"Guanchen must study hard and be admitted to the top prize!" When the young Lin Guanchen heard Mrs. Chen's words, he nodded vigorously and said loudly. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Yo! Guanchen has this heart, good! Good! When Mrs. Chen heard Lin Guanchen's words, she was so happy that she turned her head to Chen Wan and said, "Sure enough, it's the same as Kunyu!" ”

Chen Wan looked at her mother's happy appearance, knowing that her mother no longer had the slightest resentment towards her husband Lin Yizhe, and her heart was extremely happy for a while.

Since she married Lin Yizhe, her mother has always been dissatisfied with Lin Yizhe because of Lin Yizhe's bad relationship with Zuo Zongtang, which caused her father to be impeached by Zuo Zongtang and almost confiscated to Xinjiang. As a daughter, Chen Wan certainly understands that her mother is worried about herself, but she firmly believes that her vision is not wrong, and Lin Yizhe is by no means that kind of person.

And now, Lin Yizhe has proved that his mother's opinion is wrong with practical actions, and as a daughter, her happiness can be imagined.

"Kunyu often said that children should follow their nature when they are young, develop according to their preferences, and only then will they be successful in the future." Chen Wan said with a smile, "He also said that Guanchen likes to read now, and he will be the top talent in the future." ”

"Guanchen likes to read best, but Yuxi ......" Mrs. Chen heard the "gunshot" from the courtyard again, and couldn't help frowning, "You are a mother, you can't let her temperament come nonsense!" ”

"My daughter remembers when she was a child, when she first practiced martial arts, she couldn't practice it, and her mother also taught her daughter, a good girl with many strange ambitions, why don't you want your granddaughter to practice martial arts today?" Chen Wan laughed and teased her mother.

"Hey! Little girl! You're still up to the mark, huh? I also taught my mother a lesson! Mrs. Chen's eyes narrowed again, "Tell you, you are just the right one, you are still my daughter!" Do you dare to listen to my mother's words? ”

"Ouch! Mother-look at what you said, isn't your daughter's fate half of yours! How can there be a daughter without a mother! Chen Wan smiled and lied to her mother, she knew that her mother was not angry, but expressed her happiness in this way.

After all, his son-in-law became a second-class member at a young age, and even his husband, who was selling incense balls at home, followed the recovery, and the husband's grade after the recovery was on par with his daughter, according to the court rules, even if his husband saw his daughter, he had to be polite!

After Chen Xiangqi was ordered to go to Beijing to see His Majesty, Mrs. Chen came to Fuzhou at the invitation of her daughter to help her daughter take care of her three children. On the one hand, she is used to being careful on weekdays, and on the other hand, she is also enjoying the joy of family.

In this era, not everyone can enjoy the joy of their children around their knees and teasing their grandchildren.

While the mother and daughter were talking, Lin Yuxi came in with a small pistol with a slender muzzle that was still smoking.

Seeing Mrs. Chen, Lin Yuxi put the gun on the table, ran over like a gust of wind, and saluted respectfully in front of Mrs. Chen.

"Grandma is good."

Seeing that Lin Yuxi suddenly turned into a lady in front of her, Mrs. Chen's worries about her not being able to marry in the future disappeared in an instant, and she pulled Lin Yuxi to her side with joy and looked at her carefully.

The girl stood there, giving people the feeling that there was a fresh fragrance quietly spreading throughout the room, slowly spreading in everyone's hearts. She is like a proud snow plum, standing in the quiet valley, quiet and graceful path blooming, no matter how many people around her look at her, she is like being alone in the empty field, the corners of her eyes and eyebrows, all filled with the atmosphere of freedom and romance. Compared with the eyes of ordinary beauties, her eyes are large and bright, as if there are rippling water waves in her eyes, as if she is silently talking about something all the time; The resolute and straight nose bridge has both the beauty of a girl and the heroism of a boy.

"Oh, even if it's Liang Hongyu Mulan, I'm afraid I don't look as good as Yuxi when I was a child!" Mrs. Chen took Lin Yuxi's hand, and her affection was beyond words.

Mrs. Chen didn't know how many years later, what she said about Lin Yuxi and Lin Guanchen would really become a reality.

"Grandma, will Daddy come back with Grandpa?" Lin Yuxi asked crisply.

"Yes, yes!" Mrs. Chen smiled and nodded.

Hearing her daughter's question, Chen Wan's heart instantly swelled with a deep longing for her husband.

At this moment, she would not have thought that her father and husband would meet in Beijing in what way.

The first meeting between Lin Yizhe and Chen Xiang turned out to be in Wenxiang's mansion.

At this time, Chen Xiang listened to Lin Yizhe and Wen Xiang talk about the navy and coastal defense, and his eyes were full of admiration.

