Time flies quickly, like a white horse passing through a gap, and it is already the year of Yiwei in 1895 and the twenty-first year of Guangxu.

For Chinese history, the year of the First Sino-Japanese War, which was once the most far-reaching, has passed, and now it seems that it is not destined to be peaceful. At the beginning of the first day of the first year, because the Manchu family of six people starved to death in Yanjing City, which caused a great shock to the Qing court, the governor of Shanxi resolutely wrote to the imperial court, demanding that the Manchu reduce the service, and also investigate and deal with the supervision of the Persuasion Industry Bureau Na Tong and the Prime Minister Hu Chuyuan.

As a result, Hu Chuyuan found not so reliable evidence to remove Gangyi from his post and investigate, and also gave Natong, the supervisor of the Persuasion Industry Bureau, a big board and a new person.

In the past few years, China's economy has indeed recovered rapidly, especially in the development of Tianjin's textile industry, in 1894, China completely surpassed Britain to become the world's largest textile exporter, and the total internal sales were only lower than the United States.

In 1894, China's iron and steel output and coal mining ranked third in the world, the total length of railways and the output value of shipbuilding industry ranked fourth in the world, and the total scale of machinery industry and chemical industry was behind Germany, the United States, Britain and France, which was comparable to Russia.

With the rapid development of China's raw silk industry and tea, silk fabrics and tea are basically no longer luxury goods, the price has been greatly reduced, and the total export volume of foreign trade is also increasing year by year.

In the three major fields of silk, tea, and hemp, China still firmly occupies more than 90 percent of the world's scale, and with the development of the rubber industry in Hainan and the sugarcane industry in Taiwan and Guangzhou, the total output value of China's agriculture is also continuing to develop and expand.

Unlike Germany and the United States, which are also developing rapidly, China lacks the power of technological innovation, but the world's largest technology absorption and transfer country, especially in the field of electrical industry and chemical industry, with the first 30 MW thermal power generation unit and 11kV transmission and transformation line, and also has the first truly commercial operation of the electric railway Baosong line.

In Shanghai and Qingdao, Fubon Chemical Plant imported crude oil from the United States and the South Seas, decomposed and processed it in China, established China's petrochemical industry system, and intensively searched for oil fields in Shandong.

The two main railways from Shenyang to Hanyang and from Xi'an to Weihai have been completed, and the railway from Xi'an to Xinjiang Province and the most difficult Jiangxi-Fujian railway are all in preparation.

The market capitalization of the Shanghai stock market surpasses that of France, after London and New York.

China has reached 75% of the world's total silver reserves, and has forced silver and gold to rise year by year, reaching a new high of 18:1.

Behind all this, the power played by Shanghai Fuguo is amazing.

With the successive listings of Jiangnan Commercial Bank and Beiyang Commercial Bank, Hu Chuyuan's shareholding in Jiangnan Commercial Bank has been reduced to 42%, and he also chose to control the entire domestic industrial development through Shanghai Fuguo, especially in five aspects: steel, metallurgy, machinery, shipbuilding, and chemical industry.

In other industries, although Shanghai Fuguo has a controlling stake, it does not occupy a dominant position, while Zhongrun Company is a supplement to hold a controlling stake in real estate, textile, food and light industry.

Zhongrun Commercial Bank, a subsidiary of Zhongrun Company, is currently the purest private commercial bank, basically realizing the stock market, Hu Chuyuan holds 37% of the shares through Shanghai Fuguo, the stock market of CITIC is also proceeding rapidly, the shareholding ratio of Shanghai Fuguo is gradually reduced to 30%, a large number of shares are transferred to two younger brothers, as well as local farmers, partners, Hu Yuanyuan also returned to China to take care of business in Shanghai, Jiangnan Commercial Bank and CITIC Society business is generally handed over to him to be responsible.

To some extent, Hu Chuyuan has completed the transfer and cashing out of his assets, shifting from agriculture and commerce to industry, especially heavy industry.

