In March of the first year of Tongzhi, the regent Yixin asked for an order to order Li Weiguo, Zeng Guofan, and Li Hongzhang to send troops to suppress the Taiping army on all sides, and vowed not to give up if the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was not destroyed.

The Empress Dowager of the Two Palaces listened to the government, and in order to establish her prestige, she needed a large-scale victory to consolidate her rule, so she agreed to Yixin's request and announced it to the world.

Li Weiguo dealt with the "Beijing Peace Treaty" with Britain, France, the United States, and Russia, and the Russian army in the north had completely left the territory of China, and Li Weiguo spent 5 million taels of silver to buy Alaska, not only did all the countries in the world laugh at Li Weiguo's stupid money, but he spent 5 million taels of silver to buy a piece of barren land covered with ice and snow all year round. Even in the Qing Dynasty, both the government and the opposition secretly ridiculed Li Weiguo for having a problem with his brain.

Li Weiguo didn't explain this, he hoped that everyone would laugh at him and despise him, so that one day when they were really stupid themselves, they would let them smoke their big mouths.

The second town of the Shanghai army stopped the attack on the Russian army, but it was not recalled by Li Weiguo, but was stationed in Vladivostok on the spot. According to Li Weiguo's order, the Second Town began to build a fortress in Vladivostok to protect against the Russian threat from the north.

On the other hand, Li Weiguo established the Alaska Construction Corps in Zhili, with a number of about 10,000 people, as the first batch of Chinese to go to Alaska to start a business. Most of these people were poor, orphans and unemployed people whose families had been destroyed in the Yapian War, and Li Weiguo gave them the opportunity to go to Alaska to find gold mines and start the colonization process of Alaska.

The first and fifth towns of the Shanghai army continued to be stationed in the Zhili area, with the first town stationed in Tianjin and the fifth town stationed in Baoding, forming a flanking posture against Beijing to the north and threatening Shandong and Henan provinces to the south.

The armed forces of the Han landlords in the Zhili area were all reorganized, and first existed as the Zhili Security Corps. After more than half a year of rigorous training, they were tentatively organized into the 17th and 18th towns of the Shanghai Army, and elite officers and soldiers were transferred from the first and fifth towns to supplement them, so that the 17th and 18th towns quickly formed combat effectiveness.

In this way, there are four towns and Shanghai troops in the Zhili area, which is enough to deter all forces.

Li Weiguo arranged the affairs of Zhili. Zhang Xiaoliu and Chen Jingnan were left behind, while he returned to Shanghai with Su Sanniang.

At this time, the imperial court decree has been issued, the Shanghai army, the Hunan army, and the Huai army jointly attacked the Taiping army and launched the final battle to destroy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, Li Weiguo has been planning for this matter for a long time, since Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang have given up the idea of rebellion, then they are Li Weiguo's enemies, and during the battle to destroy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the Shanghai army will be ready to fight with the Hunan army and the Huai army at the same time. This requires Li Weiguo to personally sit in command.

In addition, Britain, France, the United States, and Russia respectively established a cooperative relationship with Li Weiguo, and Russia sold Alaska to Li Weiguo for five million taels of silver, giving up all the territories it had invaded, and returning to the era of the Treaty of Nebuchu of Qing Russia.

Russia's Far Eastern ambitions were stifled in the cradle by Li Weiguo, and the German Confederation was engaged in a war of unification, which made Russia feel a real security threat and forced it to refocus its focus on Europe.

Russia will not be a threat for decades. On the contrary, Russia had to guard against a possible military invasion of Far Eastern Siberia by Li Weiguo at any time.

However, for the time being, Li Weiguo is not interested in invading Siberia, after all, it is a barren land. Gains, on the contrary, will stimulate Russia's military policy to tilt toward Asia, which will be detrimental to both the country and the people.

Therefore, Li Weiguo will not send troops to Siberia for the time being, and he does not have the energy, and in the next ten years, Li Weiguo's enemy will be Britain. Compete with Britain for sea supremacy in Asia and consolidate China's hegemony in Asia.

Since Russia is also an enemy of Britain, in line with the principle that the enemy of an enemy is a friend, Li Weiguo will not invade Russia, but will draw Russia together to fight against Britain.

So, after buying Alaska. Instead, Li Weiguo approved the AIIB's first concessional loan to Russia.

The total amount of the loan, 5,000,000 yuan, was to be paid to Russia in three installments over three years, with interest at 3/1,000, and as a condition that the two sides secretly signed a Sino-Russian non-aggression treaty in Shanghai, stipulating that if one of the signatories was at war with a third country (other than China's dependents), the other side should maintain good faith neutrality and do its best to localize the war and avoid getting involved in the war. China recognizes the legitimacy of Russia's military presence in the Mediterranean and Central Asia, and supports Russia's territorial claims to Turkey. Russia recognizes China's suzerainty over its neighboring vassal states and is not allowed to interfere in China's internal affairs without its permission.

