Tianjin Machinery Bureau is located near Jiajiawa in the east of Tianjin, was founded in 1867, costing 230,000 taels, annual maintenance funds of 450,000 taels, 400,000 taels of tariffs pulled out by Tianjin Customs, 50,000 taels of naval yamen assistance, formerly known as munitions factory, in 1870 by Li Hongzhang took over, renamed Tianjin Machinery Bureau.

During Li Hongzhang's 25 years of operation in Zhili, the Tianjin Machinery Bureau became a powerful logistics pillar of the Huai Army, which can be said to have made great contributions. By the end of 1895, Tianjin Machinery Bureau covers an area of 3,000 acres, with 2,330 employees, and its fixed assets have expanded to 2.1 million taels, mainly including black medicine factory, copper hat factory, chestnut medicine factory, cotton medicine factory, smokeless medicine factory, gun and ammunition factory, machine forging factory, steel mill, mine factory, shipyard, etc., more than 30 large and small auxiliary factories, each factory is equipped with complete sets of machinery and equipment. The main products are all kinds of gunpowder, copper caps, guns and shells, and the production is relatively stable. Among them, the annual output is 320,000 kilograms of black gunpowder, 113,000 kilograms of maroon cake, 10,400 kilograms of cotton medicine, 3,600 kilograms of smokeless medicine, 4 million Mauser bullets, 28 million copper caps, and 20,000 shells of various types.

However, the bigger the scale, the more serious the loss. By the end of 1895, the Tianjin Machinery Bureau had 4.9 million taels of expenses, 3.85 million taels of income and expenditure, and a direct loss of 1.05 million taels. This does not include the arrears, of the 3.85 million taels of revenue and expenditure, there are also 1.2 million taels owed by the provinces, most of which are white slips. Because of the frequent change of local officials in the Qing Dynasty, many of them were the situation that the predecessors spent money to succeed and could not bear to pay the accounts, resulting in bad debts and headless accounts as high as 900,000 taels, and the loss was as high as 2 million taels if these were included. The indirect losses caused by the bureaucracy [***] such as cutting corners, indiscriminately filling the numbers, and eating rebates at high prices are not less than one million taels, which are the darkness under the glorious surface of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, and the problems that need to be solved urgently.

Wang Chenhao first listed the Tianjin Machinery Bureau at his doorstep as a key target for rectification, and his personal guards first controlled all the exits of the Machinery Bureau, allowing them to enter but not leaving, so as to prevent the corrupt officials and corrupt officials who had been rectified from letting loose the wind on their backers and begging them to come forward to save them.

Then, Wang Chenhao started from the top of the Machinery Bureau and rectified from top to bottom. He brought with him more than 30 officials from the Beiyang Trade Yamen, Tianjin Customs, and Navy Yamen, who were specially responsible for reconciliation and auditing, inventory counting, and random inspection of the quality and composition of raw materials. From the procurement of raw materials, to processing and manufacturing, to the sale of finished products, all aspects of the review will be carried out, and the officials who cut corners, indiscriminately fill the numbers, and eat kickbacks to make false accounts will be found out.

In the yamen of the General Office of the Machinery Bureau, Wang Chenhao and Cui Jingzhi, the former General Office, sat opposite the table and talked and laughed with each other. But the smiles of the two are obviously different in nature, the smile on Wang Chenhao's face is full of jokes, while Cui Jingzhi's smile is barely piled up.

"The adults are so diligent in government affairs at a young age, which really makes the officials admire."

"Master Urging has won the award, you have been working here for more than ten years, and it is really admirable to run like an iron bucket."

Cui Jingzhi coughed dryly, knowing that Wang Chenhao had something to say, but he didn't dare to ask more.

Thousands of abacus beads next door were crackling, Wang Chenhao didn't speak and just listened pleasantly, but in Cui Jingzhi's ears, it was like a talisman. Every time he heard the results of a certain accounting, he couldn't help but shiver, and cold sweat broke out from his forehead.

At the time of liquidation at the end of the year, Cui Jingzhi had already submitted a prepared account to Li Hongzhang's people for inspection. But now Li Hongzhang suddenly appointed Wang Chenhao to act as the machine bureau without greeting, and Wang Chenhao's surprise attack made him too late to notify the account office to prepare, so that the account problem was fully exposed.

