Marie Curie was very stubborn, and no matter what preferential treatment Xu Jianyin promised her, she was not moved.

Xu Jianyin reported to Wang Chenhao in frustration, but was severely scolded by Wang Chenhao.

"A woman can't be leveled, it's really a waste!"

After Wang Chenhao reprimanded Xu Jianyin, he also felt that Marie Curie was not easy to deal with. Xu Jianyin is not an incompetent person, he has previously attracted a large number of internationally renowned scientists, professors and scholars to join Beiyang Science and Technology, which can be said to have made great contributions.

Xu Jianyin is still very old-fashioned and will not be flexible, Wang Chenhao After listening to Xu Jianyin's report, he began to attack Marie Curie's weaknesses.

Marie Curie's weakness was none other than her husband Pierre and her daughter, so at the behest of Wang Chenhao, Peiyang University hired Pierre as a professor of physics at the university, and his children could study in China for free. Pierre's annual salary in France is only about 1,000 francs, while the salary of a professor at Peiyang University is 600 dragon dollars a year, which is more than three times that of the former, and he also provides a special apartment. Faced with this high-standard treatment, Pierre chose to stay in China for development.

At Pierre's insistence, Marie Curie could not resist her husband and agreed to stay in China and work in the Nuclear Physics Engineering Laboratory of Beiyang Science and Technology, mainly responsible for the purification of radium.

Although Marie Curie stayed to work at Beiyang Technology, she was very disgusted with Xu Jianyin's methods and never gave him a good look. Xu Jianyin was completely ruined in the impression of Marie Curie and became an unscrupulous villain. In this regard, Xu Jianyin could only carry the black pot for Wang Chenhao, but there was nowhere to avenge his grievances.

Wang Chenhao knows that if people deal with uranium and other radiation on a daily basis, their bodies will suffer from radiation in the coming decades. Wang Chenhao didn't want to lose these scientists, and he didn't want them to be uninterested in scientific research because of illness.

So, Wang Chenhao thought of the radiation protection clothing of his era, so he told Xu Jianyin the principle and asked him to lead someone to develop the radiation protection clothing.

The basic principle of radiation protection clothing is very simple, that is, to use metal with high atomic weight to block the damage of radiation to the body. Soon Xu Jianyin and several nuclear physics experts used metallic lead to spray on the surface of special overalls to form a protective layer with anti-radiation protection, which evolved into the earliest radiation-resistant overalls.

Compared with the modern anti-radiation clothing in the future, this kind of anti-radiation clothing sprayed with metal lead is uncomfortable to wear, and the metal lead sheets formed on the surface of the clothes are like fish scales on the body, but in terms of anti-radiation effect, it is not worse than modern anti-radiation clothing, and even safer.

No one knew that radiation would affect health, and nuclear physics scientists such as Rutherford and Marie Curie had just begun to explore the radioactive element, and there had been no indication that radiation had an effect on the body.

Xu Jianyin could not explain the reason to them, and several scientists refused to wear the hazmat suit because they thought it was too clumsy. So, Wang Chenhao had to take the time to explain to them when he was inspecting Beiyang Technology.

"If you don't believe me, catch a few rats and put them in the uranium mine, and I think you'll find out soon."

"I want you to understand that everything I'm doing is for your good, and I don't want to talk to you in a hospital bed ten or twenty years from now."

Wang Chenhao talked very sincerely with Marie Curie and other scientists, expressing his concern for their health, although everyone was still skeptical, but they were very touched to be cared for by the Prime Minister. Marie Curie was not very happy to work in Beiyang Technology, she thought that this was a disguised compulsion to her, but Wang Chenhao's care for them made Marie Curie change her previous opinion, at least she would put aside her personal prejudices and concentrate on the radium purification project for the sake of Wang Chenhao's face.

If Marie Curie had used her personal ability and rudimentary equipment to complete the radium purification project, it would have taken her four years, but now Marie Curie can use all the resources of Beiyang Technology, sufficient funds, advanced equipment, experts available for communication, assistants and workers who can be called, and under this advantage, Marie Curie can announce in her progress report without worry that she can complete the goal of refining 10 grams of pure radium in three months.