Hu Chuyuan opened up to Zhongrun Company and Jiangnan Commercial Bank, and loosened his control over the silk industry, tea industry, and hemp industry, but he did not give up the real estate industry, and his CITIC Land and Fuguo Land have gradually replaced Zhongrun Land and become the largest real estate group in China.

As for heavy industry, only he can control it on a large scale.

Only Shanghai Baosong Iron and Steel Machinery Factory and Shanghai Baosong Shipyard, he has invested a total of 75 million yuan, Ma'anshan Iron and Steel Machinery General Factory investment scale is larger, from 1885 to invest, the total scale of investment in ten years reached 140 million yuan, and the production capacity occupies 1/3 of China's total steel output.

There are more than 60 metallurgical plants under China Metallurgical Corporation, Laiwu Iron and Steel Machinery Factory, Zibo Aluminum Plant, Liaodong Anshan Iron and Steel Machinery Factory, Daye Iron and Steel Plant, Tangshan Iron and Steel Machinery Factory, Tangshan Shipyard, Tianjin Machinery Factory, Liaodong Shipyard, Ma'anshan Shipyard, Fuzhou Shipyard, Yinghua Electric Company, Shanghai Baosong Power Plant, Xuzhou Power Plant under Shanghai Yinghua Company...... These are tens of millions of dollars of investment.

If you do the math, you won't be able to recoup your investment in six or seven years, but it is precisely with these factories that those businessmen downstream can make money.

With the implementation of the "Company Law" and the "Industrial and Commercial Trade Law", domestic businessmen have set up factories on a large scale, especially Huizhou businessmen, who are now known as ten factories and nine Hui, and nine of the ten factories are run by Huizhou people.

These words are inevitably exaggerated, but it is undeniable that the strength of Huizhou businessmen is indeed getting stronger and stronger.

Businessmen with an annual personal income tax of more than 100,000 can pay 100,000 buyout income tax per year, and businessmen with more than 1 million can also pay 100,000 buyouts every year.

Such people are called a hundred thousand and a million.

Today, there are about 100 people in 100,000 households and more than 20 people in one million households.

In other words, there are at least 30 Hui businessmen with assets of more than 100 million yuan.

It is precisely by taking advantage of this huge business network that Hu Chuyuan has been implementing another proposition - educating the private sector, through taxation and other methods, coupled with personal persuasion and influence, in recent years, he and businessmen from all over the country have donated a large number of schools scattered almost all over the country, in the six provinces south of the Yangtze River and even in every town and township.

Most of the public schools were run by the provincial yamen, while the commercial schools and technical schools were mainly concentrated in emerging places such as Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Fuzhou, and most of them were also organized by the merchants themselves.

Universities were run by foreigners, foreign churches, the central government, provincial yamen, and Chinese businessmen, but at this stage, especially after 1890, studying abroad was the main theme of university education.

In 1894, there were more than 3,000 overseas students supported by Huizhou merchants alone, and the number of support from the Huameng Association was second only to the General Association of Huizhou Merchants.

In 1894, the annual income of the Qing government axe exceeded 550 million Qing Yuan, equivalent to 458 million US dollars, the annual income surplus was about 79 million Qing Yuan, the military expenditure of the Navy was 58 million Qing Yuan, the military expenditure of the Army, including the Green Battalion and the Eight Banner Battalion, was 85.4 million Qing Yuan, and the total amount of Manchu and clan support and the Ministry of Internal Affairs was 83 million Qing Yuan.

The debts owed by the Qing government to the CITIC Bank and the Bank of America have been reduced to 370 million yuan, and there are 300 million national debts, and the overall financial situation is not bad, after all, the implementation of a light tax system, the average tax rate is less than 10%.

In addition, through the Prime Minister's Senior Minister's Yamen, the Qing government axe still holds a certain amount of official shares in the country's major commercial banks, and once these official shares are transferred to the stock market, they can at least cash out billions of yuan, and there is also a very good dividend every year.

