After decades of painstaking management, the Dongting Dongshan people, headed by Xi Zhengfu, have formed a powerful force in Shanghai's financial industry, the "Dongting Mountain Gang", also known as the "Mountain Gang". At that time, the best people who went out to do business were Anhui people, and they formed the "Hui Gang", but there was such an oral proverb in Shanghai: "No matter how ruthless the Hui Gang is, you have to endure it when you see the mountain gang."

Therefore, after Song Xiaofei visited Xi Zhengfu, he soon raised 1 million silver to buy warships, but he gave up the naming rights of these two new ships to Xi Zhengfu, and Sheng Xuanhuai also paid a great price, Xi Jiaming and Xi Jiahui bought 20 percent of the shares of China Merchants, allowed Xu Run, a comprador of a foreign bank, Tang Tingshu, and others to participate in China Merchants, and gave up the monopoly right to operate the North and South Ocean routes and the Yangtze River routes.

Especially the last one, it is a great sacrifice for the dismal China Merchants Bureau, which may affect Sheng Xuanhuai's performance and career. In 1877, China Merchants purchased all the old steamers and other equipment of the American merchant Qichang Steamship Company for 2.2 million silver taels, with 25 steamers and a transportation capacity of 27,000 tons.

Song Xiao flew back to Tianjin, and Sheng Xuanhuai went to the dock to board the passenger ship to see him off. The wind rose, the white waves on the Huangpu River were surging, and the whirring wind was whistling in his ears, Song Xiaofei stood on the deck, extremely grateful for Sheng Xuanhuai's "sacrifice", and said: "I will remember everything that Master Sheng has done for the Beiyang Sailor today, and inform Lord Zhongtang." ”

Sheng Xuanhuai said: "Where, where, no matter how short-sighted I am, I should do my best to do my best." I don't know how to be an official, and I only have the advantage of raising money, which can be used by adults. What's more, opening the door to attract investment is also the responsibility of the lower officials. To say that such a huge amount of silver was successfully raised this time, the Xi family contributed a lot. Old Man Xi also made a condition, I haven't had time to report to the adult, and I ask the adult to agree, which is also an excellent thing for the future development of my Beiyang Naval Division. ”

Song Xiaofei wondered why Xi Zhengfu still had a request, and he hadn't heard him mention it, so he asked, "What conditions?" ”

Sheng Xuanhuai said: "Old Man Xi's eldest daughter Xi Muyan, adults must have seen it, she graduated from Wesleyan Women's College in Georgia, USA, studied politics and international relations, and has been looking for a professional-related job after returning to China. ”

If Xi Muyan's sister Xi Muqing came to be his personal secretary, Song Xiaofei would wonder if Old Man Xi had taken a fancy to him, but he learned from Xi Muqing that Xi Muyan was married, her husband was an overseas Chinese, and the relationship between the two was very good. Song Xiaofei didn't want to have an unfamiliar person around him as a secretary, and wanted to refuse, so he asked Sheng Xuanhuai: "Women have political ambitions, it's really rare these days, is this a condition that must be agreed?" ”

Sheng Xuanhuai laughed and said, "This is not a necessary condition. However, I also heard that the funds for the Beiyang Navy Division are insufficient, so adults can consider it. ”

Song Xiaofei thought to himself, the future of the Beiyang Naval Division is the future of China, maybe Xi Muyan is really just doing a job she likes, so she agreed. Sheng Xuanhuai laughed and said, "My lord is a far-sighted person, I guessed that you would agree." ”

Xi Muyan immediately appeared in front of Song Xiaofei with her suitcase, the river wind blew her long hair, she smiled slightly, there was a special beauty.

Song Xiaofei said: "Master Sheng, it seems that you are cutting first and then playing!" ”

Xi Muyan smiled and said, "What, adults don't welcome me?" Don't worry, I won't trouble adults. ”

Song Xiaofei said: "Tiger father has no dog girl, I absolutely believe in Miss Xi's work ability." ”

After Xi Muyan served as Song Xiaofei's secretary, the first thing he did was to urge businessmen from all over the country to pledge one million silver, and in less than half a month, the money was in place, and Song Xiaofei immediately ordered British Navy Captain Lang Weili to go to London to pick up the ship, and in less than half a year, two 4,000-ton new dome cruisers sailed to the port of Tianjin.

In addition to the advantages of speed and artillery, in order to facilitate transportation, the new ship specially designed a flyover across the entire main deck between the bow and tail buildings, and the design of this elevated passage greatly improved the efficiency of personnel deployment on the warship. According to the agreement between Song Xiaofei and Xi Zhengfu, one of the two warships was named "Suzhou", which is Xi Zhengfu's hometown, and the other was named "Dongting".

Song Xiaofei boarded the "Suzhou" and ordered the warship to fill up with coal, 12 high-rise coal-fired boilers were ignited at the same time, and two vertical four-cylinder reciprocating steam engines rumbled and rotated rapidly, and the "Suzhou" was like a huge steel monster, riding the wind and waves, advancing at full speed, and the sea surface of Tianjin Port turned up monstrous waves, and the ship's maximum speed reached 31 knots, which was almost twice that of the "Dingyuan."

