The Mawei Shipbuilding Bureau is also known as the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau and the Fujian Shipbuilding Bureau. (It is renamed Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, because it is more convenient to call it that.) ）

The Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau was established in 1866 when Zuo Zongtang was the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, and was later presided over by Shen Baozhen. The Harbour Master Bureau is mainly composed of three parts: the iron factory, the shipyard and the Harbour Master's School. During Shen Baozhen's tenure, the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau became the largest shipyard in the Far East.

But these are already yesterday's yellow flowers...

Since the Xinhai Revolution and the founding of the Republic of China, the current situation in China has been very chaotic, and the whole of China has been almost divided into two parts: north and south. In this case, the more intact North could not receive taxes from the South, and the South was divided into numerous powers.

Under these circumstances, the former largest shipyard in the Far East could not receive strong support at all, and in the early days of the Republic of China, the monthly political axe allocation was only 30,000 yuan.

30,000 yuan? Naturally, it is not a small amount for ordinary people, but for the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau?

You must know that even the cost of the shallow-water gunboats Jiangli and Jiangyuan, which have a displacement of just over 500 tons, has reached 300,000 yuan. After the establishment of the Republic of China, the funds of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau were only more than 300,000 yuan per year, which was still data on paper, and how much could actually be obtained......... It can only be said that whether it is the Nanjing political axe or the Beiyang political axe, the funds they issued are only enough to barely maintain the Fuzhou Ship Administration. It's good enough to feed the staff and engineers of the Harbour Master's Bureau, and there's no need to think about building a ship or anything...

However, although it has been abandoned for many years, the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau still retains a certain strength relatively well under the maintenance of Chen Zhaoqiang. Especially the most core ship designers, you must know that in the past, the Fuzhou Ship Administration Bureau not only built ships, but also trained many local ship designers, such as the more famous Pingyuan cruiser, which was designed by local ship designers Wei Han, Chen Zhaoao, Zheng Qinglian, Wu Dezhang, Li Shoutian, Yang Lianchen and others trained by the Fuzhou Ship Master School.

In particular, Wei Han, China's first real destroyer, the destroyer "Jianwei", was designed by Wei Han himself. Moreover, in the first year of the Republic of China, Wei Han also returned to the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau as the director, just because Wei Han was over sixty years old at that time, and his energy was really fundamental, and the situation of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau at that time was too bad, so in the end, Chen Zhaoqiang, who was relatively young, took up the post of director of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau.

As for Wei Han, he took a back seat because of his age, after all, as a ship designer, he couldn't have any good solution to the plight of the Harbour Bureau.

And Yan Guang will take a fancy to the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, because there are still a group of older generation designers in the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau. Although he also trained a group of designers when he was in Sichuan, these designers were too young after all, and they had many deficiencies in experience, and when designing thousand-ton destroyers and three-thousand-ton light cruisers, they needed the help of German designers in many places.

If the older generation of designers like Wei Han can be absorbed, I believe that they will definitely be able to be used when designing heavy cruisers and even battle cruisers in the future.

What's more, there is also a Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, according to Yan Guang's understanding, because the Harbour Master School has been abandoned in recent years, many teachers have gone out to make a living on their own, but there are also many teachers who have stayed in the Shipmaster School. And many students who graduated from the academy also stayed.

You must know that the former school manufacturing class of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau has been open until the 34th year of Guangxu, and the driving class of the rear school has also been opened until the 34th year of Guangxu. Of course, the longest time is still the tube shift of the Houxuetang, which has been open until the third year of Guangxu, that is, in the winter of 1911 AD, and it has only been less than three years since now. In the past three years, no matter how rapid naval technology is, it is impossible to go beyond the scope of these people's knowledge, in other words, these people still have a lot to do.

Of course, Yan Guang must also be careful not to turn the navy into a Fujian navy in the future.

Fortunately, Yan Guang has also trained a lot of manpower in Sichuan, and the Chinese navy at this time is very small and does not need too many manpower at all, so there is no need to worry too much about this matter.

What's more, another reason why Yan Guang chose the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau is that Yucheng is not suitable for building large ships, of course, it can still be built, but the waters from Yucheng to Yueyang are only suitable for ships of 1,000 tons. And large ships? You don't dare to boast about it without 510,000, so even if Yan Guang builds a shipyard in Yucheng, he has to consider a question, that is, after building a large ship, can it be opened.

Of course, this does not mean that the Yucheng shipyard is useless. First, he can also build a thousand-ton gunboat and destroyer, and second...

Even if the Yucheng Shipyard couldn't build large heavy ships such as cruisers, battlecruisers, and battleships, couldn't it build smaller U-boats? You must know that there are no conventional submarines with a tonnage of more than 1,000 tons in this era, and even if there are, they will not appear until ten or twenty years later, and by that time Yan Guang can move the shipyard to Wuhan—————— just like the Chinese Navy in later generations, ordinary conventional submarines are made in Wuhan.

