When Wang Chenhao followed the eunuch to the Summer Palace, the early dynasty had already begun.

Emperor Guangxu has been very active recently, I don't know if he was inspired by Kang Youwei, in short, he wants to realize the real emperor's pro-government more and more.

Li Hongzhang entered the palace to meet Emperor Guangxu this time and brought two books, one was to greet Prince Gong about the construction of a railway connecting Yanjing to Guanwai; The second is the rectification of the Zhili Navy and Army.

Emperor Guangxu has always agreed with the construction of the railway, but two years before the First Sino-Japanese War, Prince Alcohol in charge of the naval yamen died of illness and delayed, after the First Sino-Japanese War, Guangxu realized that the defeat of the land division was closely related to the railway, and the court on the court Prince Gong Yi helped, Guangxu agreed on the spot, and waited for the backbone of the naval yamen to study and decide on their own.

Of course, the construction of the Beijing-Hei Railway is huge, and it will cost more than 20 million taels of silver. However, the household department had limited money, and some officials who had a good relationship with Zhang Zhidong strongly advocated the construction of the Jinghan Railway at the same time. Guangxu allowed Li Hongzhang to build the Beiyang Railway, but he could not help but let the Nanyang build the railway, and fell into a dilemma. Weng Tongyi didn't want the household silver to be hollowed out by Beiyang Li Hongzhang, so he asked Nanbeiyang to raise funds to build the railway, so Emperor Guangxu approved.

Li Hongzhang then put forward the matter of rectifying the navy and army of Zhili, and in his compromise, he expounded the shortcomings of the navy and army after the First Sino-Japanese War and asked for reform.

During this time, Emperor Guangxu has been listening to Kang Youwei's excerpts handed over by Weng Tonggong, which has repeatedly mentioned military reform, which has been recognized by Emperor Guangxu. In addition, after the impeachment of Lu Shi for the decadence of the Lu Division, the Military Aircraft Department also believed that Li Hongzhang's Huai Army was not enough to defend the country and needed to be reformed.

Emperor Guangxu has not directly proposed military reform before, mainly taking into account Li Hongzhang's attitude, after all, the military of the dynasty is mainly supported by Li Hongzhang's Huai army system, if Li Hongzhang opposes, then the imperial court will not be able to reform the military.

Now that Li Hongzhang took the initiative to propose military reform, Emperor Guangxu was overjoyed and asked Li Hongzhang what his good plan was.

Li Hongzhang then pointed out that the Beiyang Naval Division had not added ships and artillery in the past eight years, and that the two battleships of the Beiyang capital ships, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, had fallen behind, and that the navies of the Western powers had entered the era of all-steel battleships, and the gap between the Beiyang Naval Divisions was too great. At the same time, he said that the country had two Fuji-class battleships being built in Britain, and that the Dingzhen No. 2 ship was not an opponent, so he requested that a new type of battleship be ordered and a new type of fleet be formed.

In terms of the army, Li Hongzhang prepared to rectify the Huai army and imitate the armies of the Western powers to train the new army of the Qing Empire. At the same time, we ask for the elimination of the old Eight Banners and Green Battalion soldiers, and save military spending to organize and train a new-style army.

Guangxu did not object to the training of a new army and a new type of fleet, because Cixi's Summer Palace had already been repaired, and the funds were abundant enough to allocate funds to Beiyang.

What Emperor Guangxu wanted to know was what kind of navy and army Li Hongzhang was going to build, and what kind of people were used to lead the training, which was related to the imperial court's control over the new-style army.

Of course, during this period, there was no lack of Guangxu wanting to compete for power with the real power groups such as Cixi and Li Hongzhang.

Li Hongzhang then called the new-style army, and Li Hongzhang planned to merge the Song Qingbu and Nie Shicheng's troops, and the Beiyang Naval Division's general Cha Hannagan would serve as the adviser to the new-style army to cooperate with the formation and training of the new army.

In terms of the navy, Li Hongzhang said that Wang Chenhao, the admiral of the Beiyang Naval Division, was well versed in maritime affairs, had meritorious service to the Beiyang Naval Division, and was well aware of the development of the navies of various powers, so he was ready to make him the minister of the new-style naval training.

The others were nothing, and when Wang Chenhao's three words came out of Li Hongzhang's mouth, they suddenly stirred up huge waves in the court like a bomb.

Emperor Guangxu has no objections, Wang Chenhao's contribution in the First Sino-Japanese Battle is obvious to all, and Emperor Guangxu's impression of him is also very good, on the one hand, he appreciates Wang Chenhao's courage and skills, on the other hand, as a young man, Emperor Guangxu has the intention of wooing Wang Chenhao.

However, there were two opposing factions among the ministers of civil and military affairs, the clan officials headed by Prince Qing Yixuan did not want the new navy to fall into the hands of Beiyang, they did not want to train another Li Hongzhang, and they had always looked forward to bringing the Beiyang Navy Division under the direct control of the royal family.