Of course, it is precisely because of the large range of income and surplus of the Qing government that the voice of the Manchu people calling for the restoration of Fengyang has become stronger, and it is higher than the year after year, especially the voices of Prince Yili Shiduo and Qingjun Wang Yixuan are the loudest.

The beginning of spring is March, April 8, 1895 in the Western calendar.

Hu Chuyuan took his family to visit the tomb at the Baoguo Temple in Hangzhou, and then he took Pan Limei and several young sons to Fuzhou, and then he traveled to the United States, passing through the Kingdom of Hawaii for a second visit.

In the past two years, Pan Limei and Wu Shuzhen have not gotten along well.

Seeing that she was depressed, Hu Chuyuan decided to take her out to play alone and vacation in Hawaii by the way...... By the way, the issue of the Kingdom of Hawaii has become a bit more complicated in recent times.

At this time, Fuzhou was the most pleasant moment, Hu Chuyuan and his family lived in a French-style manor on the top of Pingding Mountain, Prime Minister Ding Ruchang arrived a few days in advance, and the two inspected the Fuzhou Shipyard together.

After several days of preparation, that evening, Hu Chuyuan held a ponytail meeting in the large conference room of the manor to formulate a plan for the navy for the next ten years.

Ding Ruchang, Minister of Coastal Defense, Lu Han, Minister of Auxiliary Coastal Defense, Ye Fu, Admiral of the Beiyang Naval Division, Deng Shichang, Admiral of the Nanyang Naval Division, Ye Zuqi, Admiral of the East China Sea Division, Luo Dayou, the right attendant of the Military Department, as well as technical officials such as Wei Han and Zheng Qinglian, as well as Zhang Baixi, the Minister of Special Supervision sent by Emperor Guangxu, all attended the meeting as observers.

After the meeting began, Lu Han first made a report on the situation of the domestic navy and the development trend of the international navy, and each person sent a copy, and then he himself spoke first, giving a general explanation.

In the past five years, the total tonnage of the Qing navy has been maintained at about 350,000 tons, and new ships have been built, but old ships have also been resold to other countries, especially the Philippines, the Autonomous State of Borneo and Latin American countries, because four new Ningyuan-class battleships will be added this year and next year, with a total tonnage of 427,000 tons.

This is the largest in Asia and the Far East, still equivalent to only 30% of Britain's, France's 63%, and 40% of Britain's naval spending.

The year 1888 was a huge watershed year for the entire world's naval shipbuilding technology, in which rapid-fire guns, smokeless propellants, cold-pressed nickel-chromium steel, and Harwick steel all matured, and the overall layout and thinking of warships changed dramatically.

At present, most of the warships produced before 1888 have been eliminated and sold to the Philippines and Borneo Autonomous States as second-hand warships.

After the end of the Gengyin War, Britain suspended the construction of Ningyuan-class battleships for Qing Zhengaxe under the pretext of cost problems, taking into account the balanced strategy of the entire Far East.

In April 1892, Hu Chuyuan had to arrive in London in person to renegotiate with the United Kingdom, and finally continued to build a single ship at a price of 51.2 million yuan, about 7.11 million pounds.

This price is 40% higher than the original "Sino-British Arms Sales Agreement", as a price, the main protective armor is completely selected from the special steel provided by Armstrong, the armor design is also more reasonable than the monarch class, the overall design in the monarch class on the basis of the improvement of the German Krupp system, artillery and artillery systems are all German Krupp system.

At the same time, the whole set of design scheme and related part of the technology were completely transferred to Fuzhou Shipbuilding, and the British Armstrong Shipbuilding Company sent a technical team to guide Fuzhou Shipyard to carry out the production of the same model in China.

Compared with World War I and World War II, this price is still acceptable.

