"Long before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, I realized Japan's wolf ambitions, and tried my best to find Li Hongzhang to make suggestions, but I couldn't stand Li Hongzhang's passive attitude of avoiding war and slapped the table on the spot, this character After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Gao Shanji knew that he would be defeated, but he still threw his pen to defend the country from Rong without hesitation, this courage", the more Li Hui knew about Gao Shanji's life and deeds, the more his respect deepened, even if he knew that Gao Shanji might become his enemy in the future, he still ordered those two" The venture capital firm employee "helped him out as much as he could."

At first, Li Hui was worried that Gao Shanji, a traditional literati, would reject the "strange skills" from "overseas", but he soon received a report that he was very interested in advanced strategies and tactics, military organizational forms, and training methods, and that he was very quick to digest and absorb them, and he couldn't help but be more and more impressed by them

Relying on the prestige and unique personal charm he had established in the defense of Xuanwu Gate, Gao Shan succeeded in bringing the remnants of Zuo's subordinates under his command after the Battle of Pyongyang, and the number of troops available for his command soared to more than 4,000.

And perhaps it was he who had a conflict with Li Hongzhang, so that the Qingliu people saw the hope of winning him over, and the Guangxu Emperor also hoped to have a loyal army, plus he was promoted six years ago and got the official status, and he was not a newcomer with no qualifications, so the Qing court promoted Gao Shanji to be the chief soldier, so that he could justifiably command that army, and accelerated the speed at which he mastered the troops.

However, this is also thanks to the fact that two biochemical soldiers accompanied the army in Pyongyang, and managed to truthfully report the process and results of the Pyongyang battle to Li Hui, and then Li Hui let people inform Qingliu who would definitely be interested in this matter, so he did not give Ye Zhichao, who is the commander-in-chief, a chance to swallow the great merit privately, otherwise everything would be impossible to talk about.

With the assistance of the two biochemical soldiers, Gao Shanji seized the opportunity of the Japanese army's defeat and retreat, and it was difficult to make a comeback within at least a month, and reorganized the soldiers and horses under his command, no longer sticking to the outdated establishment, but adopting an organizational structure more like that of the Western army. or Gao Shanji's control over this army has been greatly enhanced.

According to the estimation of those two biochemical soldiers, as long as the logistics supply is guaranteed, the more than 3,700 people under Gao Shanji's command only need a little training, and they will be stronger than the more than 10,000 Qing troops in the previous Pyongyang Campaign, especially in field battles and street battles.

However, this logistical supply is precisely the biggest difficulty for Gao Shanji at present, although the support of Qingliu has made him prosperous, but it has also completely offended Li Hongzhang to death, and the logistics supply of the Qing army in Pyongyang is precisely controlled by Lao Li, and at the same time, the authority to distribute grain, grass, ammunition and salary and silver is in the hands of Ye Zhichao, a close confidant of Lao Li who is the commander of the Qing army in Pyongyang.

As a result, in the following month, the supplies received by Gao Shanji's subordinates were less than one-tenth of the average number of other troops per capita, which was simply sending Hanako! If it weren't for Ko Sun-tsugi's efforts to get some food from the local North Koreans, it would not have been easy to meet even the most basic requirement of filling his stomach.

After learning of this, Li Hui was very dissatisfied with Li Hongzhang, and completely recognized a fact, "Looking at it now, in fact, Lao Li may not be much better than Qingliu, the reason why Qingliu has dragged his feet more in history is just because Li Hongzhang is in power, and Qingliu, as an opponent, naturally wants to drag him back; And now the situation is reversed, and it has become Li Hongzhang who is dragging his feet. Sure enough, those who can still climb to a high position in this dark age will not have a good thing, how can they do it without revolution? How can you do it without revolution? ”

Li Hui wanted to help Gao Shanji, but after Li Hongzhang bought more than 1 million taels of silver from a venture capital company to supplement the astonishing consumption of the Pyongyang campaign (at most, nearly a million rounds of ammunition were fired in one day, and there were countless shells. After starting to negotiate a bigger deal, he finally gave up on the idea of having the venture capital firm directly supply the Gao Shan Jibu with ammunition.

Otherwise, if Lao Li finds out and breaks off contact with the venture capital company, it will not be worth it, after all, for the time being, the income from doing business between the venture capital company and Beiyang is still very valuable to Li Hui

Speaking of which, even if the Japanese army's request for peace was obviously just a delaying tactic, Li Hongzhang, who did not want to fight this war in his heart, still had some illusions, otherwise his investment in purchasing arms from venture capital companies would have been more than more than 1 million taels of silver.

However, when Lao Li learned and confirmed the relevant information about the Japanese government's purchase of ships, no matter how much he pretended to be an ostrich, he finally clearly realized that this war would continue, and the scale would far exceed his previous expectations

After the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Chileans, who often sold second-hand warships on the international market, immediately smelled a business opportunity and immediately sent people to East Asia to sell their warships to the two belligerent countries.

However, because the Chileans were too greedy, second-hand warships were sold more expensive than brand new, and the Chinese and Japanese governments were not very interested at first.

However, after the defeat of Daidonggou, it was impossible for the Japanese navy, which was in urgent need of reconstruction, not to be wronged, and although Emperor Meiji hated iron and steel, he also knew that Japan could not do without a navy no matter what, so he did not hesitate to give the greatest support, and they no longer bargained and directly accepted the offer of the Chilean side.

As for the money, the Japanese government could immediately come up with hard currency worth more than a million pounds, and if it was not enough, it would borrow money from Western banks, and even use the reserves for the issuance of yen, so as to guarantee the rebuilding of the Japanese Combined Fleet in any case.

Even before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, Japan's top brass understood that this was a big gamble that required the fortunes of the country to be staked, and that if it lost, the price it would have to pay was far more than a few million pounds, and if it could be won, it would be even more to gain, so in order to win the war, it was completely worth it even if it temporarily took on some foreign debts with high interest rates.

Even if it is not able to borrow money and needs to use monetary reserves, the Japanese government is still determined.

First of all, even if these ballast hard currencies are not used, once Japan loses, the depreciation of the yen is still inevitable; As for the country's credit, since the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government has been untrustworthy and deceived the people, and as long as the war is won and the Qing government is forced to cede land and pay compensation, any problem can be eliminated