Since his actual age is only in his early twenties, even if he has received higher education, Li Hui will inevitably have some hot-blooded and angry characteristics, and naturally he will not have much affection for Li Hongzhang, who blindly compromised and sought peace in history and was desperate for the Manchu Qing Dynasty. Therefore, after Li Hui saw Li Hongzhang, he just bowed calmly, without the slightest emotion on his face, but this made Li Hongzhang look at him with admiration

In addition, Li Hui's appearance also added a lot of points to him, not to say how handsome and extraordinary his appearance is, but Li Hui came from the later generations of the country's growing power, and studied in a top-ranked school in China, between his eyebrows naturally has a very rare self-esteem and self-confidence and high-spirited temperament in the Chinese late Qing Dynasty, coupled with the tall and burly figure that stands upright, Li Hui naturally looks magnificent.

"Sure enough, it's a talent, but it's a pity that the sharpness is too strong, and it doesn't look like the material for being an official." , Li Hongzhang quickly came to such a conclusion to Li Hui, but this is not to say that Li Hongzhang looks down on this young family, in fact, Li Hongzhang's biggest headache in these years is that there are too many officials under his command, but too few can do things. However, not being an official is not an advantage after all, at least it is impossible to become Li Hongzhang's successor, and Lao Li has to continue to worry about the problem that he has no successor

Li Hongzhang's judgment of Li Hui was quickly confirmed, and after reading the list of outsourcing drawn up by Li Hongzhang, Li Hui unceremoniously pointed out the omissions in it, and did not save much face for him, the lord of the middle hall, "You should also add spare artillery, otherwise what if the test fails, what will happen to the blown up naval guns?" You can't fix it if it's blown up! ”

"Sure enough, I won't be an official", Li Hongzhang sighed lightly in his heart, but he just regretted it, but he didn't express dissatisfaction with Li Hui's disrespectful words, after all, he has been a high-ranking official for so many years, and his own personality is not very hard, so he still has this kind of self-cultivation.

And Li Hui's suggestion also made Li Hongzhang's eyes shine, naval guns are not cheap, including the gun mount, the market price of 210mm caliber is tens of thousands of taels of silver, and the huge cannon in Dingzhen is even more sky-high, even if only one of each type is bought, the total amount is not trivial, and such a procurement project can completely withstand questioning, even if Weng Tonghe is embarrassed by himself, Li Hongzhang also has the heart to fight for him.

What's even better is that in fact, these naval guns don't have to be bought at all, because due to the careless management of the Qing court, generally speaking, only the total amount needs to meet the requirements, but the specific varieties and proportions to be purchased are very much to be done (it's not really completely unrequirementary, but for veterans who take advantage of loopholes, it's almost the same as nothing.) ）。 In fact, in the past two years, Qingliu's method of the Beiyang neck cannot be that the household department has strengthened the supervision of the funds of the few major items that are simply divided, and they want to manage the entry and exit details of each material, but they don't have the ability!

Therefore, Li Hongzhang can completely use the budget for the purchase of large-caliber naval guns to buy more urgently needed things, such as rapid-fire guns, long-flowering shells, and smokeless gunpowder, as long as it is explained afterwards that those things purchased are also useful and urgently needed

may be to entrap Li Hui, or it may be that he really regards Li Hui as his own, or it is considering that he will find out sooner or later in the future that Li Hongzhang did not hide these inside information from him, so he saw Li Hui stunned for the first time

"Is that okay? It is really unreasonable for the Manchus not to die. Fortunately, Li Hui suppressed his emotions and didn't say the latter sentence, otherwise Lao Li, who was still loyal to the Manchu Qing at this time, would definitely kill him. However, after a moment of shock, Li Hui's face showed irrepressible joy, because in the eyes of him, a traverser, there were too many loopholes to exploit in such a flawed management

"According to this statement, is not the Navy (1888 year, in official documents, the" Beiyang Navy " has replaced the" Beiyang Naval Division. As long as you can save money, the adults of Nakado can use it freely? In this way, the Beiyang Navy's current dilemma of lack of ammunition and coal and lack of maintenance is not impossible to solve, and if it is done well, it may be able to add a few rapid-fire guns. Li Hui showed a confident smile on his face, and said to Li Hongzhang with blazing eyes.

However, Li Hongzhang did not have much confidence in this, "At present, the navy cannot even maintain normal training, so it can save so much money just by relying on the 'structural adjustment' you are talking about?" ”

Most of the methods that Li Hui thought of were related to strengthening management, but he also knew that Li Hongzhang would not give him so much authority easily, so he did not rush to reveal his plan in its entirety, but returned to the original topic, using this as a factual example to make Li Hongzhang build up confidence in himself, "Lord Zhongtang, just take the matter of purchasing long-flowering shells that we talked about earlier, in fact, we don't have to buy finished long-flowering shells at all, we only need to purchase empty shells of shells and supporting fuses. Because anyway, after we buy it, we have to put in new homemade explosives, and the original black powder in it is completely useless. And the empty shell with the fuse is naturally much cheaper than the finished shell, if the empty shell can't be bought, buying expired old shells is also a way, as long as there is no rust, it will still work well after replacing the new charge and fuse, and the new explosive is cheaper than the black medicine, which can save some silver, save a little bit at each step, and the accumulation is not a small amount"

Seeing that Li Hongzhang kept nodding, Li Hui put forward a bolder idea, "It's really not possible, we can also stop the construction of the steel mill and embezzle part of the funds."

"The steel mill is a big deal, and the funds can't be misappropriated!" When Li Hongzhang heard this, he stood up angrily, and almost pointed at Li Hui's nose and scolded, but seeing Li Hui's stunned look, Li Hongzhang thought that he was young and shallow and didn't understand the significance of self-produced steel, so he immediately slowed down his tone and explained to him, "If you can't produce your own steel, you can't produce your own flowers, so you can only rely on foreigners all the time, and the household can easily jam my Beiyang's neck as easily as now!" ”

But what Li Hongzhang didn't know was that Li Hui was not unaware of the importance of localization, and the reason for his consternation was just the opposite, because he didn't expect Li Hongzhang to be the first to say that "it's better to buy than to build, and it's better to rent than to buy." The guy actually attaches so much importance to self-reliance, is it true that later generations generally think that Li Hongzhang is a comprador mentality, but he has actually wronged him?