Volume 1: The Battleship Yitian Changes into the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 Chapter 53: Golden Ship Model
"The Japanese have not yet completely withdrawn from Korea, but the imperial court is already impatient to dismember my Beiyang Fleet, even in the name of strengthening coastal defense. This Master Weng just doesn't want to let me go, but there's no need to be so anxious, right?" Li Hongzhang said a little depressedly as he looked at Sun Gang who was reading the telegram.
"The court is giving a slap in the face and then giving a sweet date." Sun Gang said after reading the telegram: "Although the navies in Nanyang, Fujian and Guangdong have suffered losses, there is no need to be so anxious. The court is still on guard against the Beiyang. It seems that someone has said something to the emperor. However, two of the three admirals are from the Beiyang. I think this is not entirely a bad thing." He already knew about the court's personnel transfers. Lord Zhongtang was preparing to enter the Military Affairs Council. Ding Ruchang would temporarily take care of the Governor-General of Zhili and Minister of Beiyang. Lin Tai was the admiral of the Beiyang Navy. Lin Guoxiang was transferred to be the admiral of the Nanyang Navy (I heard that Zhang Zhidong personally suggested this to the court), Liu Buchan was the admiral of the Fujian Navy, and Fang Boqian was the admiral of the Guangdong Navy. This not only drew away many key generals, but also required Li Hongzhang to distribute ships to the other three navies, and said that this was a "national policy" that had been decided a long time ago.
According to Sun Yuwen, these were all ideas given to the emperor by Master Weng.
"What do you mean?" Li Hongzhang asked.
"We are all friends who have risked our lives at sea. Although we are separated now, if there is an incident at sea in the future, Zhongtang can have unified command." Sun Gang smiled and said, "Besides, we can just ask for more new ships and new guns. The emperor is also anxious to build submarines. It seems that we Beiyang are at a disadvantage now, but it will definitely be beneficial to us in the future."
"That makes sense." Li Hongzhang nodded. "Seeing that you are so obsessed with ships, I have discussed with Mr. Sun from the Military Affairs Office to recommend you to the court as the Minister of the Beiyang Ship Administration to assist in Beiyang military affairs. What do you think?"
Sun Gang was somewhat overjoyed and choked up as he said, "Master Zhongtang knows how to appoint people to the right positions. The only thing I can do to repay you is to be grateful to you."
What he said was indeed from the heart. The greatest happiness for a person is actually to do what he likes and to be able to benefit from it. Thinking of those people in the future who will never be able to pursue their hobbies in their entire lives, he didn't know how lucky he must be!
I used to just play with models, but now I can play with the real thing!
"Young people need more experience to truly grow up." Li Hongzhang looked at him with a smile and said, "I can't let Bu Chan and the others go empty-handed. Marrying a daughter requires a dowry. What do you think I should do to prepare it?"
"Master Zhongtang, just keep all the new boats." Sun Gang said with a smile, "You may as well give him a few more old boats, so that Master Weng won't feel unbalanced and feel pained."
Li Hongzhang looked at him and laughed, "If the old doesn't go, the new won't come. Since you understand everything, I will fully cooperate with the court this time and make sure they can't say a word!"
Two days later, Sun Gang finally understood what Li Hongzhang meant by "cooperation".
Liu Buchan was transferred to the post of admiral of the Fujian Navy. The "dowry" that the Lord Zhongtang bought for him was the armored turret ships "Jingyuan" and "Laiyuan", the gunboats "Zhendong", "Zhenxi", "Zhennan" and "Zhenbei", plus the "Fulong" ocean-going torpedo boat, which originally belonged to the Fujian Navy. Fang Boqian's "dowry" was the armored cruiser "Jiyuan", the armored cruiser "Pingyuan", the gunboats "Zhenzhong" and "Zhenbian", the torpedo boat "Zuo Dui Yihao", plus the torpedo cruisers "Guangjia" and "Guangbing" that originally belonged to the Guangdong Navy. The Fujian Navy and the Guangdong Navy suddenly became powerful. Lin Guoxiang's "dowry" was a little less, with only the fast cruiser "Jingyuan". The Lord Zhongtang's reason was that there were many ships in Nanyang, so a fast ship would be enough, and there were too few ships in Fujian and Guangdong. In order to balance, he gave more. As for the new ships from Chile, Lord Zhongtang packed them all up and kept them without giving any explanation.
I don't know what Master felt about all the blood he shed going into Li Hongzhang's pocket. Anyway, when Sun Gang learned about the arrangement of Lord Zhongtang, he always felt like laughing.
So many ships were given to Guangdong because Li Hongzhang, the elder brother of Zhongtang, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, strongly supported his younger brother. The deep brotherly love was fully demonstrated in this war. During the war , when the elder brother sent his three most elite torpedo cruisers to support the Beiyang Fleet, he raised 900,000 taels of silver to buy new ships from Chile when his younger brother needed money the most, making a great contribution to the victory of this war. It is reasonable for Zhongtang to strengthen his brother's power. As for the disappointing performance of Nanyang, it is easy to understand why Zhongtang only gave one ship. It was not because he had any idea about Lin Guoxiang. Li Hongzhang still admired Lin Guoxiang, who was "praised for his bravery by both Chinese and foreigners."