The 40% higher cost, Hu Chuyuan also offset by selling part of the official shares, from the books, the Qing Zheng axe is still purchased at the price of 36.57 million yuan for a single ship, even so, the Manchurians are still very dissatisfied, demanding that the purchase of warships continue to be prohibited, and even domestic construction will be stopped for several years.

Therefore, there are many bastards who only know how to make money.

At present, the Qing Navy is still mainly composed of three major fleets, followed by the Yangtze River Naval Division and the coastal naval divisions of various provinces, two 12,000-ton Ningyuan-class battleships, 10 main ironclad ships of 7,000 to 8,000 tons, 14 Fuzhou-class ironclad ships of 6,550 tons, 21 cruisers of 2,200 to 4,500 tons, 34 Chunyu-class destroyers, and 27 defense ships.

The number of patrol boats, gunboats, and torpedo boats is still relatively large, but in terms of total tonnage, there are actually not many.

After all, Hu Chuyuan is still leading the whole trend in the navy, and he finally makes a decision, regardless of the nonsense of the people, and continues to implement the construction plan of 10,000-ton battleships at the Fuzhou Shipbuilding General Factory.

Both the ironclad cruiser and the dome cruiser could not keep up with the development of the times, and were phased out within five years, replacing them with all-steel Xiangyang-class light cruisers, with specifications ranging from 4,000 tons to 5,000 tons.

Only two ships of the Ningyuan class were built in China, and one was built each at the Fuzhou Shipbuilding General Plant and the Jiangnan Shipyard, which were only used to increase experience. The new capital battleship was named the Liangzhou class, and the tonnage remained at 12,000 tons, and between the Liangzhou class and the cruisers, a Weiyuan-class battlecruiser was designed, with a displacement tonnage between 8,000 tons and 10,000 tons.

On the basis of the Zhiyuan-class and Fuzhou-class ironclad ships, the new Jinzhou-class second-class battleships were redesigned, and the displacement tonnage was comparable to that of the Weiyuan-class battlecruisers.

The unification of the four types of warships of the Liangzhou-class, Weiyuan-class, Jinzhou-class, and Xiangyang-class warships is characterized by the use of new steel, steam turbines, kerosene mixed combustion technology, and electronically controlled artillery technology, and the caliber of the main guns is still smaller than that of the British system, and the characteristics are that there are many main guns, the caliber of the main guns is completely unified, and the secondary guns are unified with 75mm and 120mm rapid-fire guns.

In the past two years, the Fuzhou shipbuilding has been carrying out practical experiments on large steam turbines on the Fuzhou-class ironclad ships, called the "New Fuzhou-class plan", although the new Fuzhou-class has not been born, but there is no problem in using steam turbines on the 7,000-ton displacement ironclad ships.

The Chunyu class is still very advanced in terms of overall technology, and will continue to maintain a rate of production of 6 to 8 ships per year, and gradually replace cruisers below 3,000 tons.

With the complete shift of the Qing Navy to the attack type, the role and status of the defense ship have declined very obviously, and the cheap surname is the most important, so the Zhenjiang-class defense ship continues to use cold-pressed nickel-chromium steel, and there is no need to design a new model, but only retain a few experimental ships to prepare for the new Zhenhai class.

After the navy's plan for the next 10 years was determined, it was expected that in 1905, the total tonnage of the Qing navy would be increased to 550,000 tons, and it would have the strength to deal with both the Russian and Japanese navies, with 12 battleships of more than 10,000 tons, 20 battlecruisers and second-class battleships of 8,000 tons, 15 light and medium-sized cruisers, 45 destroyers, 25 frigates, and 20 torpedo assault ships.

There will be at least 30 secret, combat-worthy submarines.

At present, there are very few people who really know about the submarine plan, and they can be counted on one hand, and there is no discussion at the meeting, and this is just a conclusion that Hu Chuyuan and Ding Ruchang negotiated in Tianjin in advance.

To this end, Hu Chuyuan is stepping up his efforts to study battery, diesel engine, and torpedo technology.

(To be continued)