Slow? It doesn't matter, the speed of the Japanese fleet is not open, and the design speed of 16 knots is absolutely enough, even if it has been reduced due to a period of service, it can definitely fight with the warships of this team. Overweight? It doesn't matter, in the big bathtub of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea, being able to fight and resist is the last word. Worse sailing performance is fine. As the name suggests, the ship's side-chord firepower is definitely strong with 3 9.2-inch guns and 5 6-inch rapid-fire guns, and the main equipment with a sidechord thickness of 10 inches is enough to resist the shelling of other warships in Beiyang except Dingzhen. The comprehensive combat power is stronger than that of the Dingzhen No. 2 ship of the Beiyang Naval Division. And this time it was the British who dealt with the old ships, and the price would not be very high, and compared to Dingzhen, its service and maintenance situation was much stronger, and there was such a cheap advantage, of course the Japanese would not let it go, so under the instruction of the Japanese government, Aoki Shuzo hurriedly went to the British Admiralty to negotiate related matters. And Xue Fucheng, who had Gailin's help, got the news the day after Aoki Shuzo went to the British Embassy, and sent a telegram to Beiyang on the same day. Li Hongzhang was naturally very shocked after receiving the telegram, and when discussing how to deal with it, the telegram of the Nanyang request to buy a battleship was sent to the center, and it was transferred from the center to Li Hongzhang. In addition to arguing at the court, the specific matters have to be handed over to Liu Buchan and Ding Ruchang, and about the purchase of new warships by Japan and Nanyang, they will naturally be handed over to Xu Jie and Xue Fucheng.

"The Japanese Navy's eyes are still very poisonous." Seeing the intelligence that Japan was going to buy 2 cruisers of the Brute class, Xu Jie still agreed with the Japanese vision. After all, fighting against the low-speed team in the bathtub, what seaworthiness, speed is nonsense. Being able to fight and resist is the best choice. It is conceivable that if these two Brute-class ships are purchased by the Japanese, the advantage of the Beiyang Naval Division Dingzhen 2 ship will of course be gone, and the other warships in the Beiyang Sea? Well, a real half-hour battleship. EVEN THE **-CLASS LIGHTLY ARMORED CRUISER WILL DEFINITELY NOT BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND THE BRUTAL 234MM MAIN GUN. Plus the book may buy an Edgar-class 1st class cruiser. Beiyang will be thrown farther away, even greater than the historical gap. Although Xu Jie was skeptical about the book's ability to pay, these two battleships were ready-made warships or old ships. It will not exceed £450,000 at most. Considering the Fuji Hachishima that Motoko ordered after the First Sino-Japanese War and the cruisers purchased during the war, (in fact, before the war, Motoko had invited Armstrong Shipyard to design these two battleships for him.) So even if there was no Sino-Japanese War, Fuji and Yashima would still have to be ordered) If the book grits its its teeth, it is not a problem to buy two arrogant.

After comparing the warships that the British government was preparing to sell this time, Xu Jie found that this barbarian class was really the best cargo among them, and it was also the most suitable for the Nanyang naval division, its speed was slightly faster than the cruisers in the Nanyang, and the armament and protection were also good, and the other warships were either too small or too old. In addition, the price was not very high, so Xu Jie decided that if Nanyang really wanted to buy a new type of warship, Xu Jie still built a new type of warship, and Lao Li persuaded Liu Kunyi to buy this class of warship with Japan. Although Xu Jie was quite ashamed of the appearance of the Nanyang Navy Division in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, in line with the idea that it was better for his own people to buy it than for the other party to buy it, Xu Jie decided to go to England by himself if it was really not possible.

If you want to succeed in snapping up, your own capital preparation is indeed a very important aspect, but Liu Kunyi is only a governor after all, and the money he takes out is limited. So it is unrealistic to expect Nanyang to hold down the Japanese in terms of price. Therefore, Xu Jie decided to start from the British side in the rush purchase plan, on the one hand, to have a good relationship with the British to see if he could suppress this business with Japan, of course, this idea is very good, but the effect may not meet expectations. After all, now the British Prime Minister himself is pro-Japanese. This can only delay the creation of obstacles, but cannot solve the problem at the root. On the other hand, it depends on the operation of Gailin, the Japanese must issue treasury bonds if they want to buy warships, but the treasury bonds must be purchased by someone to convert them into pounds, so Xu Jie plans to join forces with Gaylin to block Japan's national bonds, reduce the funds that Japan can use, and if necessary, launch an economic war against Japan in advance, after all, it is now the second half of 1890, and some of the yarn factories opened by Chinese businessmen in Nanyang in Daqing and other places have begun to operate, and it has become possible to block the export of Japanese gauze! …,

And just when Xu Jie, Xue Fucheng and others were thinking about how to help Nanyang buy ships and at the same time hinder the plans of the Japanese to buy ships, Nanyang was also preparing for the selection of people to go abroad, before that, Liu Kunyi accepted Peng Yulin's construction and decided to buy new warships from the British, although the Italians' **-class cruisers were already well-known in the Qing naval circles, but Liu Kunyi thought that the Italians' shipbuilding technology was still inferior to the British, and the ** class was still small, the armor protection was weak, and the speed was fast. But other ships can't form with it, so you can't let a 5000-ton cruiser go out on its own, right? As for the newly built cruiser by the Italians, although various channels such as Guò Beiyang and the Italian Embassy in Daqing learned about the approximate performance of the newly built Italian Garibaldi cruiser, the high price and the attitude of the Italian government made Liu Kunyi dare not think about it at all. Since this potential country that has newly entered the Qing Navy's ship purchase plan has been excluded, then the rest is Britain and Germany, France has been directly excluded, and the Fujian naval division in the Sino-French War was killed by the French, according to Liu Kunyi's character, even if he does not buy it, he will definitely not go back to order French warships. As for Britain and Germany, the Germans' shipbuilding technology is still a little immature, although Brandenburg is okay, but it is a new German warship, and the Germans will definitely not sell it to Nanyang at a low price, and in the list of components sent by Xue Fucheng, Liu Kunyi and Peng Yulin found these two 8500-ton armored cruisers, which are larger than Dingzhen, although the caliber of the guns is a little smaller, but all the guns are tube-withdrawn, and smokeless propellants are used. The power and rate of fire are stronger than those of the same caliber that use maroon charge!!

As for who to send, Peng Yulin recommended a person from Ding Yuqian, who was born in a maritime family in Ningbo. When he was young, he traveled and studied with his father in various European countries. Later, he joined the Nanyang Fleet, because of the family growth environment, this person is quite proficient in maritime affairs, after joining the naval division, successively served as the sentry commander, the thousand general, the garrison, the division, the guerrilla, the general and other positions. Later, he worked as a shipmaster and sailor, and later due to the officialdom, a case of embezzlement of public funds for sailing involved him, and he was deprived of his post and returned to his hometown. Later, under the operation of this man, in 1888 he donated the post of unregistered general soldier. After hearing that Nanyang would buy warships this time, some people encouraged their families to donate 80,000 taels of silver to help Nanyang buy new warships.

At this time, among the Nanyang naval divisions, there were not many people who had gone abroad to receive Western-style naval education like Beiyang, and this person who was willing to pay money, had been to Europe, and was professionally reasonable, gradually appeared in the field of vision of Peng Yulin and Liu Kunyi. As a result, this little person, who has done nothing in history, also began his extraordinary journey. And the first turning point in his life was to go to the UK on behalf of the Nanyang Navy to negotiate the purchase of ships!!

There's one more update later today. Everyone's support~~