"By the way, Guo Aiqing, what you just said, not only brought back a lot of machinery and equipment and technical drawings, but also invited a lot of foreign technicians and experts back. What else, as if to say that there is also a weapon aspect? Feng Yunshan came back to his senses and asked with some expectation in his heart.

"Yes, Your Majesty! This time, with the help of Lord Wu, Wei Chen temporarily borrowed 12 million saint dollars from the Nanyang Company and purchased 33 warships, which could basically form 2 fleets. However, because there were too many of these 33 warships, it was very difficult to transport them all the way back to Shanghai from the West, and Weichen could not find so many people to drive them at that time, so Weichen could only divide them into two batches and transport them back in batches. In this way, Weichen hired a group of sailors to personally escort the first batch of warships back to China, and by the way, some of the purchased machinery and equipment, mercenaries, foreign technicians, etc., were all transported back. ”

Guo Songtao's answer surprised Feng Yunshan. He really didn't expect that Guo Songtao's courage would be so great, although before he went to the West, he had told him to pay attention to these, purchase a batch of equipment, hire Western talents, and buy warships and other weapons, but without asking for instructions, he directly spent tens of millions of Shengyuan to buy so many warships, which still shocked him. However, Feng Yunshan not only won't blame him, but also reward him, which is a great achievement!

"Your Majesty, please go forward with Weichen, and the docked in the Wusongkou Inland River Bay over there is the first batch of purchased warships that just arrived three days ago." Seeing Feng Yunshan's ecstatic appearance, Guo Songtao was naturally very happy, and hurriedly took the opportunity to invite the emperor to take a look at the purchased warships.

So Feng Yunshan got off the "Hong Kong" and led a group of officials to go down the Huangpu River under the escort of the Imperial Forest Army.

That is, three miles from Wusongkou to the upper reaches of the Huangpu River, a river covered with withered yellow aquatic plants flows into the Huangpu River, and in this wide bay, a large area of black and oppressive warships is quietly docked there.

Feng Yunshan looked at the surroundings and confirmed that this tributary should be the Fuzaobang of the later generations. However, at the moment, his attention was all occupied by the large group of warships in front of him, and he counted them carefully, no more, no less, exactly 20.

Among them, the two largest ships in the center, about a few stories high in later generations, are comparable to the battleships of the same scale as the "Hong Kong", and even a size larger!

Feng Yunshan became excited, patted Guo Songtao beside him on the shoulder and sighed, "Okay! All right! Aiqing has made a great contribution! ”

"Your Majesty praised it falsely, Your Majesty doesn't think that Weichen is a Manchu rebellious minister, the emperor's grace is vast, and there is a lot of trust, and Weichen dares not to break his bones to repay His Majesty's grace?" Guo Songtao looked excited, bathed in the emperor's grace, it was the supreme glory of being a courtier, and began to introduce Feng Yunshan in high spirits.

"Your Majesty, this time, Weichen used 2.7 million pounds, a total of about 12 million saint dollars, to buy 33 warships. In total, it contained 4 battleships, 6 cruisers, 8 frigates and 9 gunboats, in addition to 6 troop carriers. However, to Weichen's shame, only one of the battleships had a new steam engine as auxiliary power, and the other three were all old sail battleships. After Wechen's repeated efforts, at a price of 2 million francs, the French shipyard Brest was willing to renovate two of the battleships and the other four sail cruisers without steam power, and add boilers to increase steam power. The first batch of warships returned this time was a total of 20: 2 sail battleships, 4 cruisers, 4 frigates and 4 gunboats, and 6 troop carriers. Another 13 warships were the second to return home in a few months. ”

After speaking, Guo Songtao led Feng Yunshan to the center of the dock, where the two battleships were docked.

Both battleships were large in hulls, and they said they were docking, but they were not actually docked, but were anchored in deep water some distance from the shore. If you want to get on the boat, you can also row a boat to paddle across the water for 30 meters.

Pointing to one of the battleships, Guo Songtao introduced: "Your Majesty, this 'Duke Wellington' was purchased from the United Kingdom, and it was launched more than 5 years ago, and it was originally just a sail battleship that had not been built for several years in the Pembroke dockyard, and was later hastily converted into a steam battleship because of the need for war, with an engine of 671k, but because of this, the steam engine and boiler occupied too wide an area, resulting in the ship's guns being difficult to install, and only 10 203mm smoothbore guns and 12 152mm smoothbore guns were simply installed. The displacement is 5922 tons, the hull size is 73m×18m×7.5m, the power is the main engine of sails, auxiliary single propeller, composite steam engine. Originally, the British were reluctant to sell this battleship, but later Weichen asked Wu Jianzhang to come forward and buy it in the name of the Manchu relics. ”

Feng Yunshan couldn't help but be a little annoyed, Britain didn't die in his own heart. But then I think about it, no, such an excuse can't really deceive the British. Moreover, this time, so many warships were purchased at one time, even if Guo Songtao did not come forward in person, he would definitely be found out that he was the person in charge behind the scenes, not to mention that the British were so powerful? It is impossible not to know. In this case, the only possibility is that Britain originally wanted to sell the battleship.

