At the same time as the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was being prepared, Li Weiguo's eyes were also aimed at the vast sea and the vast waters of the Yangtze River.

The military industry must not only meet the development needs of the army, but also the navy.

This is also a serious problem that Li Weiguo is imminent, that is, Shanghai is located at the mouth of the Yangtze River, surrounded by the sea, and without a navy, there will be no national defense, and if the enemy attacks from the sea, it will cause serious damage to the surrounding areas of Shanghai.

Li Weiguo, as a traverser, would be a joke if he didn't understand the truth of the sea royal gate.

Of course, it was the Taiping Army's sailors who forced Li Weiguo to establish a navy as soon as possible.

At this time, the Taiping army already had more than 13,000 warships, although they were all wooden warships, but they could not support a huge number, each ship placed at least one artillery, that is, at least 13,000 artillery, if it suddenly entered Shanghai in the east, on the Huangpu River lined up in a row to bombard Shanghai, the huge threat is self-evident.

Li Weiguo is not without a sailor, as a soldier of Su Songtai, Li Weiguo has jurisdiction over 2,000 naval warships in the Susongtai area and more than 1,000 anti-smuggling warships in the customs, and he also has the power to fight, but Li Weiguo looks down on these broken ships, and he aims at the warships of the British Royal Navy.

At this time, since the Industrial Revolution in Britain, the British Royal Navy is also modernizing, and the original sail warships are being replaced by steam iron ships.

For Li Weiguo, this is a godsend, because although many sail warships of the British Royal Navy have been eliminated by steam iron ships, for the sailors of the Qing Dynasty and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the sail warships of the British Navy are still very advanced, and Li Weiguo bought them to form a naval fleet, whether it is used to resist the Qing government sailors or to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom sailors, it is more than enough, and it can even be said to have an overwhelming advantage.

So Li Weiguo went to the British Legation again, met with Sir Bao Ling, and conveyed to the British Hong Kong military through him the intention to purchase British warships.

Sir Bao Ling said that it can be considered, after all, there are thousands of old sail warships in the British Royal Navy, and it takes a lot of money to replace all steam-driven iron-hulled warships, and the British Royal Navy is currently trying to find a way to convert these warships to civilian use in order to obtain funds to complete the replacement, so Li Weiguo proposed to buy British Navy warships in principle, but he needs Li Weiguo to do him a favor.

It turned out that the British side had given up military operations in China due to the outbreak of the Crimean War, so they gave Bao Ling a task, that is, to find a way to contact the high-level of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, test the other party's attitude towards Britain, and ensure that the interests of the British Empire in China would not be violated as much as possible.

Bao Ling was worried about not knowing how to communicate with the high-level of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, if he rashly drove a warship to Tianjing, I am afraid it would cause unnecessary misunderstandings, Li Weiguo once entrusted the British Navy to transport a batch of arms to Guangxi for Su Sanniang, and he must have a connection with the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, so Bao Ling wanted to ask Li Weiguo to help mediate.

Historically, the British minister visited Jinling on a naval warship a month before the outbreak of the Crimean War, at that time they were not to negotiate, but to blackmail Hong Xiuquan, when the British navy was showing off its might on the Yangtze River, it was ready to help the Qing government suppress the Taiping Army, the British minister went to Hong Xiuquan, and strongly demanded that Hong Xiuquan accept the unequal treaty signed by the Qing government with Britain before, and to add Tianjing as a treaty port, but Hong Xiuquan refused. At that time, the British navy was preparing for war against the Taipings, but the outbreak of the Crimean War forced them to abandon the attack on the Taipings and switch to neutrality.

Now the appearance of Li Weiguo has made a certain change in this matter, because the British side knew that there was a powerful Li army in Shanghai, and the Taiping army could not threaten the security of their concession in Shanghai for the time being, so their actions were a whole month later than in history, just in time for the outbreak of the Crimean War, so they gave up the plan to go directly to Tianjing to show off their force, and changed to a gentle way of testing.

After consideration, Li Weiguo agreed to Bao Ling's request and promised to match the match.

So, Li Weiguo sent his henchmen to Tianjing secretly and went to see Su Sanniang first, and Su Sanniang came forward to inform Hong Xiuquan.

Hong Xiuquan held a meeting to discuss whether to meet with the British, Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai and others all agreed to meet, because they knew that the British firearms were powerful, and their arms deal with Li Weiguo was actually provided by the British.

To tell the truth, Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing, Shi Dakai and others were already very dissatisfied with Li Weiguo's two-fold or even triple-fold price increase, if it weren't for the fact that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom had just been established and there was a lack of firearms craftsmen, I am afraid that they would not have cooperated with Li Weiguo at all, and even sent troops to fight Li Weiguo a long time ago. Now, if you can cooperate with the British in the arms deal, it is naturally the best.

So, Hong Xiuquan decided to meet with the British minister Bao Ling, but before that, Hong Xiuquan needed to test the bottom line of the British, so Hong Xiuquan appointed Wei Changhui, the king of the north, and Shi Dakai, the winged king, to go to Yanziji, where they met with Bao Ling first, talked first, and then decided whether to allow the British minister to enter the Tianjing court.

Regarding the thoughts of Hong Xiuquan, Yang Xiuqing and others, Su Sanniang sent someone to secretly tell Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo also had a headache after learning about it, worried that Hong Xiuquan and Bao Ling reached a cooperation agreement, if the British military directly supplied arms to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, it would be tantamount to robbing Li Weiguo of his money-making job, and even the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's strength after receiving the British arms would be unfavorable to Li Weiguo.

