Although Li Hui tried to produce smokeless gunpowder before, it was a product that had been successfully developed in the West after all, and Li Hui was too young (Li Hui was enrolled in school early, and he was not yet 21 years old when he crossed, and modern people have good skin and look younger. Therefore, Pan Junde suspects that Li Hui is just lucky to learn the laboratory preparation method of smokeless gunpowder, and he may not really have a special talent, and his self-revealed identity is full of suspicions, so he has not dared to reuse it immediately. But now the new type of explosives that Li Hui has made are unheard of by those foreigners and technicians in the bureau, which is enough to prove that he does have outstanding talents.

Although the bureaucratic style has been deeply rooted after many years of mixing in the officialdom, Pan Junde is at least still a bureaucrat with pursuits, and has always attached great importance to talents. After briefly introducing to Li Hui the great sacrifices made by the Tianjin Machinery Bureau for the application of cotton gunpowder to artillery shell charges in the past ten years, Pan Junde changed his words and asked, "Old man remembers that you said last time that you were originally an orphan in China, and then you were rescued and taken overseas by the commander, and all your skills were passed on by the commander?" ”

"He actually remembered all the nonsense I had before, and he only heard it once! Sure enough, you can't underestimate the ancients, although there are flaws in the knowledge structure, but other aspects are not something that I, a college student who has not yet stepped out of school, can despise", Li Hui suddenly felt a dark chill in his heart when he heard this, and he paid more and more attention to the general manager in front of him, who was not famous in history. But fortunately, Li Hui also used his brains when he fabricated his background before, and he was not afraid of being asked, so he immediately nodded and replied, "Adults have a good memory, and the teacher not only raised the officials and adults like parents, but also taught me the ability to do the same, but unfortunately the kid is young and shallow, and he has not yet fully comprehended it."

In this era, the information is not yet developed, and there are still many people who believe in the hermit's mastery, and there are no obvious flaws in Li Hui's words, so even Pan Junde, who has been in the officialdom for many years, did not hear the problem, but just raised his voice and exclaimed, "Ling Shi is really a strange person in the world!" ”

Li Hui was still a little worried that the other party would continue to ask, and when he heard this, he squeezed out a little sadness and continued to lie, "The family teacher passed away three months ago, and the lower official originally wanted to return to China to set up an industry, but unfortunately he was robbed, if it wasn't for the adults to take him in, the lower official might still be worried about making ends meet at this moment!" ”

"This is really a jealous talent!" , Pan Junde was deeply sorry when he heard this, and wanted to comfort Li Hui a few words, but found that it was quite inconvenient to call him, and immediately asked, "Li Hui, you are also 22 years old (imaginary age), I don't know if there is a table?" ”

The ancients took the rules of the table as early as when they were in junior high school, I heard the Chinese teacher talk about it, so it is not difficult to make up, but Hui is the meaning of sunshine, the antonyms are not good, and the synonyms are inevitably arrogant, and finally Li Hui set it as the word "Dongyang", Li Dongyang as a name has been used by ancient celebrities, and it should not cause any trouble. In fact, this is simply unfounded, although as early as the Xia Wei period, there was a saying that the monarch was compared to the sun, but the real prevalence in the world was still in the second half of the twentieth century, not to mention that the table name is Dongyang, even if Li Hui's name is Jin Sun, there is no guy who is idle and bored and can't get along with him

Although the test was successful, it was only a 75mm cannon with a small chamber pressure that was used to test it, and whether the new shell with ****** Vaseline as a charge could be applied to a large-caliber naval gun still needed further tests.

In this regard, Li Hui's proposal is to directly use the 35 times diameter 260mm Krupp breech gun on the Pingyuan with the highest bore pressure in the current Beiyang Naval Division to test, if this naval gun is not blown up, then it is naturally more worrying about using other naval guns, and that naval gun is the only one in the current Beiyang Naval Division, and even in the whole of China. Moreover, the Pingyuan is an ironclad ship, and its defense is quite strong, even if it unfortunately causes damage to the chamber, it must be much lighter than the crispy skin of Zhiyuan

And Pan Junde, as Li Hongzhang's confidant, knew very well that Lao Li had always been very unkind to the domestically produced Pingyuan, so in his mind, even if the test failed and the Pingyuan was injured, the guilt would be much lighter than under normal circumstances. But this old bureaucrat with wishful thinking could never have imagined that Li Hui actually wanted to help Pingyuan by making such a suggestion

Li Hui's idea is actually very simple, if you want to test the cannonball, you must first have a cannonball, right? And since it is necessary to test the extreme situation that is most likely to explode, then it is natural to choose the most unsafe high-explosive bomb, but the current Pingyuan, not to mention the 260mm high-explosive bomb, does not even have a short flowering bomb, and there is no domestic production capacity at all, so it can only be imported from abroad. And even if it is only for testing, it is impossible to buy only a few rounds, so how can the foreign companies that purchase the goods die at a loss? Therefore, in addition to the few rounds used in the test, there must be a lot left for the Pingyuan, and the problem that this ironclad ship did not have flowering shells available in the Sino-Japanese naval battle will not be solved?

"Who thought of that? What a brilliant idea! Li Hongzhang is so shrewd, he realized the key when he heard Pan Junde say it, and as an old fox with a deep Taoism, Li Hongzhang thought even deeper than Li Hui, and stood up and said with a happy face, "It's not safe to just test a model!" How can the twelve-inch main gun of Dingzhen not give it a try? Twenty-one lives, fifteen lives, including those shore guns, also need to be tested! Well, Mei Yuan (Pan Junde's cousin), you immediately draw up a charter, and apply to the imperial court in the name of the Tianjin Bureau to purchase 100 flowers from 15 growths, 50 flowers from 21 growth, 40 flowers from 24 years, 50 rounds from 10 inches, 35 rounds from 26 births, 50 rounds from 28 inches, and 50 rounds from 12 inches for testing."

In fact, Li Hongzhang thought of a larger amount of outsourcing than this at the beginning, but before he could open his mouth, he realized that it was inappropriate, because this was to purchase ammunition for the Beiyang Navy Division in the name of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, which was naturally limited by the budget of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, and the Tianjin Bureau had limited funds (unless a new project was to be built, it was generally only two or three hundred thousand taels of silver per year. If the amount exceeds too much, even if the old rival Weng Tonghe is a layman, he will definitely see the problem, as long as he is willing to humbly seek advice from an insider like Xu Jianyin, this clever strategy will be very difficult to succeed.

After thinking about it, the joy on Li Hongzhang's face was gone, and it was really sad that the first person among the dignified governors, Westernists, and Han officials had to find ways to exploit loopholes for the sake of ammunition with a total amount of less than 100,000 taels of silver. However, with Pan Junde's introduction to Li Hui, Li Hongzhang's increasingly cloudy old eyes lit up again