Chapter 32 Stock Market crash and plague

As time goes by, more and more people gathered in Tongliao City, including Han people, Mongolian people, and occasionally foreigners.

Mongolian wool, cowhide, cheese, etc. flowed to Tongliao City on a large scale, while foreign fires, sugar, fur boots, and spirits from the northeast also flowed into the grasslands in large quantities through Tongliao City.

In less than a year, Tongliao City has developed into a commercial city with a large scale, with houses two or three stories high and more land projects under construction. In addition to Shuguang Ash Factory, more than ten other ash factories and brick factories are working hard to produce.

Like Tongliao City's vitality, Shanghai's rubber stock market is also surging, showing an abnormal prosperity.

In January 1910, the price of the stock that Cao Yukun bought had risen from 60 taels to 1083 taels, which was a little more than 18 times.

In February 1910, it rose to 1,150 taels, and Shanghai was full of people talking about stocks, from high-ranking officials to hawkers pulling carts on the streets, trying their best to borrow money to buy stocks, and the buying frenzy made many people get rich overnight. Officials tried their best to use their power to seek personal gain, and wealthy families with small assets used their assets as collateral to borrow money from money shops. The rich ladies and wives sold rings, gold, silver jewelry, etc. for silver, but it was not enough to have money alone, and stocks were rare. Usually, after a person exposed the rubber stocks of a certain company in his hand, more than a dozen foreigners asked whether they wanted to sell the stocks in their hands.

Many dignitaries are not satisfied with the rubber stock market in Shanghai, and even go to the UK to buy it.

In March, the stocks purchased by Cao Yukun had risen to 1,210 taels. At this time, the stock transactions in the market began to slowly decrease, and Cao Yukun also began to sell the stocks in batches.

In April, when Ye Chong's account had 6.71 million taels of silver, the stock price rose a little more, but the number of transactions was getting smaller and smaller. The rubber stock market was like a huge sponge, absorbing all the working capital in Shanghai. In particular, the working capital of the money shop was absorbed by the rubber stocks. More than 45 million taels of silver were included, not including the more than 15 million taels purchased by Chinese merchants in London, England.

In July, the stock price of rubber was constantly refreshed, but the transaction number was almost zero. Mai Bian, who once founded Langezhi Tuozhi Company, saw that the bubble was difficult to cover, so he carried all the money one night, and the world evaporated. Mai Bian's private escape with money was like a stone thrown into a pool of boiling water that was about to roll, causing huge waves. The entire rubber stock market was like a flood that collapsed, with mountains and rivers falling day by day, and collapsed thousands of miles.

Originally, this stock market crash could still be controlled within a certain range, but the complex factional struggle of the Qing government caused the most precious time to rescue the market. This tide quickly affected the prosperous Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions and the Yangtze River Basin, and the large cities along the southeast coast. China's industry and commerce suffered heavy losses. The results of the new policy in the late Qing Dynasty were almost destroyed. The Chinese businessmen lost about 60 million taels of silver in the stock markets of Shanghai and London, while the disposable fiscal revenue of the Qing government was only 100 million yuan at that time.

The outflow of such a huge amount of money made the Qing government's financial situation worse. The Qing government "nationalized" the commercial railway the following year and borrowed money from the great powers with the right of road as collateral, triggering the Sichuan road protection movement. The Qing government dispatched troops from Hubei to suppress it, resulting in the emptiness of Hubei's troops. The Wuchang Uprising was successful the following year. The Xinhai Revolution sounded the death knell of the Qing government, and the rubber stock tide made the time when the death knell rang into the countdown, laying the groundwork for the collapse of the Qing government.

Ye Chong naturally didn't know that the losses of this stock market crash were so serious that they became the fuse for the destruction of the Qing Dynasty. No matter what, he finally made a big profit this time. Taking advantage of Xu Ying's out, Ye Chong got into Han Ying's house again.

