Chapter 96: Everyone pooled their money to spend on the title!
After coming out of Thomson's office, Ridgway was still feeling dizzy.
He has not yet recovered from the shock of being knighted.
If he really gets his wish this time, I am afraid he will be the first Chinese to be awarded a British knighthood.
It is a coincidence that decades ago, the Qing Dynasty also canonized an Englishman named Gordon.
He was born into a family of British military officers and participated in the Second Opium War between Britain and France against the Qing Dynasty.
Participated in the robbery of the Old Summer Palace, killing many people.
However, the situation in the Qing Dynasty at that time was extremely strange and complicated.
Gordon finally joined Zeng Guofan's army and helped him suppress the Taiping Rebellion.
After the war, in order to "recognize" his "contributions", Emperor Tongzhi granted him the title of admiral (from the first rank of military attaché) and gave him a set of yellow mandarin jackets.
In the Qing Dynasty, only military attachés with greater military exploits could enjoy the honor of this yellow mantle.
It can be seen that the Manchus were crazy and stupid.
For a time, Gordon became a celebrity in Britain, and even the Queen knew his name.
Later Gordon was sent to the Sudan of Africa as governor. During an uprising, he was stabbed to death with a spear by an uprising warrior.
The news of his death saddened the British authorities and people.
Queen Victoria, who was still in power at the time, even angrily criticized the then Prime Minister Gladstone for his "inadequate assistance".
And eventually the other party was forced to step down.
Compared with Gordon, the British gave Ridgway a lower knighthood, which seemed too petty.
Because before leaving, Lord Rayleigh told him that even the lowest rank of knight, if Ridgway did not become a British national or a member of the Commonwealth, could not be called him in public. Jazz.
As for privately, it doesn’t matter.
Li Qiwei was speechless. The British guy's "carrot to lure the donkey" trick was very smooth.
I am afraid that I want to use this method to collect talents from all over the world and use them for myself.
But Li Qiwei doesn’t matter, it’s the same for the Manchus anyway, it’s an absolute life-saver.
The British even hoped that if Li Qiwei and the Manchus had irreconcilable conflicts, he would intervene and then extort benefits.
The complicated game process here, as long as everyone does not break up, is enough to protect the Li Qiwei family.
Next, he has to consider the matter of 10,000 pounds.
During this period, Li Qiwei also specialized in studying the status and exchange rate of the pound at this time.
It’s not that I don’t know, but I’m shocked.
As the most mainstream currency in the world, the pound is really valuable.
The pound is directly linked to gold:
1 pound = 7.3 grams of gold;
1 pound = 6.6 taels of silver (two taels from the customs);
1 pound = 5 US dollars;
In this era, Britain is a skilled A skilled worker is roughly equivalent to an ordinary white-collar worker in later generations.
His annual income is about 100 pounds, which can support a family of four well.
Then ten thousand pounds is the income of a skilled worker for a hundred years, and he can save it without eating or drinking.
As you can imagine, this is a huge amount of money.
Furthermore, the UK’s fiscal revenue last year was 140 million pounds, and the richest man in the UK is only worth about 15 million pounds.
Li Qiwei recalled that during his graduation defense, he once boasted that his patent could earn one million pounds.
It suddenly accounts for almost 1% of the British GDP. This is no longer terrifying, but a fantasy.
The bragging was so awesome that no wonder many people didn’t believe it at the time and probably took it as a joke.
Philips' tungsten filament light bulbs have only been on sale for more than two months, although according to Gerald, sales are booming.
Li Qiwei conservatively estimates that if he can get a dividend of 5,000 pounds by the end of the year, he will be thankful.
But Lord Rayleigh requested that the money should be collected within three days, and then he would leave it to others to operate.
Therefore, patent dividends cannot be counted on. The agreement he signed with Gerrard stipulated that dividends should be distributed once a year and settled in one lump sum in January of the following year.
