Lin Yuan's words added a few words that were quite unkind in English, and if two people in the middle of a dispute used these words, they would basically not be far from a fight.

Ryan and his subordinates all changed color, and several craftsmen sitting on the side stood up, Ryan looked at Lin Yuan coldly and said, "Sir, please pay attention to your words!" ”

Lin Yuan approached Ryan, his nose almost touched his face, he forced his eyes, and said categorically: "No bonus, repair, or no repair?" ”

Ryan had never seen such a strong Qing Guoren in the machine bureau, and he was a little overwhelmed and took two steps back.

The reason why Lin Yuan dared to ask foreign craftsmen so unceremoniously was because he knew that these foreign craftsmen could also play unreasonable tricks in China, and if they really returned to China, they would just be ordinary technicians, and if they really returned to China, they would not have such good conditions in China.

Ryan knows this very well, and he doesn't want to lose his job in the Machine Bureau and return to China, but if he agrees under Lin Yuan's persecution, where will he put his face! So he said coldly: "No bonus!" Don't fix it! ”

Lin Yuan sneered and said, "Okay, you can go back to China!" ”

Ryan thought to himself, "You can't fix this machine anyway, and you won't come to me in the future!" So he sneered and took the people away.

Su Mao hurriedly came up to persuade Lin Yuan, saying, "My lord, they are gone, who will repair this machine?" ”

Lin Yuan smiled, looked at the people below, and said, "Who will repair this machine?" I asked three times in a row, only to see a young student in the crowd squeeze out of the crowd with a slap of his arms.

The junior student grabbed Lin Yuan in a few steps, knelt down on one knee, and said: "Lord Qiyu, the little one thinks that this machine can't work today, all because the coal burned is too inferior, and the fire pipe is blocked with residue, just turn on the boiler and clean the fire pipe." ”

The so-called fire pipe is a component in the boiler, when the steam engine is working, the coal is burned in the furnace, and the heated air flows into the pipe, and the outside of the pipe is water, so that the hot gas in the pipe will turn the water into water vapor, but if the quality of the coal is poor, the combustion of the coal will not be sufficient, so there will be slag to block the fire pipe.

Lin Yuan looked at Su Mao and asked, "Is he right?" ”

Su Mao said: "What he said is right, the small one also thought so, but this machine costs tens of thousands of taels of silver, if the small one does something and breaks it, we can't afford to pay it!" Shall we bring the foreigners back? ”

These equipment are worth a lot of money, but once there is a problem during Su Mao's tenure, he can't afford to sell Su Mao, so these losses have to be paid by the Qing court, although Su Mao will not have financial compensation, but it is inevitable to lose his official position and resign, and more seriously, the Qing court will also punish him for his crimes, exile and even beheading.

Lin Yuan said to Su Mao: "Just follow the method you think, if something goes wrong, I will be responsible!" ”

Su Mao seemed to have taken a reassuring pill, beckoning people to repair the boiler, and everyone dispersed, but the boiler couldn't work when it was repaired, Lin Yuan simply gave everyone a day off, and everyone dispersed.

Shen Wanqing saw that what she was worried about did not happen, so she said goodbye to Lin Yuan and returned to the newspaper office, Lin Yuan told Su Mao that she had arranged work to find herself.

Su Mao arranged things properly, so he came to see Lin Yuan, Lin Yuan knew that if he wanted to build advanced weapons and equipment, he had to do a good job in funds, management, and so on, so he asked Su Mao to come.

Lin Yuan asked, "How about the production capacity of our Tianjin machine?" There is no exhaustive archive. ”

Su Mao said: "Then you and I will come to the archives, we will report the production situation and equipment loss of the year to the Yamen of the Governor of Zhili every year." ”

Lin Yuan and Su Mao came to the archives, Su Mao opened the cabinet, took out the production materials of the last year, and put them in front of Lin Yuan.

Lin Yuan opened the document and asked, "Just now, I heard that young man say that the coal we use is too inferior, is this true?" ”

Su Mao said helplessly: "Alas, this is a long story, when we bought Kangbang machines from the UK, we had to use a ship to transport them from the UK, and we needed ballast to run around on the sea, and at that time it was decided to buy British coal as ballast, and then we saw that the British coal was good, and the price was cheaper than China's coal, so we have been using British coal, and then the Kaiping Coal Mine was done well, and the coal from the Kaiping Coal Mine was transferred from above, but there was a sum of expenditure left. ”

Lin Yuan listened to Su Mao's speech while flipping through the papers, and Su Mao said: "The coal in this Kaiping Coal Mine mainly has five troughs and eight troughs......

Lin Yuan asked softly, "What do you mean by five grooves and eight grooves?" ”

Su Mao explained: "It's just that the places where the coal is dug are different......

As soon as Lin Yuan heard this, he understood, it turned out that this trough was the meaning of the mining surface, Su Mao saw that Lin Yuan understood, so he continued: "The best of the five troughs, the worst of the eight troughs, at the beginning, the top was to allocate five troughs of coal to us, but later, the original general office Tang Tingshu died, and it was replaced by a general office called Zhang Yi, and Zhang Yi sold the coal to us to Hong Kong as soon as he came up, so that the profit of Kaiping Coal Mine was several times that of the original!" We're going to have to use the worst coal. ”

Lin Yuan asked, "Didn't you tell the Yamen of the Governor of Zhili?" ”

Su Mao smiled: "It's useless, who has the most shares in the Kaiping Coal Mine?" The important members of the Three Law Divisions, the officials of the Yamen of the Governor of Zhili, they most hope that the Kaiping Coal Mine will make money, you say, who can take care of this matter! ”

Lin Yuan thought to himself: "This is a chronic disease of the Qing court, and it can't be changed overnight, but I still have to find a way to solve this problem!" ”

Su Mao smiled when he said this, and said, "I heard that the coal of the Beiyang Fleet has also been replaced, and they are all dead, so we are considered to be in good shape." ”

Lin Yuan flipped through the document at this time, he spread out the first page, this page is the account information of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, which records the financial expenditure data of the Tianjin Machinery Bureau, making weapons is the most expensive thing, don't think about making any weapons without money.

On that page, the first line reads: Salary to the clerk of the issuing officer, 398,471 taels of silver for red paper.

Lin Yuan knew that the so-called staff of Lu Dao were the managers at all levels in the Machinery Bureau, but he didn't understand what the "heart red" in the back meant, so he asked Su Mao: "What is this heart red?" ”

Su Mao replied: "It's cinnabar, when the superiors give instructions to the subordinates, they have to write in vermilion ink, and they have to be stamped with seals, so they need a lot of cinnabar." ”

Lin Yuan said: "Now we have to use all the limited money on making weapons and equipment, don't spend the money on this cinnabar, so let's do it, when you give instructions to your subordinates in the future, you will use black ink!" ”

Seeing Su Mao nodding yes, Lin Yuan asked again: "These projects cost nearly 400,000 taels of silver!" How can there be so many? ”

Su Mao suddenly lowered his voice and said, "Lord Lin, the villain has a love in return, and if someone asks in the future, don't say that I said this." ”