As early as after Wang Chenhao sold oil for the first time in East Texas, it didn't take long for Wang Chenhao to secretly enclose land in San Joaquin, Los Angeles, the southwest coast of California, Illinos, northeast Kansas, Wilmington, Cook Bay, Unista, Anadarko, and Hills, and sent more than a dozen oil exploration teams to drill wells and explore in these areas.

After more than three years of exploration, the exploration team has successively discovered eight large oil fields in Los Angeles, Wilmington, Cook Bay and other areas, with reserves of more than 1.1 billion tons. Oil has not yet been found in other areas, but Wang Chenhao clearly told the exploration team that there is a large oil field there, so the exploration team cannot go anywhere else, but can only look for oil in the area designated by Wang Chenhao. Wang Chenhao knows that the scope of these areas he has delineated is not very large, but the technology and capabilities of these Chinese exploration teams are still limited, so they can only find some shallowly buried oil fields.

But Wang Chenhao is not in a hurry, these places cover more than 80% of the oil field reserves in the United States, and there will be more than 100 oil field areas, with a total amount of 12 billion tons, even if it costs decades to spend on it.

Of the eight major oil fields discovered so far, the Los Angeles area accounts for five, with a total of about 600 million tons. Wang Chenhao decided to ask Tang Shaoyi to sell the five large oil fields in Los Angeles, according to the current prices of large oil fields in the United States, these five large oil fields can be sold for a good price of 300 million US dollars, while Wang Chenhao spent no more than 10 million US dollars on land and oil exploitation rights.

As for the other three oil fields that had already been discovered, Wang Chenhao ordered that they be immediately blocked and all the land in the surrounding oil fields should be bought for future use.

Wang Chenhao knew that the oil fields could not be taken out all at once, which would lead to too many oil fields and the price would plummet, so Wang Chenhao decided to sell several large oil fields every two or three years, in order to maintain high profits.

Wang Chenhao, the five major oil fields in Los Angeles, asked Tang Shaoyi to contact the Zeringen family, the Citigroup consortium, and the Cleveland consortium, three big chaebols with good relations with Wang Chenhao, and planned to sell them to them. Because they are the richest, they are the most likely to pay for the oil field in a short period of time.

Soon, Tang Shaoyi got in touch with the three major chaebols and told them about the situation of the five large oil fields, and the three chaebols were very interested. They believe in the oil reserves of five large oil fields, because Wang Chenhao had previously sold oil in East Texas. There was a precedent, so Tang Shaoyi sold all five oil fields without much effort.

Since the Zeringen family is the maiden family of the imperial concubine, the Zelingen family divided two large oil fields, the Cleveland consortium got one oil field, and the Citi consortium was strong and ate the remaining two oil fields in one go. The three consortia finally invested a total of 280 million US dollars to buy five large oil fields, which was 20 million US dollars cheaper than the market price estimated by Tang Shaoyi at 300 million US dollars.

In this way, Wang Chenhao made a net profit of $270 million from the sale of oil in the United States for the second time, and with the $200 million he cashed out from the Rockefeller consortium, Wang Chenhao's personal assets increased to more than $3.6 billion.

Of course, the premise of this result is that Wang Chenhao did not include the Forbidden City.

The main purpose of Wang Chenhao's second money from the United States was to prepare for the war against Russia, and all the funds totaling 470 million US dollars were converted into gold and shipped back to China, and Wang Chenhao lent this huge amount of money to the imperial political axe in his personal name. The Imperial Axe then used this batch of gold as a benchmark to print 470 million dragon coins as a war reserve for military expenses.

Wang Chenhao cashed out $470 million of gold from the United States, and the gold market was not stable not long after the United States had just achieved the gold standard. Cashing out $470 million in gold was like a big rock crashing into a calm lake, sending waves and ripples. This move almost triggered a run on gold in the United States, in response to which the American political axe then protested to the Chinese Imperial political axe, saying that this was a financial war launched by the Chinese empire against the United States.

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Empire later retorted, saying that the Chinese Emperor was helping the American political axe to test the achievements of the American gold standard reform.

For the other powers, they were concerned about what Wang Chenhao was doing with the money. In the same way, the Chinese Imperial Political Axe responded truthfully that the gold would be used as the Empire's war gold reserves. The great powers of the Chinese Empire understood this explanation. As a result, the protest of the American political axe quickly sank into the sea, and the powers of various countries stopped bothering, and soon it was gone.

After forming a military alliance with the British Empire, the Chinese Imperial Political Axe won a victory in the diplomatic war against Russia. Compared with the Tsarist Empire, which relied on the Russian Emperor Nicholas II to visit abroad, it raised 50 million pounds sterling from France and Germany for war military expenses, which is equivalent to 250 million dragon dollars, and it is also a loan with interest. In turn, the Emperor of the Chinese Empire raised 470 million dragon coins only after the United States sold a few pieces of land, and lent the Chinese Imperial Political Axe as a war gold reserve for free. Compared with the two, the gap is huge, and the Russian emperor Nicholas II should really buy a piece of tofu and die himself.