So Li Weiguo secretly knocked on the packing order, warning him to remain neutral, and if he supported the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom militarily, it would be equivalent to declaring war with the Qing Dynasty.

Bao Ling promised that he would never do it, but he was really thinking about this issue in his heart, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Great Qing Kingdom ruled China, and the question was which side was more beneficial to the interests of the British Empire in China, if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was more suitable to cooperate with the British Empire, he would not mind supporting the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

With this mentality, Bao Ling arrived at Yanziji on a British warship and met with Wei Changhui and Shi Da.

The two sides tested each other's bottom line, although they did not achieve the expected goal, but at least the two sides will not go to war, this is the final bottom line of both sides.

This result was expected by Li Weiguo, because the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was currently preparing for the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition, and they didn't even want to offend Li Weiguo for the time being, let alone offend the British. Therefore, when Bao Ling arrived in Tianjing, meeting Hong Xiuquan was actually just a formality, because the specific matters had already been negotiated with Wei Changhui and Shi Da before, and going to Tianjing was just a formality.

Britain will strictly maintain neutrality, and Hong Xiuquan wants to buy arms from the British, but unfortunately Britain is preparing for the Crimean War, and its own arms production capacity and resources are also limited, so it has to give priority to supplying the Crimean battlefield. Besides, it was impossible for Britain to risk war with the Qing government to supply arms to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom.

Bao Ling also did not get substantial benefits from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and after returning to Shanghai, he thought of making up for it by taking advantage of Li Weiguo.

Previously, Bao Ling was very annoyed with Li Weiguo because of the share distribution issue of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the fact that Liru Bank was disturbed by Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo was afraid that Bao Ling, firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea would not eat anything, as long as Bao Lingken opened his mouth, Li Weiguo would have a way to satisfy the other party.

Li Weiguo wanted to form a fleet, the scale did not need to be very large, it was enough to be able to resist the Taiping army and naval divisions and deter the Qing court. In general, it was planned to equip six first-class sail battleships, two in peacetime for combat readiness, two for maintenance in port, and two for training. As for other cruisers, frigates, etc., Li Weiguo felt that there was no need to buy them, just use the various lucky ships and fighting ships in the current naval division. After all, these wooden sail warships are only for temporary temporary use, and will be replaced by ironclad steam warships in the future.

Sure enough, Bao Ling made it difficult for Li Weiguo to buy warships, but in the end he still showed his fox tail, and after Li Weiguo offered to give him 100,000 taels of silver as an intermediary fee, plus a 50% rebate on the difference in the purchase price of the ship, Bao Ling finally relented and agreed to help negotiate the purchase of British warships.

Leaving the British Legation, Zhang Xiaoliu couldn't help but ask: "Young master, this package is too much, you gave him 100,000 taels of silver as a reward is enough, why do you still promise to give him a 50% rebate for the purchase of ships?" You must know that the warships of foreigners are very expensive, and this rebate is not a small amount! ”

Li Weiguo glanced back at the British Legation and sneered: "When have you ever seen the young master and me make a loss-making deal?" Don't worry, how much silver Bao Ling eats from me today, he will have to spit it out ten times and a hundred times more to the young master in the future! ”

Seeing that Li Weiguo was so confident, Zhang Xiaoliu thought about what Li Weiguo had done in the past two years, and suddenly became happy, and said: "Also, the people who dare to knock on the young master's bamboo pole have not been born, this bag of silver that dares to eat the young master's must break his teeth!" ”

Li Weiguo nodded and asked, "How is the matter I told you going?" ”

Zhang Xiaoliu replied: "Don't worry, young master, you have already entrusted the merchant to negotiate with the French." But since the young master is not ready to buy the warships of the French, why should he negotiate with them? ”

Li Weiguo smiled: "You don't understand this!" Although I do not buy the warships of the French, if I only talk to the British, they will surely slaughter us with a lion's mouth. Let the British know that we are negotiating with the French, then they will have to think about it, and if the asking price is too harsh, the deal will fall through. Don't look at the relationship between the British and the French, that's in Europe, here is Asia, and the relationship between Britain and France is actually a competitive relationship, and we have to make good use of it. ”

Zhang Xiaoliu suddenly realized: "I see! Following the young master is a long insight! ”

Li Weiguo patted Zhang Xiaoliu on the shoulder, and said earnestly: "You are my confidant, now that the Li family's family business is getting bigger and bigger, there will be not only Wu Yong and Fu Xuexian competing with you in the future, but there will be more people, but there are only a few good positions, you have to keep it!" ”

Zhang Xiaoliu scratched his head and said with a smile: "Thank you young master for your trust, it's just that I haven't studied, how can I win over Lord Wu and my uncle, and now I am very satisfied to be the commander of the infantry army." The young master is a person who does great things, and there must be more capable people around him to assist, Xiao Liuzi only wants to stay by the young master's side for the rest of his life, and the good position is still reserved for people who can help the young master do great things in the future. ”

Li Weiguo nodded with satisfaction, although he now has tens of thousands of people under his hands, but there are few who can really be trusted, Zhang Xiaoliu is the most heartfelt and trusted.

"Competence is important, but loyalty always comes first!" Li Weiguo said with a smile: "In a few days, I will build two schools, one for literature and one for martial arts." Wen is naturally a Western-style university, and martial arts is a military academy, which will set up a crash course for officer training, you go in as the first batch of students to study hard for me, Li Jiajun is the foundation of my Li family, I want you to give me a firm grasp, Li Jiajun can only listen to one person's orders forever, that is me, remember? ”

"Yes! Remember! Please rest assured, young master! Zhang Xiaoliu immediately responded that he was so trusted by Li Weiguo, and he was very moved in his heart and swore to serve his life.