At this moment, Zai Chun was no longer the polished commander he had been before going abroad. He had reached a series of secret agreements with the British, and the British had provided him with a very large but absolutely confidential interest-free loan.
The queen even gave Zai Chun a huge sum of money in the name of the royal family. This is all political investment!
Emperor Tongzhi returned home with money, and also brought a series of industrial development plans and memoranda from the British!
All this was done in secret, and there was a lot of speculation about it, and even later historians made varying amounts of evidence.
But no one can come up with an exact number or detailed breakdown! How many benefits Emperor Tongzhi received from the British and how many secret treaties he signed were kept secret by the British, but the Manchus refused to speak out.
Many secret agreements were even secretly burned by both parties before they were reached!
Secrets disappear with the wind in the long river of history, and those who have experienced it never want to let future generations pry!
Even Xiao Letian was curious in his memoirs about how much money his disciple Zai Chun had defrauded from the UK. Even Xiao Letian himself didn't know this secret.
Everyone was guessing, some guessed 10 million pounds, some guessed 30 million pounds... There was even an unreliable guess of 100 million pounds!
But no one dares to say conclusively that their guess is absolutely correct!
But one thing is unmistakable. Emperor Tongzhi returned home with a suitcase of cashier's checks from various European banks, which could be exchanged for cash at will when he got to Hong Kong or Shanghai.
With this money as a cushion, Emperor Tongzhi could cast a large net of news in the South China Sea, and British merchant ships would stop hauling tea and risk their lives to rush to Fuzhou with the emperor's reward.
The 30,000 Huben who belonged to Emperor Tongzhi were the only direct descendants he could trust in this world surrounded by wolves. The little emperor thought that he could rely on his master for the rest of his life, but the master would never be the king of the Qing Dynasty. !
Even if the head of state is sincerely interested in himself, Zai Chun can never warm the hearts of those around Xiao Letian!
"In the final analysis, you have to rely on having troops in your own hands!" In the end, Zai Chun has learned only two things during his study tours in the past few years. The first is the army, and the second is industry!
When the fleet entered the Taiwan Strait and Emperor Tongzhi could see the coastline of the mainland, he stopped sleeping!
The little emperor stood on the deck looking north day and night. If he was really sleepy, he would drink bitter coffee, or wrap himself in a woolen coat and take a nap on an armchair...that's all.
The officers and soldiers of the British ship also felt the urgency of His Majesty the Emperor. Without urging them, they began to add coal and pressure to increase the speed of the ship, and rushed towards the place where the naval battle at the mouth of the Minjiang River happened.
I am timid when I am close to my hometown, and the closer I am to my hometown, the more timid I am!
Of course, Zai Chun has not forgotten that after the Tsarist Russian fleet burned Bai Layi, the second place to attack was Mawei. On that day, the master took him on the Zhiyuan to fight.
A lone battleship resisted the entire Tsarist Russian fleet. The residual blood flag was raised, the Xiaozi recognition flag was raised... and finally the five-clawed golden dragon flag brought by Zai Chun was even raised!
What a blood-soaked scene, the mighty power of the steel battleship crushing everything made the little emperor's blood boil with excitement!
It was here, between the mountains, rivers and seas, that my Imperial Guards fought for the first time!
Emperor Tongzhi wanted to laugh when he thought of that scene. The Zhiyuan single-ship single-handedly challenged the Tsarist Russian fleet. At the most critical moment, Ma Ming and other four bodyguards, along with three hundred of the emperor's personal troops and the first batch of mountain people who had just been trained, An ambush was fought in these mountains.
The army's field artillery was hidden in the dense forest and exploded. The Tsarist Russian warship was stunned. There were bright yellow flags all over the mountains and plains. The first shot of the Yulin New Army hit Lao Maozi on the head.
"How many people were there at that time? They must have been in their early 2,000s... But with just such a small number of people, they dared to open fire on the Russians without orders. This is my new army, the new army of the Royal Forest that has been spilled with my blood..."
