Lu Jianying came to vomit blood and returned, and he failed to frame Li Weiguo, but was played by Li Weiguo, and the 320,000 taels of silver that Xiao Yang planned to give to Lu Jianying were also pocketed by Li Weiguo's "fair and upright".

In this game, Li Weiguo undoubtedly won a big victory.

However, Li Weiguo is not satisfied, he is very resentful, this Lu Jianying once framed their Li family, this revenge Li Weiguo will definitely revenge, but the other party is the governor of Liangguang after all, his identity is too sensitive, Li Weiguo wants to kill him, he needs to plan carefully, and he has to think in the long run.

Lu Jianying suffered a big loss, and he will definitely take revenge on Li Weiguo in the future, but Li Weiguo is not afraid, he knows very well that in another year, the Taiping army will capture Jinling (Nanjing), and then Lu Jianying, who is the governor of Liangjiang, and his son-in-law Wu Liang, the prefect of Jiangning (Nanjing), will be executed by the Taiping army.

"The two rivers and three provinces are the richest places in the Qing Dynasty, Lu Jianying, the old bastard, and his son-in-law Wu Liang must have looted a large number of people's fat and people's ointment, and their family must be piled up with gold and silver treasures, this money can't be cheap for the Taiping army, you have to find a way to get it."

"It's best to take advantage of Lu Jianying's old puppet to rob him of his silver in front of him, and kill him alive, and then kill him with the hands of the Taiping army, that is, take revenge, get silver, kill two birds with one stone...... Uh-huh...... It's a good plan......"

In the county government's back house, Li Weiguo was talking to himself and calculating Lu Jianying and Wu Liangweng's son-in-law, and Zhang Xiaoliu came to report at this time.

"Young master, our arms have arrived in Shanghai, and the British Legation has sent someone to inform us that we will bring the final payment to the British Concession to hand it over."

As soon as he heard the news that the arms had arrived, Li Weiguo was immediately overjoyed, but he quickly frowned and said: "Ya, Lao Tzu spent a lot of money to buy their arms, and they didn't deliver them to the door, how can it be reasonable." If you go back to them, the customer is God, do you still use me to teach them? Tell them to send the arms directly to Chongming County, and I will hand them over at the dock. ”

Li Weiguo is not a good stubble, he has always led the British by the nose, how can he let the British turn against the customer.

In the face of Li Weiguo's strength, the British finally compromised and delivered the arms directly to the Nantianmen Wharf in Chongming County.

Of course, there is no way for the British side to be so obedient, they only received a deposit of 30,000 taels of silver from Li Weiguo, and the balance of millions of taels of silver was held in Li Weiguo's hands and was not given to them. In order to complete this arms deal, the British side transported arms from India to Shanghai, and the transportation cost was very expensive, and if Li Weiguo could not get the final payment, it would definitely lose money.

At Nantianmen Wharf, two British Royal Navy battleships escorted twelve British armed merchant ships to dock side by side, which once caused panic among the people on the riverside of Chongming County, and even the Qing army sailors stationed at Wusongkou were also alarmed, and sent sailors to inquire, and learned that the British navy was only stopping ships to replenish, and the Qing navy was relieved, but they were still watching from afar.

Li Weiguo brought the soldiers of the New Army to the dock to hand over the arms, and when he saw John again, he had a cordial conversation.

Although John's attitude towards Li Weiguo is no longer as friendly as before, there are a lot of polite words in officialdom and diplomacy, and at the same time, the last time in Jinling, John was responsible for negotiating a joint venture with the Shen family Liru Bank, which was stirred up by Li Weiguo, which naturally had a certain impact on John's career, so John still had some hatred for Li Weiguo in his heart.

But Li Weiguo still treated John like before, he was grateful to John from the bottom of his heart, after all, Li Weiguo had no power and no power, in order to rescue his wife, John helped a lot, and was willing to pay out of his own pocket to help Li Weiguo redeem his daughter-in-law, this kindness Li Weiguo has always remembered, dare not forget.

John was still angry, so after being polite with Li Weiguo's officialdom, he began to get down to business.

The British soldiers unloaded boxes of munitions from the ship and carried them to the docks, and Li Weiguo's men stepped forward to take charge of the inventory.

"Two hundred and fifty boxes of muskets of 20 muskets each, for a total of 4,800 P1842 firing front-loading smoothbore guns and 200 P1851 firing front-loading rifled guns...... The inventory is complete! ”

"10 16-pounder guns, 6 24-pounder guns, 4 32-pounder guns, 4 68-pounder guns...... The inventory is complete! ”

"Four hundred boxes of ammunition, fifty lead bars, and six thousand boxes of gunpowder, fifty pounds each...... The inventory is complete! ”

"500 boxes of 16-pounder shells, 200 boxes of live ammunition, 200 boxes of shotguns, 100 boxes of flowering shells......"

"24-pounder shell ......"

……

The arms on the dock were piled up, but Li Weiguo brought all the 4,000 new troops over, so there were enough manpower, and a batch was sent away immediately after the inventory, so everything was in order.

