In order to open up the market for the arms trade of the Continental Army, Germany took the initiative to reduce the order price of warships and sold them to Li Hongzhang at a price of 1.42 million taels of silver per warship, but in the actual construction process of warships, Volkeng Shipyard deliberately concealed the Qing court's side and carried out technical verification of the hull transformation project many times, resulting in the total construction cost of warships rising steadily, and the final price of a single ship sold was much higher than 1.42 million taels of silver.

Li Mingyuan considered that the Germans might repeat their old tricks and play the same trick on the two battleships ordered on the mainland, so he reminded Chen Sen and the others in advance.

"Your Majesty, the U.S. government has allowed the violent persecution of Chinese compatriots by the people at home, and the current wave of anti-Chinese has spread to Canada and Mexico, and a large number of Chinese in North America are arriving every day on Tolti Island, where the Caribbean detachment is located, to seek refuge from the local government.

As the living conditions of the Chinese in North America deteriorated, Chen believed that the local government needed to take countermeasures, so that the Chinese in the United States, Canada, and Mexico could see the importance of the local government and expose the Manchu court's slander against the local government. ”

After making overall arrangements for the construction of the Navy's bases in the next 10 years and the military mission to Europe,

Hou Taiyuan waited for the opportunity to report to Li Mingyuan on the situation in North America and the Caribbean.

"Let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issue a statement of condemnation, and at the same time order all local consulates in the United States to advise the local Chinese to evacuate the United States as soon as possible, and to dispose of some houses, land, and other property that cannot be taken away, and to give up if it cannot be disposed of.

For the sake of safety, let's evacuate the United States as soon as possible and return to the mainland, because there is no shortage of land in the mainland, and after they arrive, as long as they work hard and spend the two-year inspection period, they will be allocated land and housing, and their living standards will not be worse than staying in the United States. ”

"The Chinese in the United States are grateful for His Majesty's kindness, and there is an endless stream of people rushing to the transit point on Tolti Island every month, because there are so many Chinese arriving on the island that his subordinates have bribed a Haitian warlord near Tolti Road and leased a piece of land from him to settle a part of the Chinese people."

"The island of Haiti is geographically important, but it is a pity that it falls into the hands of blacks."

Li Mingyuan glanced at Hou Taiyuan meaningfully, saw his careful thoughts, and reminded: "Haitian Island is not far from the mainland of the United States, and too obvious actions are easy to attract American interference. ”

"Your Majesty will keep in mind Your Majesty's instructions that in the future, only eight or nine hundred people will be transferred to the island of Haiti at a time, and the number of people transported to the island in a year will be controlled within the range of four or five thousand, so that the United States will not find a way to interfere."

"After sending Chinese immigrants to the island, follow-up management affairs must not be relaxed, especially in places close to black gathering areas, and it is necessary to strictly avoid the occurrence of intermarriage between Chinese and black people, whether it is a Chinese man or a woman, once they find signs of interacting with black people, they must immediately stop it."

"There will be a team of inspectors on the island of Haiti to supervise such situations, and there will be no situation that His Majesty does not want to see."

"Okay, the situation in the Caribbean is fully responsible for you, if you find any abnormal situation in the Caribbean or the United States, you must immediately transmit the news to the mainland."

"My subordinates understand, but the strength of the Caribbean Fleet is weak, and if there is an accident, my subordinates are worried that they will miss Your Majesty's major affairs."

"The Caribbean is right under the noses of the Americans, and it is not much use to send the main warships there."

Li Mingyuan pondered for a moment and said, "In October this year, the Xinjing Shipyard and the Royal Shipyard each have a 1,350-ton light cruiser to complete the construction, and then the two warships will be allocated to the Caribbean Fleet, so you should be satisfied." ”

"Thank Your Majesty for your grace, the minister will definitely guard Tolti Island for Your Majesty and live up to Your Majesty's expectations."