"Xiaoying, why don't you and Xu Nan live separately, you two will be inseparable from each other." The temperature in the grassland in summer was very high, and Han Ying was wearing thin clothes. Ye Chong rubbed Han Ying's chest fullness through her clothes.

Han Ying pinched Ye Chong and said, "Sister Nan is afraid of the darkness alone, why do I have the nerve to tell Sister Nan?" After rubbing Ye Chong like this, his anger became a little uneven.

"Don't take it off, I won't have time to wear it later." Han Ying held the hand on her chest.

Ye Chong lifted Han Ying's skirt to his waist, asked Han Ying to hold the table, and took off Han Ying's thin pants with furious hands and feet. His soft and slender waist was unbearable to hold it. After reaching his buttocks, he magnified it sharply. Ye Chong smiled and took a shot on the whitening full moon, then pressed his slender waist on it.

"In a few days, you will not have so much trouble if you marry you."

Han Ying was confused by Ye Chong's push, and there was no energy to talk to Ye Chong.

"Squeak--"When Ye Chong couldn't go up or down, the door was suddenly pushed open. Xu Nan looked at the two people who were sticking together and then turned around with a red face, "You, you..."

Han Ying also came to her senses, with a strong blush on her face, and she was busy putting on her clothes, and angrily hit Ye Chong twice: "It's all you, how can you go out to see people now?"

"I just saw it, it's not a big deal. I'll marry you sooner or later." Ye Chong was also depressed. Xu Nan didn't come sooner or later, and he really knew how to choose the time.

After comforting Han Ying for a while, he returned to his residence. Ye Chong thought about choosing a zodiac auspicious day to marry Han Ying, but it was interrupted by a disaster from the north.

Perhaps a nation is destined to go through various hardships if it wants to be reborn from the ashes.

In the early 20th century, people invented a process that as long as the fur of marmots is properly processed, its quality is comparable to that of minks. For a time, marmot skin became the new favorite in the world leather market, and its prices have been rising year by year. In 1910, the price of each marmot skin soared more than 6 times compared with 1907, greatly stimulating merchants on the Sino-Russian border at that time.

So at the turn of spring and summer in 1910, a black death called plague, also known as the black death that made Europeans turn into color, began to spread to those who hunted marmots. At first, because Russia was vast and sparsely controlled, it was extremely strict, and there was not close contact between each other's villages, so the plague spread on the ground of Tsarist Russia. However, for the sake of its own security, the Russians began to expel Chinese workers suspected of being infected. In early October, a Chinese workers' shed near the Dawula Station in Russia, according to the "Epidemic Report of the Three East Provinces", "seven people suddenly died suddenly."

"The Russians knew that the disease was terrible, so they expelled all Chinese workers in the shed," and also burned all the clothes and luggage in the shed. Among the expelled Chinese workers, two came to Manzhouli on October 19, which caused a plague that later spread to the three eastern provinces.

Immediately afterwards, Russia loaded thousands of Chinese workers into scrapped iron trains and transported them back to Harbin along the Middle East Road. Among the thousands, some of them died of illness, but more of them starved to death and froze to death in the carriage.

On November 14, 1910, the Shengjing Times published by Fengtian had a text message in the corner: "On the 13th, there were 21 sick people at Manzhouli Station. On that day, 21 Chinese were sick, 24 died, and 18 left, 26 people were sick, 26 people were sick, 4 Russians were sick, and 14 people were sick, and 18 people were sick, and 164 people were sick, and 166 people were killed, and 4 Russians were…"

The highest commander of Harbin, Northwest Road, Yu Sixing, together with Russian officials, inspected Fujiadian, ordered some houses to be rented as nursing homes, and instructed the local patrol bureau to send them to the nursing home once they were found to be infected to prevent infection.

At this time, the medical and health system of the Qing Dynasty was almost zero. In 1905, Beijing began to set up a sanitation department under the Patrol General Office, which specializes in cleaning up garbage. As the capital was like this, the situation in the emerging city on the border of Harbin was even worse, and there was not even a Chinese and Western doctor. Although the government also did some epidemic prevention work at the beginning of the epidemic, the equipment was backward and the lack of scientific knowledge made these efforts drop by a drop in the face of the surging epidemic.

