After eating, Qin Zheng came to the Changbai Mountain ship and sent someone to invite Zhao Weizhong to the reception room.

After being rescued by the crossing force, Zhao Weizhong's father and daughter and others have been living on the Changbai Mountain ship, and the brothers He Xin and He Ping, who were rescued with them, returned to the village with the landing force, and now there are only five of them left, because considering their particularity, Zhao Weizhong was arranged to have a separate cabin, his daughter and the waiter lived in one room, and the two families lived in another room. It's just that they have limited space to move on the ship, and can only move in a small space on the side deck of the ship.

Although he has lived on the Changbai Mountain ship for two days, until now, Zhao Weizhong still feels like he is living in a dream, because in the past two days, all kinds of things have made Zhao Weizhong feel unreal.

Zhao Weizhong is a native of Hefei, Anhui Province, and Li Hongzhang is a fellow villager, the family has been farming for generations, his father once joined the Huai Army, with Li Hongzhang to conquer the east and west, set up some merits, suppressed the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, promoted to the general and returned to his hometown. Although in the official positions of the Qing Dynasty, the generals can only be regarded as middle-level military generals, but in Zhao Weizhong's family, this is already a matter of glory to the ancestors. However, Zhao Weizhong's father passed away within a few days of Qingfu. Before dying, sending Zhao Weizhong, who was still a teenager, to Tianjin to seek refuge with Li Hongzhang can be regarded as paving a way for his son.

And Li Hongzhang remembered the old feelings of his fellow villagers, and just took over the Tianjin Machinery Bureau at that time, seeing that Zhao Weizhong could still read and write, so he asked Zhao Weizhong to work in the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, of course, starting with an apprentice.

Although Zhao Weizhong did not read much, he was quite clever, coupled with his youth, he was quite interested in Western machinery, coupled with his diligence and diligence in learning, Li Hongzhang also promoted him a lot, so he was gradually promoted, from apprentice to the secretary of Tianjin Machinery Bureau.

At that time, it was the first period of the Westernization Movement, Li Hongzhang ran Westernization affairs in Tianjin, Shanghai and other places, and began to set up the Beiyang Naval Division. Although Zhao Weizhong is not Li Hongzhang's henchman, he can still say a few words in front of Li Hongzhang, and he can be regarded as the No. 1 person in the Tianjin Machinery Bureau.

If it continues to develop like this, Zhao Weizhong will be able to go further, or take over the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, or be recommended by Li Hongzhang to be an official, and if he is lucky, he may be able to become a prefect.

However, at this time, the First Sino-Japanese War broke out, the Qing court was defeated, the Beiyang Naval Division was also annihilated, Li Hongzhang lost his position in the court, and even Zhao Weizhong's value also plummeted, plus the Westernization Movement was also frustrated by the defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Tianjin Machinery Bureau was also getting worse, and at this time, Zhao Weizhong's wife died of illness, so Zhao Weizhong was also a little disheartened, and just wanted to work for a few more years, save a little more money and resign, go back to his hometown to buy hundreds of acres of land, and live a free life as a landowner.

However, within a few years, the Boxer Rebellion broke out, which led to the Eight-Nation Alliance's war of aggression against China, and the Eight-Nation Coalition Army broke through Dagukou and invaded Tianjin. Originally, Zhao Weizhong could have escaped before Tianjin was lost, but Zhao Weizhong was reluctant to have a property in Tianjin, so he did not leave Tianjin immediately, but hid in the countryside for a few days, and wanted to return to Tianjin. At that time, the situation was getting worse and worse, and the Eight-Nation Coalition actually captured Beijing all the way. This time, Zhao Weizhong also regretted it and did not leave Tianjin early.

At this time, it was too late to regret it, Zhao Weizhong accidentally heard that Li Hongzhang had come to Shanghai and was ready to negotiate peace with the Eight-Nation Alliance, so Zhao Weizhong went to Hejiawan Village to buy a boat and go to sea, and wanted to go to Shanghai to join Li Hongzhang. As a result, as soon as the ship came out of Bo Bay, it was knocked over by a ship that came out of nowhere, and all the people on the ship fell into the sea.

Of course, Zhao Weizhong learned from Qin Zheng's mouth just now that the identity of this fleet was actually overseas Chinese. According to Qin Zheng, this group of overseas Chinese includes not only the Yashan in the late Song Dynasty, but also the Chinese grandchildren of Zheng He who went to the West seven times in the early Ming Dynasty, and the descendants of Zheng Chenggong's old department when the Ming and Qing dynasties were communicating, they occupied a large island in the Atlantic Ocean, and they have been building a foundation and multiplying on the island for hundreds of years, and now they want to return to China and help the Qing Dynasty defeat the Eight-Nation Alliance. And these warships, ships are all made by them.

