Li Hongzhang's arrival has set off a lot of turmoil in Germany's political and business circles. This foreign governor, thousands of miles away, was already an old acquaintance to the Germans.

The reason why he also has a high reputation on the other side of the world is that in addition to Li Hongzhang's name of "Bismarck of the East", more importantly, he has always been a big customer of German arms dealers during the 20 years of carrying out the Westernization Movement and developing the Beiyang Army and Navy. Whether it is the guns and ordnance of the army or the ironclad warships of the navy, the German equipment has completely exploded with its British counterparts, and has become the most used standard weapon in the Beiyang Army with the highest technical level. A large number of orders from the Far East have led to the development of domestic industry in Germany, so the arms dealers with bulging pockets have an excellent impression of this gold owner.

At this time, Mi Qing was training a group of tens of thousands of new troops at the Tianjin station, intending to build it into a Far Eastern elite that could resist the Japanese enemy and Russia, which required a large number of new weapons and equipment. Most of the weapons in Beiyang's inventory were old goods purchased from Germany before 1888 (Mites had a six-year period of stagnation before the war), and most of them were lost in the Korean and Liaodong battlefields, which could not meet the needs of that army at all. Therefore, in order to achieve this goal, Mites must purchase new guns. Seeing that their food and clothing parents had this demand, the arms dealers led by Krupp Company were like chickens; They frequented the Caesar Hotel, where Li Hongzhang was staying, and tried their best to sell the most advanced arms they had developed to the financiers.

Arms dealers were courteous, as were the bankers in Germany. Due to the fact that Mites Qing paid 100 million taels of silver to Japan, the treasury was empty, and the German financial giants, led by Deutsche Bank, took advantage of the situation. With huge sums of money in their arms, they kept waving olive branches to Li Hongzhang for quick loans. Although the German government does not encourage domestic banking institutions to lend large amounts to foreign countries so as not to affect the development of domestic industries, the situation is clearly different this time.

At present, Japan, the long-cherished enemy of the Mites, has set off a new round of arms race; In this case, for the sake of the national security of his country, Mites, who had suffered from the pain of the skin, could only expand the army and navy together. Therefore, after receiving this much-needed loan, Mite Qing will inevitably use a large part of it for the purchase of arms to Germany; In this way, the money went into the pockets of the Germans again. What's more, in the current period, banks lend with a huge annual interest rate of more than 5%, relying on their donkey rolling income method, which is basically the rhythm of sitting at home and counting money until the hand cramps; And lending to foreign countries is guaranteed by the other party's industry, and there is no need to worry about the existence of dead loans, which is exactly the way these greedy capitalists dream of making money. If this industry had not made a steady profit, France would not have become a creditor of the whole world because of its unbridled lending!

In addition to arms dealers and bankers, there were also high-ranking political officials from German Chancellor Chillings First down to visit Li Hongzhang's residence. Before this, although they had had a lot of exchanges with Li Hongzhang, they were all routine courtesies in the palace, and the real game about interests was always put later. This time, this group of officials of the German government set their sights on the economic and trade relationship with Mites; They wanted to get the raw materials necessary for Germany's development from the hands of Mites.

Although Germany's industry is strong, and it is now almost on par with the world's second-largest country, the United Kingdom, but its territory is small and lacks resources; With the exception of a few resources such as coal, the vast majority of raw materials need to be imported. In order for its economy to grow rapidly and replace Britain's world hegemony, Germany needed a large and stable supply of cheap raw materials, and it also had to dump a large amount of its domestic production.

These two demands for capital accumulation were generally fulfilled by plundering the colonies; However, Germany is not an old colonialist country, and its overseas colonies are only a fraction of those of Britain and France. At this time, the colonies in Africa were all carved up by the old imperialist powers, and there were hardly any new areas to be found; In this context, it is only natural for Germany to look elsewhere outside Africa. Ottoman in the Middle East, Argentina in South America...... All those countries that are not developed have left behind the figures that Germany has worked hard to explore. After some comparison, the Germans suddenly found that the dying old empire in the Far East could meet all their needs in this regard!

Its land area is larger than that of the whole of Europe, second only to Russia with its permafrost in the world, and its coal, forests, grain, minerals and other primary resources are innumerable; Except for oil, it is almost a treasure trove of all resources. And its decay and its weakness are destined to not be able to process these primary resources into finished products, but can only sell them cheaply. And in terms of domestic product sales, it is an excellent dumping country. Compared to India, the shining jewel in the crown of the British Empire, it is home to a quarter of the world's population, and its potential demand for goods can only be described as terrifying. If Germany can take the lead and sign an agreement with them on import and export trade: import raw materials from them cheaply and sell the processed finished products at a high price, it will undoubtedly be the most ideal result!