The war has come to an end for the time being. The hired Chilean naval officers and soldiers have returned home one after another with large sums of money. The two countries seem to have signed some kind of military cooperation agreement. Chilean Navy Colonel Martin, with the consent of the Chilean government, stayed to serve as the chief instructor of the Beiyang Fleet, and brought with him the American Maglo (actually a merchant ship owner who knew nothing about the navy. It is unknown what Li Hongzhang thought after Lang Weili was dismissed due to the "flag withdrawal incident"). A small number of Chilean sailors also stayed. The Chileans' condition was to have technical cooperation with China in the field of submarines. Lord Zhongtang also generously agreed. Sun Gang thought about it and did not object. After all, this type of "Changjing" class submarine still had many imperfections, and jointly developing it with other countries was also a good choice.
The Lord Zhongtang and Ding Ruchang then made new arrangements within the Beiyang Fleet, with Yang Yonglin as the captain of the Dingyuan, Ye Zugui as the captain of the Zhenyuan, Lin Yongsheng as the captain of the Kaiyuan (formerly the Chilean Navy's ironclad ship "Brad", the name "Kaiyuan" was given by Li Hongzhang, which means "a friend comes from afar"), Qiu Baoren as the captain of the Haining (formerly the Chilean Navy's fast cruiser "Blanco Encalada"), and Li He as the captain of the Haifeng (formerly the Chilean Navy's Esme The captain of the "Rada" armored cruiser, Wang Dejun was appointed captain of the "Ningyuan" (formerly the Chilean Navy's "Elachulus" armored cruiser), Cheng Bi-guang was appointed captain of the "Suiyuan" (formerly the Chilean Navy's "Pingdu" armored cruiser), Cai Tinggan was appointed captain of the "Zhu Ri" (formerly the Chilean Navy's "Condel" torpedo cruiser), Sa Zhenbing was appointed captain of the "Chaori" (formerly the Chilean Navy's "Lin Ze" torpedo cruiser), and Sun Gang concurrently served as the commander of the torpedo boat team and the submarine team, commanding all torpedo boats and submarines.
Due to the rampant activities of Japanese spies during the war, Sun Gang suggested to Li Hongzhang that a special intelligence department be set up to avoid being caught in the dark. Lord Zhongtang agreed with him and ordered Ding Ruchang to set up the Beiyang Military Intelligence Office with Sun Gang as the general manager. He asked him to recruit personnel on his own. The current reconnaissance directions are mainly Korea, Russia and Japan. In order to facilitate his activities, Li Hongzhang, Ding Ruchang and Lin Taizeng also specially allowed him to mobilize any of the three armored cruisers and two torpedo cruisers to cooperate in the execution of tasks in case of emergency. This really made Sun Gang overjoyed, because he was worried about not being able to go to Korea these days. The reason was that the two long-distance torpedo boats "Fulong" and "Zuo Dui No. 1" had been transferred, and the remaining torpedo boats and submarines could not go too far on their own power. Now he had warships, which was really fucking good.
Because he had already decided that while Korea was still in a state of "anarchy" (the Korean king and his wife were still held in the hands of the Japanese), he had to quickly dig out the treasures left to him by the Japanese.
Money is not everything, but without money, you can do nothing.
This was the experience he gained in the following days.
November 7, 1894. If his beloved wife had not reminded him, Sun Gang would have almost forgotten what day it was.
May the Queen Mother celebrate her 60th birthday!
"You don't know how to get along well with your superiors." Ma Yue tapped his forehead and said, "Master Zhongtang is much better than you in this regard. You have to learn from him."
It had been several days since he received the imperial decree to come to Beijing to meet and thank the emperor. Ma Yue also helped prepare the empress dowager's birthday gift. She asked skilled craftsmen to make a large globe with yellow rosewood and gold. The maps on it were all inlaid with gold pieces, and the cities were marked with silver beads. It was extremely gorgeous. There was also a model of a British "Monarch" class battleship made of gold pieces. She asked someone to make it according to the line drawing drawn by Sun Gang. "Since you want to do business related to ships, you have to get the support of the empress dowager and the emperor." Ma Yue said to him: "You also have to let them know the relevant knowledge in this area. These two things can give them an intuitive understanding of your plan."
"Made of gold? Aren't you too imaginative?" Sun Gang felt a pain in his heart when he saw the two golden gifts.
"What's this little investment? You can't catch a wolf without sacrificing a lamb, you stingy guy." Ma Yue rolled her eyes at him and said, "Besides, the purpose of doing this is to get more funding from the court to you, the Minister of Shipbuilding. My lord, don't you have any idea how much those warships are worth?"
"Am I not the one in charge of this business?" Sun Gang said somewhat awkwardly. Even though he majored in international finance, he really didn't know the current market situation.
"I've inquired about it. Let's not talk about other things. Just the cruiser 'Haining' bought from Chile, which you said was more powerful than the Japanese 'Yoshino', cost nearly 500,000 pounds, which is equivalent to 3.5 million taels of silver, more than the silver spent on the purchase of 'Dingyuan' and 'Zhenyuan' combined." Ma Yue said, "Of course, the Chileans were trying to rip us off, but we had no choice but to buy it. When I heard you outline the beautiful blueprint that day, including battleships, cruisers and submarines, do you know how much it cost now?"
"I know." Sun Gang stuck out his tongue and said.
"Give the Queen Mother a golden ship, and she will understand that the navy is fed by money." Ma Yue said: "If we want to keep the Qing Dynasty safe, this money must be spent."
Sun Gang looked at her with admiration. He almost let her marry someone else back then. Today, is what she brought to him only happiness?