Fuzhou is close to the coast, and as long as the dockyard is ready, ships of any size can be built, which is why Yan Guang asked the Germans to transport equipment here.

Of course, Yan Guang didn't put all his eggs in one basket. In fact, Yan Guang has decided to set up shipyards in Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Shanghai, Shandong and Tianjin.

In fact, Yan Guang originally wanted to set up a shipyard in Dalian, after all, the port of Arthur on the Liaodong Peninsula and the Weihai Weiwei on the Shandong Peninsula are the horns of the Gongwei Beijing-Tianjin maritime gateway. It's just that today's Dalian is still in the hands of Yue, and if he takes the "regular way", he will definitely not come back until at least 1922. So there was no way, Yan Guang had to give up the idea of designing a shipyard in Dalian...

Incidentally, the equipment that has now been transported to the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau is only the first batch, after all, the equipment worth 10 million pounds can never be carried by a few freighters—————— although the equipment required by the shipyard is only a small part of it.

After the first batch of equipment arrived at the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau, there was still a lot of equipment on the way, but their destination was Shanghai. There, part of the equipment will be used to set up the future Shanghai shipyard, and the rest will be temporarily stored there, waiting for the future to sweep Guangzhou and other places, and then transport those equipment to Guangzhou, Shandong and other places...

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Of course, Chen Zhaoqiang didn't know that Yan Guang would choose the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, just because of the geographical location of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, as well as the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, which still has a certain number of teachers.

For him, the most important thing is the 10 million silver dollars in his hand, as well as the full set of equipment loaded by the freighters on the dock.

Of course, Chen Zhaoqiang also paid a little attention to the ship drawings in the suitcase.

"This is what the Governor of Yan asked us to produce?"

Because of the relationship of 10 million silver dollars, Chen Zhaoqiang's tone was a lot more polite.

Hearing what Chen Zhaoqiang said, the person who came nodded his head.

"That's right." As he spoke, he said. "Before coming down, the governor had already said that there is no other manpower in the governor's hands at the moment, so please ask Mr. Chen to continue to serve as the director of the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau..."

Of course, Yan Guang has his own manpower, after all, Sichuan Shipyard has also trained a lot of manpower in the past two years, not to mention that even if the domestic one is not good, doesn't Yan Guang still have "imported" goods to use?

It's just that at present, these manpower Yan Guang is going to be distributed to Guangzhou, Shanghai and other places, so Chen Zhaoqiang can only continue to serve as the director of the Harbour Bureau.

And after hearing what people said, Chen Zhaoqiang also became happy.

Although Chan Siu-cheung himself does not care about the issue of position, as long as the Harbour Master Bureau can develop well, it is fine. However, if he can continue to serve as the director of the Harbour Bureau, it will naturally be more pleased.

In fact, after hearing that the position of the director of the Harbour Master was still held by Chen Zhaoqiang, not only Chen Zhaoqiang himself, but even many people behind him were also happy—————— these people were all from the Fujian family, just like Chen Zhaoqiang.

However, now is not the time to be happy, so after calming down the emotions in his heart a little, Chen Zhaoqiang ignored Sun Daoren being on the side, and walked to a place not far from the dock, Chen Zhaoqiang took out the drawings in his hand, and then handed them to Wei Han on the side.

As I said just now, Wei Han has taken a back seat because of his age, and it is Chen Zhaoqiang who serves as the director. However, Wei Han is an old veteran in the Harbour Master Bureau after all, and he is also the first graduate of the manufacturing class of the Fuzhou Mawei Shipyard Pre-School, so he still has great influence in the Harbour Bureau. Today's such an important matter, it is impossible for Chen Zhaoqiang not to talk about Wei Han, who has taken a back seat, to invite him over.

As for the drawings?

Chen Zhaoqiang is the second graduate of the Fuzhou Mawei Shipyard School, and the literal meaning, although Chen Zhaoqiang has played with the boat all his life, it is better to look at the drawings and leave this kind of thing to the professionals behind him...

As an older generation of ship designers, Wei Han also took a good look, and after receiving the drawings, he looked at them carefully, and only after half a ring did he look at Chen Zhaoqiang and the young officer of the National Social Army who brought the suitcase over.

"At present, the equipment of the Ship Administration Bureau is old, and it has not been replaced for many years, and according to the funds issued by the political axe, it is difficult to even maintain it properly, but ......" Speaking of this, Wei Han glanced at the direction of the dock. If it's just this kind of thousand-ton destroyer on the drawings, we still have a way. It's just that the steam engine and naval guns and other equipment on it probably need to be purchased, and the most basic steel is the same..."

