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It just so happened that at the end of the previous year, Muravyov, commander of the Russian Dispatch Army in China, was going to inspect the Lushun Fortress under construction from Dagukou, and Li Hongzhang was ordered to accompany him. After arriving at the mouth of Lushun and seeing the "quite good" fortress of Lushun made by the Russian allies, Li Hongzhang was not only amazed, but suddenly had a whim and suggested that the Russian allies should go to see the Jiaodong Peninsula. He actually wanted to see the nest he had chosen for himself.

Of course, Muravyov was happy with this trip, and Prayatin, who had been circling around the lovely Empress Dowager Cixi, had already known about Jiaodong, and had repeatedly mentioned the beautiful harbors and important military strategic location of Jiaodong in front of him and Minister Ignatiev more than once.

As a pioneer of Tsarist Russia's expansion in the Far East, when Lushun and Dagu were almost arranged, he naturally turned his attention to Jiaodong, but he felt that the cheap seemed to be too much, and he was suffering from being difficult to open his mouth for a while, so he endured it so far. Now that he has Li Hongzhang's mentions, how can he not be happy in his heart.

So, after a simple "negotiation", a Tsarist Russian fleet sailed to Penglai. After first passing around Long Island, Li Hongzhang then led the advisers to the North Mountain in Fushan County.

Kitayama was originally a nameless barren hill, but because of its location on the north coast, the locals used to call it "Kitayama". Ming Hongwu 31 years, in order to prevent the attack of the Japanese invaders, the Ming army built the Qishan to guard the city of a thousand households at the northern foot of Qishan, at the same time, also set up the iron pier in the "North Mountain", also known as the wolf smoke pier, the beacon tower, once the enemy is found, the smoke rises during the day, and the fire is raised at night, as an alarm, so it is also referred to as Yantai, and the locals also have to call "Beishan" as "Iron Mountain" or "Yantai Mountain".

After climbing high here and looking at it, under Li Hongzhang's suggestion, a group of people came to Weihaiwei.

As soon as he arrived in Weihaiwei, Li Hongzhang's broken mouth, which he couldn't grasp, began to nag endlessly, just like on the North Mountain. And pretended to be a demon in front of Muravyov to sell his infinite knowledge and foresight.

"An overview of the future sailors of the Daqing Coast, but Lushunkou and Weihaiwei are two places, which can be fought when they advance and can be defended when they retreat. Although Jiaozhou Bay to the southwest is good, it is unfortunately too large, and the investment in military spending is daunting. In contrast, Weihaiwei, although it also has a huge amount of work, can always bear it in a certain period of time. Therefore, the Allied forces first operated Lushun, thinking that the battleships were staying in important places, and also shielded Fengxing Province and controlled the method of Dagu, which Hongzhang thought was very good. When our warships are built, it is not too late to rebuild the Wei Naval Port. ”

The clairvoyance in Li Hongzhang's hand swept horizontally, trying his best to show off, "This is not only across the sea from Lushunkou, but also the 'Black Water Ocean Route', the military strategic location is extremely important, not to mention, Weihaiwei also has a natural harbor. Please see, the overall geographical shape of Weihaiwei is bordered by land in the west, facing the sea in the north, east and south, and the coastline along the coast is undulating. What's even more amazing is that Weihai Bay is an eastward opening, and the mountains on the south and north shores of the harbor are undulating, as if the two arms of a person stretch out into the sea in the east, and take a bay in front of the chest. The high mountains on both sides of the northwest can effectively block the strong winds from the northwest in winter, making Weihai Bay a rare ice-free harbor in the north. A few miles away, there is Liugong Island across the gate, which is a natural barrier for the harbor, and divides the harbor into two mouths, north and south. ”

After Li Hongzhang finished pouring out some valuable information that he had collected from books and colleagues in Shandong at that time, he couldn't help but look at Muravyov with some pride, and then said, "Your Excellency, Commander, for the sake of the future construction of the base of our Dashimizu Division, I have consulted a large number of relevant books. The sea area in front of Liugong Island is an excellent anchorage place for ships. On the north and south shores of Weihai Bay and Liugong Island, it is an excellent defensive terrain with undulating mountains, which is more suitable for arranging forts and fortifications. Therefore, it fully meets the six elements that must be possessed as a sailor base: first, the water depth is not frozen, and there is no interruption of traffic; 2. Mountains are lined up to avoid hurricanes; 3. The road is connected to the hinterland, and the grain is transported; Fourth, the soil is not thick and silt, and it can be dredged; Fifth, the mouth is connected to the ocean, and the operation is diligent; Sixth, located in the sea, control zhì vital points. ”

Li Hongzhang's foreign language is already very fluent, although some of the too professional terms are not very clear, but Muravyov, who has been coveted by the Jiaodong Peninsula for a long time, does not need to be nagging and interpreting, and he has already understood all the qiē.

He patted the talented man on the shoulder affectionately and complimented, "Okay, that's great." Master Li is the most knowledgeable and far-sighted official I have ever met in your country. I absolutely dare to assert that you will become the mainstay of your Great Qing Kingdom, there is no doubt about it, and no one can change it. ”

The Russians will never be stingy with flowery rhetoric when they take advantage of themselves, and they are quite generous in this regard.