Marie Curie's technology of refining pure radium has also become the exclusive enjoyment of Beiyang Technology, and soon evolved into the main method of purification of various radioactive elements, scientists in other countries want to use this technology to purify radium or other radioactive elements, they have to obtain the permission of Beiyang Science and Technology, pay patent fees.

Although the patent fee for purifying radioactive elements is high and the profits are considerable, that is not what Wang Chenhao attaches great importance to, and what he is most concerned about is that China's monopoly on this technology can block the progress of scientists in Europe and the United States in the purification of radioactive elements, and hinder and delay the development of their nuclear physics technology.

According to Wang Chenhao's plan, China will be the first to complete nuclear engineering, including military nuclear weapons and civilian nuclear energy, and at least ten years ahead of Europe and the United States to achieve a monopoly nuclear deterrent. Of course, this is the final plan, and at the moment the Beiyang Science and Technology Nuclear Physics Engineering Laboratory is still under the banner of scientific research, and no one knows that the project they are working on will be used for military purposes in the future and become a weapon of mass destruction.

Weapons of mass destruction are not only nuclear forces, but also chemical weapons, which are more dangerous than the former.

In June 1895, an explosion occurred at the Phelps chemical plant in France, causing a large amount of industrial chlorine gas to leak. Due to a heavy rain at that time, the leaked chlorine gas only caused more than 30 people to be poisoned to varying degrees, and there were no casualties, so it was not widely concerned by the media. However, it was concerned by the French side, so France established the first chemical weapons laboratory, specializing in the manufacture of chlorine bombs.

Although the French [***] side secretly conducted a gas bomb test, it was still discovered by hostile British and German spies, and from 1898 onwards, the British and German [***] sides successively established relevant gas bomb laboratories.

In March 1898, China's Central Intelligence Agency intercepted the secret from the British. A few months later, Beiyang Science and Technology Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. and Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. received orders from Wang Chenhao to jointly set up a chemical weapons research group to carry out research work on chemical poison gas preparations and weapon-grade tests of poison gas bombs.

All of the weapons-grade gas bomb tests of Britain, France, and Germany were not carried out in their own country, but in their overseas colonies. Therefore, China's chemical weapons research team chose to conduct the test in the Caroline Islands, because the Caroline Islands are not concerned by the world, and there are many animals available for testing on the islands, even if the gas bomb leaks, the local indigenous people will only think that the epidemic disease is outbreaking, and no one will know that the Caroline Islands are conducting gas bomb tests.

After nuclear physical engineering and chemical weapons engineering, the research on bacteria and viruses of the third weapon of mass destruction has also been approved by Beiyang Science and Technology Heavy Industry. Although Wang Chenhao approved the establishment of a special research project on bacteria and viruses, it was strictly limited to medical pathological research; without Wang Chenhao's approval, no unit had the right to transfer bacteria and viruses to the weapon level, and the research on bacteria and viruses was strictly limited to biomedical laboratories and must not spread.

Wang Chenhao did not want to use bacteriological weapons first, but it cannot be ruled out that a biochemical war would break out in the future. Wang Chenhao thought that once a biochemical war broke out, he couldn't just want to die with the enemy, and put self-preservation first. At the end of World War I, the world's large-scale outbreak of highly deadly influenza viruses was not accidental, but because during World War I, countries began to use chemical weapons to wage war, and the spread of poisonous gas eventually led to the mutation of ordinary influenza bacteria, causing 1 billion infections and 40 million deaths. The number of deaths does not include China, because China was in a period of warlord warfare, and the people were struggling to survive, and no one cared if a town of 10,000 people died.

Wang Chenhao did not dare to relax on this matter, because he wanted to take advantage of the First World War to make a lot of war money, and he was convinced that China at that time would become a rich, strong, and civilized country under his wise leadership. If it is hit by the pandemic, Wang Chenhao and his Beiyang political axe must come up with effective solutions in a timely manner, otherwise the country's economy and people will suffer heavy losses, and Wang Chenhao's personal achievements will also be seriously affected. Therefore, Wang Chenhao took precautions, took the lead in carrying out research on bacteria and viruses, trained experts in viruses, and established a series of mature mechanisms to deal with sudden viruses, so as to ensure that when the world broke out of the influenza virus, Wang Chenhao was able to stand firmly in front of the people, and shouted with confidence, "I am here, don't be afraid."

