It was getting late, so Wang Chenhao ordered the sailors to mark a buoy at the location of the sunken ship and return to Tianjin, preparing to come and salvage the treasure on the sunken ship tomorrow after bringing all the manpower and equipment.

Later, after Wang Chenhao and Li Youyi returned home, the two of them watched the ancient porcelain vase they dug up for a while, and they felt a sense of accomplishment.

It was night, Wang Chenhao was thinking about how to dig out all the treasures of the shipwrecks on the seabed. Whenever he thinks of those glittering gold and silver jewelry, as well as those priceless rare antiques, Wang Chenhao is always excited and can't sleep.

Early the next morning, Wang Chenhao went to Zhili's new army yamen and military horse farm. The training work of the new army was carried out in an orderly manner, and the combined exercises at the regiment and battalion level were much better than expected, thanks to the rules and regulations formulated by Wang Chenhao with clear rewards and punishments, plus the German instructors had real power to train extremely strictly, while the soldiers were all new recruits who had no vices, and the officers were students from the Beiyang Armed Forces Academy who were highly motivated.

The most difficult months of the unit's training have passed, and at this time it is already on the right track, so after Wang Chenhao makes a daily inspection, the rest of the work can be handed over to Hannagen and other German instructors and officers at all levels, and there is no need to worry about it anymore.

Wang Chenhao explained all the day's work, saving a lot of time to study how to dig up the treasure under the sea.

In terms of personnel, Wang Chenhao transferred 50 sailors from the Lushun Mine Battalion in the capacity of Admiral of the Beiyang Naval Division, and these sailors were all known to Wang Chenhao and had been born and died with him in the Battle of Incheon Port. Because they often dive into the water tens or even hundreds of meters deep to clear mines and lay mines, they are extremely high in water and are most suitable for salvaging shipwreck treasures.

In terms of equipment, Wang Chenhao purchased 100 sets of reciprocating pump diving machines from the Tianjin office of the Danish shipwreck salvage company, as well as related gas transmission pipes and other equipment.

With these equipment and personnel, Wang Chenhao quickly set up the world's largest private salvage team with the Meiyun transport ship as the salvage mother ship.

A few days later, Wang Chenhao personally led the salvage team to the site of the wreck found that day, and then began to excavate the seabed.

Wang Chenhao accidentally discovered this shipwreck is an official ship of Ming Chongzhen five years, which unearthed a large number of gold, silver and copper coins, jade, pottery, porcelain, metal utensils, etc., large and small a total of more than 1,000 pieces, in addition to gold and silver jewelry, the most valuable of which is twelve Ming Jiajing five years of blue and white porcelain, each market price of about 50,000 taels of silver.

In that year, the ten counties of Denglai Prefecture in Shandong Province were looted by Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming for two years, and a large number of officials and wealthy businessmen could not leave by land, so they could only flee to Beijing by sea. Some of them were sunk by Kong Youdebu, some were self-sunk, some were silent on the rocks, and some were sunk by the storm.

After Wang Chenhao's salvage team completed the excavation of the first wreck, the preliminary estimate was about 75 taels of silver, which really made Wang Chenhao feel a little more comfortable, and immediately rewarded his subordinates with 10,000 taels of silver as encouragement, and it was also a hush money for them.

After learning that Wang Chenhao planned to use this salvage team all the time, the fifty sailors of the mine battalion who were seconded quit their original jobs and stayed in the salvage team with Wang Chenhao ever since.

As a result, Wang Chenhao renamed the salvage team as the Marine Biological Environment Scientific Expedition Team, which was actually just to hide people's eyes and ears and sell dog meat with mutton. The number of employees of the scientific expedition team is controlled within 80 people, and the internal management is militarized, and the basic salary and salvage reward commission system are implemented, and the basic salary is 50 taels of silver per month, and Wang Chenhao will give a total of 1,000 taels to 50,000 taels of silver after each successful salvage to motivate them.

Wang Chenhao felt a little embarrassed to dig the corner of the Beiyang Naval Division for the first time, but for the sake of his long-term career, he could only sacrifice the small and take the big.

In the following days, Wang Chenhao drove the Jiaolong around the nearby waters, and several sunken ships were detected one after another, and the salvage team was immediately busy.

For the first time, Wang Chenhao would spend five or six hours a day on the expedition team, detecting the wreck and supervising the work of the staff. Later, as the employees were in order and everything was on the right track, Wang Chenhao reduced the time he spent in the expedition team, but he would assign his confidant Wang Meng to manage it on his behalf, and leave some personal soldiers to supervise and assist to prevent chaos.

