Chapter 339 Behind Hayes's Plan

"Guo, it's impossible, we can't agree to your request."

Hearing Guo Jinzhang's request, Whitney immediately shook his head like a rattle. Just kidding, Tangzhou is already depressing enough. With a battleship, three cruisers are about to be found, but he still wants a battleship cruiser? Although he just proposed a concept, based on his years of naval experience, he could immediately judge that once a battleship is caused, it is indeed a standard cruiser killer. In other words, when encountering a battleship, ordinary cruisers can only die. It is obvious that today, when a large number of cruisers form a navy, the emergence of battleships will threaten most countries in the world. Tangzhou is just a state and should not have such force.

"But compared with what we provide, these requirements are not excessive." Guo Jinzhang said dissatisfied.

"Yes, what you provide is indeed worth it. But, Guo, the value of the item is not necessarily the selling price. And what you provide is obviously impossible to sell at the same price as its own value. Because no one in this world can afford that price, including the United Kingdom," Whitney said.

"Then what do you think we should ask for?" Guo Jinzhang asked again.

"Guo, you are a smart person. Tangzhou has enough force to protect himself. Therefore, you should not ask for too much military affairs. This will be detrimental to you." Whitney said solemnly.

"No force, then what else do we need?" Guo Jinzhang spread his hands and asked back.

"This..." Whitney couldn't help but frown. Yes, if you don't ask for stronger military power, what else does Tangzhou need? Money? People don't lack, and with the alliance with Colombia and the occupation of Hawaii, Tangzhou's money will only increase and increase, and one to two hundred million US dollars a year cannot be considered unexpected. Compared with the almost sparse population here, the funds that the Tangzhou government can use every year are simply astronomical, enough to make any country in the world jealous. If there is no shortage of money and a small population, naturally there is no shortage of land... Although these guys are expanding all day long, they have not even developed the territory near Seattle.

"Guo, look... how about the two Senate seats?"

The money is not good, the land is not good, and the others... Tangzhou is already very competitive, and giving some preferential policies is tantamount to letting the tiger go down the mountain. In desperation, Whitney had to take out the countermeasures he had discussed with Cleveland and others when he came.

"Can Congress agree?" Guo Jinzhang asked with a smile.

"As long as the White House proposes a bill, you work harder and I believe that you will definitely achieve your goal." Whitney said.

"But we have two states." Guo Jinzhang stretched out his two fingers and shook it in front of Whitney. "According to regulations, we should have four seats in the Senate."

"Guo, you know this is impossible. And, Alaska does not have much population..."

“But it is indeed a state.”

"That was what you forced Chessert Arthur to admit. According to the actual situation, Alaska is far from qualified for a state."

"But it is still a state! It was confirmed by Congress."

"Can't you give in?"

"Didn't we give in? I was going to fight cruisers...ah, you don't want us to own cruiser killers. So can we prepare several shipyards for us?" Guo Jinzhang asked again.

"In the United States, no one can object to you opening a shipyard on your own. But I must remind you that Guo, if there is a shipyard in Tangzhou, the White House and Capitol Hill will be extremely stimulated. You will understand what the consequences will be." Whitney threatened.

"It's really troublesome. I had known that I would have to have a shipyard from the beginning. Unfortunately, I didn't have much money at that time, ah..." Guo Jinzhang looked up at the sky and sighed helplessly.

"..." Fortunately, you didn't know that you would be so rich at that time. Otherwise, you wouldn't know when the dreadnought and fire control system would be kept secret. At that time, let alone Hawaii, I'm afraid even the Philippines wouldn't have our share. Whitney looked at Guo Jinzhang, but he couldn't help but feel glad. Fortunately, the Chinese's goal was mainly on land at that time, otherwise, it would be hard to imagine how arrogant Guo Jinzhang would be now. If this guy had owned a shipyard early, with his rapid economic development and his advanced creativity in naval warships, Tangzhou would definitely have more than one Dreadnought-class battleship now, and with the Panama Canal that is currently actually controlled by him, the United States would have only had a defensive position for a long time.

"Actually, I don't have much thoughts about the Senate seat. We are living a good life now and there is no big meaning to have that thing or not. So, I don't want to exchange the fire control system for these." Guo Jinzhang said again.

"What do you want?" Whitney seemed powerless. Such a large United States of America could not provide anything that could attract Tangzhou?

"Think about it, we really don't have anything too urgently needed at the moment..."

“…”

...

“They have something much needed.”

