With sufficient financial resources and stable financial resources as a confidence, Li Hui began to frequently use the crazy money-throwing function of "accelerated research"; although he spent ten times as much money for this, he succeeded in gaining time that was more precious than money, and it took only 28 days to study "smokeless gunpowder" and its prerequisite technologies "organic chemistry" and "high explosives", and then it took only 94 days to study the "rapid-fire gun" and the "armor-piercing explosives" related technologies

After the completion of these scientific and technological researches, the system can produce smokeless propellant packs and rapid-fire cannons, both of which can further enhance the combat power of the Beiyang Naval Division, making it more and more invincible in future naval battles against Japan.

However, considering that Japan had not done its best in history, Li Hui was worried that the Japanese Navy would urgently purchase a large number of new ships after its defeat, so in order to ensure victory, he did not immediately turn to the research of army weapons, but continued to study the system technology of the naval branch.

Judging from the fact that the Japanese government was able to spend a lot of money to order two Fuji-class battleships from Britain before the First Sino-Japanese War, even if we do not consider the wealth plundered by the Japanese army in the war (the total value of the trophies captured by the Japanese army during the First Sino-Japanese War in history exceeded 100 million yen, or about 60 million taels of silver, considering that there was still a large amount of property that was privately embezzled by the army, the actual amount is even more staggering.

Even a fraction of that could be hard currency could greatly boost the Japanese government's international purchasing power. They also have the ability to squeeze out a huge amount of money, perhaps up to 2 million pounds (about 12 million taels of silver), for the purchase of ships, which is a terrible financial force that is enough to achieve a turnaround.

Historically, after the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Qing court's finances were stretched, and even if it could squeeze out a little silver to help the navy buy ships, it would be one or two at most, so the number of warships in the Beiyang Naval Division would never be able to win. Li Hui could only research more advanced naval weapons technology as soon as possible, hoping to defeat the huge number of Japanese ships with the advantage of single ship performance

After spending half a month researching and completing the fourth-level sub-technology "alloy steel" in the industrial science and technology tree, the system can use nickel steel armor with stronger defense than steel armor and steel-surface-wrought iron composite armor when producing warships, but Li Hui is not satisfied, and his goal is an epoch-making case-hardened armor in the history of the world's navy.

But in order to study this key technology, Li Hui still has to complete the third-level main technology "Steelclad Battleship" of the "Ship Manufacturing Technology" branch of the Navy's technology tree.

Although the level of this technology is not high, the age is very late, in 1885, the discount ratio is much smaller than the previous research, even if Li Hui is willing to throw ten times the amount of silver, the research will take a full 64 days (in other words, if it is not because part of the research progress is delayed until 1894 and the discount is a little more, the time spent will be one more day). ）

Although for the system, it was already 1894, but for the Chinese, it was still more than half a month before the new year, and when Li Hongzhang waited for the funds for the new year and could settle the accounts to collect the goods that the venture capital company had already sent to Weihai, it was already late March of the first year.

At this time, Li Hui has not only completed the research of the strategic scientific and technological "surface hardened armor", but also the "armored turret", another sub-technology of the same level that can maximize the role of this technology, has also been completed. Because of this, the next time the venture capital company came to the Weihaiwei base, it brought a lot of new products that surprised the officers and men of the Beiyang Naval Division

In 1894, the funds received by the Beiyang Navy Division increased slightly compared with the previous year, reaching almost 2 million taels of silver, and some of the money-saving measures proposed by Li Hui were also better implemented than the previous year, so the money that could be freely spent exceeded 1 million taels of silver.

About 100,000 taels of them have long been scheduled to be used to purchase high-quality coal from venture capital firms; And more than 70,000 taels were scheduled to be used to buy necessary parts and components, which were also set to death; In addition, there are also some ammunition used in some secondary guns that were not sold last time because the capacity of the Daystar was not enough and the funds of the Beiyang Naval Division were basically exhausted, not counting the twice the number of training bullets that came with the gift, including a total of 800 rounds of 152mm blasting shells, 1800 rounds of 150mm blasting shells and 1600 rounds of 120mm blasting shells, with a total price of nearly 400,000 taels of silver, and this money cannot be reduced.

The price of the secondary artillery blasting shells sold by the venture capital company this time is a bit expensive, because this batch of shells is not the warhead-triggered fuze blasting shell sold before, but the most advanced use of the bottom fuse in the world (after the research is completed on the "armor-piercing blasting projectile", the blasting projectile can also use the bottom fuse. Although the cost has increased, it is definitely worth the price. If the blasting bomb with the bottom fuse hits the unprotected part of the enemy ship, it will penetrate into the hull and detonate, which can form an implosion effect and greatly increase the power. If the enemy ship uses a new type of armor with hardened surfaces, this probability is even higher, and the bottom fuse is not in direct contact with the hard armor plate, the probability of this situation is naturally greatly reduced, and the system products can explode 100 percent.

Although it is generally difficult for the explosion of artillery shells to cause substantial damage to the armor, the explosion of silver explosives can produce a terrible high temperature of more than 4000 °C, which is enough to melt and even vaporize steel.

Moreover, the guns of the Beiyang Naval Division are generally of a large caliber and the armor of the Japanese ships is generally thin, so it may not necessarily be impossible to blow up

However, in this way, the cost of Beiyang has inevitably increased, and the total amount of the three necessary expenses has reached more than 500,000 taels, fortunately, the ban on the purchase of arms by the Navy has expired after entering the First Sino-Japanese War (Lao Li, who likes to calculate small accounts in history, wants to buy it when there is a bargain, but he didn't expect the devil to start it so quickly, and then until the outbreak of the war, the emergency purchase of ships is still delayed, and then, there is no then), you can directly order finished ammunition from venture capital companies, You don't have to go to Tianjin Machinery Bureau to make a transfer, which saves some money.

If we continue to follow last year's practice, the cost will be at least more than 600,000 taels, and I am afraid that there may not even be 300,000 taels that can be used for the warship modification plan. And now, no matter what, there are still four or five hundred thousand taels available, although it is still not much, but Li Hui can still do a lot of things under careful calculation.

Since the plan to install bow and stern armor in a given town has been abandoned (after calculation, it was found that the weight gain was too much, and after changing it, the reserve buoyancy of the Dingzhen second ship would be seriously insufficient, and Li Hui patted his head and came up with this plan that could only be abandoned. Therefore, this money was mainly used to buy guns for the Beiyang Naval Division