Zuo Zongtang borrowed money from foreign banks to fight wars, so why did he choose high interest rates? This trick is too clever!
Speaking of Zuo Zongtang, one of the four humeral ministers of the late Qing Dynasty, I believe that many small friends will not be unfamiliar, and his anecdote of "carrying the coffin into Xinjiang" is even more evocative and admirable, and it should not be too much to call it a "national hero", at that time, the big ship in the late Qing Dynasty was already in turmoil, under internal and external troubles, there was a tragic fate of falling at any time, as the saying goes, "under the nest, there is no egg", in the face of internal rebels and external powers, Cixi was very sober in one thing. This is the great plan to recover Xinjiang!
Zuo Zongtang, as a heavy minister of the late Qing Dynasty, was really difficult to fight a war, he was dedicated to the country and the people, but after the war often did not get the logistical support of the Qing government, first suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, the Qing government at this time had long been poor and weak, so Zuo Zongtang realized that national development was the most important thing, so he set up foreign affairs. However, as the governor, in the face of chaos everywhere, he had to invite himself to the war, successively pacified Shaanxi and Gansu, recovered Xinjiang, and built the northwest, as early as the pacification of Shaanxi and Gansu, there was already a problem of military pay, the war relied on money, there was no financial support, even launching a small-scale war was unrealistic, so he borrowed money from the Qiao family and borrowed money from foreign firms.
By the early years of the Tongzhi Dynasty, only 440,000 taels of actual remuneration were allocated each year, and they were often in arrears, making it difficult for the Qing government in Xinjiang to continue. Among the annual salaries that should be allocated, 600,000 taels in Liangjiang, 1.44 million taels in Zhejiang, and 840,000 taels in Guangdong, due to the arrears of the past years, by the early years of Guangxu, the arrears of the provinces had reached 27.4 million taels. Zuo Zongtang apportioned the money from these loans to these provinces that were in arrears in paying salaries, and let Liangjiang, Zhejiang, and Guangdong, who were wealthy in their positions, repay the money for the state, which was regarded as settling the arrears of the arrears. Zuo Zongtang was worried that these provinces would find reasons to delay and affect the image of the Qing Dynasty in the world, and used high interest rates to force these provinces to repay the money quickly.
In addition, Zuo Zongtang is also a broken boat, because every time he borrows money, he uses the name of customs duties. Although the Qing government had no money on the surface, there were a lot of corrupt officials below, and as long as they squeezed a little, there was always some. Only such a high interest rate can suppress the corrupt officials in various provinces and pay the salary as soon as possible.
Later, Zuo Zongtang successfully recovered Xinjiang and eliminated Agubai. Many people may not understand Zuo Zongtang's borrowing money from foreign banks to fight wars. In fact, this is also Zuo Zongtang's helpless move. But why did Zuo Zongtang borrow money from a British bank with higher interest rates? In fact, this is also a little cleverness played by Zuo Zongtang. In fact, behind Agubai there is also the support of the British government. In order to prevent the money Zuo Zongtang borrowed from them from being lost, the British government reduced or even stopped support for Agubai. And this also won a small advantage for Zuo Zongtang to recover Xinjiang. I have to say that Zuo Zongtang's approach is still very clever.