My Italian

The entourage and guards in the Sankou Commercial Yamen have been extra cautious these past two days. They even walked lightly, for fear of making a big noise and causing Shangguan's anger.

Therefore, the idlers at the yamen are not having a good time. The guards and the uncles have nothing to do with them. It's really bad luck.

As the core of the serious atmosphere of the three commercial yamen, Li Zhongtang has been upset recently. The reason is very simple. France is restless in Vietnam. The new French Minister Bartner even said several times in public that since the Qing Dynasty cannot give France what it wants, then France will take it.

His blatant war threats made the court worried.

In addition, there is the issue of the return of the second ship calming, which was built far away in Germany. Liu Buchan and Wei Han, who were in charge of receiving the warship, jointly sent a telegram, informing that the Vulken Shipyard was conducting sea trials on the second ship, and before the sea trials were completed, the shipyard would Refused to let go. The shipyard claimed that any accident would be a huge loss to the shipyard's reputation if the ship that had not completed the sea trial was allowed to go out to sea.

However, the secret telegrams from Liu Buchan and Wei Han informed that all this was done by the French behind the scenes. The French bribed the shipyard's people to drag the second ship calm in the shipyard.

As for the two people's move to accept the battleship in advance, they were stopped by the German soldiers guarding the shipyard.

Li Zhongtang was very worried that the second ship of Calm down could not return to China earlier.

Seeing that Li Zhongtang was worried about this, Zhou Fu, an aide, persuaded him. "Don't worry too much about Zhongtang, I believe that the second ship will return home safely."

"Yushan, I'm not worried about calming down the second ship."

Speaking of which, Li Zhongtang took out a document. "This is Zeng Laojiu's report of Fayi who is provoking troubles everywhere in Vietnam, and there may be a tendency to fight, so the report asks for permission to pre-empt."

"Zhongtang, I'm afraid this is not what Master Zeng meant by retreating."

Zhou Fu explained the intention of Zeng Guoquan, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi.

"Everyone knows what Lao Jiu's intentions are, but this battle can't be fought without a fight. I didn't see Zuo Jigao recovering the sea of ​​silver from Xinjiang Flowers. If this fights with the French, how should I deal with it?"

The contradiction between Li Zhongtang and Zuo Jigao is well known in the world.

Especially after the death of Wen Zhenggong, the strength of the Hunan army has plummeted, and the two sides are even more disliked by each other. And whether the court has contributed to the flames behind this is the matter of the benevolent see the benevolence and the wise see the wisdom. Anyway, after Zuo Jigao regained Xinjiang, Li Zhongtang was promoted to governor of Zhili and minister of Beiyang, and in order to reward Zuo Jigao for his credit, he was appointed governor of Liangjiang and minister of Nanyang.

And different from Li Zhongtang's urgency and forbearance, Zuo Jigao has always made a high-profile claim that he doesn't have to be patient with the French in Vietnam, and he will take action when he should. He even said on the excerpt that he was going to take the Chu army to Guangdong and Guangxi to have a fight with the French.

Fortunately, the court Gong Gong, the princes and the empress dowager were sensible people and did not agree to Zuo Jigao, so the situation could be maintained.

But just as Li Zhongtang sighed, a servant hurried in.

Without waiting for him to ask, the servant immediately reported it. "My lord, there is Minister Jia Liwen of the country outside the door."

"The Minister of Italy?"

Although Li Zhongtang didn't know what this visitor meant, he would definitely meet him when the minister of a country visited.

"Arrange the Minister of Italy to wait in the lobby, this official will come right away."

Then Li Zhongtang sorted his clothes and walked to the lobby.

When Li Zhongtang arrived at the lobby, he realized that there were not only the ministers from Italy, but also a man with a good face. Didn't he visit Howard, an Italian businessman who visited him some time ago? Although he was a little curious about why the businessman would visit him with the envoy, his good manners prevented him from asking.

"Hello, Minister Jia Liwen, Mr. Howard."

"Hello, Your Excellency the Governor."

A simple greeting, and only after the servants brought tea and snacks did Li Zhongtang speak. "I don't know what advice you have for visiting the old man, Your Excellency the Minister."

Facing Li Zhongtang's question, Minister Jia Liwen, who had a Chinese name, answered with a smile. "I don't have anything to do, but I received a domestic telegram related to your country. I thought Your Excellency the Governor would be interested, so I dared to come over."

It turned out to be sending a message.

Li Zhongtang, who was intrigued by the news, also asked appropriately. "I don't know what the news is, so you can make your Excellency the Minister run?"

Faced with Li Zhongtang's question, Minister Jia Liwen's expression tightened and he said with a serious expression. "Our country has received news that France has just decided to go to war with your country."

"Snapped!"

A teacup was shattered by Li Zhongtang meaninglessly, he stood up suddenly, his eyes fixed on Minister Jia Liwen. "Your Excellency Minister, is this true?"

"I don't think our government will make fun of this kind of thing."

After getting the news confirmed by Minister Jia Liwen, Li Zhongtang was stunned. Jia Liwen and Howard looked at him worriedly.