On the deck of a British warship, British Vice Admiral Pushkin Dera was using a telescope to observe the New Army soldiers on the docks, and he looked surprised, because they were different from any Qing soldiers he had seen before.

"The grass green military uniform looks fresh, and the military hat looks very imposing, but I prefer their military leather boots, which look domineering, and our military leather shoes are too petty."

While Pushkin admired Li Weiguo's new army, he was also secretly making comparisons, especially on his military boots, the military boots designed by Li Weiguo are more in line with the aesthetics of modern ergonomics, not only durable and comfortable enough, but also able to ensure the various needs of soldiers in the harsh combat environment, and look very mighty, domineering and beautiful, which can reflect military prestige and enhance morale.

On the other hand, the military boots of British soldiers, to be precise, should be called military shoes, which look more like the leather shoes worn by female civil servants in the 21st century, with high heels, but not very high. The soldier's feet and neck are exposed, and they are worn together with the British army's red coat, white pants, and white socks.

Hearing Lieutenant General Pushkin's words, John next to him replied: "Li Weiguo is an incomprehensible person, he always does things unexpectedly, but he is reasonable. He has great ambitions, for China, they are indeed a new type of army, from the appearance, there is not much difference from the European and American armies, and now it is equipped with the advanced weapons and equipment of the British Empire, once this army is formed into an army to form a combat effectiveness, I am afraid that China will usher in a new civil war. ”

Pushkin laughed and said: "Isn't the Chinese civil war better for us!" The more intense they fight, the greater the benefits we can get from it. ”

Pushkin's idea is actually the idea of the British side, they would not have sold a large number of arms to Li Weiguo lightly, because this involves a country's political decision-making, which is the same as the rules of arms trading in the modern world, for example, the United States will not sell its arms to hostile countries or threatening countries, and China will not sell weapons and equipment to India and Vietnam. At present, the relationship between the British Empire and the Qing Empire has not yet reached the point where they can sell them arms lightly, not to mention that Li Weiguo is only a small county order, according to normal thinking, the British side is unlikely to sell such a huge amount of arms to Li Weiguo, let alone bypass the Qing government's military aircraft department and directly trade with Li Weiguo.

But the British side finally sold this huge amount of arms to Li Weiguo, they saw Li Weiguo's ambitions, and even saw that Li Weiguo sold a batch of arms to Su Saburo to support the Taiping Army before Guò, Li Weiguo is likely to rebel with the Taiping Army, and the British side hopes for a civil war in China, so they will make an exception to sell a large number of weapons and equipment to Li Weiguo.

"Not necessarily! Maybe this Li Weiguo will become a fierce rival of our British Empire in the future! John frowned and said, he now has an inexplicable fear of Li Weiguo, he doesn't think that Li Weiguo will rebel, he believes that Li Weiguo will definitely accumulate his strength to be extremely strong before doing so, and from Li Weiguo's foreign-related attitude, he may not allow the British to profit, so John has always thought that selling to Li Weiguo to make him bigger, this is not a good thing. It's a pity that John is humble and light-hearted, and the British don't listen to his advice.

"You're wrong, John!" Pushkin said with a smile: "China has no industry, and if Li Weiguo wants to maintain his army, he will have to rely on us for weapons and equipment all the time, and once he is hostile to us, we only need to cut off his arms supply, and he will be finished." ”

"Nope! It's you wrong! John sneered: "It is true that China does not have an industry now, but it will be soon, Li Weiguo has imported a large number of machines and equipment from Europe and the United States, and is about to build an industrial city base in the surrounding area of Shanghai." He is very smart, he not only buys machine equipment, but also buys all kinds of lathes that make machine equipment. In other words, in the future, he will be able to make all kinds of industrial machinery and equipment by himself, and even make his own weapons and equipment, and it is impossible for him to let us choke his neck, I am very sure of that. ”

Pushkin couldn't laugh for a while, but looked at Li Weiguo on the dock with a solemn expression, frowned, and said, "Why didn't you tell the people in the military department earlier?" ”

John was silent and did not answer, not knowing if he was protesting or if he was deliberately looking at the joke.

Pushkin waited for a while and saw that John did not speak, and couldn't help but smile bitterly: "I will report the situation to the military headquarters immediately when I go back, but I hope your judgment is wrong." ”

After a busy day, Li Weiguo handed over the final balance of silver to John, and as the two sides shook hands, marking the completion of the arms deal.

"It's getting late, why don't you rest for the night here, I'll invite you to drink!"

"Thank you! I don't think it's necessary, I'm going to have to get the money back right away, you know, those people are waiting for the money, they're going to complain if they're late. ”

John politely refused Li Weiguo's invitation, and Li Weiguo did not force it, and watched John leave.

"Young Master, when will this batch of weapons and equipment be issued to the brothers?"

On behalf of the officers and men, Zhang Xiaoliu came to inquire and probe Li Weiguo's tone.

Li Weiguo smiled: "When else can it be?" Send it down now, I want to see a mighty army! ”