Even if the court equipped with a large number of new rifles, he would not dare to provoke him on his own initiative? Yan Yangtian frowned slightly. Since the court could buy 50,000 muskets from the British, he could buy more, and the new army would expand quickly. If the new army of the Eight Banners of the court was equipped with 150,000, 200,000 or even 300,000 new muskets, what would happen?

After pondering for a moment, he thought about it: "The preparatory period for constitutional establishment is approaching. The court is eager to buy a large amount of arms to protect itself. England and Geely are also willing to sell a large amount of arms to restore the economy as soon as possible. This arms trade can be said to be an attempt. If we do not stop it, the arms trade between the court and Western countries will inevitably be out of control, and even ironclad ships may be traded..."

As he said that, he looked at Yi Zhizu and said, "Once all the new Eight Banners Army replaced new rifles, they may not dare to provoke them on their own..."

Before Yi Zhizuo spoke, Zhao Liewen spoke first: "The court cannot provoke actively! Even if all the new Eight Banners new troops have replaced new rifles, it cannot provoke actively! It is very simple and cannot afford to attack!

The court knew very well that once a war started, it would be a war that would have been a long-lasting large-scale war. Without a reserve of 50 to 60 million taels of silver, the court would not be able to provoke at all!

Why has the imperial court not purchased arms from Western countries on a large scale? It is because of understanding this point that this large-scale arms trade is not aimed at Yuan Qi, but Prince Gong!”

Yan Yangtian looked at him, then looked at Yi Zhizu, and said carefully: "If Britain, France and other countries deliberately provoke our civil war, they should be willing to provide large loans to the court or large amount of arms on credit... Most of the arms we provide to the Northern Federation during the American Civil War were on credit."

After hearing this, Yi Zhi couldn't help but smile and said slowly: "War lending and credit are risky. European financiers suffered heavy losses in the Civil War and would not fail to learn from the lessons." He said this, "But, in the final analysis, finance serves politics, and this must be prevented." After a pause, he asked: "Do you have a way to stop or destroy this arms trade?"

After hesitating, Yan Yang said, "A normal means cannot be taken. Can pirates rob the fleet that transports arms in halfway?"

What is this bad idea? Yi Zhizu looked at him dissatisfiedly and said, "Not mentioning the entire Qing Dynasty, even our Yuanqi has many ocean-going fleets. Can we pretend to be pirates, can't the British? Don't forget that the British navy is home to pirates! And the British naval fleet is spread all over the world!"

After hearing this, Yan Yangtian looked a little embarrassed on his face. He was embarrassed to say anything again. Yi Zhizu said slowly: "As the saying goes, fly does not bite seamless eggs. We must try our best to ensure that the Qing Dynasty does not make any gaps. The root of this matter lies in the court. End the war against Japan as soon as possible and break all unrealistic fantasies of the court! Go and send a telegram."

"Yes." Yan Yangtian quickly stood up and responded loudly.

Japan, Edo.

Two-thirds of Edo Castle, which was originally prosperous and rich, has now become ruins, with a population of one million. The cruelty of the war is fully demonstrated in this city, known as the leader of the Three Capitals of Japan.

Although Edo was seriously damaged, the General's Mansion and its surroundings were preserved intact. This is because the New Sixth Army headquarters is located in the General's Mansion, Ninomaru Goten. Chief of Staff Yao Wensheng walked in quickly with a telegram. Yang Xiuqing, who was standing in front of the wall with his hands behind his back, turned around and looked at the telegram in his hand and said, "Where is it?"

"Shanghai." Yao Wensheng said as he handed over the telegram.

After reading the telegram, Yang Xiuqing lit a cigarette casually and said, "Who is Sherman?"

Yao Wensheng smiled and explained: "Sheerman was a newly-established lieutenant general of the United States. He led his army to carry out a devastating, reckless and cost-effective sweep in the south, causing hundreds of thousands of civilians to die and trigger a great famine..."

Yang Xiuqing sneered: "I am worried that we will not kill ruthlessly enough, so we will set a model for the entire army!"

"The whole army is called on to learn from Sherman, but it is not targeting the New Sixth Army." Yao Wensheng smiled. In his opinion, the New Sixth Army adapted from the Taiping Army did not need to learn from Sherman at all. The Sherman sweep was not worth mentioning in front of the New Sixth Army.

After a pause, he changed his mind, "This electric order is a bit contradictory, and they are required to advance steadily and steadily, and to end the war against Japan before the Bohai Sea thawed in the spring of next year..."

