The next morning, Li Mingyuan was sleeping in the room that originally belonged to Bohar, when a shout suddenly woke him up.
"Your Majesty, a fleet of large ships has arrived on the sea." A newly assigned guard to Li Wen shouted.
"I know," Li Mingyuan sat up from the bed with a start, put on his coat and walked quickly towards the seaside.
"Everyone put away your guns first, I'll go talk to them." Li Mingyuan just arrived at the beach and saw a group of Prussian soldiers coming down from the fleet, confronting the Taiping Army, and hurriedly stopped him.
"Your Majesty, it's too dangerous for you to go alone." Chen Guozhu objected loudly.
Li Mingyuan smiled bitterly in his heart. He didn't want to negotiate with the Prussians, but most of his men didn't even know a few Chinese characters. How could he let them communicate with the Prussians?
"It doesn't matter. What they want is saltpeter. As long as you guard the mine, they won't do anything to me." Li Mingyuan comforted everyone.
"Your Majesty, isn't Anthony a Prussian? Don't go, let me take him to negotiate with the foreigners." Liu Pu said, thinking that there was a Prussian among the prisoners.
"I almost forgot about Anthony." Li Mingyuan said with a slap on the head. When he was a mercenary, he was used to being in danger, but now his status is different. Li Mingyuan's safety is related to the life and death of hundreds of thousands of Chinese people in South America. It can no longer be
Take risks easily.
"Brother Liu Pu is right, I didn't think well. Please ask Brother Liu Pu to negotiate with the foreigners on my behalf. Dashan, take your two brothers to protect Liu Pu's safety, and don't let Anthony be careful." Li Mingyuan.
He honestly admitted that he had not considered it comprehensively enough, and arranged for someone to go with Liu Pu.
Liu Pu took Anthony on board the ship to negotiate with the Prussians, while Li Mingyuan led his soldiers to guard the seaside to prevent the foreigners from making bad moves.
Half an hour later, Liu Pu, Wang Dashan and others got off the boat safely, with a missionary beside them.
"Your Majesty, the Prussians have basically agreed to trade with us, but you need to discuss the specific details with Missionary Paul." Liu Pu walked to Li Mingyuan and said,
"Hello, Mr. Chief, on behalf of Colonel West, I will discuss the details of the transaction with you." The pastor said.
"Thank you for your kind cooperation." Li Mingyuan said in language.
"Sir, you actually speak German?"
"Of course, I learned this from a German missionary when I was a child." Li Mingyuan made an excuse casually.
Because Li Mingyuan could speak German, the subsequent negotiations went smoothly. Li Mingyuan signed a good contract with the missionaries and began to unload the weapons on the ship and the saltpeter in the mines under the supervision of soldiers from both sides.
"Please tell Colonel West that we are just a group of kind-hearted Chinese workers pursuing freedom, not cruel thugs. We sincerely hope to find a piece of land that belongs to the Chinese. We hope that when we have a foothold on land, we can still cooperate with the colonel."
Seeing that the soldiers were unloading their weapons and the Prussians were not playing any tricks, Li Mingyuan spoke to the missionary.
"Of course, God wishes you good luck." The missionary crossed himself on his chest and said. The missionary said this, but in fact he did not take Li Mingyuan's words to heart. His mission was only to help complete this transaction. As for the future,
It's not something he should worry about.
Li Mingyuan took out all the saltpeter and silver dollars to trade with the Prussians, and bought most of the arms hoarded by the Prussians. Li Mingyuan originally wanted to buy the remaining arms, but the Prussians refused to sell them.
The Prussians are not stupid. They have sold all their arms to you. What will happen if the fleet encounters pirates at sea?
After seeing off the Prussian fleet, Li Mingyuan began to calculate the supplies for this transaction.
There are a total of two thousand muskets with one hundred thousand rounds of ammunition, ten machine guns with ten thousand rounds of ammunition, and relatively rare cannons. Li Mingyuan also bought three.
There were more weapons than Li Mingyuan expected. After arming the current 1,500 people, there will still be a lot of muskets left. Looking at the mountains of weapons in front of him, Li Mingyuan laughed happily. With so many weapons
, coupled with the Taiping Army under his command, it would not be much difficult to rescue other Chinese miners.
"Uncle Chen, Uncle Li, Uncle Zhang, please lead the musketeers from the musketeer camp down first."
"Yes, Your Majesty," the three of them replied, and they couldn't wait to arrange for their soldiers to unload the weapons belonging to their respective camps.
"Liu Pu, you transport the excess weapons to the warehouse,"
"Yes." After Liu Pu finished speaking, he took a few soldiers to manage the muskets to prevent other soldiers from taking too much.
Ten muskets and three cannons were not allocated to the three musket battalions by Li Mingyuan. Machine guns and cannons are now strategic-level weapons. Li Mingyuan's treasure is incredible. He plans to set up a machine gun platoon and an artillery platoon respectively, directly under the command of the regiment.
, the establishment of the machine gun platoon is larger than that of ordinary musketeers. Three machine guns form a machine gun squad. Each machine gun has a main shooter, two assistant shooters, plus a loader. A total of four people are needed. In addition to ten machine guns,
Forty combatants are also equipped with a squad of security personnel. The total adds up to sixty people, which is almost two platoons of the ordinary army. The chief officer of the machine gun platoon and the commander of the musket company are at the same level. Li Mingyuan is from the Guards.
Feng Erhu serves as the platoon leader. The machine gun platoon usually trains separately from other troops, and is assigned to the troops by Li Mingyuan during combat.
The Taiping Army is also no stranger to artillery. The Prince has been fighting in the Jiangnan area for more than ten years and often fights with foreigners. There are also many people in the army who use muskets and cannons.
Li Mingyuan knew that Luo Zhongguo, a veteran of the Taiping Army, nicknamed Luo Dapao, was very good at handling artillery. It was suitable for him to be the artillery platoon leader.
After the soldiers of the three musket battalions received their weapons, Li Mingyuan called for Luo Zhongguo.
"Cannon, can you control this cannon?" Li Mingyuan pointed at three brand-new cannons in the warehouse and asked.
Luo Dapao's eyes immediately brightened up, and he stroked the body of the cannon with both hands, as if he were seeing a beautiful woman.
"Your Majesty, this is a Prussian six-pounder cannon. The shell weighs five kilograms and the cannon weighs one thousand four hundred kilograms." Luo Dapao said as if he were familiar with the matter.
"Very good. Artillery, I plan to make you the artillery platoon leader. Are you confident that you can do it?"
Luo Dapao had not touched a cannon in three years. Li Mingyuan was very satisfied when he saw that the newly produced cannon could quickly tell the performance of the cannon.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty, give the cannon to Lao Luo, and promise to shoot wherever you want."
"Very good, these three cannons are yours. Pick some brothers who are good at artillery. After dinner, go and rescue the other brothers."
"Yes," Luo Dapao saluted with a tilted Taiping Army salute and trotted out.
Li Mingyuan traded with the Prussians not only to buy arms, but also some meat. He was going to attack other mining areas tonight. Li Mingyuan was going to let the Taiping soldiers have a big meal. After eating, the soldiers would be strong enough to fight at night.