Wen Xiang was anxious to enrich the coastal defense of Beiyang and protect Beijing and Tianjin, because he planned to buy "small iron boats" (that is, Randal-type gunboats, which are also called "mosquito boats" in China because of their small cannons), but after reading the "Outline of Western Ship Gun Diagrams" and "Charts of Foreign Divisions and Ships" presented by Lin Yizhe, he was a little undecided, so he summoned Lin Yizhe many times to come to discuss. Therefore, in the past few days, Wen Xiang and Lin Yizhe have talked about the topic of the navy and warships.

Since the Three Kingdoms period, Japan has been known as the Wa Kingdom by China, and scholars and doctors have often scoffed at it and dismissed it. At that time, in the eyes of the Chinese society, which sang the triumphant song of "Prosperous Times" all day long, dreamed of "**** going to the country", and was full of arrogance, Japan was just a barbarian. However, it was this small neighbor to the east, which had always been despised by China, that after learning some advanced Western technology, unscrupulously challenged China and intended to occupy China's territory, and the shock caused by this in Chinese society was like a thunderbolt from the sky. The importance and urgency of coastal defense construction have been highlighted. This time, although the Chinese Navy defeated the Japanese Navy, the shortcomings of China's coastal defense were also exposed. Prince Gong Yixin wrote in the recital afterwards: "Today is the beginning of the preparation, it is too late to be sick; If you don't repair it today, it will be even more unimaginable! He also recalled that since the Opium War, although China has carried out some undertakings aimed at self-improvement, such as building shipyards and warships, "everyone has the heart of self-improvement, and everyone has the words of self-improvement, but so far there is still no reality of self-improvement, and the past has been forgotten for a long time." He believes that it is necessary to immediately put aside past prejudices and take resolute measures to strengthen the country's coastal defense strength as soon as possible.

The calls for strengthening coastal defense between the government and the opposition are getting louder and louder, and the insufficiency of coastal defense in the Beijing-Tianjin area has become prominent. On the day that the peace treaty was reached with Japan, Hayashi Yizhe ordered the three cruisers "Weiyuan," "Henghai," and "Kangji" and the "Flying Eagle" high-speed notification ship to be transferred to Beiyang in accordance with the previous agreement with Li Hongzhang. The addition of these four warships has greatly strengthened Beiyang's maritime combat forces, but the situation in the land defense of the Beiyang region is still not optimistic, and it was when Hurd, the director of the General Department of Customs and Customs, warmly recommended the new British-made Randolph gunboat to Prime Minister Yamen, which immediately attracted the attention of Wen Xiang and others.

As early as October 23, 1874, amid intense negotiations between China and Japan, Hurd, who had replaced Li Taitai as the General Department of Taxation of the Chinese Customs, sent a telegram via Shanghai to his loyal subordinate in London, Jin Denggan, saying that the Chinese side intended to purchase warships. As a matter of fact, under the strong stimulus of Japan, following the death of the Aspen fleet in the middle of the process, China's second foreign purchase of warships in modern times gradually kicked off. Unlike the purpose of the first ship purchase to suppress the domestic uprising, the purpose of this ship purchase is quite clear, that is, to consolidate coastal defense and defend against foreign aggression.

As a matter of fact, in the days when Japan invaded Taiwan and the Chinese government and public were shocked and indignant, this Westerner's figure began to frequently haunt the Prime Minister's Yamen. As an important spokesman for British interests in China, Hurd was keenly aware of the signs that China was about to expand its navy with Japan as an imaginary enemy. The British, who has lived in China for a long time and is well versed in the ways of Chinese officialdom, understands that this will be an important opportunity to influence and control the future direction of the Chinese navy. The opportunity could not be missed, and he immediately began to have close contact with Prince Gong Yixin, who was in charge of the Prime Minister's Yamen, and started a business selling British warships. Since the Aspen fleet incident, although China's coastal defense strength has greatly improved after nearly a decade of attempts to build its own warships in Shanghai, Fujian, and other places, the number of China's self-made warships is still too small, so the proposal to directly purchase advanced Western warships has quietly begun to gain the upper hand at this time.

After the naval battle between China and Japan, the three types of ships, ironclads, cruisers, and gunboats, entered the field of vision of the Chinese. Hurd, who likes to talk about it, is actually a layman who knows a little about the naval field, and after arousing the Chinese's interest in purchasing warships, Hurd hurriedly discussed with his subordinate Jin Denggan, who was far away in London, how to sell warships. However, Lin Yizhe, Shen Baozhen, Li Hongzhang, Ding Richang and other Chinese officials, proceeding from their own naval knowledge, were eager to acquire powerful first-class ironclad ships. However, the cost of this kind of warship was too expensive, and after the heavy blow of the Second Opium War and the Taiping War, the Qing government's treasury was almost empty, and in addition to the use of troops in the northwest, it could not afford it for a while, and the large warships also had extremely high requirements for the professional and technical knowledge of the personnel who operated the warships, and it was difficult to handle them. Soon, both Hurd and Jin Denggan noticed the latest kind of warship in the world at that time, a small warship that was cheap and said to be the "Heavenly Evil" and "nemesis" of large ironclad ships.