Yang Xiuqing glanced at him, turned around and sat down and said, "Why should we end the war against Japan before the Bohai Sea thawed in the spring of next year?"

"It should be for the sake of overall consideration." Yao Wensheng said carefully: "The preparatory constitutional period is about to expire, and the capital may change. Another thing is that it is possible that the war in the northwest will start next year, which is to avoid fighting on two or three lines. Compared with the capital and the northwest, Japan is not worth mentioning."

After a pause, he continued: "For me, the point is to end the war next spring. Staying steady is just because of worrying about too much casualties...

Worried that the casualties were too great? Yang Xiuqing smoked and said nothing. Japan is now in a mess. The various vassal armies fought on their own. Not only is the scale limited, but they have not experienced battle formations for many years. They are not on the same level in terms of weapons and training. How big can there be?

He knew very well that the quality of the battle against the Japanese was directly related to whether the New Sixth Army could gain a foothold in the Yuanqi New Army, even if it suffered some casualties.

After a while of silence, he spoke: "Order all departments to quickly advance and intersect, divide and encircle, encircle and annihilate the troops of the various vassal states, and implement the Three Lights Policy at the same time!"

The three-light policy - burning all, killing them all, grabbing them all, this policy was naturally proposed by Yishisa, but he was under the guise of Sherman's grand storm.

Japan is originally a narrow land with dense people, with many mountains and few lands, and lack of food. Yuanqi has penetrated for many years and spared no effort to guide Japan to vigorously develop economic crops such as tea, raw silk, and cotton, which greatly reduced Japan's grain output, making Japan's food heavily rely on Yuanqi's maritime trade.

Since the beginning of the war against Japan, Yuanqi cut off maritime trade and the huge damage of the war, Japan itself has already experienced a large-scale famine. With the implementation of the "Three Lights" policy by various ministries, a large-scale famine created by man quickly swept across the entire country.

In the sea in Shandong and Qingdao, waves were surging and the sea breeze was howling. Four warships with the flags of the East China Sea Fleet broke through the wind and waves and quickly sailed towards Qingdao Port.

In the center of a small official hall of a warship, General E Antai pointed to the island in front of him and said attentively: "Military Gate, Xiaogong Island is in front of you, and you will arrive in Qingdao soon."

Hearing that he was about to arrive in Qingdao, Ronglu was a little excited. He was invited by Yi Zhizu to secretly come to Qingdao Port. After he took over as the Admiral of the Beiyang Navy, he realized that Qingdao Port is not only one of the bases of the Yuanqi East China Sea Fleet, but also one of the military bases of Yuanqi. At present, the most popular steam gunboats of the Beiyang Navy are almost all built by Qingdao Shipyard.

Moreover, Qingdao Port has always been unopened to the outside world. Even the Beiyang Navy, which has close ties with the East China Sea Fleet, has never set foot in Qingdao Port. This is the first time they were invited. Even though they knew in their hearts that this was Yi Shishishi's way of winning over him, it made them feel a little flattered.

After looking at Xiaogong Island, he said slowly: "I heard that Qingdao Shipyard is not small in scale, and it is built with steam gunboats?"

E Antai heard about Qingdao Shipyard a little, and immediately said softly: "I heard that Qingdao Shipyard is not mainly building steam gunboats, but iron armored ships!"

Iron armored ship! Ronglu's eyes shrank slightly. The iron armored ship was too far away for him. It was only after he took over as the Admiral of the Beiyang Navy that he heard that Western Britain, France, the United States and other countries were building iron armored ships. "Can Yuanqi build iron armored ships?"

"It should be possible." E Antai said with some uncertainty: "It is said that the purpose of choosing Qingdao to build a shipyard is to build ironclad ships. Qingdao Shipyard was founded in the third year of Xianfeng, and it has been 16 years since then. It is heard that it is very large and has tens of thousands of workers..."

Tens of thousands of workers? Ronglu couldn't help but breathe a breath of air conditioning. How big is that? He vaguely guessed that Yuanqi should have the ability to build an iron armored ship, otherwise Yi Zhizu would not have invited him to Qingdao for a meeting. Obviously, the intention of this meeting was to shock!

As the two were talking, a knock on the door sounded, and then Chang Guixiang's voice sounded, "Military Gate, Chief of Staff Guo is here."

Ronglu quickly stood up and opened the door. As soon as the door opened, Guo Zhongmu, with a smile on his face, said: "There are two newly launched warships to test sailing. Are you interested in boarding the ship to visit?"

When he heard it was a newly launched warship, Ronglu tentatively said: "Iron Craft?"