Zhao Weizhong is skeptical of Qin Zheng's statement, of course he knows that there is another world by the sea, and there are many Chinese left overseas, but Zhao Weizhong has never heard of a Chinese founding a country overseas, on the contrary, there are still a lot of overseas Chinese bullied by foreigners, since the foreigners came to China, almost every few years there will be voices of overseas Chinese asking for protection from the Qing Dynasty, which also caused the Qing court a headache, and he is still too busy to protect the overseas Chinese, and in the eyes of the Qing court, overseas Chinese can not be regarded as the children of the Qing Dynasty at all.

However, Zhao Weizhong could not deny that Qin Zheng was talking nonsense, after all, the world is so big, there are no surprises, who can say that there is no country established by Chinese overseas? Moreover, the faces and physiognomy of this group of people are indeed of Chinese origin, and although in the eyes of Westerners, East Asians such as Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans all look similar, but there are still some subtle differences between East Asians. What's more, as far as the group of people Zhao Weizhong came into contact with, everyone speaks official dialect fluently, and many people can speak local dialects, Tianjin, Shandong, Henan, Sichuan, and Cantonese. Zhao Weizhong knew that some Japanese could speak the official Chinese dialect in a confusing manner, but it was absolutely impossible to speak so many dialects. Therefore, Qin Zheng's words still have a certain degree of credibility.

But what made Zhao Weizhong feel unbelievable, after living on the ship for two days, Zhao Weizhong saw too many things that subverted his own cognition. Zhao Weizhong is a person who has been doing foreign affairs for more than 20 years, and he has seen all kinds of foreigners' machines, even when the Beiyang Naval Division was formed, every warship has been there. Although after being rescued on the boat, Zhao Weizhong and the others did not have much room for activities, they were still able to see many things that they had never seen and heard.

The first thing that surprised Zhao Weizhong was the electric light. Although electric lights are not too rare at this time, there are a few in the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, but these are just a few lights, but on this ship, electric lights can be seen almost everywhere, and they are uncountable. Moreover, although the electric lights of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau are indeed better than candles and oil lamps, it is still an exaggeration to say that they are as bright as day. But the lights on the ship are as bright as day, and the light is soft and not dazzling at all. In addition, the room where Zhao Weizhong lives is not large, except for a narrow bed, there is only a table and a chair, but I don't know what material is made of, it is not iron or wood, but it is very strong.

Of course, these things are secondary, but there are a few things that make Zhao Weizhong a little creepy. One is that there are often sounds on the wall of the corridor to inform some things, but no one can be found, and there are often people holding a black strip in their hands to speak, at first Zhao Weizhong did not know what it meant, but another time he heard the black strip actually made a sound of talking; Third, once Zhao Weizhong was walking on the deck, and he clearly saw a thing with a bold long tail and rotors flying past the side of the ship, and from the open door on the side, you can see that their soldiers are sitting inside.

However, Zhao Weizhong is a person who has done foreign affairs after all, so he will not drag these things he sees to any gods, but think that these things should be some kind of technology or machine. But Zhao Weizhong is also very clear, these technical machines are not Westerners, that is to say, the technical machines made by this group of overseas Chinese are better than Westerners, or at least some of them are stronger than Westerners.

Thinking of this, Zhao Weizhong's heart did not relax, but on the contrary, it became heavier. Zhao Weizhong is not an ignorant teenager, he really believes that this group of overseas Chinese is concerned about China, so he wants to return to the Qing Dynasty and serve the country. Although Zhao Weizhong has not heard of the phrase "there is no love for no reason, and there is no hate for no reason", he still understands the truth that no profit can not be early. Otherwise, it has been more than 250 years since the Qing Dynasty came to dominate China, so why did these overseas Chinese not want to return to China until now?

Another advantage of foreign affairs is that the news is flexible, and it is the news from overseas. Zhao Weizhong knew that among the overseas Chinese, there were many revolutionary parties who were determined to overthrow the Qing Dynasty, and the Kangliang Rebellion Party, which led the reform of the law during the Wuxu period, fled overseas, entangled a group of rebellious ministers and rebels, and under the banner of royalism, they actually did things to subvert Dachun, so that many overseas Chinese were bewitched. In addition, in recent years, there is a person named Sun Wen who has begun to become famous overseas, and his behavior is more terrible than that of the Kangliang Rebellion, and he does not even use the banner of royalism, declaring that he wants to overthrow the Qing Dynasty and establish a republic, and the momentum is quite strong, greatly surpassing the trend of the Kangliang Rebellion.

Although Zhao Weizhong did not have much hope for the Qing Dynasty, it did not mean that he would oppose the rule of the Qing Dynasty, so he naturally did not have any good impression of the chaotic parties and revolutionary parties overseas. When he knew that this group of people was from overseas, he instinctively equated them with the revolutionary party in his heart.

However, whether it is Kang Liang's chaotic party or Sun Wen, in Zhao Weizhong's view, it is just in vain, that is, they can only hide overseas and shout a few voices, adding a little blockage to the Qing Dynasty, and they want to really subvert the Qing Dynasty, they are still far away, and the reason is very clear, they don't have an army in their hands, Xiucai rebelled, and they couldn't do it for ten years.

Pay attention to the official QQ public account "17K Novel Network" (ID: love17k), read the latest chapters first, and grasp the latest information at any time