Li Yongji's current identity is the general manager of the Songjiang Prefecture Foreign Affairs Committee and the Qingpu County Youth League Training Supervisor.

Among them, the general plan is the local garrison force, that is, the establishment of the green battalion soldiers, but the addition of foreign commissions shows that this is a fictitious position, just to give Li Yongji a military attache status with a positive nine grades, and the Qingpu County regimental training supervision is Li Yongji's real actual position, in which the supervision is the written formal line of the general office, which is the same as the general office.

Don't underestimate the addition of Qingpu County in front of the supervision of group training, with this word, it shows that the entire Qingpu County's large and small group training is under the control of Li Yongji, and in terms of power, it is completely different from a small group training in a township and township in the past.

Of course, this power to govern the county's regimental training is not an official appointment from the imperial court, but actually comes from the appointment of Hezhi County, and of course it has to be approved by Songjiang Prefecture, but there is such a big credit as the extermination of Wang bandits before, and this matter is naturally not difficult.

Having said so much, in fact, it means one, that is, on the one-third of an acre of land in Qingpu County, Li Yongji is also a person, plus he stays in the Yangxinju camp all day long, and he can't see him when idlers are light.

However, the person who visited this time was something that Li Yongji had to meet, because the other party's origin was too big, at least the current Li Yongji could not be seen, unless he wanted to rebel now.

The person who came was named Yang Fang, and he was just a businessman with an alternate Taoist, and he was not said to be an official official, and he was not in line with Li Yongji, but he came this time, but he had a warrant from Su Songtai and Wu Xu, that is, a letter of introduction.

Theoretically, Li Yongji, the general office of regimental training, is also under the jurisdiction of Su Songtaibing, so Wu Xu is Li Yongji's top boss, and he has a letter of introduction from his top boss.

Of course, just like this, Li Yongji can also find an excuse not to see, after all, the warrant is just a private letter of introduction, not an order, and Su Songtai's jurisdiction over local regimental training has always been sparse, which is the so-called listening to propaganda and not listening to tunes, so it doesn't matter if Li Yongji really ignores it. But the problem is that in addition to the warrant for Yang Fang, he also has a letter of introduction from his father, so the situation is different.

In this way, Li Yongji had to put aside the matter of explaining how to plant high-yield rice, and he led his troops back to the camp to meet this Yang Daotai.

When they actually met, Li Yongji found that the other party was not one person, but three people, one of whom was obviously the other party's subordinate, and the other person was a little surprised, because it was a tall white young man, that is, a foreigner!

After meeting and sitting down, Li Yongji learned that the foreigner could speak Chinese, and there was a Chinese name called Wall.

Hearing this name, Li Yongji immediately frowned, because he felt that this name was too familiar.

Wait, Wall? Yang Fang? Could it be this Wall, the leader of the foreign guns? And this Yang Fang is the guy who later married his daughter to him?

Sure enough, after listening to Wall's experience, especially hearing that he is currently working as a first mate on the gunboat "Confucius", which is almost exactly the same as the experience of that Wall, which makes Li Yongji finally sure that this tall and handsome white young man should be that Wall.

After a brief introduction to each other, Yang Fang quickly explained his intention, it turned out that the other party wanted to do a business with Li Yongji, and the content of the business was to buy a batch of firearms from Li Yongji, in other words, he wanted to buy arms with Li Yongji!

This made Li Yongji stunned, and then asked the other party how he knew that he had arms, and the other party did not hide it, and quickly told the ins and outs of the matter.

It turned out that the problem was with the security department.

At the beginning, when the Wang family was destroyed and the new recruits began to be recruited again, Li Yongji handed over the business operation to his father in order to concentrate on training, and in order to protect their safety, he deliberately set up a security department, which is currently headed by Li Jinbao, with a limit of 1,000 people, weapons and equipment provided by Li Yongji, and his father is responsible for the salary.

In consideration of safety, and in order to facilitate unified maintenance, the weapons and equipment of these security personnel are the same as those of the Jingwu Army, that is, they all use Sharps rifles and Colt Navy revolvers, at most the musket propellants are gray gunpowder, unlike the regular army of the Jingwu Army, which has basically been replaced with smokeless gunpowder. In any case, the equipment of the security department personnel is enough to protect the house.

But the problem is that because the security department is a family care home, the soldiers' sense of discipline and secrecy is not strong, so the weapons in their hands have gradually become known with the passage of time, especially every time Li Zhengxiang goes out to talk to people about business, there is always such a team of bodyguards with loaded guns around him, and it is difficult not to attract the attention of others.