What is even more serious is that after the collapse of Shanghai rubber stock market, the Qing government fell into a nationwide financial crisis, and the Qing government was unable to resist such a large-scale acute infectious disease. In history, the plague had two world-wide pandemics. The first occurred in the 6th century AD, killing one-quarter of the population of the Roman Empire and directly leading to the decline of the Roman Empire. The second occurred in medieval Europe, where the plague killed 25 million people, and after the plague ended, the population of Europe decreased by nearly one-third. If not well controlled, the plague was enough to become a force to destroy the country.

The epidemic went south along the railway. For a while, "the epidemic spreads, and people's hearts are afraid" and is like a river breaking a dam, unstoppable. "The dead bodies are located on the pillow, and the shape is particularly miserable." Longjiang, Changchun, Hulan, and even Hebei, Shandong... Every day, the deaths of the epidemic have increased exponentially. Xi Liang, the governor of the three eastern provinces, sighed in a deep voice, the epidemic is "like water pouring down the ground, like fire spreading to the prairie."

In early December 1910, Shi Zhaoji, the right chief of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, received a note from Russia and Japan. Russia and Japan demanded independent presidency of the epidemic prevention matters of North Manchuria on the name of the Qing government's inability to control the epidemic.

Just a few months ago, Shi Zhaoji had just stepped down from the Bingbei Road, Northwest Road, Jilin. He knew very well about the situation in the Northeast. He knew that agreeing to Russia and Japan to independently preside over the epidemic prevention in the Northeast was tantamount to giving up the sovereignty of the three eastern provinces.

The epidemic situation is unstoppable, and the great powers are ambitions. Under the double pressure of natural disasters and man-made disasters, the Qing Dynasty is like a slump.

Only by controlling the epidemic can we block the mouths of the great powers, and foreigners must not be presided over the epidemic prevention in the Northeast. But who among the Chinese has such great ability? Shi Zhaoji was worried secretly.

At this time, he remembered a person he met in Penang, Nanyang during his inspection tour with the Qing government's constitutional inspection team five years ago.

This person's name is Wu Liante, a doctor of medicine at Cambridge University. Wu Liante, who grew up overseas since childhood, has a more skilled English than Chinese, but he has a heart to serve his country with sincerity. At this time, Wu Liante had returned from Nanyang for two years and was a assistant in the Tianjin Army Medical School. In the early morning of December 22, 1910, Wu Liante and his assistant Lin Jiarui boarded the train to the north.

Isolation, disinfection, blocking traffic... I have done everything I can do, why is the epidemic getting worse day by day? At this time, Wu Lien-Te was under great pressure. He thought carefully again and again whether there were still loopholes in the defense system he established. What else was not considered? Suddenly, he realized that the crux of the problem might lie in the burial of the corpse.

Wu Lien-teh came to the cemetery in the north of the city. The scene in front of him shocked him. It was winter, and the snow on the ground was five or six inches thick. Rows of coffins and corpses were parked in the open air on the snow, stretching like a long snake formation for more than a mile.

Bacillus can survive these corpses for a long time. This cemetery is like a large freezer for plague. If mice or other animals come into contact with these corpses and the animals are transmitted to people in the city, all epidemic prevention measures will be gone.

These corpses must be disposed of as soon as possible. Wu Liande asked them to bury the burial team and asked them to dig a hole to bury the corpses quickly. But in the winter in Harbin, the temperature is at least minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. At such a temperature, the land is harder than gold and stone. Not to mention digging a hole deep, it is very difficult to dig a shallow hole. If you want to bury the soil, you can only wait until the earth thaws in spring. But in this way, people who die from the plague will probably have to multiply.