"Okay, knowing your determination, first work in the Caribbean for another year or two, and by 1883 at the latest, the navy will have a suitable successor, and will transfer you back to the naval headquarters, seize this time or two to work hard, and after two years, you will still have the opportunity to display your talents in the naval headquarters." …………

After appeasing a group of restless senior naval officers, the next day, after spending a relaxing time with the empress and concubine, Li Mingyuan continued to start a busy day's work.

"Your Majesty, the explosives with picric acid as the main explosive substance have been tested and verified for a year, and seven technical problems have been solved one after another, and it is expected that before December this year, the final technical route can be determined, and around February next year, it can be used as a raw material for 105 mm artillery shells for trial production operations."

Zhou Sheng, who was awarded the hereditary baronial title for discovering the process route for making picric acid, reported to Li Mingyuan on the research progress of fire explosives in the palace of the Outer Dynasty.

"Picric acid is a high explosive, its performance is unstable, it is used to make artillery shells, there is a certain danger, if the trial production results are good at the beginning of next year, you should assist the artillery units to standardize the rules for the use of such shells, and pay attention to the personal safety of officers and soldiers."

"We are exploring ways to strengthen the control of the stability of picric acid shells, and according to the technical research manual issued by His Majesty, we have made a lot of progress, and we will develop the experience gained into a manual for the use of picric acid shells, and distribute it to artillery officers and soldiers equipped with new shells to learn and use."

Picric acid was the first important progress made in the field of explosives in the Han Kingdom, but for Li Mingyuan, who had been a mercenary and was accustomed to using rifle bullets and artillery shells made from various single-base and double-base gunpowders in later generations, the current progress was far from satisfying him.

Single-base smokeless gunpowder is often used as rifle propellant, and double-base gunpowder can be used as explosive charge for artillery shells and can also be used as artillery propellant, and picric acid does not have an advantage over a variety of single-base and double-base gunpowder that were discovered later.

According to the current level of technology research and development, the two gunpowders that are most promising to be successfully developed in Han and are also the two gunpowders that Li Mingyuan has high hopes for are B-type single-base gunpowder and double-base smokeless fire

Medicine ballistite.

Type B single-base gunpowder, in the original history, was a French chemist and engineer, Paul Marie Eugène Viele in 1884, by a mixture of colloidal substance, alcohol, ether and other stabilizers to form a gelatinous substance, pressed tablets and dried into strips to make a new type of gunpowder, is a relatively mature smokeless musket bullet propellant.

And the bibase smokeless gunpowder ballistite, was made by Nobel

Using the same amount of nitroglycerin and collodion glue, plus 10% camphor as a stabilizer, and then going through some other processing and manufacturing processes, the new gunpowder with stable performance and great power is produced.

The main production principles and raw material distribution of the two gunpowders have been compiled into manuals by Li Mingyuan and handed over to Zhou Sheng, Lin Shenhe and others for study, but because of the uncertainty of the addition ratio between various main raw materials and some minor raw materials, the final progress of the two research works has not been completed.

Therefore, after listening carefully to Zhou Sheng's report, Li Mingyuan instructed that "the research and development of Type B single-base smokeless gunpowder and double-base smokeless gunpowder ballistite should be accelerated, and the entire research and development progress should be coordinated with the new rifle using smokeless gunpowder, and the technical research and development of two smokeless gunpowder and the finalized production of the new rifle should be completed no later than February 1885." ”

"Report to Your Majesty, after the exchange of steel smelting technology between the Iron and Steel United Group and the German side, the problem of limiting the hardness of the body and barrel of the new rifle has been solved, and the design scheme of the new rifle is about to enter the final stage, as long as the research and development of smokeless gunpowder for the rifle is completed by the Chemical Research Institute, the new rifle can be put into verification production."

The official in charge of military production took the initiative to report.

The new rifle is based on the Mosin Nagant rifle, and the difficulty of imitation is much lower than that of the research and development of single-base Type B smokeless gunpowder, Li Mingyuan nodded, affirming the achievements of the military manufacturing department.

"After the design plan of the new rifle is completed, we should pay attention to secrecy, and wait until the gunpowder of the new smokeless rifle is successfully developed, and then calculate the merits and rewards together."