Although the Harbour Master also has its own iron factory, the equipment of the iron factory is different from that of the shipyard, and the equipment of the shipyard has not been properly maintained, as long as the quality is excellent, it is not impossible to barely use it in just two years. But if the smelting equipment —————— barely used, Wei Han and the others would have to risk killing the entire factory...

The young officer had already estimated this, so after hearing Wei Han say this, he just said softly.

"I already said when the Governor came, I was not in a hurry about the two warships above, I just hoped that Director Chen and Wei Lao could properly use the equipment sent by the Governor to make the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau look new..."

Hearing him say this, Wei Han nodded.

"It's good to say that although our Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau has been abandoned for two or three years, the foundation is there after all, so there is no need to rebuild the dock or anything. You just need to transport the equipment you put on and assemble it properly...", Wei Han raised the drawings in his hand. "But the guns and steam engines needed for warships..."

Wei Han has already read the list, and there is no equipment needed for naval guns and steam engines in the list, as for the steel, Wei Han is not worried, after all, Wei Han has also heard of the reputation of Qijiang Iron Works.

And after hearing Wei Han's question, the young officer nodded.

"Please rest assured that the steel required for the warship will be provided by our Qijiang Iron Works, as well as the naval guns needed, as for the steam engine......... We will inform the Germans as soon as possible..."There is information bought from the Germans at a high price, the Qijiang Iron Works is already able to produce the steel needed for warships, as for the naval guns? A 1,000-ton destroyer will only need a 150mm naval gun, while the current Sichuan Arsenal can provide a 210mm cannon and a 240mm heavy howitzer—————— the latter is currently testing the first product.

The only trouble was the steam engine, although Yan Guang also ordered equipment for the production of steam engines, but the Germans have not yet shipped it, and Yan Guang is not ready to build a power equipment production plant in Sichuan. As for the home-grown steam engine? Although the engineers of the Sichuan Arsenal have been able to produce their own steam engines, and even internal combustion engines for automobiles and airplanes. However, the surnames of these homemade steam engines and internal combustion engines can be quite unreliable, if they are only used to equip biplanes, simple cars and small ships of less than 100 tons, if they are equipped with 1000-ton destroyers, or even 3,000-ton cruisers...

Forget it, it's better not to say it...

After hearing the young officer say that the Germans would be informed as soon as possible to provide a steam engine, Wei Han nodded.

"In that case, I will be relieved old man."

As he spoke, Wei Han patted the young officer on the shoulder.

"Young man, when you go back, tell Governor Yan to rest assured, and say that we will definitely build the warship that Governor needs..."

How many years has Wei Han been waiting for this opportunity? Since the Gengzi Incident, the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau has been in a state of abandonment, although it cannot be said that a ship has not been built, but compared with before the First Sino-Japanese War, it is obviously inferior...

Since the abdication of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in the Xinhai Revolution, the whole of China has been in chaos, today one group of people is talking about the Northern Expedition, tomorrow the other group is going to suppress the "Second Revolution", no one cares what the fate of this former largest shipyard in the Far East is, not even Sun Daoren of Fujian, the overseer. In fact, the 30,000 yuan of funds issued by the central government every month will be deducted by Sun Daoren himself at least two or three thousand yuan...

Seeing this, Wei Han had no confidence in the future of the Harbour Master's Bureau, but now looking at those freighters, and the 10 million checks in the suitcase on the side...

"A check for ten million?"

At the mention of the 10 million check, Wei Han remembered something.

"Young man, I don't know if Governor Yan said that this 10 million will be the funds of our Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau?"

This is also Wei Han's poverty, and there is another problem, that is, shipbuilding does not need to make guns and cannons, if it is 10 million silver dollars, it is enough to equip a division, but if it is used to build warships...

If it's just an ordinary gunboat, it's better to say, considering the price problem, a million silver dollars will be enough. If it is a thousand-ton destroyer, then the cap will only cost two million silver dollars, and this is because the number of buildings is too small to reduce the cost. But if it's a three-thousand-ton cruiser, then it's obviously impossible to have five or six million ...

The young man didn't see Wei Han's concerns, and he just replied after hearing Wei Han's question.

"Old Wei, the governor didn't tell me the question you asked, but the governor had already said it before I left, and there was a letter from him to you and Director Chen in the suitcase..."

"Letter?"

This Chen Zhaoqiang and Wei Han really didn't pay attention, their attention was just attracted by the drawings and checks in the suitcase. So after hearing the young officer's words, Wei Han, Chen Zhaoqiang, Sun Daoren and others hurriedly looked at the suitcase.

In the suitcase, there was a letter as the young man had said.