After Beiyang Science and Technology set up a biological virus research laboratory, the first scientific research station was in Keelung, Taiwan, and the research was not on the influenza virus, but on the plague virus. In 1898, a flood broke out in the Keelung area of Taiwan, and after the flood, it brought a plague, which was soon confirmed to be the plague.

The bubonic plague was the Black Death in medieval Europe, which was not eradicated after the end of Europe, but spread to other regions. In modern times, the Black Death has evolved into a third plague pandemic, referring to a major plague that began in 1855 in China's Yunnan province. This World Surname Pandemic is known for its rapid and wide-ranging spread than the previous two. The plague spread to all inhabited continents, first from Yunnan to Guizhou, Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Fuzhou, Xiamen and other places, killing more than 100,000 people. The plague in southern China also spread rapidly to India, in 1899 to San Francisco in the United States, but also to Europe and Africa, and in 10 years it spread to more than 60 countries in 77 ports, more than 22 million people died of the plague, China's lack of ability to respond to the plague, more than 8 million deaths, followed by India, also more than 7 million deaths.

Wang Chenhao knew that the plague would last until 1959, so it was equally important for the prevention and control of the plague, so when the plague broke out in Taiwan, Wang Chenhao immediately ordered Beiyang Science and Technology to send a professional medical team and virus experts to collect samples of the plague and develop prevention and control drugs.

Due to the timely implementation of the work, the epidemic in Keelung has been brought under control, and the mortality rate has been reduced by two-thirds. Since then, the Ministry of Health of Beiyang Zhengax has also formally established a health and epidemic prevention department to carry out special rectification of epidemic areas across the country, which has greatly reduced the spread of the epidemic in China.

The establishment of the health and epidemic prevention department, in addition to the unanimous praise of the people, Beiyang Pharmaceutical Company has also opened up the domestic drug market and made huge profits. After the Beiyang Pharmaceutical Company, more than a dozen pharmaceutical enterprises have been established in China, all of which have received the technical help of the Beiyang Science and Technology Biomedical Laboratory to engage in various pharmaceutical production, and have developed rapidly with the help of national policies, filling a number of domestic pharmaceutical production gaps and accelerating the construction process of China's pharmaceutical system.

The people were immersed in the joy of the various reforms brought to them by the political axe, but they did not know that the military was on a high level of tension every day to prevent the invasion of the enemy.

Border frictions and border conflicts have been happening, and tigers, leopards, and jackals in China's surrounding areas are looking around, and there are some small episodes every day, but both sides have maintained restraint and can make small fights, and they are trying their best to avoid armed conflict.

In the last month of the last year of the nineteenth century, border frictions occurred one after another, surpassing the previous record. The [***] teams seem to want to show off their strength in the last month of the end of the century to prove that they have been strong in this century.

After the end of the Sino-Russian War, the Tsarist Russian political axe has been in defiance of the issue of returning territory, most of the more than 1.5 million square kilometers of land is still under the actual control of Tsarist Russia, and the matter of Shaho's request for the release of prisoners of war by the Chinese political axe has also been delayed by the Chinese [***] side, and tens of thousands of Tsarist Russian prisoners of war have been working as free laborers to build fortifications for the Chinese [***] team.

Diplomatic officials of the two countries fight over these two issues on a daily basis, and in the vicinity of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), patrol soldiers of the two countries often quarrel, scold, provoke, and engage in armed confrontations, and even military clashes with small forces, which are more than 10,000 kilometers long, and there have been confrontations between the troops and patrols on almost all the border lines of the two countries.

This is true on land, but it is also fierce at sea.

The Russian Far East Fleet suffered a great loss in the Sino-Russian War, when the Russian Navy's most advanced large armored cruiser Rurik was sunk, and in the subsequent Battle of the Yellow Sea in the Eastern Ocean, the main fleet of the Tsarist Russian fleet was defeated and fled, which made the Russian Navy lose face.

After arriving in the Far East, the first thing General Alekseev, the newly appointed commander-in-chief of the Tsarist Far East, was to reorganize the Russian Far Eastern Fleet, upgrade the Vladivostok shipyard, expand the Ulsan naval base and shipyard, and systematically repair and upgrade the warships of the Far Eastern Fleet.