After receiving the praise of the Russian commander, Li Hongzhang almost floated up, he first said a few words of humility in a fake manner, and then, looking at the hard stone under his feet, he shook his head with regret, "It's a pity, just a rough calculation, just these north and south mouths, must also be divided into more than ten large forts to be defended." Look at the mountains all over the mountain are rocky bones, to build a camp must first chisel stone to fill the slope, over the mountain to transport soil, hire a man to recruit craftsmen, the construction is extremely difficult naturally do not need to say, in addition to the various materials required, the local can not be purchased, but also have to purchase and transport from afar, it is conceivable that the application of a qiē required funds is really complicated and huge. Otherwise, the contemptible people really want to mention it to the imperial court now, first build the dock and fort, and wait until the ordered warships come back, and this place will be ready for use immediately. ”

"However, a lone Weihaiwei alone cannot guarantee absolute perfection in defense, and if it is attacked from the back land, it ......."

Li Hongzhang glanced at Colonel Balushka who was questioning behind Muravyov, and shook his head like a rattle, "There is no problem, in addition to strengthening the land artillery positions to defend against the enemy from behind, there are also two guards built in the Ming Dynasty in the north and southwest of this place, Chengshan and Jinghai, which are available, and there is also the Wendeng battalion behind it......"

Muravyov looked at Li Hongzhang, who was talking, and grinned widely, smiling so happily.

As soon as he returned to the headquarters of the dispatch army stationed in China in Tianjin, Muravyov immediately went to Shuputiyatin and Ignatiev, the minister to China, and after a short period of planning, they threw out to Yamen, the prime minister of foreign affairs of the Great Qing State, and Prince Gong Yixin, who served as the king of parliament, that in order to strengthen the maritime defense of the Great Qing State on the Jiaodong Peninsula and to arrange a suitable garrison for the future Grand Naval Division of the Great Qing State in advance, Russia and Qing should immediately jointly build the Weihai Naval Base.

However, in view of the extreme predicament of the Qing Dynasty at present, it is difficult to come up with this considerable amount of cash for a while, and in order to speed up the construction of this important military port and defend the maritime frontier of the Qing Dynasty, the Russian government can pay for the first phase of Weihaiwei on its own.

In the end, the Tsars also generously stated that when all the expected three-phase base construction projects were completed, the Russian Navy would only have a small request, that is, it could share and manage the Weihaiwei base with the naval divisions of the Great Qing Kingdom for 50 years. During these 50 years, the Russian Navy was able to selflessly do its best to help the Qing Navy grow into a powerful maritime force that could be ranked not only in the Far East, but also in the world. After that, all sovereignty over the military port will be returned to the Qing Dynasty. As for the huge economic, human, and material investment made by the Russian government for this purpose, even if it was sponsored by the allies of the Great Qing State, or the cost of leasing the Wei naval port, etc.

In the annex to the construction of Yì, the Tsars also laid out a long list of projects that needed to be built, as well as a rough budget. For example, more than 20 forts should be built on Liugong Island, Ridao Island, and land routes, and new docks and wharves should be expanded and built, as well as various ammunition depots, coal stations, machine factories, and power plants, as well as the headquarters of the Russian-Qing Combined Fleet, a Western-style naval hospital, a naval academy, a naval academy, a water warrior school, and a telegraph office for training naval personnel in the Qing Dynasty. These new gadgets are enough to attract the attention of the officials of the Qing Dynasty.

However, as soon as he received this set of construction from the Russians (or the request was actually more appropriate), Yixin, the king of the Qing Dynasty, immediately sweated all over his body, and then got goosebumps all over his body.

At first, he was forced to cede a large area of land in the Heilongjiang River valley in desperation, as well as Lushun and Tianjin, which were later leased, so that he and his court had been scolded by many people. It's just like this, but it's easy to say, you scold and scold, I pretend not to hear it, as long as the Qing Dynasty can be saved, it's worth it to be wronged by people for the time being, after all, history is always written by posterity, and sooner or later someone will understand their painstaking efforts at this time. But the most hateful thing is the group of bastards in Russia, who really don't make a face for his Qing Dynasty at all. Wherever there are Russians, there will be incidents of immorality and lawlessness, which will cause public resentment and officials to be dissatisfied.

In this case, now that he wants to hand over the key coastal defense area of Jiaodong, he feels that he is afraid that he will have to be 10,000 careful even when he goes out in the future. Maybe when, on what occasion, someone will suddenly come up behind you and give you a blow, and the people who will rectify you are not only Han Chinese, maybe Manchus, or Mongols or something.

Yixin didn't know what to do with their Russian allies.

He took this hot hand and wanted to press it for a few days first, and then carefully find some intimate ministers to discuss and see the situation. I didn't know that it was only pressed for one day, but I was recruited by the Queen Mother of the Forbidden City. couldn't hide anything from the Queen Mother in the Forbidden City, Cixi for the first time had a nose that was not a nose and a face that was not a face, and she taught him, the sixth uncle and the king of politics, face to face.

What is too ignorant, what can't keep up with the development of the current situation, what only thinks about his own small family and doesn't want the Qing Dynasty, the good situation of the "opening up" policy that the Qing Dynasty finally figured out, what kind of inaction is completely trying to re-follow the old way of closing the country and so on, hulala and so on, hulala filled his head one after another.

Yixin was scolded dumbfounded. At that time, he was still puzzled, how did this queen mother, who had always been slamming at the door in politics and money, become so generous all of a sudden? It's right not to give the things of the Great Qing Kingdom to domestic slaves, but you can't give them all to Waiyi so happily.

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