"Your Excellency the Governor?"

Li Zhongtang, who was woken up, first expressed his apology. "I'm sorry, Your Excellency the Minister, I was a little surprised by this news."

"We can understand that, after all, war is a major event for every country."

However, for some reason, Li Zhongtang felt that he was more relaxed now. Only then did he look at the visiting two and said. "I don't think Your Excellency the Minister made a special trip to tell me this news?"

"Your Excellency the Governor, you guessed wrong. I brought this news this time. But Mr. Howard is different. Maybe he has something to talk to His Excellency the Governor."

After speaking, Minister Jia Liwen just left.

Although Li Zhongtang didn't know why Minister Jia Liwen left, he vaguely guessed something, but he didn't plan to break it, instead he asked Howard who was still behind.

"Mr. Huo, you can ask the minister to bring you here. I believe that your business must be very big."

"Your Excellency Zhongtang, you're welcome, I'm just doing a small business. But recently, the company just purchased two armored cruisers, and they haven't sold them yet, so my company is very worried."

Two armored cruisers?

Didn't sell out?

Li Zhongtang understood. Before that, he deliberately learned about the situation in Europe. Italy and France did not deal with each other, and the two countries had a dispute in a place called Tunisia.

As long as he combines the information he got before with the words of Howard, then he can be considered to have figured out what the Italians are planning.

Of course, Lord Zhongtang doesn't really think that this boat can't be sold, but we still have to ask what kind of boat it is.

"I wonder how these two ships perform?"

As soon as he heard Li Zhongtang in front of him asking about the performance of his boat, Howard immediately made up his mind.

"Both are new ships launched this year, with a standard tonnage of 6,850 tons and a full-load tonnage of 7,460 tons. In terms of performance..."

The performance that Howard said shocked Li Zhongtang. With a maximum speed of 18.6 knots, a tonnage of more than 7,000, and equipped with 4 254mm and 6 152mm naval guns, it is really a good boat.

Since the tonnage of this ship is comparable to that of the Calm Second Ship, and the speed is much faster, the price will definitely not be cheap, but when Li Zhongtang asked about the price, he was still shocked.

2.2 million taels of silver, which is much more expensive than the calming second ship.

Of course, its performance is much better than that of the Calm II. Although Li Zhongtang doesn't know much about naval battles, he still knows that the ship is fast and slow. The faster the warship, the stronger the firepower, and the higher the price.

And the last sentence of the Howard businessman made his heart move.

"Your Excellency Zhongtang, if no one in your country operates these two armored cruisers, our company can recruit retired naval officers and soldiers to operate these two warships. Of course, if there is a war, your country needs to provide them with additional subsidies."

The meaning in this sentence is that the Italians are willing to go out and help the court fight. Although it is said to recruit retired naval officers and soldiers, but who is Zhongtang, these retired naval officers and soldiers are afraid that they will take off their military uniforms and change on the warship.

Since Italians have said this for the sake of it, Li Zhongtang will of course not refuse. No matter what the war is, he has achieved the effect of using barbarians to control barbarians. I haven't seen that the court can use Italian ships and people to beat the French. This is not effective, what can it count.

Of course, he did not immediately agree to Howard, a businessman under the guise of the Italian government, because this matter is very important and needs to be negotiated with the imperial court~www.NovelMTL.com~ send them back to Tianjin first.

After the two left, Li Zhongtang immediately summoned his confidants to discuss the matter.

As a result of the discussions among many aides, this matter is only good for Li Zhongtang, not bad.

After getting the same result from his staff as he thought, Li Zhongtang waited with peace of mind.

Sure enough, two days later, French Minister Bartner showed off his declaration of war.

This war book caused a sensation in the court.

This is French. Of course, it forced the late emperor to hunt for Chengde in the north, and he was also one of the main culprits of the late emperor's untimely death.

At this time, Li Zhongtang handed over the book that he had already prepared, claiming that he had found an Italian who had a bad relationship with France, and could buy two 7,000-ton giant ships from him to consolidate the coastal defense and prevent the recurrence of the Gengshen year (the second time). Opium War).

Afterwards, he entered another secret book. In the secret book, Li Zhongtang said that he could borrow foreign soldiers from the Italian country and use foreign soldiers to deal with foreign soldiers.

In the face of Li Zhongtang's proposal, the court agreed with incredible speed. In response to Li Zhongtang's proposal for the purchase of the ship, the Ministry of Household allocated 800,000 taels and ordered the provinces to raise funds. Among them, Zhili shared the most, reaching 1.1 million taels. As for the other provinces, it was between 100,000 and 150,000 taels. Of course, the wealthy will have more identities, and the poorer will have less. And this fundraising time is tight, and it must be raised within half a month. This is another time where the chickens jumped over the stove, but after half a month, the funds from the provinces were all collected, a total of 5.5 million taels.

Don't get me wrong, Li Zhongtang asked for more, but he did not intend to enrich his own pockets, but planned to take this opportunity to purchase a batch of bullets from Italy and send them to Zeng Laojiu.

Facing the war in France, it was rare for the Qing Kingdom to be united on one thing.

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