In less than a month, Wang Chenhao's scientific expedition team obtained a large amount of treasure in the Bohai Sea. Gold and silver and other cash and precious metal jewelry made of gold and silver added up to more than one million taels, Wang Chenhao melted them and cast them into simple gold bars and silver bars for easy exchange. There are more than 400 pieces of jade, pottery and porcelain, Wang Chenhao contacted some antique dealers in Tianjin and Yanjing, and sold them for 3 million taels of silver, and most of the other metal utensils are worthless, but they can't stand the large number, and the years are long, nearly 5,000 pieces, and finally they are sold for tens of thousands of taels of silver

In such a short period of time, a scientific expedition team of less than 100 people earned Wang Chenhao more than 4 million taels of silver, which really made him so happy that he couldn't find the north for a while.

During this time, the fund-raising project of the steel company in charge of Wang Shizhen has also made progress. According to Wang Chenhao's empty glove white wolf strategy, Wang Shizhen bought all the mining rights that moved to Luan County, first prepared an iron ore collection factory with 20,000 taels of silver, and hired local laborers to dig wells to mine iron ore. Due to the shallow burial of the veins and the ease of mining, a large scale was formed in less than half a month, and soon attracted the attention of the wealthy businessmen in the Zhili area.

Wang Shizhen then registered a shell company, called Zhili Iron and Steel Company, which claimed to have an annual output of 200,000 tons of steel and 1 million tons of pig iron. Then, Wang Shizhen bribed the editors of more than a dozen domestic and foreign newspapers, so that they published the news that China's largest iron and steel company, Zhili Iron and Steel Company, was about to be established, which immediately attracted great attention from relevant people at home and abroad.

Although Wang Shizhen is known as a scholar who can write and martial arts, he is not proficient in the specific work of financing, and he feels that he needs help.

So Wang Shizhen asked his two friends Cao Fuzhen and Tang Shaoyi to help, Cao Fuzhen is the manager of Tianjin Yisheng Money Bank, who is proficient in finance and good at running a business.

Wang Chenhao was also bold, and directly ordered Wang Shizhen to sell 5 million shares at a price of 10 taels of silver per share, and sold stocks to people from all walks of life in the people, farmers, and industry under the banner of Li Hongzhang. At the same time, he used newspapers to hype it up, saying that the investment of ten taels of silver this year will be doubled in a year, and even the principal and interest will be earned, and more investment will be earned.

At the beginning, all strata of the Shinong industrial and commercial officials in the direct subordinate territory were very conservative, and there were not many people who subscribed.

Wang Chenhao knows that the Chinese people are very conservative about the money bags in their hands, and if they want to let them pay for it, they must have childcare.

So Wang Chenhao ordered people to secretly release false news, saying that more than a dozen foreign steel giants had invested more than 30 million taels of silver. Due to the lack of domestic information, there is no regulatory system in this regard, and the Zhili Iron and Steel Company is the official background, and the boss behind it is Wang Chenhao, who has been in the limelight recently, so for the domestic businessmen, the credibility of the Zhili Iron and Steel Company is extremely high, and soon a large number of wealthy businessmen in Tianjin have come to negotiate.

The first big breakthrough was made by Cao Fuzhen, who successfully persuaded the big bosses of Shanghai Yishanyuan Tianjin Branch, Yuyuan Changyinhao, Yide Houqianzhuang, Yongsheng Qianpu, Chunxing Qianpu and Yisheng Qianzhuang to invest in the iron and steel company project, subscribed for 1.1 million shares, and obtained a total of more than 11 million taels of silver.

After the first batch of people subscribed for shares, people from all walks of life in the Zhili Prefecture were tempted and soon followed the trend to buy the shares of the Zhili Iron and Steel Company.

It's strange to say, the bolder Wang Chenhao is, the higher the bull brags, and the more people believe in him. For a time, a whirlwind blew on the boundary of Zhili, and it was rumored in the streets and alleys that investing in Zhili Iron and Steel Company was a profitable business, and in less than a month, all the five million stocks were subscribed, and the stock price was still rising.

A shell company that has not yet been built, after Wang Chenhao's malicious and false speculation, obtained 50 million taels of silver just by issuing shares to raise funds. This was not unusual in Wang Chenhao's time, but it was a shocking event in the late Qing Dynasty in 1895.

Of course, not many people know the inside story of this kind of thing. And using power to make money is the unspoken rule of officialdom in the late Qing Dynasty, as long as Wang Chenhao is careful not to give people a handle, this is a windfall.

But fortunately, Wang Chenhao is just a liar, but he is not a real liar who runs away with the money. Zhili Iron and Steel Company is now an empty shell, but it will definitely be completed and put into production in a few years, and the market value of the stock will also rise at that time, and in the long run, there will be no problem at all.