Zhao Gang originally wanted to change all the secondary guns of all warships to 75mm rapid-fire guns like last time, but he ignored the difference from the last time and suffered a painful failure.

Liang Shiyi asked with a dark face and grief and anger: "Do you know how many secondary guns are there in Dingyuan Zhenyuan? How many 75-speed guns are needed?"

This is not a problem for Zhao Gang: "Krupp 150mm breech secondary guns, 4 75mm Krupp sampan guns, 8 37mm five-barrel Haqikas machine guns, 57mm and 47mm Haqikas rapid-fire guns, a total of 75 rapid-fire guns are needed."

The answer was correct, but it did not help relieve Liang Shiyi's anger

"Okay, you're pretty good. How many 75-speed guns do the remaining Jingyuan, Laiyuan, Zhiyuan, Jingyuan, Jiyuan, Pingyuan, Wuwei, Wuwei first-class cruisers need to be equipped with?"

Zhao Gang counted for a long time and came up with a number: "More than 400 doors?"

"Master Zhao, you know that you all know. How much does it cost to have more than 500 75 guns in total?"

"I think it costs about hundreds of thousands of taels of silver, right?"

"Hundreds of thousands of taels are not enough. I calculated that a 75mm cannon costs about 4,000 taels, and a replacement costs 2,000 taels. After this calculation, it takes three million taels to replace it. How can we have that much money now?"

Zhao Gang smiled: "Don't worry, didn't the emperor give the navy two million taels of silver? All of them are used. The dismantled cannons are sorted and placed. I'm going to build more than a dozen fast mini-ships?"

Liang Shiyi's face was so angry that he shone in black, "No, I will give you at most 300,000 taels of silver. Modify Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. The silver cannot be spent like this. If you spend all of it, what should I do if there is anything else? Fleet go to drink the northwest wind?"

After Zhao Gang's repeated intimidation, Liang Shiyi refused to let go and asked Zhao Gang to get a new revision plan.

Zhao Gang returned to Lushun Port. After detailed statistics, the Navy currently has a total of the weapons as follows

Krupp has 150mm breeze secondary guns, 120mm rapid-fire guns, 38 37mm five-barrel Haqiqisi machine guns, 50 57mm Haqiqisi rapid-fire guns, 26 47mm Haqisi rapid-fire guns, 27 37mm Haqisi rapid-fire guns, and 12 75mm Krupp sampan guns.

In Zhao Gang's view, the 47mm caliber cannot cause any trouble to the Japanese joint fleet. It should be changed and replaced. The replaced equipment should be uniformly equipped on those merchant ships by model. The 150mm gun should be uniformly equipped into the Fearless Two, which is launched immediately. After statistics, the number of modified 75mm cannons was reduced to 187 (the cost of 2 Krupp sampan cannons is counted as one), and the total cost was reduced to 1.28 million taels of silver.

After sorting it out, Zhao Gang handed over the revised plan to Liang Shiyi. It can be imagined that the revised plan still did not meet Liang Shiyi's requirements. After several arguments, Zhao Gang had to make another concession, retaining the 37mm five-barrel Haqikas machine gun, and the 47mm Haqikas rapid-fire gun only replaced the 4 of the main ship's battleship. The corresponding modification number was reduced to 127, and the total cost was reduced to 940,000 taels of silver.

Regarding those old ships, Zhao Gang believes that these ships are of poor quality and temporarily sealed them up, and all the manpower saved is used to salvage the wrecks.

On September 1, after seventy days of hard work, the Dingyuan ship was finally salvaged. On September 3, the Zhenyuan ship was out of water, and on September 17, the two ships were completely restored. As early as August 20, the remaining ships of the Beiyang Fleet had been repaired and replaced, and were all included in the Royal Navy organization.

At this time, the Royal Navy had

Dingyuan and Zhenyuan first-class ironclad ships (displacement capacity 7100 tons)

A second-class ironclad ship (displacement of 5,900 tons)

Jingyuan (displacement 2900 tons), Laiyuan (displacement 2900 tons), Zhiyuan (displacement 2300 tons), Jingyuan (displacement 2300 tons), Jiyuan (displacement 2400 tons), Pingyuan (displacement 2300 tons), Wuwei (displacement 2000 tons), Wuwei (displacement 3100 tons), Weiwei (displacement 3100 tons) First-class cruisers

The total tonnage of 40,000 tons has exceeded the pre-war tonnage, and it is all steel warships, and its combat effectiveness has been improved by another level.

All the soldiers of the Qing Fleet were ready to compete with the Japanese Joint Fleet. At this moment, an astonishing news came from the capital that the Japanese sought peace.

On September 20, 1894, Japan took the initiative to seek peace, and the Minister of Peace Hirofumi Ito. The news came that the Qing Dynasty celebrated the whole country, and there were crowds of people beating drums and drums everywhere on the streets. War seemed to be far away from the Qing Dynasty, and peace was just around the corner.

But Zhao Gang knew that Japan would never negotiate peace, maybe they just had to delay time. Once the plague passed, the Japanese would show their own swords and go in the same direction as the unprepared Qing Dynasty.

However, since the Japanese took the initiative to seek peace, Zhao Gang also happened to repair the warships and prepare the army, and then give the Japanese a huge "surprise".

Above the Golden Palace, Hirobu Ito respectfully kowtowed to Emperor Guangxu and handed over a peace proposal...

Everything seems to be very smooth, of course, the cumbersome negotiation conditions need to be negotiated carefully, but the general direction is not much different, and it is only a matter of time to reach a final agreement.

However, Hirofumi Ito's assassination changed the negotiation process at 4 pm on September 24. After the third negotiation in Qing Dynasty ended, Hirofumi Ito, full of worries, stepped out of Hongyan Tower and returned to the inn by car. Unexpectedly, just as Hirofumi Ito's sedan was about to arrive at the inn, a Japanese man suddenly jumped out of the crowd. Before he could react, Hirofumi Ito was shot.

Hirobu Ito was shot in the head, stained with blood and fainted on the spot. For a moment, the scene was in chaos, and pedestrians fled everywhere. The assassin took advantage of the chaos to hide in the crowd and escaped, and hid in a shop next to the road.

Seeing that the master was assassinated, Hirofumi Ito's entourage quickly carried him back to the inn, and the accompanying doctor immediately provided first aid. Fortunately, the bullet did not hit the vital point, and soon afterwards, Hirofumi Ito woke up. It seemed nothing serious, but five minutes later, Hirofumi Ito fell into a coma again and never woke up again.

After the assassination, the Beijing Jiumen Admiral captured the murderer, or the body of the murderer, for a short time. It was found that the person was named Soba Kotaro, and he was a member of the Japanese right-wing group "Shen Knife Hall".
Chapter completed!