So Li Qiwei had no choice but to go back and take a look at his background, and then find others to join forces.
After returning home from the experiment in the afternoon, he first called Xianglan and asked her to bring her account book with her.
"Xianglan, how much money do you have from home now?"
Although Xianglan is usually responsible for keeping accounts and is familiar with the income and expenditure, she is still careful. He checked it carefully and then replied: "There are currently 8,000 pounds left, all of which are deposited in Standard Chartered Bank."
"Master, here are the bill details. Take a look." He said and handed over the account book.
After Li Qiwei took it, he opened it and looked through it. This was the first time he looked at the account book.
The above is divided into categories according to the date, and the details are written in great detail. It can be seen that Xianglan is loyal and serious in her work.
It’s no wonder that her predecessor was so relieved of her, letting her take care of the accounts while he acted as the hands-off shopkeeper.
When he came to the UK from China to study, his father was worried and exchanged 100,000 taels of silver at Standard Chartered Bank in one go, which was equivalent to about 15,000 pounds.
Standard Chartered Bank established a branch in Shanghai as early as 1858.
So if you keep it there, you won’t have to carry a huge amount of silver with you, which is neither safe nor convenient.
After arriving in the UK, you can withdraw money directly from the Standard Chartered Bank headquarters in London with a check.
Li Qiwei nodded frequently as he saw it, our family is still rich.
100,000 taels of silver was not a small amount in the Qing Dynasty, and it was still cash.
Now they have three masters and servants, and they have spent 7,000 pounds in four years, which is considered very luxurious.
Of course, most of it was spent on the Spark Project, and he paid for it with food, housing and tuition.
There is still 1,000 pounds left for emergency and living expenses, so there is still a gap of 3,000 pounds. Now we can only find a few other people to make up for it.
So, he asked Xiang Lan to find everyone else to discuss the matter.
When Wang Luyao and He Yujie arrived, Li Qiwei told him that he might be knighted, which immediately aroused exclamations.
Little stars popped up in Wang Luyao's eyes, "Wow, brother Qiwei, you are so awesome."
"The British titles should be similar to those in the Qing Dynasty, right?"
Li Qiwei said : "Well, it's not easy to compare. At least with this identity, I won't face any obvious difficulties when I go back."
Then he said that he still lacked 3,000 pounds to manage relationships. , which aroused Wang Luyao's contempt.
“It seems that the whole world is the same. If you want to be an official, you have to send money first. Britain is not a good place either.”
"Brother Qiwei, I can offer you 2,000 pounds."
Li Qiwei was surprised, the little witch is really rich! It seems that she is also the apple of her father's eye.
Xia Yuanzhen and Xu Qitai invested 500 pounds each, and the 3,000 gap was immediately filled.
He didn't let He Yujie get any money. The other party's family was in decline and he couldn't afford much money at the moment.
After collecting the money, Li Qiwei waved his hand and started drawing pie again. He said proudly: "Don't worry, my patent dividend will come down soon."
"Moreover, I will open and invest in various factories in the future to make a lot of money."
"When the time comes, I will pay you guys wages, and I guarantee that you will follow me to enjoy the hot and spicy food!"
The three little ones from Xinghuo immediately shouted, in fact, they don’t care about money, they just want to do big things.
Like all aspiring young people in China in this era, they all use money as a tool just to realize their dream of revitalizing the country.
The next day, Li Qiwei handed over the 10,000 pounds he collected to Lord Rayleigh and expressed his gratitude to him again.
Lord Rayleigh patted him on the shoulder and said, "Do your experiments well in Cavendish. I hope you will make more amazing academic discoveries."
Li Qiwei quickly expressed his affirmation and then sent the other party away personally.
Regarding the currency situation of various countries in the world in 1900, you can read the explanatory chapter in [Related Works]. In the later period, the protagonist's stall was very large, so it was necessary to give a rough explanation of the prices and wealth at that time.
(End of this chapter)