Xue Fucheng's face showed a sickly red light, and he coughed violently from time to time, but obviously he was in a good mood today, and after drinking a few cups of hot tea, he talked about his surname very strongly, and after Lu Hong chatted with him about European customs for a while, the topic naturally turned to the recent domestic situation.

This time, the Shanghai Huangdaotai, who had been hanging on the side for a long time, seized the opportunity to interject, "Lord Xue, there has been a mess on the North Korean side recently, and Lord Sheng Xuanhuai is busy these days, and the big merchant ships of the China Merchants Shipping Bureau have been transferred to Tianjin Wei!" ”

Xue Fucheng obviously didn't know much because he had just returned to China, but he was Li Hongzhang's number one think tank on foreign affairs, and when he heard the news, he pondered for a moment and immediately realized the problem, "Huangdaotai, where did you hear about this...... What's the news on the other side? ”

"Today, the British consul Sterrow also came to the banquet, and I asked him about this matter, and the British said that the political axe has confirmed that it will not send troops to North Korea!" Huang Zuluo immediately responded with a smile, "Li Zhongtang's Tianwei, how dare the Japanese people confront it head-on, Lord Xue, you say yes!" ”

As soon as Lu Hong heard the news, he immediately thought of Wang Renkan's urgent telegram to recruit him to Lushun, which seemed to have a lot to do with the movements of the Huai army, he has been busy with the industry in Shanghai recently, and his current power is obviously impossible to have any idea of dominating one side, so the industry in Shanghai is actually a transition of holding gold and pulling contacts, but fortunately, the hard work pays off, and now he is naturally much better than the situation when he was in Mengyin.

Several parties invested in the silk reeling factory, there are already 170,000 yuan, Lu Hong chose to put it in HSBC, this British bank, with his own knowledge, naturally do not have to worry about the collapse of the British business Macquarie Bank, and after all, this silver is mainly used for the operation of the silk reeling factory, considering that it will soon be a cocoon on the market, he is not good to move much.

The income of the machine factory and several shares of shares, so that Lu Hong now has more than 70,000 taels of liquidity on hand, in addition, Wang Daosheng brought the diamond ore, he is thinking about how to sell, when the time comes, he will be very active in hand!

And the change of the situation, is also similar to what he expected, it seems that the news of Xiao Yueben's fake news is not only the Minister in Korea, Keisuke Otori and others, but also in China is obviously pouring [***] medicine into the Manchu court, I am actually waiting for the Qing Zheng Axe to send troops to North Korea, once the Qing Zheng Axe sends troops to become a fact, according to the "Treaty of Tianjin", I also get the right to send troops!

After all, under the power of the British Empire, even though the War Department was full of information about the confrontation with the Qing government, the Ito cabinet was still conservative in its belief that it was necessary to find a reason not to allow the foreign powers to intervene in the Qing Dynasty and a possible war.

Therefore, hearing that Huang Zuluo was announcing to Xue Fucheng the promise he had made to himself, Lu Hong immediately realized that this was a good time for him to interject, "Lord Xue, Lord Huang, the Japanese people are completely untrustworthy, and the matter of the Japanese seizing my Ryukyu has not yet been concluded. ”

Xue Fucheng coughed twice, took another sip of hot tea, glanced at Lu Hong meaningfully, nodded and asked Huang Zuluo carefully, a little later, Huang Zuluo personally sent Xue Fucheng out very respectfully, he naturally saw that this Lord Xue seemed to be in poor health, and immediately sent someone to Xieqiao to invite Chen Lianfang, a famous doctor in Shanghai.

Lu Hong saw that Xue Fucheng was gone, and after a few polite words with Huang Zuluo, he said goodbye, and went out, but he met Xue Fucheng's carriage outside, and someone had already come up to stop him, saying that Xue Fucheng brought a message to him, hoping to go to his Huayi Machinery Factory tomorrow to have a look.

After a while, Qin Tianmin's guy came out, looking at the carriage slowly leaving, thinking about it, he naturally thought that Lu Hong had successfully climbed into a new network, which was definitely a good thing for him who had been unlucky.

In the afternoon of the same day, Lu Hong squatted in the dock of the shipyard for a whole day, he took Zheng Xuanhong to carefully study the two ships of Nanrui and Nanchen, and ordered the removal of the two useless torpedo tubes on the ship, and his transformation requirements for Zheng Xuanhong were very simple, so that this old battleship could throw a maximum speed of 15 knots after being relaunched, of course, if it could be higher, he would naturally be more satisfied!

And Lu Jianzhang and Qi Fengyi, since they learned the continuous aiming cannon taught by Lu Hong, they have been training desperately with a group of sailors every day, and at this moment they came to see the ship, and the two practiced more diligently, and after a while, they came to talk to Lu Hong about the lack of live ammunition for training...... In fact, the real problem is production capacity.

The batch of 120mm rapid-fire guns imitated by the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is naturally not the integrated shells of later generations, but the propellant and warhead can be preloaded with copper shells, which can be regarded as the prototype of the integrated shells of later generations, but now Lu Hong has almost half sold and half sent this artillery, and there are only 50 pieces of ammunition for the two guns, which is really a poor reserve for rapid-fire guns, no wonder these two people are so criticized.

In this regard, Lu Hong had no good way, so he could only let Qin Tianmin be responsible for communicating with Ruisheng afterwards, and let the Manufacturing Bureau work overtime to get a batch of shells, while he personally summoned nearly 200 sailors on the two ships of Nanrui and Nanchen and more than 200 other sailors who were in charge of the backstage of the battleship.

Now, Lu Hong naturally can't engage in any political propaganda or brainwashing activities temporarily, he announced the assessment mechanism on combat and training very neatly, all soldiers and sailors who can't pass the training will be fired, and he is not a nursing home here, although the batch of people dug up by Lu Jianzhang and Qi Fengyi are said to be good hands in the Nanyang Naval Division, but, after all, in today's situation, it can be said that time is not waiting.

For soldiers who pass the subsequent assessment, the military salary will be increased by 2 percent...... Although this is only an increase of 2 taels of silver per month, it can be said to have a huge effect on mobilizing the training enthusiasm of ordinary soldiers! Immediately, they all devoted themselves to the complicated artillery training.

The next day, Lu Hong went to the machine factory early in the morning and waited for Xue Fucheng to visit, this is a big thing, yesterday's conversation, let him at least establish the initial contacts, and Xue Fucheng showed wisdom and extensive knowledge, but also made Lu Hong very surprised, later generations called the enlightener of the capitalist market economy, it is indeed deserved.

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