"How are you doing now? Is the army expansion going well? Is the weapons procurement going well? Is your spirit still there? Have you been infected by the bad habits of those dandies in the Eight Banners?"
"My army, my army, my army..."
Zai Chun kept chattering as if he was possessed by a demon. If Xiao Letian were here, he could see clearly at a glance that Zai Chun's expression and tone at this moment were just like Gollum who lost the demon world in the movie Lord of the Rings in his previous life.
"My baby...my baby...my baby..."
If Zaichun hadn't seen his new army when he arrived in Fuzhou, I'm afraid he would really have become Gollum who lost the Lord of the Rings!
Emperor Tongzhi didn't know that half of the 30,000-strong army had already assembled in the huge open space outside Mawei Shipyard! It's not that Ma Ming and the others don't want the entire army to assemble, it's just that the place is too small.
If there were tens of thousands of people, the largest open space outside the Mawei Shipyard would be packed with more than 10,000 people. The remaining troops were divided into four military formations along the Minjiang River.
As long as the emperor's fleet enters the mouth of the Minjiang River and sees the Mawei Shipyard, it can directly review the military formations of the five new Yulin armies!
Ma Ming was so excited that his whole body trembled, "Long live Lord! When you left, we only trained 2,500 imperial guardsmen, and today it is already 30,000... We have trained a strong army of 30,000 for Lord Long live!"
"Brothers! Why do we suffer so much? It's not just for this day... The time has come to serve His Majesty the Emperor!"
"The time has come for a good man to make a great contribution...the turning point of his life and destiny is today!"
Wuwuwu...wuwu...Suddenly, the Minjiang River resounded with the sound of conch shells, and the fishermen and merchant ships all over the river suddenly started making noises.
"Here he comes! Commander...here he comes...the conch horn came from outside the mouth of the Minjiang River. The fishermen spotted the fleet first..."
The British fleet escorting Emperor Tongzhi finally appeared at the mouth of the Minjiang River. Although it still had to make a detour to get to Mawei, the fishing boats and merchant ships filling the river became beacons for transmitting messages.
All the people of the Qing Dynasty who saw the fleet and the bright yellow five-clawed dragon flag blew their horns and knelt on the deck to worship the emperor!
"Long live, long live, long live!" Ships on the river gave way to the main channel in the middle, and the sound of kneeling and worshiping was heard endlessly!
Although the villages along the river in the distance could not see the emperor's lineup, they knew that the emperor was on the armored ship. The villagers knelt and worshiped in the open space looking at the river, and even heard the sound of New Year's firecrackers.
The 30,000 new troops seemed to have been whipped at the same time. The hairs on the hairs of all the soldiers stood on end, and every one of them stood straight and solemn!
The soldiers who had just been whipped more than ten times forgot about the pain and stared at the river with excitement without blinking!
"Here he comes! Long live the Lord is here!" The excited roars of the soldiers came from the watchtower. Ma Ming quickly turned around and gave the order, "Fire a salute! Welcome His Majesty to the shore and disembark!"
At this moment, Emperor Tongzhi stood solemnly on the bow of the ship in a dragon robe, with bright yellow flags and umbrella covers also raised, and the guards and eunuchs who had gone abroad with Lord Long Live put on the emperor's guard of honor.
Boom boom... boom boom boom...
As soon as the salute sounded, Emperor Tongzhi's eyes flashed with thief: "My army! My own army!"
As the first unit to be inspected, the First Division along the Yangtze River saluted Emperor Tongzhi. "The First Division of the Imperial Guard salutes His Majesty... with his gun in hand!"
Boom... bang...
Tens of thousands of people actually made a unified voice, and the soldiers held their guns in their chests and saluted the emperor on the river!
Zai Chun was so excited that he forgot he was in China. He actually took off his hat and waved to his troops. Unexpectedly, the fake pigtails stuck in the hat fell to the ground with a clatter.
