At this moment, Li Weiguo and his entourage came directly to the Drum Tower on Middle Street.

From afar, I saw a high-rise building rising from the ground, which was the headquarters of the AIIB under construction.

"At this rate, the building will be completed in two months, and it will take another renovation time to officially open for business." George George, executive director of the AIIB, who accompanied Li Weiguo, reported to Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo nodded, this speed is slow in the 21st century, but at the moment, it does not affect the implementation of his overall plan.

"How's the overseas buying group going?"

"There's no news yet!" George shook his head and said, "According to your request, Governor, it will take a year to go back and forth for the equipment and materials purchased in Europe, and it will be back in February next year at the earliest. The equipment and materials purchased in the United States are very fast, and they can go back and forth in seven or eight months, and the first batch of materials will be delivered to Shanghai in half a month. ”

Li Weiguo nodded, this speed was quite satisfactory to him.

Before he convened the board of directors, in addition to the AIIB to carry out bank financial credit business, investment and factory in China is the top priority, this point all the members of the board of directors of the AIIB voted in favor, the will is unprecedentedly unanimous, all understand that directly in China to open a factory can make more money, after all, in this era there is no mega-ton cargo ship, from Europe and the United States to transport goods to China to China takes a lot of time and money, the profit is obviously not as cost-effective as directly opening a factory in China.

Obviously, the Qing government did not allow foreigners to directly open factories in China, so it became an inevitable choice for the AIIB to open factories in China in the name of Li Weiguo, who could use the money of these foreigners to strengthen his own strength.

This is also one of the main reasons why Li Weiguo is in a hurry to buy European and American machinery and equipment to set up factories in China, after all, the Second Opium War will soon break out, and then the foreign powers will be given the privilege of legally opening factories in China, and then these businessmen will not obey Li Weiguo's words as they do now.

According to the plan proposed by Li Weiguo at the board meeting, the first batch of industrial equipment imported from Europe and the United States includes an iron-making plant, a steel-making plant, a cement factory, a textile factory, a match factory, a printing factory, a paper mill, a fertilizer factory, a waterworks, and a gas plant.

However, Li Weiguo knows very well that it is better to teach people to fish than to teach them to fish, and it is not enough to rely only on importing factory equipment from abroad, and once the machine is damaged, it will be controlled by others, so Li Weiguo alone entrusted several Venetian merchants to import a large number of machine tool processing equipment from Europe and the United States in his personal name, including advanced gantry planers, Whitney milling machines, Brown grinders, horseshoe drilling machines, etc., with these equipment, you can process all kinds of required parts by yourself in the future, and you don't have to be controlled by others.

Of course, all these lathes and equipment will cost at least more than one million taels of silver to buy, which is quite expensive, but fortunately, Li Weiguo copied the homes of Xiao Yang and others and got millions of taels of silver, which happened to be used to buy these machines and equipment.

In addition to entrusting foreign businessmen to buy a large number of machine tools and equipment, Li Weiguo's biggest investment is to buy weapons and equipment, because Li Weiguo knew that the rise of Han warlord forces such as Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang depended on suppressing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement, so Li Weiguo naturally would not let go of this God-given opportunity, and he also wanted to get a piece of the pie and take the opportunity to become a big warlord with real power.

In the past, Li Weiguo bought hundreds of muskets and supporting ammunition, and he only needed to say hello to John, and he would get the goods soon.

But since Li Weiguo trained 4,000 people in Chongming County in one go and was ready to buy weapons and equipment for 4,000 people, John couldn't be the master, because it involved security and interest disputes at the national level, and the British side also needed to consider its own national strategic interests in China.

However, Li Weiguo's means are so many that he can't buy such a huge amount of arms from the British for a while, but Shanghai County is full of foreigners, and he can also start from British merchants, if British merchants don't sell, then start from businessmen from other countries, anyway, in this world, not only the British are selling weapons and equipment, but the French, Germans, Swedes, and Americans are all selling arms all over the world, because this is one of the most profitable ways, and no one can't get along with money.

In the end, the British side also seemed to understand that Li Weiguo could buy arms from businessmen from other countries, so there was no need to make restrictions, but it had an unpleasant quarrel with Li Weiguo, which would affect future cooperation, and in addition, selling arms to Li Weiguo could make a lot of money, so it finally agreed to sell weapons and equipment to Li Weiguo on a large scale.

So Li Weiguo invested 200,000 taels of silver to buy 5,000 muskets, including 4,800 P1842 firing front-loading smoothbore guns and 200 P1851 firing front-loading rifled guns.

Although Li Weiguo knew very well that rifled guns were more advanced than smoothbore guns, he also knew that before the advent of rear-loading rifles, front-loading rifled guns were not suitable for large-scale gun engagement, because of rifling, which made it very difficult for gunners to install bullets.

However, Li Weiguo still chose to buy 200 P1851 front-loading rifled guns, this is because Li Weiguo suddenly thought of the fact that the American Revolutionary War made a rifled gun to rewrite the entire American history, and thought of the special forces combat ideas of later generations, Li Weiguo decided to independently organize a unit specializing in the use of rifled guns, specializing in independent combat on the battlefield, with the primary task of shooting and killing the enemy's important targets, and it will play an unexpected effect when cooperating with a large army in frontal combat.

In addition to the muskets, Li Weiguo also spent 480,000 taels of silver to buy six 24-pounder guns, ten 16-pounder guns for infantry fire support, and four 68-pounder and 32-pounder guns to defend the city.

Although the weapons and equipment purchased were equipped with a base amount of ammunition as standard, Li Weiguo knew that he did not have his own arsenal now, and once the war broke out, the ammunition consumption was huge, and he could not replenish it, so he had to hoard guns and gunpowder on a large scale, which cost nearly 600,000 taels of silver.

Seeing the silver in his hand flowing out like water, Li Weiguo was really distressed, but he couldn't help it, he was reluctant to let the child get a wolf.

Just when Li Weiguo felt sorry for his white money, the British Legation finally moved, and Bao Ling had to admit that he had lost to Li Weiguo in the matter of Liru Bank, and finally put down his son and took the initiative to invite Li Weiguo to a banquet.

Li Weiguo smiled slightly, he knew that Bao Ling had compromised, and this was to take the opportunity of the banquet to repair the relationship between the two of them.