Since Prince Aleksandrovich did not go to the Far East, Alekseev became the supreme head of the military and political forces in the Far East, combining military and political power, and soon Tsar Nicholas II, in order to prove his ambitions to his people, appointed Alekseev as the governor of the Kwantung Province and the commander of the garrison and the commander of the Far East Navy, and at the same time the governor of Korea and the commander of the garrison, with very great powers.

The appointment of Tsar Nicholas II undoubtedly made clear the position of Tsarist Russia, which not only maintained the occupation of the original territory, but also listed the three northeastern provinces of China as the territory of Tsarist Russia, and his vain ambition to invade Northeast China was clearly exposed.

When Alekseev took office, he needed to set three fires in order to establish his position in the Far East. Alekseev's jurisdiction and China's border line are all on the river, he rebuilt the Amur Inland River Fleet, patrolling the Ussuri River, Yalu River, Heilongjiang River, he tried to use the river defense fleet to disturb China's border defense, but unfortunately the Chinese Navy Department also set up the Northeast River Defense Fleet, and China's Northeast River Defense Fleet is equipped with a large number of high-speed artillery and lightning destroyers, as well as auxiliary river gunboats and gunboats.

The Amur River Fleet of Tsarist Russia was at a disadvantage in terms of equipment and numbers, and although there were many confrontations between the two sides on the river, the Tsarist side took the initiative to withdraw each time.

The main reason for the serious backwardness of the quality and quantity of ships of the Tsarist Russia's inland river fleet in the Far East was that Tsarist Russia had only one old-fashioned shipyard in Vladivostok in the Far East, and could only build some old-fashioned gunboats. The newly built Ulsan shipyard has not yet been completed, and even if it is completed, it will not work, because Russia does not have the technology to build new hunting ships, and it lacks steam turbine technology, so it cannot build it if it wants to.

Alekseev then tried to find a way in the navy, and he ordered the Russian Far East Fleet to cruise in the waters near the Yellow Sea of China, and repeatedly tried to invade China's territorial waters, but was intercepted by the Chinese coast guard. Most of the Russian warships turned around and left after seeing the Chinese coast guard vessels, and on several occasions tried to force their way in. But soon the Chinese Coast Guard radioed the nearest naval base, and soon the main ships of the Chinese Navy arrived. Because they knew the tonnage and class of the provocative Tsarist and Russian warships, the Chinese [***] ships that rushed to drive them away were all more advanced than the Tsarist and Russian warships, and their tonnage was greater than theirs, and the firepower was fierce, so the Tsarist and Russian warships quickly left in disgrace.

In a head-to-head confrontation between the navies of the two countries, the Tsarist Russian navy was always at a disadvantage due to insufficient equipment and numbers. Alekseev then changed his tactics, he sent naval warships to roam around the periphery, intercepted ships flying the Chinese dragon flag, boarded the ships to harass, attacked and insulted Chinese crew and passengers, and even forcibly took things.

At first, the Chinese captain and crew chose to calm down and give them something to send them away, and did not report to the Beiyang political axe. This practice immediately boosted the arrogance of Tsarist Russia, and they became more and more ruthless each time, and finally some people could not bear it, so they returned to China and sued the Tsarist Navy in the local court.

Wang Chenhao ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to lodge the strongest protest and warning against the Tsarist Russian political axe, and demanded an explanation for this. The impact of this incident was very bad, and the international community paid close attention to the robbery of the Chinese merchant ship by the Tsarist Russian Navy, and the Tsarist Russian political axe shamelessly refused to admit it, saying that China had no evidence and the Chinese crew made false accusations.

Catching thieves and taking stolen goods is an eternal truth.

On the one hand, Wang Chenhao ordered the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to exert strong diplomatic pressure on Russia, and on the other hand, Wang Chenhao ordered the Coast Guard to make every effort to safeguard the safety of Chinese merchant ships and provide escorts. But the ships of the Coast Guard are small in tonnage and are not suitable for navigation in the open sea. The ships of the home fleet are aging and slow, and they are not suitable for escort.

As a result, the task of escorting the convoy ultimately fell to the Second Fleet, the Pacific Fleet Command.

On December 15, 1899, the Chinese Admiralty and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that they would begin to patrol on the 20th of this month to send warships to escort passing Chinese ships. Mainly concentrated in the eastern and northern Yellow Sea, patrolling and escorting the sea areas frequented by Tsarist and Russian warships.

(To be continued)