Accountants and accountants are transferred from Tongwenguan and customs, they have mastered the most advanced international purchase, sale and inventory account analysis technology, especially a few foreigners in the customs, they are the most meticulous and conscientious, and constantly discover the black hole in the internal accounts of Tianjin Machinery Bureau.

"My lord, the results are in."

When an accountant presented the final accounting results to Wang Chenhao, Cui Jingzhi suddenly stood up, her eyes were fixed on the things in Wang Chenhao's hand, and the cold sweat on her forehead was already dripping down.

"Every year, there is a deficit of at least seven or eight hundred thousand taels, and after twelve years of operation, nearly ten million taels of silver have disappeared from the books, Cui Jingzhi, you are so bold."

Wang Chenhao shouted, so frightened that Cui Jingzhi suddenly stumbled and fell to the ground with a plop.

"Spare your life! Spare your life! ”

"If you want to live, spit out all the money you have swallowed over the years, including you and your partner."

Nearly 10 million taels of silver were in deficit, and this account would be a huge fortune if it could be obtained. Wang Chenhao expected Cui Jingzhi to spit it out, but the result disappointed him.

I saw Cui Jingzhi suddenly smile bitterly and said, "Adults should know some rules, can I, a small fourth-grade official, swallow this huge sum of tens of millions of taels of silver?" ”

Wang Chenhao took a deep breath and asked, "So the problem is complicated?" ”

Cui Jingzhi silently said that he neither admitted nor denied it, but he didn't seem to be afraid of death anymore, and actually stood up by himself, but he seemed to have suddenly aged a lot.

Seeing Cui Jingzhi's expression and movements, Wang Chenhao was a little disappointed, he should have thought of this result, it seems that the water is very deep and the fish is very big. So he smiled bitterly and said, "You just don't have to talk about this expression?" ”

"I admit all the deficits, but I spent the silver." Cui Jingzhi just smiled bitterly and stopped making a sound.

Wang Chenhao felt that there was no need to ask, he was not interested in solving the case and getting to the bottom of it, his purpose in taking Cui Jingzhi was just to make an example of chickens and monkeys, so as to facilitate the rectification of the Machine Bureau.

So, Wang Chenhao waved his hand, and his own soldiers stepped forward to take Cui Jingzhi away. It's better to leave that kind of headache to Li Hongzhang to deal with.

There are a total of more than 2,000 people in the Machine Bureau, but there are more than 700 officials and leaders, and this huge redundancy is really a headache for Wang Chenhao. However, fortunately, Wang Chenhao directly arrested more than 300 officials of all sizes in the Machinery Bureau, dismissed more than 200 leaders, and punished more than 300 workers' leaders by virtue of the account deficit case, leaving only a group of people with excellent skills at the grassroots level.

Wang Chenhao only kept the core skeleton of the machine bureau, and all the meat that did not meet the requirements was removed, and then he was making up the meat that met his requirements, so as to complete the rectification of the machine bureau.

At this time, most of the weapons production lines of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau were outdated products, and Wang Chenhao reached agreements with the German Mauser company and the Krupp company respectively to introduce a full set of Mauser 95 rifle and gun ammunition production lines, as well as related technical authorizations. Introduced the 80, 105, 120 and 150 Krupp gun production lines of the Krupp plant and related technology authorization. At the same time, Mauser and Krupp provided a group of experts and engineers to China to be responsible for the installation of production lines, technology transfer and training of related technical personnel.

Tianjin Machinery Bureau has two 30-ton steel furnaces, which are dedicated to supplying its own steel products. However, Wang Chenhao's Zhili Iron and Steel Company was preparing to build large-scale steel smelting and rolling, so it happened to take the opportunity to introduce Krupp steel armor smelting and forging technology from Krupp.

Since the Tianjin Machinery Bureau has been approved to change from a government office to an official supervision and commercial office, Wang Chenhao felt that he could just take the opportunity to dig the foot of the "state-owned enterprise", so he explained the idea to Li Hongzhang, and after obtaining Li Hongzhang's consent, Wang Chenhao obtained the entire Machinery Bureau with an annual lease fee of 500,000 taels, so the name of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau was changed to Beiyang Weapons.