For a moment, the air seemed to freeze. Ci'an finally remembered the rumors in the government and the public. Zai Chun did not return empty-handed, but he came back with a large sum of British pounds.
No one knows how much money this was. It was a secret that was not made public until Zai Chun's death. The British side even kept this secret completely sealed!
But later generations of historians have verified that the decisions they made were... very many, and the numbers were extremely huge and terrifying!
"Okay! My emperor's wings have hardened and he can fly on his own. Can he do great things without the court?"
"Don't even think about it! Don't think that the money given by the foreign devils can solve all problems. What kind of airship is it today and what will it be next time? General Cai, just take out all the treasures you have!"
Ci'an really shot herself in the foot. She didn't want to buy any arms at all. She actually wanted to follow Cai Bixia's words and tell an astronomical number, and then use this number to scare the little emperor.
The Qing Dynasty's finances have just improved in the past five years. Throwing away the court's fixed expenditures... that is, the old fixed expenditures, there is actually a fiscal surplus of more than 13 million taels every year!
This is a very shocking thing. The official popularity and popularity of the imperial court have been greatly improved because of such a small surplus!
Managing a country is actually similar to living a small family. You can’t just calculate your income, you also have to calculate your expenses!
In the last year, the general ledger has a surplus. This shows that you are capable!
With a financial surplus of more than 10 million, the imperial court has done a lot of things, cleared some old debts, and most importantly, built a new type of army, which is the Xishan Camp!
If the new army is not built, then it will be returned. Once it is built, the imperial court will really be dumb and eat Coptis chinensis!
The new army is completely different from the past army. This is a gold-eating monster!
Originally, according to the wishes of those old-school officials, buy a batch of rifle bullets and distribute them to the soldiers. After a little training, they can shoot!
Anyway, people have said that training a musketeer is much simpler than training an archer or cavalry, which is so true!
There is nothing wrong with this, but they forget that simplicity costs money!
To train an archer, you give him a bow and a dozen feather arrows, and then go practice! You can still pick up the feather arrows after shooting them. At worst, you can learn how to make them by hand.
After one investment, there is no big expense, just waste time! After three to five years, practice makes perfect, and an archer will be trained.
The cavalry is more expensive, because you need to have horses to train it, but this is not a problem for the Manchus. After all, the Mongols are allies of the Manchus. There are many children who grew up on pony on the Mongolian grasslands. Isn’t this a natural cavalry? !
It can be said that the veterans in the court are still using the past ideas to formulate new problems. They always think that you, the Japanese, have spent six to seven million taels of silver to buy weapons. Isn't this going to happen in the future?
The soldiers are all equipped with weapons. It won't cost much to spend some food, clothing, coal, etc. in the future!
But they were all wrong. This new army is not like those medieval armies. The musketeers are easy to train, but there are conditions. You have to feed them with bullets!
The artillery also had to be fed with shells. The attrition rate of new army weapons and equipment was something that the medieval army could not even imagine!
Xishan Camp has a small dozen for three days, and one dozen for five days!
It takes three days for the soldiers to fire live rifle fire, and every five days they have to cooperate with the infantry and artillery, and the cannons have to fire!
In the past few years, the deep mountains, old forests and wastelands north of Yuquan Mountain and west of Shahe City have long become a restricted area for the people. There will definitely be rumbling gunfire for three to five days!
Every training session consumes truckloads of bullets and artillery shells, and there are always wounded soldiers being carried out, and occasionally there are even soldiers killed by accidental injuries!
The money spent on military training was like running water. The Ministry of Household Affairs and the Ministry of War were all dumbfounded when they saw the reimbursement form from Xishan Camp. If it weren't for the six Japanese gangsters who filled the court, they would never have been able to reimburse even a single cent of this money!
This gold-swallowing monster has already made the government and the public in the capital uneasy. In addition, Emperor Tongzhi has brought back 30,000 new Yulin troops. The military budget for these 30,000 people is still unclear to the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Household Affairs!
There are a hundred thousand new troops, and their training expenses alone are worth seven to eight million taels of silver every year? This all has to be extracted from the fiscal surplus!
It’s endless! Is this not over yet? There are already 100,000 new troops in the capital, so what kind of airship troops does the emperor still need? Isn't this nonsense? Are people fighting while flying in the sky?
He asked for five million taels of silver, but he wasn't so evil-minded in trying to steal the money!
But what was even more unexpected was that Cai Bixia had a plan in her pocket. She did not take out the photo this time, but asked the orderly to take out a blueprint. When she opened it, it turned out to be a new iron-clad battleship!
"The drawings of the second-generation Zhiyuan ship... Your Majesty should know that it cost more than 1.9 million taels of silver to build the Zhiyuan head of state. Now the keel of the second-generation Zhiyuan ship has begun!"
Zai Chun's eyes turned blue. He ordered the four eunuchs to kneel on the ground, using their backs as tables, and carefully spread out the drawing.
"The full load displacement is 5,300 tons, the length of the ship is 134.5 meters, the width of the ship is 16.8 meters... the draft is 5.63..."
"The designed cruising speed is 15 knots, and the maximum speed reaches 17.5 knots under strong wind pressure..."
"Four 210 Krupp cannons, twin mounted at the front and rear..."
"The most noteworthy thing is the armor of this upgraded ship...The armor thickness above the waterline is 350 mm, and the armor thickness below the waterline is 280 mm...The armor of other vital parts of the ship has been thickened to varying degrees..."
"Your Majesty, do you understand? You should be very clear about the data of the Zhiyuan. This battleship is definitely an enhanced version!"
"Firepower increased by 35%... Defense increased by more than three times... Tonnage also increased by nearly three times..."
"For such a warship... I'll quote you 2 million taels, it's not too much!"
"Don't the Qing Dynasties need a naval force? You need a few ships for at least offshore defense!"
"Do you want to reserve three ships first? After they are used, we can add more? Your Majesty, you have to think carefully. This is a friendly price, and other countries may not be able to join the queue even if they pay first!"
"They want to buy it, but the head of state doesn't want to sell it yet!"
"The Queen Mother must also be surprised. At present, both the Chinese and Germans have a new and huge plan to build a navy, and the shipbuilding schedule has been scheduled for ten years!"
"If your Majesty wants it, you have to add more!"
Zai Chun was already drooling, and his eyes were bright, recalling the glorious record of the Zhiyuan during the Battle of East Frisia, a solitary ship resisted the entire French fleet with heroic strength and perished together!
Even though they were seriously injured and stranded, they were able to capture tens of thousands of French sailors. This is simply an incredible achievement!
If there was such a powerful fleet, why would the Qing Dynasty let people put cannons at the gate of the country?
But before Zai Chun could speak, Ci'an screamed in horror, "No! Absolutely not... Another six million taels are going to be taken away? This is an open robbery!"
Cai Bixia did not explain, but still smiled. Zai Chunzheng organized the language and did not know how to persuade the Queen Mother!
Unexpectedly, a voice rang out at this time: "Your Majesty... your calculations are wrong!"
Er Mao didn't know when he came back, and without paying attention to anyone, he walked up to the Queen Mother and said, "Your Majesty... General Cai quoted you the price of materials!"
"Do you know what is the biggest cost in building a navy? It's people..."