Whitney couldn't talk to Guo Jinzhang, and Whitney spent a lot of time thinking about what he could use to exchange with Tangzhou. In desperation, he had to hand over the problem to Washington by telegram. Anyway, he was the Secretary of the Navy and was not good at this... However, he did not give up unilaterally. After thinking for a while, he came to another guest on the island, Hays! What he didn't expect was that he just told Hays about the difficulties. The former president, who was not good at wisdom and reaction, immediately told him that Tangzhou actually had something he needed urgently.

"What do they need?" Whitney looked at Hayes with longing.

"Yes, they urgently need something very important, very, very important." Hayes smiled.

"What?"

"population!"

"What...what means?"

"That is to say, we can promise Guo Jinzhang to immigrate to Tangzhou to a larger population." Theodore Roosevelt was also there. As the head of the intelligence system of the War Department in Tangzhou, although he was not qualified to participate in the negotiations, he had the task of providing relevant information to Whitney and others. Although he had not been able to collect too much and had basically not been able to help Whitney, he still went to the island with the excuse of asking Hayes for advice.

"That's right." Hayes nodded.

"This won't work." Whitney shook his head repeatedly, "Tangzhou is now very terrible. They already have the ability to threaten the United States of America. If they are allowed to immigrate to more people, their power will be even more terrible, and this cannot be agreed."

"Haha, of course I know your worries. But if you miss this opportunity, you may not be able to agree at that time, and you will not get any benefits." Hayes smiled.

"Why do you say that?" Whitney asked.

"Theodore, you should be very clear about the population composition of Tangzhou, right?" Hayes did not answer directly, but looked at Roosevelt.

"Of course." Roosevelt nodded, "Although the population of Tangzhou is more than 100,000 on the surface, if they are added to the concession in Greater Vancouver, it actually exceeds 200,000, and is close to 250,000. Among these populations, nearly half are Chinese workers who have worked and lived in various parts of the United States, and the rest are all immigrated from various provinces in China through various means. Among them, the five provinces in Shandong, Hebei, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong in China have the largest population."

"Is this related to what we are going to talk about?" Whitney didn't understand.

"Of course it doesn't matter, but it's going to matter next." Roosevelt smiled bitterly, "The population of more than 200,000 is less than 2% of the total number of women. This is because some Chinese men intermarried with white women and local Indian women, which made these women also counted into the local population by Tangzhou!"

"What did you say?" Whitney was startled: "Two percent?"

"I once suspected that this data had a lot of moisture. However, even if there was moisture, two percent was definitely a reason enough to make the entire Tangzhou rise up and go to war with the United States of America!" Roosevelt said.

"In other words, if we don't want the people of Tangzhou to endure until the end and then launch a war with us, we must allow them to immigrate to more people." Hayes also smiled bitterly.

"But, although we have not agreed to their large-scale immigration, we have never really stopped it." Whitney defended.

"But it must be admitted that the government has been obstructing them intentionally or unintentionally, and this has caused great resistance to the immigration of Tangzhou. However, the establishment of Tangzhou is still short, and the residents here are still focusing more on production and making money. Moreover, about half of the population here, the Chinese workers who originally lived in the United States have basically adapted to the life without women. In addition, the state government's resolute suppression, so there is no big problem. But how long can this happen? You must know that more than 90% of the residents of Tangzhou are adult men. They will sooner or later," Hayes said seriously.

"Okay..." Whitney couldn't help but take a breath when he thought of the terrible scene of 200,000 bachelors storming together. As a man and a navy who had to be abstinent, he certainly knew what the consequences would have been if ** could not be released. It was definitely a disaster: "I will report what you said to Washington, but I can't guarantee what measures will be taken there."

"If they were wise, they would take this opportunity to trade population policies in exchange for Tangzhou's technology. Otherwise, even if Tangzhou doesn't pay anything in the next few years, they must agree to the immigration request." Roosevelt smiled wryly and repeated what Hayes had just said. To be honest, living in a place that is almost entirely composed of men is indeed very depressing.

"I already know, but I don't want to talk about this now." Whitney also smiled bitterly, "I'm just worried that it's impossible to convince Guo Jinzhang by loosening the population just by loosening the population. We all know very well that this guy is a smart, but even more greedy madman. He understands the importance of the fire control system. It may be difficult for him to satisfy just loosening the population of Tangzhou."

"Then sell him a few more pieces of land." Hayes said.

"Land?" Whitney was surprised, "Aren't they short of land? They have not even fully developed around Seattle yet!"