In September 1900, the Standing Army of the 54 Towns of the Chinese Empire was successively expanded to reach the wartime establishment. In this way, the Imperial Chinese Army expanded from the current 54 towns to 54 corps, and the total strength of 108 towns reached 1,620,000.

The 54 armies were organized into 12 group armies, each of which had three to six armies under its jurisdiction. Among them, the First Group Army and the Second Group Army were assigned to the command of the Yanjing Military Region, and the First Group Army Group was established, with 12 armies under its jurisdiction, to cooperate with the Imperial Forest Army and the Praetorian Guard Army to protect the security around Gyeonggi.

The Third Army, the Fourth Army, and the Fifth Army were placed under the command of the Mukden Military Region, and the Second Army Group was established with 12 armies under its jurisdiction, with the defense of the northeast as the first priority and the defense of eastern Mongolia.

The Sixth Army, the Seventh Army, and the Eighth Army were established as the Lanzhou Military Region, and the Third Army Group was established with 14 armies under its jurisdiction, with the defense of the Great Northwest Region, the largest area of the Chinese Empire, as the first priority, and the defense of western Mongolia.

In consideration of the fact that the war together would not be able to estimate the southeastern, southwestern, and eastern regions, the Ministry of National Defense established four major military regions, namely, the Shandong Military Region, the Chengdu Military Region, the Nanjing Military Region, and the Guangzhou Military Region, in order to unify the command of the troops stationed in various provinces.

Among them, the Ninth Group Army is under the direct jurisdiction of the Shandong Military Region, the Nanjing Military Region is under the jurisdiction of the 10th Group Army, the 11th Group Army is assigned to the Chengdu Military Region, and the 12th Group Army is assigned to the Guangzhou Military Region.

With the four newly established military regions, plus the previous three military regions, the Chinese Empire had seven military regions.

The Yanjing Military Region, the Fengtian Military Region, and the Lanzhou Military Region are still the main theaters, and the Ministry of Defense has concentrated almost all the elite units of the Imperial Army in these three military regions. Most of the other military regions are garrisoned by expanded troops, and they are basically composed of reserves and new recruits.

Similarly, in terms of weaponry, the 38 armies of the three major military regions of Yanjing, Mukden, and Lanzhou have all been equipped with more advanced Browning Type 1897 series rifles, cavalry guns, pistols, and heavy machine guns.

In terms of artillery, on the basis of the original Krupp cannon, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. imitated the brake and retreat system of the 75 mm caliber field gun produced by the Schneider Arsenal in France, and developed an improved advanced hydraulic brake and retreat system.

In this way, the artillery of the Imperial Chinese Army has a stronger rapid-fire capability, compared with the previously used German-style spring-made system of artillery, in the speed of fire, after a calibration of the firing elements, there is no need to modify, the gun position basically will not move due to the recoil generated by the firing.

After adding the hydraulic brake and retreating machine, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry also adjusted the caliber of the artillery in accordance with the requirements of the War Department. Because the shell charge has been changed to the most powerful black sokin gunpowder, the corresponding shell size and gun caliber need to be adjusted to match the tactical campaign.

The caliber of the newly changed artillery was 75 mm and 105 mm for regimental field guns, and the caliber for divisional artillery was increased to 155 mm. As for the divisional artillery, after the increase to 155 mm, the weight of the artillery itself did not increase much, because Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry has abandoned the use of Krupp steel for the production of artillery, and switched to the use of Chinese special steel for manufacturing. In this way, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry does not need to pay high patent royalties to the German Krupp company, but it is more cost-effective to adopt Chinese special steel with more reasonable price and higher quality on a large scale. At the same time, it can also stimulate the rapid growth and development of Zhili Iron and Steel Company.

Because the steel, technology and caliber used in the new artillery are not learning from Germany, and the shells fired are the world's leading black Sorkin high-explosive ammunition, and there is no trace of the German type on the new artillery, so the German armament officially bid farewell to the Chinese Imperial Army. Since then, the Imperial Army has also begun to fully equip domestic weapons with independent intellectual property rights, and since then, there have been a number of advanced equipment named after China Armament in the world's weapons and equipment term, and thus leading the trend of the new era.

Similarly, one of the most important roles in infantry firepower, the Mine Gun, has been fully upgraded. In the past, the mine guns of the Imperial Chinese Army were divided into three calibers: 51 mm, 82 mm and 107 mm. After many army live-fire exercises, the War Department discovered that the lightning cannon has a very wide range of combat uses, and after the lightning cannon is made of Chinese special steel, it is much lighter in weight and more convenient for individual soldiers to carry. Therefore, in order to pursue better infantry combat capabilities, that is, in the absence of artillery support, the infantry itself has stronger offensive and defensive capabilities. As a result, the caliber of the mine cannon also changed. In the end, it was changed to 60 mm and 80 mm, and the 107 mm mine gun was abandoned. The former 51mm mine gun is a bit of a chicken rib, with average power and range, and the infantry uses grenades more directly. At the same time, the 51-mm small-caliber mine artillery process was relatively complex, and the cost and combat effectiveness were disproportionate, so it was changed to 60 mm. The 107 mm was too heavy and needed to be carried by three to five soldiers, which was a big problem for the infantry's load, so the 107 mm mine gun was cut.

(To be continued)