"Come, sit down and talk."
Qi Zhenheng helped Shen Qing to sit down on a grand chair.
The moment Shen Qing's bottom touched the chair, she eagerly pointed to several points in the agreement: "Take a look at these clauses."
Qi Zhenheng looked down and the more he looked, the more his thick eyebrows furrowed.
Without Shen Qing needing to explain further, he could tell at a glance that this was an unequal treaty that the compradors had tricked the silk farmers into signing.
They had anticipated that Shen Qing would not be able to buy top-quality raw silk, which is why they thought of complaining to the Imperial Textile Bureau.
He closed the agreement, looking at Shen Qing with regret: "I know this is an unequal treaty, and I know you want me to declare these treaties invalid, but..."
He shook his head helplessly: "It's difficult. Because you can't prove it's unequal, even though we can all see it's unequal."
Shen Qing wasn't angry.
Although Qi Zhenheng had a good relationship with her, he was an impartial official and would never arbitrarily invalidate these agreements just because of her word.
She must produce evidence.
After carefully putting the agreement away, she calmly said to Qi Zhenheng, "Those compradors bought raw silk from silk farmers at extremely low prices and sold it to foreigners at high prices, but what they got back from the foreigners wasn't silver, do you know?"
"opium."
Qi Zhenheng appeared calm, but Shen Qing noticed a very slight tremor in the corner of his lips.
She continued, "Foreigners take away the best things from this land without spending a single ounce of silver. Not only that, they also use opium to harm the bodies of the Chinese people! Compradors played a crucial role in this!"
Some of these people will later become traitors, helping militarism to destroy the country.
But Shen Qing didn't say the last sentence.
She looked down at Qi Zhenheng's hand on the table, which was already clenched into a fist.
Shen Qing looked back at Qi Zhenheng and said calmly, "I know you hate it too, so you must help me! By helping me, you are helping Chinese businessmen! You are helping the Chinese people!"
Qi Zhenheng gritted his teeth, his eyes already red-rimmed: "What do you plan to do?"
"I want to collect all the top-quality raw silk in China. Foreigners want to buy it? Fine, they can only buy it from me! They can buy it with real gold and silver! I will return the silver that the silk farmers are entitled to! With my own strength, I will cut off all opium that enters this land through raw silk!"
Qi Zhenheng looked at her with red eyes, his back teeth clenched tightly, and his jaw muscles bulging on his cheeks.
Although he didn't say anything, Shen Qing knew what his look meant.
She stood up, cupped her hands in a respectful gesture to him, and said, "I will definitely find the evidence! Just wait for me!"
After saying that, he turned to leave the study.
Qi Zhenheng immediately stood up, quickly grabbed her wrist, and softly called out, "Qing'er..."
Shen Qing suddenly sensed something was wrong and tried to shake his hand, but couldn't get rid of it.
She turned to face Qi Zhenheng.
He looked intently at her: "Be careful."
She breathed a sigh of relief: "I'm bringing Jiang Shen with me, don't worry."
He stared at her intently and said, "Go."
...
As Shen Qing exited the gates of the Imperial Textile Bureau, Jiang Shen immediately caught up and asked in a low voice, "Lord Qi, where is he...?"
Shen Qing asked casually, "What's wrong with Lord Qi?"
Jiang Shen didn't dare to say it aloud.
Shen Qing and Qi Zhenheng were in the study just now, and although the door was closed, he still heard everything from outside.
Qi Zhenheng called Shen Qing "Qing'er" tenderly...
These two words say so much.
Even though Cheng Zhiwen had loved her deeply for a long time, in front of them he would only call her "she" or "Boss Shen".
But Qi Zhenheng called her "Qing'er"...
Shen Qing: "What do you want to say?"
Jiang Shen snapped out of his daze: "It's nothing."
Shen Qing went to Shanghai the next day.
With the help of Lao Xu and Jiang Shen, she met with an official from the Customs Administration and spent a lot of money to obtain several customs declarations for raw silk.
Foreigners exchanged opium for raw silk, so they didn't actually have to pay silver to the compradors anymore.
However, goods traded outside the customs need a clear flow of payments to prove that these foreign trades are genuine. Therefore, the compradors declared the export of raw silk at a very low amount, and the foreigners paid a small amount of money according to the amount on the customs declaration.
The raw silk on a single customs declaration could be worth tens of thousands of taels, but foreigners would only pay a few dozen taels as a token gesture.
Opium had already been smuggled into the country from other places.
The compradors sold these opiums to opium dens and obtained huge sums of money from them.
Where did the opium dens get their funds?
It was all contributed by Chinese people addicted to opium!
They might use all the money meant for their wives and children's food and medical treatment to indulge in opium, and most of this money, which sacrificed the lives and health of the Chinese people, ended up in the hands of compradors.
But were the compradors the ones who ultimately owned this silver?
no.
They were just puppets, and the silver was eventually shipped overseas, ultimately becoming funds for militarists to attack the country!
After analyzing all the details, Shen Qing calmly looked at Qi Zhenheng: "That's the whole conspiracy behind the export of raw silk. The raw silk that the silk farmers painstakingly cultivated ultimately became a tool for foreigners to destroy this country!"
Qi Zhenheng was shocked.
He was shocked to discover that there was such a huge conspiracy behind raw silk!
What shocked him even more was that Shen Qing had actually seen through all of this!
He believed himself to be well-read, and since childhood he had been determined to serve his country, and he had a thorough understanding of the situation in the country and the world.
But they failed to see through the conspiracy of the silkworm.
Foreigners have been trading goods with opium for decades, and despite repeated bans, it has not stopped. He thought that foreigners were just exchanging worthless opium for better things, but he did not expect that opium would eventually return overseas in the form of large amounts of silver.
Anger and helplessness surged within Qi Zhenheng's chest. He clenched his teeth and punched the table.
Shen Qing seized the opportunity and said, "Lord Qi, let's start with raw silk and work together to save this country! Let's work together!"
Qi Zhenheng looked at her with unwavering eyes: "Don't worry, leave the raw silk matter to me!"
By this point in the story, Shen Qing was exhausted.
She originally just wanted to buy good raw silk, but she accidentally stumbled upon a conspiracy involving raw silk and was forced to find evidence.
Now that she has found the evidence, the next steps, which involve smuggling and smoking bans, are beyond her control.
All of this can only be left to Qi Zhenheng to investigate and mediate.
Shen Qing returned to the Gao family and calmly awaited news from Qi Zhenheng.
Once those agreements controlling the silk farmers are deemed invalid, she will immediately go and acquire all the top-quality raw silk in Nanxun for the next ten years!
However, acquiring so much raw silk requires a large sum of money to be paid in advance.
Although she currently has two or three hundred thousand taels of silver, it is far from enough to purchase so much raw silk.
Shen Qing regretted spending most of his money on silk shops in Shanghai.
Where can we find so much silver right now?
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