What to do? Wu Lien-Te thought secretly. There are only two ways to stop the plague from spreading through corpses. One is to bury deeply, and the other is to "burn the corpse!" This thought flashed through Wu Lien-Te's mind, and even he himself couldn't help but tremble.

The Chinese have always had the custom of being buried in peace and respect the remains of their parents and ancestors. Under the traditional concept, "burning corpses" is simply unimaginable.

Ye Chong naturally didn't know that Wu Liante was hindered by this or that. However, Ye Chong was no longer interested in caring at this time. As the plague went south along Zhongdong Road and Nanman Road, a middle-aged furry named Wang Bing brought the plague to Tongliao. Even among the people brought out by Ye Chong, there were Tang Zhi and Sun Qi, two pictorial leaders who died of the plague one after another.

Originally, the emerging commercial city of Tongliao was dead at this time, and more than a dozen people died every day. Once this plague was infected, it would have a fever, cough, and then cough up blood, and its whole body became purple. In less than three or four days, a living person would swallow his breath and there was no cure to relieve it. Death was not scary, but what was scary was the despair that permeated the entire city, waiting for death to come.

Like Tongliao City, where the epidemic is raging, all industries are abolished, people's livelihood is declining, and social and economic life is in full swing. The Qing government forced the closure of all theaters, brothels and other entertainment venues in the epidemic area, resulting in actors "begging along the street" and prostitutes "sitting to sit for a long time and have no way to live". In Fengtian, the plague caused a tide of people's bank run. In Jilin, due to the cut off traffic, the market was short of goods and the people were suffering. In Harbin, the plague also affected the export of soybeans and other grain crops. Schools were suspended due to the epidemic of plague, and it was very common for industrial and mining to stop production.

"Black Crow, was the radio station built?" Ye Chong asked.

Because the use of horses between Fengtian and Tongliao was too slow to transmit information, Ye Chong asked Xu Heiya to order 30 radio stations from Siemens Telecom Company and set up radio stations in Taonan, Tongliao, Fengtian and other places. In addition, many people planned to recruit a group of people to learn from the army and promote it to the army, but it was interrupted by the plague.

Xu Heiya nodded and said with a serious expression: "I have already set up and received a telegram from Brother Yukun. The number of deaths in cities such as Harbin, Jilin, Changchun and other places is still increasing. Sir, when will the plague end?"

"Who knows." Ye Chong smiled bitterly. Faced with such a disaster, human life seemed so fragile. Ye Chong was a little strange. How could there be no such record in the history textbooks of previous life for such a big thing? What kind of battle did it eliminate many enemies, what kind of results it achieved, it severely hit the enemy's arrogance, and boosted a certain spirit. If it were introduced, he might be able to save this disaster. At present, Ye Chong was just relying on some fragmented common sense in his previous life to strictly order people from Tongliao not to leave the scene, and outsiders were not allowed to come in. Once the patient was found, he was immediately isolated and cleaned up dirty places. However, the number of deaths every day still increased.

"Sir, sir, it's not good." Yang Ping ran into the house and said in a panic.

"What's the matter?" Ye Chong rubbed his temples, and the matter was a little exhausted during this period.

"Miss Han and Miss Xu seem to have a fever. They are now locked in the house and drove out the two maids." Yang Ping said tactfully, but the fever is the prelude to the plague. As long as Tongliao City is infected with the plague, no one can last for four days.

"What!" Ye Chong's face changed drastically and he stood up.

"Sir, Fengtian comes here for the latest telegram." At this time, someone hurried in.

"Wu Liande, the chief medical officer of the epidemic prevention in the three eastern provinces, asked for an order to burn the body!" Ye De took the telegram forwarded by Cao Yukun and read it, and slapped the telegram on the table and said, "Zijian! Ask Wang Tonglai and Sun Tonglai to bring it here immediately!"

"Master Commander, what's the matter if you call us here so urgently?" After a while, Sun Liechen and Wang Houchun arrived hurriedly.

"You arrange people to gather all the corpses that died of the plague during this period and burn them down with fire." Ye Chong took a breath.