Ordinary people just look twice, but coincidentally, some time ago, Yangfang, who was in Shanghai, also saw these weapons because he was going to come over to buy a large number of pearls.

Yang Fang is no one else, he is very sensitive to Western goods, especially Western muskets, so he can see at a glance that those guns are the best of foreign guns, but he doesn't know how powerful they are.

After that, he had a more heart, and took the opportunity to talk about business, and kept drinking and making friends with Li Zhengxiang, who had also just obtained the status of alternate Dao, and sure enough, when Li Zhengxiang drank about the same, he used the wine to let those guards actually practice, and it was this drill that scared Yang Fang.

Without him, just because of this exercise, the targets were all 100 meters away, and these soldiers fired at the target 100 meters away, and the hit rate was as high as 50%, and the rate of fire was extremely fast, and the musket was also very powerful.

Yang Fang had also been in contact with foreign guns before, and knew that in the regular armies of the British and French, the actual range of foreign guns used by soldiers was only about 35 meters, and if it exceeded 35 meters, the accuracy was much worse. It was also recently that I heard that they had changed to a Mine rifle, which has rifling and can also fire a front-loading Minie bullet, which makes the accurate shooting distance between 50 meters and 100 meters, but the rate of fire and power are far worse than those Sharps on the bodyguards.

Because he liked it very much, Yang Fang asked if he could also buy a self-defense, but Li Zhengxiang was probably because of alcohol, or maybe he could talk to Yang Fang, so he gave him a Sharps plus a Colt Navy revolver.

Anyway, in Li Zhengxiang's opinion, his son has this kind of gun, and every month his soldiers break and wear out more than a dozen rifles and pistols when they practice, and it is nothing to give one or two to the other party.

But Yang Fang didn't know, he felt that it was too valuable, after all, he was just fond and interested in it before, but when Yang Fang excused himself, Li Zhengxiang said with a big tongue that his son had this kind of gun, and he had more than 10,000 people, almost everyone had a Sharps, saying that this gun was very cheap and it was not a problem.

Hearing what the other party said, Yang Fang accepted it, and when he went back, Yang Fang couldn't put it down with these two muskets, but Yang Fang didn't know much about this after all, except for knowing the Colt Navy Revolver, he didn't know much about the other gun.

Out of curiosity, he deliberately went to find a foreigner who was said to have fought in the war and was proficient in firearms in various countries, and then asked Sharps what kind of gun it was, how powerful it was, and what the price was.

As a result, when Wall saw it, he immediately recognized that this was a breech-loading rifle produced by the Sharps Rifle Company in the United States, called the Sharps rifle, but he couldn't say the specific model, he only knew that this rifle was very sophisticated, but the price was very expensive, and it was a minority firearm in the United States and a toy for the rich.

Later, when Wall actually fired a few shots, he asserted that the Sharps rifle was a fine product, and that the Colt Navy revolver was also a fine product, and even in the West, these two rifles were absolutely high-end goods, and ordinary soldiers could not get them.

This is still Li Yongji's original use of the musket propellant for the members of the security department as a precaution, all of which are gray gunpowder based on potassium perchlorate, and if it is a colt used by senior officers of the Jingwu Army, then their pistol propellant will be smokeless gunpowder, which may surprise Wall even more.

However, after listening to Wall's words, Yang Fang said that someone here had organized a group exercise of more than 10,000 people, and each person had a Sharps, but Wall even said that it was impossible, saying that there were really 10,000 Sharps, not to mention that they could go sideways in China, even against the same number of British and French powers, they would be abused.

After it was over, he also said, no need for 10,000, as long as 3,000 people are equipped with Sharps, what Taiping army, no matter how many people he comes, it will be wiped out immediately!

Originally, this was idle talk, but Yang Fang took it to heart, and later went to Li Zhengxiang again, and found that 10,000 people did not say anything, at least the 1,000 people around Li Zhengxiang were almost all Sharps each.

When he told Wall about this, Wall was also stunned, a thousand Sharps rifles are also a big deal in the United States, after all, Wall has been in contact with them before, and knows that an ordinary Sharps rifle can start at $40.

What is the concept of $40 at this time? One of the policies of the Treasury Department after the American Civil War was as follows: "Beginning January 1, 1879, gold will be exchanged for green-backed notes at pre-war parity of $20 per ounce." ”

In other words, before the American Civil War, the "parity" of gold was $20 per ounce, which means that one dollar could buy 0.05 ounces of gold, that is, one dollar could be exchanged for 1.4 grams of gold.