The secret treaty, which is valid for 10 years, is known as an insurance treaty between China and Russia to prevent a military conflict between China and Russia.

Russia was in the process of reforming serfdom, and the Crimean War had exhausted the Russian treasury, so Li Weiguo's loan of 5 million yuan was undoubtedly a relief in disguise, and the Russian tsar was very happy and had no objection to the Sino-Russian insurance treaty, and the two sides soon signed the treaty to make it officially effective.

At this time, the renminbi has become the national currency of the Qing Empire, under the proposal of Li Weiguo, the regent and the empress dowager of the two palaces approved the establishment of the Qing Imperial Bank, all the personnel selected by Li Weiguo from the AIIB, supervised by officials and household officials, since the first year of the reign of June began to issue RMB in the country, the provinces stopped printing copper coins, and the people were limited to take all the gold, silver and copper coins in their hands to the Imperial Bank or the AIIB within one year to exchange the corresponding RMB banknotes and coins.

In this way, the renminbi finally ruled the Qing Empire, and although the Qing Imperial Bank was nominally the imperial court, in fact, only Li Weiguo said that the Imperial Bank only had a headquarters in Beijing, and there were no branches in all provinces, all of which were implemented by the AIIB, and the right to issue currency was still implemented in the AIIB, so it was equivalent to Li Weiguo mastering the financial lifeblood of the Qing Empire.

Russia borrowed 5 million yuan from the AIIB, and basically could only buy all kinds of materials in the Qing Dynasty, because Europe did not accept the renminbi for the time being, and Li Weiguo's relevant negotiations with Britain, France, and other countries were still ongoing. However, the Beijing Peace Treaty stipulated that China's coastal areas and rivers would be fully open to the outside world, and that European goods could be purchased domestically, so the Russians could buy the goods they needed with renminbi.

Aside from Russia, after Britain and France signed the "Beijing Peace Treaty" with the Qing Dynasty, the ports along the coast and along the rivers of the Qing Dynasty were opened to the outside world, so that British and French goods could enter the Qing Dynasty with low tariffs, which made the British and French merchants very happy, and made the wounds caused by the Second Yapian War to Britain and France quickly heal. Large-scale commercial exchanges led to a short honeymoon period between China and Britain and between China and France.

Although Britain and France still regarded the Qing Dynasty as enemies, at least for a short time, Britain and France would not go to war with the Qing Dynasty again, they were afraid of Li Weiguo's military strength, and they would not go to war with Li Weiguo until they had completely exhausted the new weapons and equipment of the Shanghai army.

At the same time, Britain and France were focused on the American Civil War. Therefore, before the end of the American Civil War, the attitude of Britain and France towards China will not change much.

Li Weiguo needed this short honeymoon period, and Europe still had a lot of advanced technology to learn and introduce, the most representative of which was the steam engine boiler system and transmission device used by large warships in Britain and France. In the era of ironclad ships, these two technologies were very important, although the Jiangnan shipyard also imitated the steam engine and transmission device for large warships, but the thermal efficiency was very low, and the power was insufficient.

On the one hand, Li Weiguo sent a large number of students to Britain and France in Europe to learn various advanced technology and management experience in Europe, and at the same time, he also introduced them on a large scale. Rapidly improve the technology and experience in related fields in China and shorten the gap with the West.

It's just that the British and French governments are very annoyed by the defeat in the Yapian War, and the technology transfer and export to China are inevitably difficult, so Li Weiguo can only use the same technology to exchange with Britain and France for the advanced technology transactions in terms of some countries' sharp weapons.

For example, the steam engine system and transmission device used in large warships were exchanged by Li Weiguo for technology transfer such as patriotic rifles and 59-type infantry guns.

Li Weiguo was developing the naval industry on a large scale, and several large British steam battleships under the command of White ran aground in the Yangtze River during the Second Yapian War, and were later salvaged by the Shanghai army. It was sent back to the Jiangnan Shipyard for dismantling and replication.

Now, a year later, when Li Weiguo's official ship arrived in Shanghai. Just in time for Xu Shou and Hua Yufang to test the launch of the newly developed ironclad ship.

After Li Weiguo got off the ship, he personally boarded the ironclad ship to visit and asked Xu Shou and Hua Yufang for various details.

Although the ironclad ship was built by Xu Shou and Hua Yufang, the designer was someone else, Swedish naval architect Johan Eriksen.

