Li Hongzhang bowed three times in the direction of the Forbidden City with difficulty, and suddenly his body tilted and fell to the ground, Lin Yuan hurriedly stepped forward to help, and then shouted outside the house: "Lord Li is no good, you guys come in quickly."

When Li Jingfang heard this, he immediately brought in with Imperial Physician Li and all his family members, and Imperial Physician Li stepped forward, touched Li Hongzhang's pulse, and then said helplessly: "Lord Zhongtang has already gone." ”

Li Jingfang and all the family members immediately cried, Lin Yuan comforted them a few words, came out of the house, walked on the street, and suddenly saw a few Confucian students on the road hurriedly running forward, Lin Yuan thought, "What's wrong with them?" Did they see any danger in the air? ”

Lin Yuan thought for a moment: "No, they seem to be happy to look at them, as if there is something in front of them that makes them happy." Lin Yuan stepped forward quickly, grabbed a Confucian and asked, "What's the matter with you running in such a hurry?" ”

The Confucian said: "Today, Lord Xu Jingcheng and Lord Weng Tongyi are going to have a public debate in the Guozi Jian Qin School Pavilion, and everyone who came to the capital to take the exam wants to listen. ”

Lin Yuan knew that Xu Jingcheng was a person who was once the Qing government's minister to Germany, one of the main figures of the late Qing Dynasty's Westernization Movement, and he contributed a lot in the process of the Qing government's purchase of the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan ships from Germany.

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "Li Hongzhang told me that Weng Tongyi is against the construction of the navy, why don't I listen to it and see what the reasons for his opposition are." Lin Yuan thought of this, so he followed behind everyone and walked towards the Guozi Prison.

Guozijian was the highest institution of learning in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the Guozijian was originally heavily guarded outside, but today Xu Jingcheng and Weng Tonggong wanted to debate openly, so no one stopped Lin Yuan when he entered, Lin Yuan deliberately hid his identity and stood among the people.

Seeing Xu Jingcheng and Weng Tonggong sitting opposite each other on the high platform, and everyone was standing under the stage, Lin Yuan thought to himself: "These two people represent two views on naval construction, and they are debating here to make their views recognized by the people." ”

At this moment, I saw Xu Jingcheng stand up first, turned around and called an entourage, this entourage held out a canvas-like thing, Lin Yuan saw that it was a magnified photo, but because the photography techniques of this era were not very advanced, the photo was not clear, Lin Yuan could only vaguely see that it seemed to be a monster statue on it, and he couldn't see the material.

Everyone was also discussing, speculating about what this was, and at this moment Xu Jingcheng spoke: "This is what I photographed at the Berlin Museum in Germany, but does anyone know what this is?" ”

One of the people said: "I know that this is a fox, according to legend, the dragon gave birth to nine sons, one of which is a monkey." ”

Xu Jingcheng said with a smile: "Okay, even if you have insight, this is exactly the Fox, and it is made of pure gold, the carving is excellent, rare in the world, such a fine craftsmanship, and only my Chinese people can complete it, do you know why this Foxy is in the Berlin Museum?" ”

Everyone did not answer, Xu Jingcheng continued: "This statue was originally in the Old Summer Palace, but in the tenth year of Xianfeng, England and France invaded Beijing and burned down this garden, and since then my ancestors' things have been scattered overseas. ”

When everyone heard this, they all sighed, Xu Jingcheng asked his entourage to take out a bunch of photos, this time the photos were smaller than the last time, but they were also much clearer, despite this, the things on it were messy and difficult to identify, and everyone talked about it, and they couldn't see what it was.

Xu Jingcheng casually called a young lifter and said, "Come and see what is on this?" ”

The young man walked up to the photograph, bent down to look closer, looked at it for a while, and then grew his mouth in surprise and sighed, "Is this ......?"

Xu Jingcheng nodded, the young man actually took two steps back, his face was full of horror, Xu Jingcheng replied: "These are all corpses, these corpses are our compatriots, they were all killed by the British!" ”

Everyone couldn't help but exclaim when they heard this, Xu Jingcheng said helplessly: "This is the situation when the British and French forces invaded Beijing in the tenth year of Xianfeng, burned and looted, and there is one more thing I will definitely feel uncomfortable when I say it, but I still have to say it." Speaking of this, Xu Jingcheng deliberately paused, and waited until everyone gathered before saying: "The people above are all women, and they have all been insulted before they were alive, and they were all naked when they died. ”

As soon as Xu Jingcheng's words fell, the sound of scolding foreigners suddenly sounded on the field, Xu Jingcheng did not stop him, and waited until the voice subsided before he continued: "Have you ever wondered where the root cause of these tragedies comes from? If we don't have a navy, sooner or later, these tragedies will be repeated! ”

Xu Jingcheng's remarks caused everyone to discuss: "That's right, we should build a navy." "We're going to build warships, and we're going to England and France to take revenge." "yes, get all our stuff back."

After Xu Jingcheng finished speaking, Weng Tongyi stood up and said: "What Lord Xu said is very true, the people of Taixi barbarians are not sons of man, and I can only resist it by self-improvement, but Weng has one thing to ask Mr. Xu, everyone knows that this navy needs warships, and I don't know where our warships in the Qing Dynasty come from?" ”

Xu Jingcheng said: "The German ships are strong and the guns are strong, and the power of the two ships in Dingyuan and Zhenyuan has been obvious to all, so the purchase of German warships is the best choice." ”

Weng Tongyi said: "Then how much silver does it cost to buy a battleship?" ”

Xu Jingcheng couldn't help but feel embarrassed when he heard this, he stopped talking, and Weng Tonggong said: "Lord Xu also participated in the purchase of the Dingyuan Ship and the Zhenyuan Ship, how much money was spent, and he won't forget it so quickly, right?" I still remember, I can do the math for you. ”

"This Dingyuan ship costs as much as 1,119,998 taels of silver, and the Zhenyuan ship also costs as much as 1,100,000 taels of silver, these are only the money for the hull, the steam engine on it, more than a dozen guns, including ammunition are all calculated separately, this alone has as much as 530,000 taels of silver, these warships have to be driven back from Germany, it is impossible to use Chinese crews in this process, because the Chinese crew is not familiar with this ship."

"So this ship must be driven by foreigners when it sails back to China, and the cost of coal along the way is as much as 560,000 taels, you calculate, these money add up to 3 million taels of silver, and after buying it back, we have to buy coal every year, and we have to replace ammunition, and we have to train, and the coal burning alone has as much as 100,000 taels of silver a year, you say, where do we get this silver?"

Xu Jingcheng said: "Lord Weng is the head of the household department, in charge of the world's money and grain, is there no silver in the treasury?" ”

Weng Tongyi smiled and said, "Where is the silver in the treasury!" Some time ago, Lin Yuan recovered the lost land in the Northeast, and these silver were used for seventy-seven eighty-eight, and now we have to borrow silver from other countries, and some time ago we just borrowed 30 million taels of silver from the United States for emergency relief. ”