Then 40 US dollars is 56 grams of gold, according to the price of silver in the United States at that time, about 1 to 16, that is, about 25 taels of silver!

25 taels of silver and a handful of Sharps are definitely a high price, after all, a thousand handfuls is 25,000 taels of silver, and 10,000 people are 250,000 taels of silver!

Of course, the price is only one aspect, and if it really works, it's worth it. But the point is that this gun is said to be produced in very low quantities, and it is a commodity that money cannot buy.

At least Mr. Wall said that it was the first time he had seen such a gun in China, and that he had never heard of a Sharps rifle being sold in China before. After all, this gun is also a rarity in the United States, and as for Europe, it is estimated that only some nobles who are enthusiasts of firearms will collect so few.

Hearing that it was so rare, Yang Fang became intrigued, and then he sent someone to investigate Li Yongji's Jingwu Legion training, and found that the Yangxinju camp was heavily guarded, and the warning area of the Jingwu Army camp within a radius of twenty miles was very high, and outsiders could not enter it at all.

But as far as the subordinate sent by Yang Fang didn't go deep into it and saw anything, the sound of ping-pong could be heard all day long in the vicinity, and it was said that the nearby residents were used to it. They also said that this kind of gunfire is every day, but it is usually during the day, and it is quiet at night, of course, sometimes there are shots at night**, but that is relatively rare.

In addition, about the folk legend of the Jingwu Army, the subordinate also heard about it, and knew that the Jingwu Army was a very short-term army, and he dared to come to the door to kill the whole family for the sake of a soldier's housework.

After listening to the report of the subordinates, Yang Fang once again became interested in Jingwujun and Li Yongji, so he had the idea of getting a glimpse of what was going on. In addition, I also feel that if the price is right, I will buy a batch of such muskets and form a team like this myself.

After all, the shape of the Qing army has not been good recently, although the Jiangnan camp is still there, but it always feels mysterious, others don't know, he Yang Fang doesn't know what virtues are in the Jiangnan camp? Therefore, Yang Fang felt that he should take precautions and start a group exercise to protect himself, so as not to be too late to get in a hurry.

After all, as far as Yang Fang knows, the foreigners are currently not dealing with the Qing court, they are at war, and a force of more than 10,000 people has just landed in Zhoushan, and the future situation is difficult to say, so nothing is safe, or there is a force of their own.

In terms of money, it is easy to say, and there are some methods, such as finding people to hold group exercises together, asking everyone to donate, and you can also get a tax card through the government, and people don't have to worry, and the homeless people want as many as they want, and then find foreigners to train as officers. In other words, the group training can be made into a partnership between everyone, so that everyone can raise funds together, as long as the chief officer of the group training is his own person, it is not a problem.

The key is weapons, and good weapons are hard to buy.

Immediately afterwards, Yang Fang found Li Zhengxiang with a tentative mind, hoping to buy a batch of Sharps rifles and Colt revolvers. As a result, Li Zhengxiang woke up at this time, and he regretted it slightly, but seeing the other party's disappointed appearance, he couldn't bear it a little, so he said that he couldn't be the master, and he had to be his youngest son to make the decision, and if you want to talk, talk to him in person.

After that, Li Zhengxiang gave Yang Fang a letter of introduction, without mentioning anything else, just saying some good things about Yang Fang for everyone to meet.

Lao Tzu said it didn't count, his son had the final say, and that son was said to be less than fourteen years old, and his personality was said to be a little impulsive and irritable (killing the whole family for a soldier), which made Yang Fang feel very weird and felt that Li Zhengxiang was not sincere enough.

After all, facing an impulsive kid who has never met and is said to kill his whole family for a trivial matter, Yang Fang still feels more comfortable talking about business with an adult businessman like Li Zhengxiang, and there is also a topic to talk about.

However, Yang Fang is now very enthusiastic about these firearms, and he is even more worried about the recent situation, with a strong sense of crisis, and his heart to run a group training is becoming more and more enthusiastic. So for the sake of insurance, Yang Fang asked for a handwritten letter from his friend, Su Song Taidao Wu Xu, who can manage the group training, so that when he meets Li Yongji to talk about the arms business, he can also make the other party have a scruple and not open his mouth unscrupulously.

Thinking about it in Yangfang, the other party is a child, as long as he says something good, he can always get some arms like a donkey, even if he can't buy arms, it will be very beneficial to be able to deal with such a strong firepower in advance with such a strong firepower group training, anyway, it will be beneficial.