Erikson was one of the fourth group of experts hired by S.H.I.E.L.D. from Europe with high salaries, and Li Weiguo was not impressed with him at first, until Xu Shou and Hua Yufang told him the whole situation of the ironclad ship. He remembered where Erikson was.

Historically, the USS Monit ironclad built by the U.S. Northern Army was built by Erickson. It's just that now history has changed, just when Eriksen was dissatisfied with the treatment of the Royal Swedish Navy and was about to try his luck in the United States, the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. found him and hired him to come to Jiangnan Shipyard with a high salary. Assist Xu Shou and Hua Yufang in the design and development of ironclad ships.

After nine months of design and development work, the first ironclad ship in the modern sense of Chinese history was born. Its freeboard is extremely low, the main part of the entire hull is completely below the waterline, and the hull is only exposed 1 meter on the water, this hull structure is only suitable for shallow water offshore, because in the deep sea, such a low freeboard is easily overturned by huge waves.

However, this is also a coincidence, when Li Weiguo called Xu Shou and Hua Yufang and instructed them to develop ironclad ships, he once told them that the current important task of the East China Sea Fleet is to transition from sail warships to ironclad warships, and the primary goal of the whole fleet in the next five years is to realize the replacement of ironclad ships.

The goal of the East China Sea Fleet in the next five years is to compete with the British Navy for sea supremacy in the coastal waters around China, that is, once war breaks out between China and Britain again, the East China Sea Fleet will ensure absolute sea supremacy in the coastal waters, and as for seizing sea supremacy in Asia, that will be the predetermined goal of the next five-year plan.

Since the goal of the East China Sea Fleet in the next five years is to seize China's offshore sea supremacy, then the requirements for ironclad ships are naturally coastal defense, and Erikson visited the French ironclad ships during the Crimean War, and was inspired by the French Navy's shallow water battery ironclad ships, so when Xu Shou and Hua Yufang asked him for offshore defense tasks, Erikson did not hesitate to design this shallow water battery ironclad ship.

Because the guns of modern navy are almost all cannons, the ballistics in naval warfare are mainly straight line attacks, so in order to protect the hull from being easily hit by enemy artillery fire, lowering the ship's side can reduce the probability of being hit, and sinking the main body of the ship below the waterline can reduce the probability of being hit to a greater extent.

Therefore, this series of subjective and considerable reasons has created this somewhat strange shallow-water battery ironclad ship.

For Li Weiguo, practicality is good.

Undoubtedly, the shallow water battery ironclad in front of you is very practical. Except that the freeboard is too low for deep-sea navigation, everything else is satisfactory.

First of all, as an ironclad ship, it is naturally armored, and strong armor is the last word, this ironclad ship was installed by Xu Shou with 20 layers of 10 mm thick steel plates, which can resist the direct kinetic impact of solid bullets fired from 1000 meters away by standard 12-inch British breech naval guns, it is simply an invincible pillbox at sea, because few warships are equipped with naval guns above 12 inches, even if it is the powerful British Royal Navy, only the Warrior ironclad ship is equipped with 110-pound guns, The largest caliber guns of other battleships were only 68-pounderers, which could not penetrate 200 mm thick armor.

Such a strong armor protection, it is equipped with firepower is also very powerful, although there is only one turret, it is a fully protected rotating turret designed according to Li Weiguo's proposal, and two 12-inch rear-loading rifled guns are installed in the turret, because of technical problems, the barrel life is only 100 rounds, and after 100 rounds, it can only be used as a smoothbore gun.

The only regret is that because of the installation of a large amount of armor, the tonnage of this ironclad ship has reached 3130 tons, which is a serious challenge to the current steam engine manufacturing capacity of the Jiangnan shipyard, with a maximum power of only 800 horsepower, barely making the speed of this ironclad ship reach 8 knots.

But this is not a problem, Li Weiguo is already very satisfied.

"Very well done, we have to make persistent efforts, in five years, we must first complete the goal of coastal defense, and if the British come again, we will not even be able to make them go up to the coast."

Xu Shou asked, "Your Majesty, will the British go to war with us again?" ”

Li Weiguo snorted coldly and said: "If we want to rise, we will inevitably challenge Britain's position as the world hegemon, and future wars are inevitable, but there should be no problem in five years, because the British have to be busy helping the United States fight a civil war." ”

Xu Shou nodded and said: "The king has always been far-sighted, and his subordinates will never live up to the king's weight, and within five years, the East China Sea Fleet will complete the replacement of ironclad ships, and have the strength to fight with the British Navy." ”

"Good!"

Li Weiguo was very satisfied, asked Xu Shou to complete the sea trial as soon as possible, and then wrote a note to him, and the major refitting of the East China Sea Fleet could already be carried out. (To be continued.) )