Hurd stood up straight, lowered his head and looked embarrassed and listened to the prince's angry scolding. He didn't dare to say anything!

This person is very clear about the rules of China's officialdom and is willing to abide by it. He does not have the unique arrogance of foreigners coming to the East. It is this that has made him rule the Imperial Customs in that parallel world for more than 40 years!

A foreigner, in the turbulent late Qing officialdom, was as stable as Mount Tai for forty years. This is a miracle!

But this miracle was also caused by Heard's character. This person knows how to respect people and be polite!

He knew that this was the virtue of the Qing Dynasty officials. He made him angry and asked him to scold him. If his boss was angry enough, his punishment would be reduced. It would always be beneficial to put himself in a humble manner!

It’s not that he can’t refute that if he wants, he can fully present the crimes and responsibilities of the disobedient Qing subordinates one by one.

He was overly ill, corruption, bribery, and business was in chaos... It can be said that in recent years, Hurd's task was broken by the task of maintaining the integrity of officials in the Qing customs!

Not to mention the missed accounts, basically one-third of their energy is focused on the review and reconstruction of accounts!

The troublesome work is not only here, but also those cooperative yamen that are not managed by him, the governors and governors of various port cities, generals and those old officials from all over the world!

We must be careful and coordinate, and while ensuring our own business, we must gain more funds for the imperial finances!

Hurd also felt wronged. His customs income increased almost every year, and on the one hand, he benefited from the increasingly busy overseas trade after the Second Opium War.

More importantly, through Heard's sorting and cleaning up the borers, the customs income that was originally taken away by corrupt officials gradually returned to the normal tax system. This is an important reason for the sharp increase in customs income.

But he didn't want to say a word about these hardships today because he really felt guilty today!

The chaos in the accounts is also real, but it is not as serious as he said. As long as overtime is working, it does not affect the deportation of customs tariffs.

But Hed was under tremendous pressure and had received many hints from many parties since half a month ago. At first, many businessmen came to him to complain and complained that the old Qing Dynasty blocked their business path.

Then, the heads of Oriental business of major banks appeared, hoping that Hurd could exert influence and promote Emperor Tongzhi's imperial reform, especially industrialization reform!

Immediately afterwards, the military officer from the embassy also came. Delaney visited his home for three hours, and the series of topics he had secretly discussed during this period could not be spread at all!

In the end, Gordon actually came to Hurd's house with two notes, one was the authorization warrant of the Imperial Prime Minister Gladstone, and the other was the British crown prince's letter!

Two documents granted Gordon the secret identity of the Special Envoy of Orient, and he has the right to mobilize all intelligence forces in Asia, and any British organization should provide help!

It is not a formal official document, and the identity of this secret envoy was not recognized by the British Foreign Office, or even the British Foreign Office has no right to manage Gordon.

It is even possible that the British Foreign Ministry did not know that there was such a secret envoy of the East!

But the more this happens, the more it makes Hurd scared. He knows very well that the authorization Gordon received is absolutely secret and is the independent system resource mobilized outside the non-governmental system.

It is difficult to say, but it is very simple to explain. The Empire of Sun-Don't Settling has a set of government agencies on the surface, and various departments work together, including military departments, naval departments, intelligence departments, and diplomatic departments.

All this is under the direct or indirect management of the Queen, Prime Minister, and Parliament!

But it is impossible for a country to put everything on the table, and the queen will have some private work to do but not want the government system to know.

Those top-level figures at the Empire who never set, have money and power, and their financial resources are comparable to those of a small country!

The power of this group of people is enough to create a shadow system outside the system, and this deeper hidden power is even more terrifying!

Hurd dared to reject some of the British government's requests, but he was still very afraid of this huge shadow! Gordon is basically the queen now, the crown prince and the eyes and ears of the royal nobles!

Any behavior of Hurd who disobeys orders will become a stain on his life and be recorded!

Faced with absolute pressure, he could only bow his head helplessly, without any possibility of turning the tables!

Wherever Yi scolded, Hurd respectfully bowed his head and stopped training, and his mind was still sorting out what had happened during this period!

He felt very guilty. On the one hand, he felt sorry for the Qing government that trusted him, and on the other hand, he was unwilling to have a quarrel with his mother country!

There is no law in the world, and he can only be sorry for himself in the end!

Listening to Yi's scolding getting less and less, it seemed that the prince's anger seemed to have subsided. He simply gritted his teeth and took out a letter from his pocket in the suit, put it on the table with apologetic expression.

"Prince... This is my dereliction of duty... I resigned because of the blame!"

"What? Do you dare to give up? Let me tell you Hurd, don't want to run away, I won't let you leave the Qing Dynasty! Bastard!"

No matter how much Prince Gong scolded him, he would never let Heard resign, because after Heard began to take over the Qing Customs in 1864, the customs tariff silver rose from more than 8 million to more than 20 million taels of silver last year!

The annual income of 20 million taels of silver is, even if half of the compensation used to repay foreigners is intercepted, the remaining half is enough for the court to do a lot of things!

Moreover, the trade volume of seaports and ports is increasing year by year, especially in Jiangnan, under the premise of sufficient supply of paper money, the scale of business is expanding rapidly.

At the beginning of the year, Hurd's budget for customs revenue this year is likely to reach about 25 million taels!

Such a large amount of wealth can be seized by the skills of foreigners. If this were placed on the old customs system of the Qing Dynasty, it would be even more daring to think about it.

Seeing that Hurd was trying to give up, Prince Gong quickly relaxed his expression and breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hear... You sit down first. I was impatient just now, but you should know that the Empire stall is too turbulent and everything is coming up. I can't do anything!"

"Our customs in Qing Dynasty customs are all in one quarter, that is, a tax and silver settlement is settled in three months. In March, your customs tariff and silver deposit was 5.2 million taels, and the compensation was allocated 2.1 million, and the rest was transferred to the Ministry of Revenue!"

"Isn't this a good start? Customs tax revenue can only increase in June and September! I think the target you mentioned is easy!"

"What's going on? The accounts were in chaos in just three months? It also affected the deportation of the money? You'd better tell me the truth!"

"What the hell is going on? Even if you don't think about the Qing Dynasty and don't care about the relationship between us, you have to consider your future development!"

"If you submit your resignation at this time, what do you think of European colleagues? They will say... You, Hurd, are incompetent and have made a mess of the good Qing Dynasty customs!"

"You have no ability, so you left Qing State in shame!"
Chapter completed!