That's fine. Whatever the reason, it was a surprise to be able to buy a battleship powered by a steam engine.

"Your Majesty, the other 'Montebello' next to it was purchased from France, launched in 1812, and is 46 years old. The Egyptian fleet, which had been serving in France, had a full load displacement of 5,495 tons, a length of 65.2 meters, a width of 16.3 meters, a draft of 8.3 meters deep, a sail area of 3,265 square meters, a speed of 8 knots, a rated crew of 1,079, 32 36-pounder cannons on the lower deck, 34 24-pounder cannons on the middle deck, 34 12-pounder cannons on the upper deck, 18 8-pounder cannons on the bow deck, and 6 36-pounder guns on the stern deck, all of which were old-fashioned front-loading smoothbore guns. Your Majesty, do you want to make a simple renovation in the dockyard under the Shanghai Shipyard Bureau, and replace all or half of the 124 old cannons on the ship with new rifled guns made by our Krupp Steel Company? ”

Feng Yunshan looked at these two battleships and couldn't help but sigh at the strength of Britain and France, the two old Western powers. So far, the Chinese Empire has not been able to produce such sail battleships with a load of more than 5,000 tons on its own, but Britain and France have already planned to eliminate them. I have to admit that the gap between myself and the other party has to admire the strength of their force, but Feng Yunshan just wants to catch up, while planning to make it himself, while buying it aggressively, anyway, the empire has nothing else, and money is not worried.

Time is running out. This period is the most critical for the rise of the Chinese Empire. Whether or not Britain and Tsarist Russia could build up a strong army, especially a navy, before they set their sights and centers of gravity on the East, was directly related to the rise of the Chinese Empire. What's more, his own plan is to intervene in the civil war between the north and the south of the world police in the future, suppress him and become a world policeman, and by the way, collect some benefits, and fight for a larger living space for the Chinese nation, which is the historical mission that Feng Yunshan thinks he has crossed over. Therefore, he had to grow rapidly at all costs.

Not to mention, the later Wa Kingdom, which became strong in a few years after the Meiji Restoration, has a much greater advantage in terms of human and financial resources. Feng Yunshan was undoubtedly confident that the Chinese nation would be able to rise up and compete with the Western powers.

"Replace the guns on the bow and stern decks with Krupp rifled guns, and the rest of the side guns don't need to be replaced! Nowadays, the advantage of our Krupp rifled guns is that they have a long range and accurate accuracy, but they occupy a large position, and they cannot be loaded with a few guns after replacement, so they are not much stronger than the smoothbore guns of these two battleships in terms of firepower and quantity, so there is no need to toss too much. Feng Yunshan thought that it would be best to vigorously develop ironclad ships in the future, after all, after the ironclad ships were up, this kind of old-fashioned sail battleship would slowly be eliminated.

"Wechen obeys! Your Majesty, the other 4 cruisers, 2 of which were purchased from the British Armstrong shipyard and the other 2 from the Brest shipyard, were ordered by other European countries, but because of the lack of follow-up funds, Weichen still came forward with Wu Jianzhang and purchased them at a price of 1.5 times the original contract price, and let the shipyard complete them within half a year, all of which were cruisers with a hybrid drive of new sails and steam engines. There are also 4 frigates and 4 gunboats, all of which have been newly launched for a short time. The troop carriers are all new steam ships with a displacement of about 2,200 tons, and each can carry more than 1,000 soldiers. Guo Songtao stretched out his hand and pointed to the other warships next to him.

Feng Yunshan turned his head to look at the four cruisers, the slender and streamlined hulls were like loaches, this type of ship was very suitable for high-speed sailing, and it seemed that they were all second-tier gun decks, which were first-class cruisers. The largest one is tall and large, and it is not much less than the Nanyang No. 1 flagship of the Nanyang Fleet built by the Boston shipyard at the time, and it is afraid that it has a displacement of more than 3,000 tons. Moreover, these cruisers were all newer warships, equipped with powerful steam engines as auxiliary power. Feng Yunshan felt that these cruisers were more suitable for the current Imperial Chinese Navy than battleships, after all, the sail battleships at this time were relatively slow, and it was difficult to fight in the ocean without the escort of cruisers and frigates. Moreover, like the battleship just now, there are hundreds of guns, and the gunners needed are hundreds, so it is no wonder that the entire battleship is equipped with nearly 1,000 men. But now that the Imperial Navy has just been established, naval talents have only begun to be cultivated, how can there be so many skilled naval soldiers for allocation? Therefore, there were not many gun emplacements, and the powerful cruiser was the most suitable for the moment.

Feng Yunshan made up his mind to replace all the cannons on these cruisers with Krupp rifled guns with larger caliber and longer range.