"During the time when I arrived, I had discussed land issues with Guo Jinzhang. As a result, he told me that with the desire for land alone, China is almost second only to Russia among the major powers. It is just that the Chinese people have paid a huge price for every outward expansion for thousands of years, and they have annexed almost all the land that can be almost annexed around them. Coupled with the unenergized and centralized political system of the governments of all generations, the government is unwilling to annex large amount of land that cannot be directly controlled, so they have not achieved much results in the past few hundred years. However, this does not mean that they have lost this desire. Especially the ordinary Chinese farmers, their desire for land is so deep that they have reached the bone marrow... Therefore, exchange of land with land can definitely satisfy them. After all, even if they are close to dictators, Guo Jinzhang cannot go against the wishes of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people in Tangzhou." Hayes said.

"If it's just that, the government should be able to agree." Whitney thought for a while and nodded again. The United States lacks everything else, and it really doesn't lack land. Especially in the west, there is a large amount of state-owned land idle. If these state-owned land can be used to exchange with Tangzhou, then it can not only be exchanged for important technology, but also for Tangzhou's funds to develop these areas, which is beneficial to the government.

"Population, land... these are actually two interrelated policies." Roosevelt saw that Whitney had not fully understood Hays' intentions, and couldn't help but speak again: "We must relax restrictions on immigration to Tangzhou, because if we don't do that, sooner or later, Tangzhou will sooner or later lead to our opposition, but the increase in Tangzhou's population will greatly increase our pressure on the northwest. So, what should we do?... Only diversion! Diversion of the population of Tangzhou!"

"You mean..." Whitney was shocked.

"Transfer their population to another unrelated land." Roosevelt's voice was gloomy, "So, this land must have enough temptation, but it must be sufficiently distanced from Tangzhou... In this way, it will not only cause diversion of their population, but also may also cause diversion in political situations!"

"God..." Roosevelt was already very explicit, how could Whitney not understand? But he never expected that Hayes, a former president who has always been famous for adhering to principles, would propose such a sinister plan. On the surface, releasing immigration and land exchange technology would be conducive to the development of Tangzhou, but in fact, it was decomposing the power of Tangzhou and even splitting Tangzhou from the inside... Once this plan was implemented, coupled with some of Washington's secret actions, it was almost certain that Tangzhou would be divided into two or more.

"Actually, this plan is unsuccessful. Tangzhou has begun to influence the political trend of the United States. Although I am not a racial discriminator, I must ensure the dominance of white people in the United States... because only in this way can the United States be the United States!" Hayes sighed.

"...I would like to express my gratitude to you on behalf of the White House. Don't worry, this plan will be implemented no matter what, I promise!"

Whitney stood up and saluted the former president solemnly. However, Hayes did not seem too happy when facing the divine tail he and Roosevelt admired.

"I hope everything goes well. But we are not only facing a madman, but an extremely smart madman... He may not be unable to see what is hidden in my plan. Once he sees it, the effect of this plan will probably be greatly reduced, and it may even be reversed."

“…”

...

"This old man is quite self-aware. Commander, what do you think?"

Mercer Island, Guo Jinzhang's residence, Li Dongbao, in military uniform, sat upright in front of Guo Jinzhang and asked in a deep voice.

"What else can I do? Let him do it." Guo Jinzhang smiled.

"That old guy has bad intentions!" Li Dongbao said seriously.

"But it hit my mind." Guo Jinzhang smiled, "And didn't he say it too? As long as I know what is hidden behind his plan, the effect of this plan will be greatly reduced, or even reversed... People are so confident in me, why do you look down on me so much?"

"Commander, that's not what I mean..." Li Dongbao quickly stood up and shouted.

"I know you didn't mean that." Guo Jinzhang smiled and waved his hand, signaling him to sit back, "You go back first. Tell the people in the Investigation Bureau that you don't have to listen to any corners anymore, hide the copper pipes connecting the basement... not to be discovered, and say that we are petty."

"That's it?" Li Dongbao asked.

"What else do you want? It's the population and the land, and it's generous enough, so we can't be too greedy." Guo Jinzhang smiled.

"Then, what if they just divided us into the east? Then wouldn't they let them fish?" Li Dongbao asked worriedly.

"There is not that big land in the east that can support us, and even if there is, they should know that we cannot agree." Guo Jinzhang smiled, "So, I guess what they gave us in the end should be a territory in the central region, and we have to rely on the south, because in this way we can be farther away from Tangzhou, so we don't have to worry about connecting the two places by relying on the North Pacific Railway."

"Where is that? New Mexico, Oklahoma, or Texas? It can't be Colorado, right?" Li Dongbao asked.

"No matter where it is, I just need to be in... Texas!" Guo Duozhang replied with a smile.

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Chapter completed!