Guangxu knew their thoughts, why didn't he want to bring the navy into the hands of the clan? It's a pity that the talents of the clan are withering, how can anyone provoke the beams of the new navy?

Therefore, the clamor of Yixuan and others was directly ignored by Emperor Guangxu, and letting the clan train the navy could only be a waste of money.

Another opponent is naturally Li Hongzhang's old rival Weng Tong. Weng Tongyi had long realized that Li Hongzhang wanted to support Wang Chenhao to come to power, so he must not let Li Hongzhang get his way, and it was necessary to make it difficult to stop him.

Weng Tongyi immediately came out to object, saying that the navy costs a lot of money, the imperial court is already short of funds and cannot train the navy, and Wang Chenhao is still young and inexperienced, so the major affairs of this country cannot be entrusted to him.

Weng Tongyi resolutely opposed it and demanded a replacement.

However, Li Hongzhang said that no one else could be reused, and Weng Tongrong recommended a large number of candidates, but Li Hongzhang rejected them one by one on the grounds that the new-style fleet needed new-style naval personnel to be trained.

Since the Beiyang Naval Division was controlled by Li Hongzhang, he said that no one was available, so naturally there was no one, and it was useless for Weng Tong to stare at him.

Weng Tongyi and Li Hongzhang fought for each other in the court, and they refused to give in to each other.

Soon, Li Hongzao and others from the Qing faction, plus officials from the Nanyang faction helped to fight, supporting Weng Tongyi, but Prince Gong was neutral, which put Li Hongzhang at a disadvantage.

After all, Weng Tongyi was the teacher of Emperor Guangxu, and Guangxu also took into account the relationship between Li Hongzhang and Wang Chenhao, so he said that the new navy cost a lot of money and needed to be considered carefully, so he vetoed Li Hongzhang's proposal.

Li Hongzhang seemed to have guessed this result a long time ago, so he retreated to the next best, saying that Wang Chenhao was not only well versed in maritime affairs, but also proficient in the tactics of Western land divisions, and asked to appoint him as the minister of training of the new army.

Everyone in the court was dumbfounded, they didn't expect Li Hongzhang to have this killer feature.

Emperor Guangxu was interested, and hurriedly inquired in depth. Li Hongzhang then submitted Wang Chenhao's manuscript ideas for the training of a new army to Emperor Guangxu.

After reading it, Emperor Guangxu called out three "good" words in a row, looking very excited. Then the excerpt was circulated to the ministers, and soon some officials who knew military affairs below suddenly let out a sound of admiration.

Emperor Guangxu refuted Li Hongzhang once before, favoring Weng Tongyi, and now Li Hongzhang retreated and asked Wang Chenhao to serve as the Minister of Army Training, and now Emperor Guangxu couldn't refuse anymore, so he nodded in agreement.

Weng Tongyi didn't expect Li Hongzhang to play with him, and he was a little unconvinced, so he united with the officials of the Nanyang faction to also ask for the formation and training of the new army, demanding that everyone be treated equally.

Emperor Guangxu was a little displeased when he saw Weng Tongyi entangled like this. But he felt that he couldn't just win over Beiyang, and Nanyang's strength was not weak, and in order to deal with the Hou Party, Emperor Guangxu also had to give Nanyang face.

Considering that the training of the land division does not require too much money, as the emperor Guangxu needs to check and balance each other, so in the end Guangxu decided to train a new army in the north and south oceans at the same time, and a year later the meeting will be carried out, and the victorious side will be used as the training standard of the new army of the imperial court, and then decide the candidate of the training minister.

This result was also expected by Li Hongzhang, so the problem of organizing and training a new-style army was solved, and Li Hongzhang's goal was achieved on the whole.

After that, Emperor Guangxu discussed the specific rules with the ministers. Li Hongzhang used the naval problem for practical purposes at all, and did not expect it at all, because the average cost of a 15,000-ton all-steel battleship in 1891 was as high as 1.2 million pounds, and the price was more than 1.5 million pounds, and if you pay in installments, it is estimated that you can buy it at 1.6 million pounds.

According to the exchange rate in 1895, this 1.6 million pounds was about 13 million taels of silver, and a battleship accounted for one-eighth of the annual financial revenue of the Qing Empire.

At this time, the Qing Empire allocated 4 million taels of silver to the Beiyang Navy Division every year, and after removing the 3 million taels embezzled, the Beiyang Navy could only get about 1 million taels every year.

Li Hongzhang had already figured out all the links, so he could only talk about the navy, and the real purpose was to help Wang Chenhao get the title of Minister of Army Training.

This kind of roundabout political method is simple and practical, but it is a pity that Weng Tongyi lost his sense of proportion when he saw Li Hongzhang, and as a result, Li Hongzhang succeeded.

In this regard, Weng Tongyi was quite unhappy. However, he didn't think that Wang Chenhao could accomplish much, although this Lu Shi training didn't need too much silver, but it still took a lot of money to purchase the initial purchase of ordnance, Weng Tongyi held the money bag of the Qing Empire, and there were many opportunities to play tricks.