"Sir, you asked me to secretly sign an agreement with the British to purchase warships. I pawned my pants and paid the deposit! But now there is no sign of a navy in the court..."
"I'm afraid, don't draw water from a bamboo basket this time and it will be in vain! When the British come to me to collect debts, I will have to pay them back with my head!"
The main purpose of Sheng Huaixuan's visit to Li Hongzhang, his boss, was to complain. Under Li Hongzhang's order, Sheng Huaixuan traveled to Europe to inspect the shipbuilding industry in Britain, Germany and even France.
The purpose was to prepare the Great Qing Navy, and he also knew about the resistance in the Beijing court!
But he never expected that Li Hongzhang would directly ask him to place an order for two Zhiyuan-class battleships worth 2.5 million taels each, two 5,000-ton class warships!
There are four 3,500-ton small cruisers, each with a fake price of 1.8 million taels, and more than 80 miscellaneous small warships. This is basically the skeleton of the Great Qing Navy!
"For an order of 15 million taels of silver, I paid 3.5 million taels! My good lord, all our family assets have been wiped out, and I even have to go to Hu Xueyan to borrow money to maintain the business!"
"Sir! This is not a small amount of money, it is really not a small amount of money! If the British produce it in the end, but we can't pay the balance... Haha, the British are really good at killing people!"
Li Hongzhang smiled bitterly and said, "Yes, of course they will kill people. If we let them go, these battleships will have to digest it on their own, or even deal with it at a discount!"
"But I'm sure it's impossible! You have to believe me... His Majesty wants a big navy in his heart. That is His Majesty's dream. What I pursue is just a time difference!"
"It will take at least three years for the British to build these warships. It will also take more than four years for them to be debugged and shipped to our Qing Dynasty... There is still time, anything can happen in four years!"
"Maybe it won't take four years, but within one or two years, there will be changes!"
"I can foresee that someone is about to take action. We don't need to take action, or even the court does not need to take action. Long Live Lord and Fu Qing don't need to take action. Someone will see through the pros and cons of this!"
Sheng Huaixuan didn't know where Li Hongzhang got his confidence, but as a subordinate, he could only trust his boss unconditionally!
"Money! Hey... Mr. San has raised more than 50 million yuan, and the Beijing-Hankow Railway has raised 80 million yuan... This is too much, can it really be divided among us?" Sheng Huaixuan muttered in a low voice.
"Haha..." Li Hongzhang sneered, "Long Live Master's plan is very big! As far as I know, the Beijing-Hankow Railway's fundraising has completely exceeded the budget, and Long Live Master secretly set aside part of the funds!"
"Long live the Lord to build a bridge on the Yangtze River!"
"Ah! How is this possible!" Sheng Huaixuan was frightened. "Building a bridge on the Yangtze River? Impossible. This is completely different from the Yellow River!"
"Although the Yellow River is flooded, the river is generally gentle with very low water volume, and underneath the river water is a layer of silted loess... This kind of geography is suitable for building bridges!"
"But the Yangtze River is three to four times wider than the Yellow River, and the water volume is more than ten times greater... There are undercurrents surging under the water, and the waves are turbulent. No one knows what is going on under the water!"
"The Yellow River still has a dry season for a few months every year, so we can seize the construction period to build bridges. How can we build bridges on the Yangtze River? There is so much water all year round. How can we build bridges?"
Li Hongzhang chuckled, "Ask me, who should I ask? But I have a secret information channel... I heard that Xiao Letian sent many university professors and engineers to Wuchang in Hankou to study hydrology!"
"Xiao Letian is a big lunatic, and Your Majesty is a little lunatic trained by him... What can't these two people do?"
Sheng Huaixuan shrank his neck and didn't know what to say. This matter was completely beyond his imagination. "Tsk, tsk, tsk... If we look at this madness, our Navy's funding might actually be enough!"
"Building the Yangtze River Bridge in Hankou? What do you think? What do you think..."
We can't blame Li Hongzhang, Sheng Huaixuan and others for questioning that the ideals of Xiao Letian and Emperor Tongzhi are just illusions in the minds of people of this era!
And very unrealistic! In real history, there were no bridges along the Yangtze River in the Republic of China. The first bridge was built in Wuhan after the founding of New China.
Xiao Letian wants to improve this record by a hundred years? In the eyes of Li Hongzhang and Sheng Huaixuan, that was just arrogance!
During the trip to Jiaozhou Bay, the two of them saw the bustling construction scene in the Jiaozhou Chinese Special Economic Zone, and couldn't help but feel a little more worried!
Although people of Li Hongzhang's generation do not understand and have some misunderstandings about science and technology and the advanced Chinese engineering, they also have their own specialties!
That is to speculate on people's hearts and judge the situation. Sure enough, in November 1875, something happened in the vast Indian Ocean!
On November 12, in the northwest direction of the Maldives Islands, on the channel leading to Colombo, four sailing steam paddle steamers belonging to *** Ocean were heading forward against the wind!
The four ships were filled with gold and silverware, glassware, wine, whiskey, woolen materials, medicinal materials, arms brought back from Europe... They were all European commodities that were popular in the Qing Dynasty.
The first two merchant ships, Taiping and Erlongkeng, were both ships owned by Prince Zheng Chengzhi, and were anchored in Fuqing's ocean caravan!
Look at the name of this merchant ship. It was named after Prince Zheng Chengzhi after the places around the palace!
Prince Zheng's residence is to the west of the Forbidden City. There is a place on the south side of the palace called Erlongkeng, which are two large puddles. It is said that they are often haunted!
There is also a bridge called Taiping Bridge to the west of Prince Zheng's residence. I can't tell if it is named after the ghost used to suppress the Erlong Pit!
The third ship in the team is Prince Rui's ship. Prince Rui is not powerful, so there are only two ships in total. This is one of them, the Anping!
The last ship was not called by anyone. It was the ship of the Qing Dynasty Ocean Public Company, Shunfeng No. 14! These four ships happened to be at the same time. After passing through the Suez Canal, they traveled together with each other and crossed the dangerous Indian Ocean at the same time!
The sailing steam paddle steamer was a unique type of ship in the 19th century. It had two types of power. One was to use wind power to navigate, and the other was to add a small boiler inside the ship. When the wind was weak or against the wind, At that time, it was necessary to rely on steam engines to provide power.
Most of these ships are modified from old sailing ships. Why is it a paddle wheel instead of an underwater propeller?
In fact, it is because it is too difficult to renovate the sealing of old wooden-hulled sailboats, and it is difficult to ensure that the part of the propeller that is exposed to the hull underwater does not seep.
Paddlewheels don’t have this problem. The two rotating paddlewheels are on the left and right sides of the hull, and the bearings extending out of the hull are above the waterline!
This way there will be no water seepage problems! But the disadvantage is also huge, that is, a waste of power!
Originally, the power of this modified cargo ship was weak, and it was driven by a paddle wheel, so the waste of power became even more noticeable!
These four cargo ships crossed the Indian Ocean against the wind, and their speed was only six knots. This is a complete turtle speed in the ocean!