Seeing this letter, Wei Han hurriedly glanced at Chen Zhaoqiang, and only after getting Chen Zhaoqiang's permission did Wei Han open the envelope.

The beginning of the letter is full of clichés, mainly about the past, present, and future of the Harbour Bureau, as well as his own expectations for Chen Zhaoqiang and Wei Han.

Although Wei Han was born as a ship designer, he is also in his 60s, not to mention that he has also served as the director of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, and he can be regarded as a member of the Huan Hai. He was familiar with this kind of official remark for a long time, so Wei Han quickly ignored the nonsense on the letter, and went straight to the topic with ten lines at a glance.

At the end of the letter, Yan Guang made it clear in words that he could only describe as "ugly".

In the future, the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau will remain under the control of the state, as in the past.

However, there will not be much change in the personnel of the Harbour Master Bureau at present, in other words, except for some vacant positions that will be placed in the staff, the remaining positions will be filled by the original people.

At the same time, in the future, the new political axe will also provide the Harbour Master with an annual fund of 10 million silver dollars, and this fund will be mainly used for the development and technical research of the Harbour Master's Bureau. If there is another mission, such as the construction of a "warship", the required funds will be provided separately by the political axe.

Of course, Yan Guang also made it clear in the letter that in addition to the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau, the new political axe will also build new shipyards in Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shandong and Tianjin. In the future, the Navy will shop around when buying ships, so if the people in the Harbour Administration want to eat and wait for death...

And if the quality of the ships of the Harbour Master Bureau is too poor, the Navy also has the right to refuse to accept them.

Wei Han didn't pay much attention to the points mentioned at the end. After all, in his time, being able to go to the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau to learn shipbuilding, instead of learning anything else, itself shows a lot of things—————— experts and professors at this time are full of praise words, unlike later generations, have become bricks called beasts...

If someone in the Harbour Administration Bureau took the money from the political axe and waited for death, without the political axe to find the door, I am afraid that Wei Han and Chen Zhaoqiang would not let this person go first.

So after reading the letter, Wei Han just looked up at the young officer.

"Young man, do the destroyers and cruisers on the drawings have names?"

"Yes!" The young officer nodded. "Qinghai class and Jinghai class, this is the name given by the governor..."

"Qinghai and Jinghai...", muttering these two names that were nice but somewhat clichéd, Wei Han looked at Chen Zhaoqiang. Xiao Chen, it looks like we're going to get those old guys back..."

After taking the drawings from Wei Han's hand and looking at them, Chen Zhaoqiang also knew that this could not be completed by the existing manpower of the Harbour Bureau, so he nodded in agreement.

"Everything is up to you, Old Wei..."

And behind Chen Zhaoqiang, Wei Han and the young officers, Sun Daoren, the governor of Fujian, has been cold for a long time. It's just that when Xu Chongzhi was still there, Sun Daoren had always been a puppet, so even if he was ignored like this, Sun Daoren didn't mean to be angry at all, this scene made many people who didn't know Sun Daoren feel that his surname was gloomy...

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Not to mention how Wei Han was going to find those old guys who had to leave the shipbuilding bureau for their livelihood, a company of more than 100 people in the new 2nd Division of the Nationalist Army, composed of the remnants of the Leng Shu Division of the 9th Division of the Kuomintang and the remnants of the 7th Division of Hong Chengdian, was patrolling the Hubei-Anhui border, but...

"Company Commander..."

Looking around, a platoon commander approached his company commander.

"The order from above is not to let us get close to the border of Hubei, so as not to give any excuse to the Nationalist Army on the other side, now that we are so close, will there be any problems?"

The Kuomintang in Nanjing had always forbidden its subordinate troops to approach the Hubei-Anhui border, lest the Kuomintang Army find any excuse for going to war, so after seeing that their patrol was so close to the border, the platoon commander in the company had to run to the company commander to respond.

It's just that when he heard the platoon commander under his hand say this, the company commander's eyes flickered for a moment and then he cursed.

"The order from above? What are those Sichuan people to be afraid of, I don't believe they dare to shoot at me, and if we really fight, will we still be afraid of them? Saying that, the company commander kicked his hand and said fiercely. Don't talk too much, keep walking, I'll take care of everything! ”

Hearing what the company commander said, the platoon commander had no choice but to grit his teeth and follow.

After all, the county official is not as good as the current management, and he can only hope that the battalion commander and the regiment commander will not know about this matter, and pray that they will not run into people from the National Social Army during this patrol.

It's just that in the place where he can't see, the company commander is walking towards the border of Hubei and Anhui, but his eyes are constantly flashing, and in the company, there are many officers like him, and their eyes are always flashing, as if there is some ulterior secret in his heart...

(To be continued)