In April 1891, the MacDonald's business spies in Britain sent back the news that Japan had just placed a new order with Britain for a fast cruiser with a displacement of more than 4,000 tons and a top speed of more than 25 knots. Delivery was requested in the first half of 1893.

"With a displacement of 4500 tons, six 6-inch rapid-fire guns, and a speed of 25 knots, this is not the later cruiser "Yoshino". It seems that the First Sino-Japanese War is about to begin, but the strange thing is that why there have been no Japanese war bonds in the capital market? With this information, Scrooge sighed.

In his previous life, Scrooge had seen some materials that mentioned that Japan sold a large number of government bonds in the world capital market in order to win the First Sino-Japanese War. The First Sino-Japanese War was actually an adventure for Japan to gamble on its national fortunes. In the war, if the Manchu government could continue to grit its teeth and hold on for a few more days, or even delay the peace talks for two more days, the Japanese government would be unable to pay the principal and interest of the huge amount of national bonds that were about to mature, and would fall into a general financial collapse.

Scrooge believed this statement as well. Although he knew that after the Meiji Restoration, Japan's national strength was greatly enhanced, but after all, Japan was only so big, and the Manchu Qing Dynasty was so big, and although the Manchu Qing Dynasty's organizational ability and ability to mobilize national strength were certainly not comparable to Japan's, Scrooge still felt that in any case, the basic plate of "my Great Qing" was much larger than that of Japan, and it would be absolutely difficult for Japan to gain the upper hand in an arms race with "My Great Qing." Scrooge also knew that at present, the strength of the Japanese navy has surpassed that of the Beiyang Naval Division, which has not purchased new warships for many years. And if this warship is built smoothly and joins the Japanese Navy, then once this warship has formed combat effectiveness, the Japanese fleet will have an overwhelming advantage over the Beiyang Naval Division. It's just that even the cruiser "Yoshino" has already begun to be built, and where is the Japanese government debt that has been promised?

Originally, Scrooge also planned to carry out some operation with Japan's war treasury bonds, on the one hand, to take this opportunity to make some money, and on the other hand, he could also easily pit the "Great Japanese Empire". For the sake of the country, pull me to clear up. However, the situation today is completely different from Scrooge's expectations.

"Let Bond bring me the information about Japan's economic situation over the past few years and show me." Scrooge put down the information in his hand and said to his secretary Van Bitten.

"Yes, sir."

……

In the afternoon, a large amount of information about Japan's economic situation in the past few years was placed on Scrooge's desk. After carefully studying this information, Scrooge had to admit that it seemed that he had been deceived by those "truths" and "secrets" in his previous life.

This information shows that in the past few years, Japan's financial revenue has been on a par with that of the "Great Qing Dynasty." Considering that the administrative efficiency of the Japanese government is much higher than that of the Qing Dynasty, and considering that Japan is a smaller country, relatively speaking, other daily expenses can also be less, which will naturally allow them to invest more of their fiscal revenue in armaments. In this way, there was no need to borrow national debt, and Japan could easily overwhelm the Manchus in this arms race. In this race, the one who really needs to rely on loan sharks to take risks is the one who clears up. But I'm not going to gamble on the fortunes of the country for this trip.

"It seems that there is no chance to rely on national debt to pit small Japan, maybe after the war starts, you can rely on loans to the Manchus to pit the Manchus." Scrooge knew that after losing the First Sino-Japanese War, our Qing Dynasty paid Japan a huge amount of compensation, and with the little financial income of our Great Qing Dynasty, we could not afford to pay such compensation at all, so we had to borrow a large amount of money from banks in various countries and borrow a large amount of usury. Take advantage of this opportunity and make a lot of money. It's just that such a "national disaster wealth" should be distributed?

"Why don't you send it? If you don't make money, the heavens will be destroyed! Besides, the sooner something like the Manchu Qing Dynasty is swept into the garbage heap of history, the more beneficial it will be to the people of the country. Therefore, for the sake of China's future, the Manchu Qing must be overthrown. Anything that can weaken the Manchu Qing is a righteous thing, and it can be done! Shi Gaozhi thought like this in his heart, so he immediately began to think about how to pit the Manchu Qing, although the money of the Manchu Qing was ultimately paid by the Chinese people, and it was the Chinese people who suffered for this. Of course, these things were ignored by the particularly conscientious Scrooge. However, Scrooge is still very sincere in general, at least, his thoughts in the first half are definitely very sincere.