Because of the interests of these three aspects, Germany has long wanted to collude with the mite clearing side; This visit to Germany, the number one minister of the old empire, Li Hongzhang, is simply a godsend for this group of people. In a few days, the Caesar Hotel where Li Hongzhang stayed was full of heroes, and the door was like a city; It has not been like this for seven or eight years.

As for the enthusiasm shown by the German side that is enough to melt people, Li Hongzhang had already expected it when he set out from Beijing. Like the other powers, the Germans were always concerned about the wealth of the mites, and now that they had given them this opportunity, they naturally flocked to it like vicious dogs. However, this situation is what Li Hongzhang is happy to see, the Germans can profit from it, and the mite Qing can also get what he needs most!

The goods sold by German arms dealers were able to help the mites to reorganize the army; Various loans and trade cooperation can also effectively alleviate the deficit in the treasury caused by the First Sino-Japanese indemnity. The two sides fell in love at first sight, wishful thinking, in the middle of the night, no one was around...... Ahem, it should be like holding a handful of dry wood to the fire, and sending a flag to the wind. In just a few days, nearly 10 contracts were signed: German banks issued more than 100 million marks of various loans to Mites, and Mites purchased as many as 200 cannons from the Krupp military industry alone.

However, in this win-win atmosphere of harmony and wealth, there are still elements of disharmony. Kaiser Wilhelm was originally an ambitious fellow, who had always stared at the world with a pair of bull's eyes, sharpened his knives, and was always ready to take advantage of the fire to seek German expansion abroad. The First Sino-Japanese War has completely exposed the unbearable and weak mites in front of the world's interface; Seeing Japan's rapid victory over the Mites, Wilhelm decided to speed up his expansion in the Far East and include a certain region of the Far East in Germany's map of power as soon as possible. Li Hongzhang's visit this time just gave him an excellent opportunity. At the behest of Wilhelm, German Foreign Minister Marcial visited Li Hongzhang several times in succession to discuss matters of core interests between the two countries, and each time the detailed political talks lasted for several hours. On the pretext of "forcing Japan to repay its merits," Machar not only rejected Li Hongzhang's request to "increase taxes by the pound" on German goods entering the country, but also demanded from Mites Qing all kinds of German privileges in China, including opening mines, building railways, setting up concessions, opening trade, and lowering the prices of raw materials sold to Germany, so as to enhance the position and ability to compete with the foreign powers for hegemony in the Far East. Although Li Hongzhang fought hard, because he did not have a big enough fist behind him to back up, he could only be forced to give the German "hero of returning Liao" a corresponding "reward" and agreed to most of Marchar's demands.

After ending this unpleasant episode, Li Hongzhang ushered in the long-awaited ship purchase. Unlike history, Li Hongzhang did not have much intention of buying warships from the British; On this visit, he put almost all the treasure on the Germans. And this butterfly effect is directly caused by Qingying's chaos.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Beiyang Fleet, the vast majority of its warship tonnage was built by Germany. The two ironclad ships of Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, and the two armored cruisers of Jingyuan, have withstood the most severe test in their 10-year service and in the Battle of Dadonggou; The Brandenburg, which the Germans sold to Beiyang, played a role in that naval battle. Although Li Hongzhang was not angry with Machar's tough attitude, he had to admit that the German-made warships had indeed held up a solid sky for the Beiyang Naval Division.

Compared to the flawless performance of German warships in the first naval confrontation of the steam age, the warships built by Britain and France were really somewhat lackluster. Of the 8 battleships sunk in the naval battle, 5 were built by the British, and no matter how much the British argued, it is an indisputable fact that a large number of British-made battleships were sunk. A few advanced warships, such as Yoshino, could have played a greater role in naval warfare, but because many Japanese sailors were temporarily conscripted, their combat qualities were extremely low, so these advanced British warships had nothing to speak of. The French ship was even more cheating, the 3 320-mm Ghanaian guns that had invested heavily could only be heard, and the Hashidate also sent a big piece of meat to Beiyang due to a boiler failure! Compared with the two, Li Hongzhang naturally set his sights on Germany.

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