he would rescue him from danger strengthened Zhang Yi's confidence in the character of his foreign friend.When De Cuilin mentioned that the Tianjin coal warehouse was burned and that Tangshan and Linxi had no news, her expression was solemn and melancholy.He said that under such turbulent conditions, the Russian army was waiting for an opportunity to go south to occupy the mining area. If they want to keep the coal mines, they can only rely on Britain.As for how to preserve it, he proposed a Sino-British co-organization.Although Zhang Yi was a little hesitant about the proposal of a Sino-British joint coal mine, considering his current situation, he reluctantly agreed.

Immediately, De Cuilin showed Zhang Yi a certificate, which stated that De Cuilin was given the right to act cheaply, and let him use the best method he could to protect the interests of mineral shareholders.In fact, from the moment Zhang Yi signed the contract, De Cuilin has become the de facto general manager of the Kaiping Mining Bureau. Whether it is borrowing money or letting foreigners buy shares, it is up to De Cuilin to decide. Zhang Yi was released the next day.While still in shock, Detriline visited again.He claimed that the current situation is chaotic, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of protecting the mining rights with only empty paper evidence. If you want to completely keep the mining rights, you must get more power space, and then two committees and a backup contract were signed up.The two committees completely denied the original form of the Kaiping Mining Bureau in terms of the nature of the enterprise and the means of operation. One claimed that Tangshan Kaiping Mining Bureau was a Sino-foreign mining company either by borrowing foreign money or collecting foreign equity; A letter written by the letter committee was more straightforward in recruiting foreign stocks and greatly rectified it; however, the paradox was that in the standby contract, the object of the most important clause left an obvious blank to deprive all the land of the Mining Bureau. , Houses, mines, ships and all other property ownership and management rights are handed over to the bank.He will have the right to sell, mortgage, lease, manage, operate and administer the property as he wishes.Obviously, this was done on purpose by Detriline.Who has such a right?pending!

Subsequently, the development of things completely deviated from Zhang Yi's original intention.After obtaining Zhang Yi's carte blanche, De Cui Lin did not go to borrow money or raise foreign capital as promised, but found Hu Hua, an American employee of Molin Company, and they agreed to hand over all the properties of the Kaiping Mining Bureau to Zhang Yi. Registered company in the UK, and entrusted British lawyer Emes to draft a contract of sale.On July 30, 1900, De Trilin represented the Kaiping Mining Bureau and Hu Hua signed the agreement in Tanggu on behalf of the British Merlin Company, and was witnessed by Emmes and German businessman Hannagan, De Trilin's son-in-law.As a result, a vicious incident of reselling Chinese assets took place without the Chinese government knowing it at all.

In October, Hu Hua, who returned to the London headquarters, handed over the contract to Mo Lin. The scheming Mo Lin considered that the Chinese government would definitely not let go of the company easily, and that international forces such as Russia and France were bound to obstruct Kaiping's encroachment.Therefore, he transferred the mining rights to the international consortium Oriental Syndicate.On December 21 of the same year, according to the British company regulations, a multinational company named Kaiping Mining Co., Ltd. was born in London, and the registrant was the large consortium Oriental Syndicate.

In February of the following year, according to the company's instructions, Hu Hua accompanied the Belgian Wu Desi to China to take over the property of the Kaiping Mining Bureau.According to the terms of the sale agreement, they required Zhang Yi to transfer all the rights of the Kaiping Mining Bureau to the new company, and asked Zhang Yi to sign a supplementary transfer agreement. Zhang Yi did not dare to agree because the matter was very important.Hu Hua repeatedly put pressure on Zhang Yi. On the one hand, he claimed to make his reselling of state assets public;In the end, the two parties compromised and negotiated and drafted a side agreement as a memorandum, which was signed together with the handover agreement.At the request of Zhang Yi, the following clauses were stipulated in the contract: Zhang Yi was still the supervisor of the mine in Kaiping, and had the right to appoint a general office in China to manage Kaiping affairs; Huayang shareholders had the same right to discuss matters; Ping Zhan interests and so on. In the same month, Hu Hua and Wu Desi respectively served as the chief and deputy general offices of the Mining Bureau in accordance with the appointment of the Board of Directors of Kaiping Mining Co., Ltd., and completed the transfer of assets by exchanging new shares for old shares.In this way, Kaiping Coal Mine became a Western enterprise. After the incident came out, the whole country was in an uproar, and the public opinion sarcastically said: Not only is it rarely heard of around the world, but it is also laughed at by all nations.