Speaking of which, the Beiyang Fleet of my Qing Dynasty is really not bad in terms of displacement and scale alone. Compared with the original historical Beiyang Naval Division, the scale is even larger. And it can't be said that there is no credit for Scrooge. I think that at the beginning, in order to make money, Scrooge preemptively got out such a big killer as a steam turbine, and as a result, almost all warships in the world became obsolete in terms of power, especially the British Royal Navy, which had the most warships.

The British's approach was to renovate their fleet while mastering this high technology. That's a lot of money it takes. However, after calculations, the British found that after using the new power, with the increase in the speed of the warship, the sea area that a warship can control has also increased significantly. In this way, the requirements for the number of warships can be reduced considerably. Therefore, on the one hand, the British quietly carried out power modifications on those capital ships and relatively new warships, and at the same time sold those extra warships that had little transformation value around the world. Of course, these ships are naturally "affordable" and "cost-effective". As a result, some small countries, weak countries, and poor countries took advantage of this opportunity to buy a lot of second-hand warships of the British. Among them were the Beiyang Naval Division and the Japanese Navy. Of course, some countries in South America, such as Chile, Brazil, Argentina, etc., have also bought a lot of these second-hand goods.

Of course, these countries soon discovered that the speed of the warships they bought was very different from the cutting-edge warships, but the demand for the control area of the warships in these countries was lower than that of the United Kingdom, so they still felt that the deal they had made was still very good. And I felt that I had picked up a big bargain, and after buying a lot of British second-hand goods in one go, my desire to buy a new ship plummeted. Even some of the deals that had already been negotiated with Morgan MacDonald Shipyard were affected and their contracts were cancelled. For Scrooge, this is really a bit of a shooting in the foot.

However, Scrooge knew that the purchase of such warships was definitely not a good deal. Because the power system on these warships, as well as some other things, will be discontinued in a short period of time. In this way, there will be many problems in the maintenance of these warships, even in peacetime, the maintenance cost will continue to rise, and once it comes to wartime, the maintenance will only become more and more difficult. In fact, the fleets that have not been industrialized by purchase are in a sense only disposable fleets. Because once these warships are damaged in battle, due to their weak industrial strength, it is almost impossible to repair these warships in time to restore their combat effectiveness.

For example, in the original Sino-Japanese War in history, the warships of the Beiyang Naval Division were damaged in the Battle of the Yellow Sea until the end of the war, and the Beiyang Fleet was completely destroyed. This is why after the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Beiyang Fleet has been staying in the military port, although Li Hongzhang repeatedly ordered the fleet to attack, but the Beiyang Fleet has never left the port. Later, in World War II, the aircraft carrier Yorktown, which was heavily damaged in the Battle of the Coral Sea, returned to Pearl Harbor, and the United States, as the world's largest industrial power, took only three days to restore the almost sunken aircraft carrier to combat effectiveness, and let it miraculously catch up with the decisive Battle of Midway.

Scrooge remembered another incident from the original history. After the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Beiyang Naval Division had almost no ships available because of the difficulty in repairing warships, and at this time, Li Hongzhang learned that Chile had also imported a fast cruiser from Britain that was very similar to the cruiser "Yoshino". Considering the power of the "Yoshino" in a series of naval battles (almost all the warships of the Beiyang Naval Division that were sunk and damaged had shells fired by this warship), Li Hongzhang planned to buy the ship back from the Chileans at a high price. It was only later that due to the obstruction of the Japanese, it did not succeed.

"If we find a way to get a South American country or simply the Federal Navy to order one or two similar warships from us at the right time, and then wait until after the Great War in the Yellow Sea, when Li Hongzhang is looking for warships all over the world, we just build these warships, and then we can not let Li Hongzhang pay liquidated damages for us and sell them to Li Hongzhang at a price much higher than the market? This is also considered to be seen in the party. For the sake of the country, pull me to clear the day. We can even use this to blackmail Li Hongzhang and the Manchu government to gain more benefits for us. For example, when it comes to post-war reparations, priority must be given to our banks. Another example is the privilege of building railways and mining in China. At the same time, this can also give Japan a small pit...... What a genius I'm a genius! Scrooge thought without patriotism and shame, and finally he decided to do it.

"Let our men first publicize in the newspapers the threat of the Japanese warships to the Kingdom of Hawaii, and then let the Pacific Fleet make a request for new fast cruisers......," Scrooge finally told the secretary.