Before Guo Zhongmu could speak, Chang Guixiang said excitedly: "Iron Craft! And it's a giant steel ship!"

The giant steel ship! Rong Lu was a little confused. He climbed onto the deck and saw two warships emitting black smoke slowly coming from the sea in the distance. He felt inexplicably excited and quickly raised his telescope to look carefully. He was indeed a giant steel ship! It was roughly estimated that it was much larger than the largest third-level battleship of the Beiyang Navy! It felt more than twice as big as!

E Antai knew better about the ironclad ship. He held up the telescope and looked closely and asked, "Is it a real ironclad ship? Not a covered ironclad?"

"Of course it is a real iron armored ship!" Guo Zhongmu smiled proudly: "Yuanqi has never built an iron armored ship covered with iron armor."

Soon, E Antai discovered that the two ironclad ships were extremely fast and couldn't help asking: "What is this speed?"

"The average speed should be more than twelve knots." Guo Zhongmou explained with a smile: "The main deck is five and a half meters away from the sea, which is equivalent to a level 7 wave height, which is enough to ensure that the warship is not easily affected by waves, and it will not affect the firing of artillery even in harsh sea conditions. The warship armor uses new types of armor, and the sixty-eight-pound cannons we are now equipped with cannot penetrate at close range..."

Isn't that an invincible existence? Rong Lu stared blankly at the two warships getting closer and closer, and asked nervously: "How many artillery pieces are they equipped?"

"There are not many artillery equipment." Guo Zhongmou said: "Four main guns, ten secondary guns, a total of fourteen."

There was so little artillery equipment? Rong Lu felt a little incredible, but he didn't ask much. E Antai asked indifferently: "Why did he equip the fourteen artillery pieces..." After hesitating, he said in surprise: "Can you invent a new artillery again?"

Guo Zhongmu smiled, "It's indeed a new type of artillery. Please let them introduce it in detail after you board the ship."

New artillery was released? Ronglu was secretly shocked. Yuanqi was really unbelievable in the development of firearms. Minnie guns, rifled guns, metal bullets, mortars, and land war artillery were released one after another. They were always ahead of Westerners. Now they have new artillery guns? Such a large iron armored ship is equipped with fourteen artillery guns. The power and firing rate of the artillery should have been greatly improved.

He had never said anything. Chang Guixiang, who was in charge of military procurement, couldn't help but ask: "How much is a steel-clad ship of this specification?"

Hearing his question, Guo Zhongmu smiled and stretched out a slap and gestured, "Forty?" As soon as he said that, Chang Guixiang felt something was wrong. He hesitated and said, "It's not four million silver dollars, right?"

"As far as I know, it cost four million." Guo Zhongmou said: "However, the mature technology should reduce the cost, but three million should be indispensable."

After hearing this, the few people couldn't help but gasp. Although they could think that the ironclad ship was expensive, they could not have imagined that it would be so expensive. Three or four million silver dollars per ship, and the Beiyang Navy's annual funding was not enough to buy one!

After a while, Chang Guixiang murmured, "Is this a little too expensive?"

Guo Zhongmu said in a calm tone: "The 'Warrior' ironclad ship launched in England a few years ago was 400,000 pounds, and it was a wooden ironclad ship, which was completely incomparable to our two real ironclad ships."

After hearing this, Chang Guixiang felt aroused, "Is Yuan Qi planning to sell these two ironclad ships?"

Guo Zhongmu glanced at him and said, "These two ironclad ships are currently the most advanced in the world. According to what our shopkeeper said, they are at least ten years ahead of the ironclad ships of Western countries. How can they be sold?"

After hearing this, Ronglu had already confirmed his previous guess. This time, Yi Zhizu invited them to Qingdao, which was indeed a deterrent. The purpose was to win over the Beiyang Navy. In no time, it was to keep the Beiyang Navy neutral. Seeing the two giants approaching, he couldn't help but feel a huge sense of oppression in his heart.

Looking at the two steel giant beasts coming quickly, E Antai murmured: "The era of giant ships and cannons has begun!"

"The era of giant ships and cannons is the era of power!" Guo Zhongmu glanced at several people and said slowly: "The truth is only within the range of cannons!"

In the era of power! The truth is only within the range of cannons! This is a deterrent force without any concealment! Ronglu was immediately full of bitterness. It is no wonder that Yuan Qi was very confident to build such a huge iron-clad ship. It seems that Yuan Qi must be given a satisfactory and clear attitude this time.
Chapter completed!