In addition to Ye Chong, Sun Liechen and others were shocked.

"Sir, this... should you think about it again?" Sun Liechen was a little embarrassed. The deceased was buried in peace. The burning of the body was challenging the bottom line of feudal morality. Once it was spread, Ye Chong's reputation would be completely terrible.

"This is the request of the chief medical officer of the three northeastern provinces to prevent the epidemic. You can take a look and then arrange for people to organize the burning of the body immediately. If there is any obstruction, you will be arrested. You two are fully responsible for this matter." Ye Chong said expressionlessly, but his eyes could not hide his panic. After saying that, he abandoned everyone and left.

"Sir, this is it?" Wang Houchun had never seen Ye Chong look so nervous.

"Miss Xu and Miss Han have high fevers. The adults just got the message." Xu Heiya said with a wry smile.

Sun Liechen's expression changed and he hurriedly said, "Stop the Lord!"

Unable to stop him, Ye Chong rushed to the small courtyard newly built by Han Ying and Xu Nan. The two beautiful maids were standing outside the door at a loss.

"You all retreat, no one is allowed to approach without ordering." Ye Chong sighed, stepped forward a few times, jumped lightly, put his hand on the top of the nearly 3.5-meter-high wall, and with a little force, he flexibly flipped in.

"Xiaoying, open the door!" Ye Chong knocked in front of the door.

Han Ying's sob sound came from the room, "Brother Ye, you, leave quickly, don't get infected with our strange disease."

"You have been locked in the house these two days and you haven't gone anywhere. The two maids are fine, and you won't be able to do anything. It's just a cold. Don't scare yourself." Ye Chong didn't know if he was comforting himself.

"Brother Ye, you go, I won't open the door. Go quickly..."

"Xu Nan, please help me open the door."

"Xingwu, go, if you stay with us for a long time, you will die..." Xu Nan's depressed crying voice came from the room.

No matter what Ye Chong said, Xu Nan and Han Ying just stayed in the house and didn't come out or open the door. In the end, they didn't even reply to Ye Chong's words.

After wandering at the door for a few steps, Ye Chong circled around the house and came to the window. Now there are glass factories and grey factories that drove from Fengtian. The new houses are all spacious red brick houses built, and the windows are replaced with glass windows. Ye Chong clenched his fist and punched the glass.

He smashed a few pieces of glass and pulled the window down.

"I won't make a stove if I'm so cold!" Ye Chong crawled into the room from the window, watching Han Ying and Xu Nan curled up in the corner of the pit with their quilt in their arms, and said with a little blame.

"Brother Ye, don't come over." Han Ying quickly spoke out to stop Ye Chong from approaching.

"What are you saying? If I hadn't encountered this incident, I would have married you." Ye Chong kicked his fur boots and climbed onto the bed, forcibly hugged Han Ying, who was shrinking back, and ignored her struggle.

Han Ying just shook her head and cried and didn't say anything, but she couldn't struggle with Ye Chong. After a long time of breaking down, she started to cry.

Ye Chong looked at Xu Nan who was huddled in the other corner of the kang, and shed tears silently, without saying a word, looking alone. Ye Chong sighed and patted Han Ying on the back, and then carried Xu Nan over.

Xu Nan struggled symbolically for a few moments, then a trace of redness rose on his sickly face, and he leaned gently on Ye Chong.

"When did you two start?" At this time, there is no need to care about men and women. Even Ye Zhongxin thought that the two were infected with the plague.

"This morning." Xu Nan whispered, then suddenly exclaimed: "Your hands are bleeding."

"You two don't open the door, but smashed a few pieces of glass, how can you not shed blood?" Ye Chong said blamingly: "Why, when you close the door, you think I can't do anything to you two?"

Han Ying held Ye Chong's hand in her arms and wiped the blood for Ye Chong. In fact, there was nothing to wipe. In such a cold day, the blood formed ice as soon as it flowed out.
To be continued...