"Indeed, if you only look at the speed, it is impossible to get rid of the pursuit of the Japanese ships. However, the draft of the new Japanese cruisers is generally deeper than that of our weak ships, while the Yellow Sea is shallow, and the warships with a deep draft will run aground or run aground if they are not careful. Of course, it's not without risk, but it's better than being caught up by a Japanese ship, and I think it's worth a try. In the Battle of Dadonggou, the four warships Jingyuan, Laiyuan, Pingyuan, and Yangwei were able to extinguish the fire, and in addition to the Yangwei being accidentally hit and sunk by the escaped Jiyuan, the other three ships later returned to the battle.

Fang Boqian finally had nothing to say now, he was a smart man, naturally he would not stupidly ask Li Hui how to know the draft of the Chinese and Japanese warships, the design of the high freeboard has become the mainstream in recent years, and the draft of the new warships is generally deeper, and the tonnage of the new Japanese cruisers is generally much larger than that of the weak ships of the Beiyang Naval Division, and it stands to reason that the draft should also be deeper.

Therefore, even if Li Hui's point of view is not substantiated, it has great credibility, and if Fang Boqian holds on to it, it is tantamount to telling everyone that he is afraid of death. But thinking that his Jiyuan draft was the deepest in the Beiyang Naval Division except for Dingzhen, this method may not be easy to use, Fang Boqian still inevitably had some resentment towards Li Hui

However, after hearing Li Hui's suggestion to strengthen the protection of the command tower, Fang Boqian looked at Li Hui again and immediately felt much more pleasing to the eye. Fang Boqian, who has always attached great importance to the safety of his own life, had long noticed the defects of the Beiyang Naval Division's warship command towers, but most of the senior officers of the Beiyang Naval Division, including Admiral Ding Ruchang, Dingyuan Pipe Leader Liu Buchan, Zhiyuan Pipe Commander Deng Shichang and others, said that he was cowardly and afraid of death, and finally the matter was settled. Now that Li Hui, an outsider, has also brought it up, Fang Boqian immediately straightened his chest, "It's not that I'm afraid of death, it's that you are selling your reputation and turning a blind eye to the obvious safety hazards!" ”

Li Hui is an outsider, so he doesn't have to worry about being detained, but the response of the generals of the Beiyang Naval Division is still very cold, the problem of the weak sense of security of the Chinese people has long existed, and these officers are all influenced by the British Navy's tradition of advocating courage, and it is not easy to convince them in a few words. Fortunately, the decision on this matter is actually not on these naval officers, they themselves are not afraid of death, but Lao Li is afraid that these naval talents who are not easy to train will accidentally hang up, so after Li Hui directly submitted this suggestion to Lao Li, this problem was quickly resolved.

With the current technical conditions of the Lushun ship repair base and the limitations of the conning tower itself, it is impossible to make it impregnable, but in any case, it is still a great improvement over the past, at least there is no need to worry about the enemy's small-caliber shells and shrapnel flying directly through the observation port

The protection of the command tower of the Jiyuan is the biggest problem among the ships in the Beiyang, Fang Boqian is timid and timid, but it is still a clear grievance, Li Hui helped him this time, Fang Boqian also reciprocated the favor, and Li Hui's proposal can often get his support in the future, which can be regarded as an unexpected gain. After all, Fang Boqian is a person who can speak to Li Hongzhang, and with his support, it is very helpful for Li Hui to persuade Lao Li.

And the most important of them is that Li Hongzhang agreed to give 100,000 taels of silver as an advance payment for the purchase of blasting bomb components and explosives raw materials (Lao Li was not very happy, but he still gave it after all, indicating that Li Hui was worth about 100,000 taels of silver in his eyes), with this huge amount of money, Li Hui was finally willing to recruit those expensive biochemical soldiers to help

In fact, Lao Li spent a lot of money in order to win Li Hui, and Li Hui now has no less than 10,000 taels of cash on hand, not counting the experimental funds allocated to him in the name of the Tianjin Bureau. But it wasn't until now that he had 100,000 taels of silver to lay the foundation, and Li Hui made up his mind to recruit the first biochemical soldier.

There is no way, the recruitment price of biochemical soldiers is too high, in fact, this biochemical soldier alone cost Li Hui 250 kilograms of silver, which is about more than 7,000 taels of silver based on the current domestic silver system, and even far exceeds the total amount of money Li Hui spent on scientific research before.

And so much money can't be spent once and for all, and then you have to continue to pay the system a "military salary" equivalent to 10% of the recruitment fee every month, once the salary is not paid, all the recruited biochemical soldiers will be fired (that is, disappear), then so much investment before can be all wasted.

Therefore, these biochemical soldiers are difficult to recruit and even more difficult to raise, no wonder Li Hui has N times the financial resources to dare to recruit help

But then again, not all biochemical soldiers are so expensive, the biochemical soldier named "Fan Ming" by Li Hui is the highest-grade fifth-order "agent", and the level is also the highest level 5, so it is so exaggerated.

If it is the cheapest tier 1 infantry, it can be recruited for only 10 kilograms of silver, although it is not cheap. But it's a lot lower after all.

However, Li Hui's purpose in recruiting the first biochemical soldier was to get him to go to the bank in Shanghai to withdraw the 100,000 taels of silver from several Western banks, and it was obvious that the agents who knew anything were far more sure than ordinary infantry to take out the silver safely.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that the biochemical soldiers are of the same nationality as Li Hui, so they can't recruit Westerners' faces, and the biochemical soldiers can't pretend to be foreigners in the East, and they can't even get fair treatment in the West, so Li Hui can only spend a lot of money to recruit full-level agents to reduce the risk.

Although the level of the biochemical soldier does not directly affect the professional ability, it does affect the temperament, speech and knowledge, and the senior biochemical soldier also has more foreign languages (for every 1 level of the agent, he has 2 more languages and their main dialects. Therefore, it is not easy to arouse suspicion when withdrawing huge sums of money, rather than being greedy for cheap recruitment of level 1 to be hacked, Li Hui would rather spend a lot of money to insure a little

After Fan Ming put the 100,000 taels of silver into the system, Li Hui, who had been hanging his heart, finally breathed a sigh of relief, with this first pot of gold, Li Hui could finally set up a trading company with biochemical soldiers as the backbone to make money for himself

"It's all to blame that the threshold of this system is too high, if the recruitment price of biochemical soldiers is cheaper, or even the ability is lowered, it doesn't matter, I don't have to wait until now", Li Hui's self-deprecating words came out, and he suddenly realized in his heart, "Wait, this is not good, it is not good, it is not the test of the host of the system, if I can't even earn tens of thousands of taels of silver as a traverser, then it's either waste or unlucky, and I don't deserve the help of the system?" ”