Zhan Tianyou, the "Yangwei" pipe band, was appointed by Song Xiaofei as the "Dongting" pipe band, he commanded the new ship, closely followed the "Suzhou", and the warship commanded by Zhan Tianyou changed guns and guns, advancing at full speed, with a bright smile on his face and full of pride.

Lang Weili, who was beside Song Xiaofei, also laughed proudly, and said to Song Xiaofei: "With these two fast ships, we can block the Tsushima Strait and the East China Sea without any difficulty. ”

Song Xiaofei said with a smile: "I can't wait to drive this warship directly to Tokyo Bay now, and give myself a little color to see!" ”

Song Xiaofei has now raised Lang Weili's salary to 4,000 US dollars a year, which is equivalent to three times that of his in the British Navy. ”

This opportunity was not long in coming. Yue himself was first stimulated by the "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" in Nagasaki, and then wanted to buy two fast ships from the British Armstrong Company, but was preempted by Song Xiaofei and Lang Weili, and Yuben Navy Minister Shikiri Kayama and Prime Minister Okuma Shigenobu wanted to teach the Chinese a lesson, but Yumoto Masamu had limited financial resources at that time, the navy was not strong, and was firmly stuck by Song Xiaofei's Beiyang fleet, and they reported to Emperor Meiji and wept bitterly.

Emperor Meiji was greatly shaken and announced that from now until the complete defeat of the Chinese, he would eat only one meal at a time; Emperor Meiji's mother, the Empress Dowager, donated her gold, silver, and jewelry to finance the navy. The actions of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager aroused a strong sense of national pride among the people of the People's Republic of China, and the people enthusiastically donated money to the Navy to purchase new warships, and businessmen spontaneously launched a fund-raising meeting, which raised more than 4 million taels of silver.

Because the large shipyards of Britain, France, Germany and other countries are all over Song Xiaofei's eyeliner, he actually set his sights on South America and secretly found the Chilean Navy to buy "Blanco. Enkarada" and three other warships. Because at that time, Chile had just competed with Bolivia and Peru for the saltpeter production area of the Atacama desert on the South Pacific coast, and fought for three or four years.

The total tonnage of these three warships is about 10,000 tons, and the best of them is the 4,000-ton "Blanco. The "Enkarada" is a new ship that Chile has just purchased from the British, equipped with two eight-inch large-caliber heavy guns, ten six-inch rapid-fire guns, 12 47mm rapid-fire guns, and five torpedo tubes.

He took 300 of his navy with him and went to Chile to disguise three warships as merchant ships carrying saltpeter, hoping to secretly sail back to Nagasaki Port. At that time, he said that the political axe was short of money, and Kawahara wanted to think that the emperor and the empress dowager should save some money on buying warships by frugality, so when he returned from Chile, he bought inferior coal, and he thought that the quality of coal was not good, so he could let the boiler soldiers add two more shovels of coal, and it would not reduce the speed of the warships, anyway, the boiler soldiers spent more effort and did not need to pay more military salaries, Chile and the book were separated by thousands of miles, and it was calculated that buying inferior coal could save about 100,000 taels of silver compared with high-quality coal.

But Kawahara didn't expect it to be 10,000 yuan, because the warship burned inferior coal and the black smoke was heavy, and the target was exposed from afar. After receiving the report, Song Xiaofei became suspicious and immediately took the "Dingyuan" and the four main warships "Zhenyuan", "Suzhou", and "Dongting" to intercept in the Taiwan Strait.

As soon as Kawahara saw four Beiyang warships flying the five-catch yellow dragon flag heading towards his fleet, he knew that the matter had been exposed, and he actually commanded "Blanco. The "Enkarada" fired first.

Song Xiaofei immediately ordered the four warships in Beiyang to line up in the world's famous array and fire back.

"Blanco. Although the speed of the "Enkarada" is much faster than that of the "Dingyuan", the range is far inferior to that of the "Dingyuan". Three shells of the "Enkarada" hit the ship's steering room, and the arm of the commander of the Navy Commander Kahara Yoichi was wounded, and the flag signal device that commanded the fleet was also bombarded by the "Zhenyuan."

Seeing this, Deng Shichang hurriedly commanded the "Suzhou" to catch up, and Zhan Tianyou commanded the "Dongting" to also pursue quickly, and then the speed advantage of the fast ship was reflected, "Blanco. The "Enkarada" was intercepted by the Suzhou and Dongting, in order to avoid the "Blanco. The "Enkarada" was captured by the Chinese, and Kawahara wanted to set fire to the powder magazine with his own hands, and the ship exploded and sank. Of the other two warships, one was sunk by Zhan Tianyou's "Dongting" and the other was captured.

In this battle, more than 200 people died in the navy, and the navy Shaozuo Heyuan was going to die in a battle, and the three warships purchased were sunk by Song Xiaofei. He also sent a note to the British and American ministers, saying that China had completely ignored public international law and sent warships to sink the merchant ships, which was a rude and rude provocation against the Chinese country and seriously undermined peace and stability in Asia.