Chapter 94 The Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was defeated
After Liu Qixiang returned to Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, he lost his temper for a while and then sent a telegram to Li Hongzhang in Tianjin, reporting the difficulties of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau to Li Hongzhang in detail.
Originally, Liu Qixiang thought that after Li Hongzhang received the report, he would definitely negotiate with Liu Hai and ask Liu Hai to be more honest in Shanghai and stop keeping his eyes on the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. Little did he know that the final result was a huge disappointment.
After Li Hongzhang received the telegram, he summoned all his staff and asked them to see how the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau should be solved.
Among Li Hongzhang's staff, the one Li Hongzhang favored the most was Zhang Peilun.
This Mr. Zhang is not an ordinary person. During the Sino-French War in 1884, all the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty promised to surrender. Only Zhang Peilun wrote ten memorials in one day, expounding the disadvantages of not fighting and advocating resistance to France. Because he spoke quite well.
It made sense, and the Empress Dowager Cixi finally agreed with his idea and appointed him as the Imperial Envoy, responsible for commanding the troops, debugging, and fighting on the front line.
As a result, when he went to the front line, he got into a big disaster. It turned out that even though he was an imperial minister, he went to the front line to supervise the war. Due to the Qing court's order not to impose preemptive orders on others, coupled with the backward armaments and weapons, etc.
, which eventually led to a disastrous defeat. Zhang Peilun became the scapegoat for the defeat and was demoted from his official position and sent to the army to atone for his sins. Three years later, Zhang Peilun was released and returned to the capital.
He was in his 40s and had no career to talk about. However, his wife who had been with him for many years passed away again. Zhang Peilun could not help but sigh and lament the impermanence of fate.
Although Li Hongzhang was once impeached by him, out of his friendship with his old friend, and because Li Hongzhang had always admired his talent, he took him in as an aide in the government, working full-time as a copywriter.
And Zhang Peilun also lived up to Li Hongzhang's trust. He kept Li Hongzhang's desk in order and often came up with ingenious ideas, which made Li Hongzhang marvel at his talents.
Recently, something happened to Zhang Peilun. It turned out that Zhang Peilun often lamented that the Qing Dynasty was defeated without a fight in the French war, so he was very sad, so he wrote a short poem about his crime. Who knew that this poem was actually used by Zhang Peilun?
Li Hongzhang saw it.
Li Hongzhang admired his talents and conduct, and regardless of the opposition of his family, he betrothed his beloved daughter Zhang Juou to him as his wife.
Because of this, Li Hongzhang was ridiculed by the civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty. At that time, someone even wrote a poem to Li Hongzhang, "I studied books in the imperial palace but did not learn to fight. I was defeated and walked away to the bridal chamber."
However, Li Hongzhang was well aware of Zhang Peilun's talent and learning, so he ignored all the crazy talk outside. This allowed Zhang Peilun to live peacefully in Li Hongzhang's house.
Zhang Peilun lamented Li Hongzhang's cultivation and protection, and vowed to serve him to the death.
This time Li Hongzhang summoned him to ask about the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.
Zhang Peilun thought for a while, then walked out of the staff and said to Li Hongzhang: "Although the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was established the earliest, it was co-founded by Enxiang and Zeng Guofan. After Zeng's death, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau
The manufacturing plant is actually controlled by Enxiang, so it is inevitable that the Hunan troops in the south of the Yangtze River will be unconvinced and deserve to be squeezed out."
Li Hongzhang nodded after hearing this. He went too far in this matter. Originally, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau also had a share in the Hunan Army. However, as soon as Zeng Guofan left, he immediately took the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau into his pocket. As a result, Beiyang is now in trouble.
He Nanyang is a bit dirty because of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.
Ma Jianzhong, another aide of Li Hongzhang, also came out to speak, "The Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is now dilapidated, with serious personnel losses, and the manufacturing cost is too high. I think it is useless to keep it. It is better to abolish the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and turn Jiangnan Manufacturing into
The bureau’s machinery will be shipped to the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau, so that the size of the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau can be doubled, which will also be of great help to our Huai Army in the future."
Li Hongzhang's eyes lit up when he heard this. If this was really the case, he would not have to bear the burden of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.
When the time comes and the machinery from the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau and the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau are integrated, then the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau under his command will become the number one military factory in the Qing Dynasty.
Zhang Peilun hesitated after hearing Ma Jianzhong's words, but finally did not speak again.
So Li Hongzhang, like several other staff members, saw that they all agreed with Zhang Jianzhong's intention, and immediately sent a telegram to Liu Qixiang of Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.
The content of the telegram is roughly as follows: Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has spent too much money and is experiencing serious personnel losses. It is better to abolish it, reduce expenditures, and transport the machinery to Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau and the two bureaus for the future.
After Liu Qixiang received the telegram, he felt that it weighed a thousand pounds, and his hands trembled a little.
It was not easy to establish the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. It took several lifetimes of hard work to reach the scale it is today. Although there are some small mistakes now, as long as the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau strengthens personnel training, it will be able to return to its glory days in just one year. Li Hongzhang did not expect that
To be so short-sighted.
But now that Li Hongzhang has sent an order, he can't do it even if he doesn't execute it.
So within a few days, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau began to lay off employees, especially most of those workers.
Fortunately, these workers said that Liu Hai's side was recruiting people. As soon as the layoffs were laid down here, Liu Hai's side got the news and immediately sent people to recruit all the old technicians from Jiangnan Manufacturing Plant, but they did not suffer from lack of food and clothing.
.
But the subsequent layoff of personnel was difficult to handle, because these people were either officials from this place or scholars from that place. In addition, the foreigners hired by Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau had signed contracts, so these people could not be laid off casually.
In the end, Liu Qixiang had no choice but to send another telegram to Li Hongzhang asking Li Hongzhang to deal with the remaining people.
But Li Hongzhang didn't care about this. As for those foreign technicians, they all had some skills, so they were all recruited to the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau and continued to be employed.
Li Hongzhang dismissed all the officials and scholars from various places who came to work for a living. Those who were capable continued to seek official positions in the court, while those who were incompetent went home to stay.
So this famous Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, which had been established for decades, finally disappeared due to Liu Hai's constant poaching.
Many of the equipment in the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau were already a little old, but they were also extremely powerful tools for the Qing Dynasty. So Liu Qixiang hired people to dismantle the machines, and then the Beiyang Navy sent several transport ships.
It was shipped to Tianjin Ma Tou and merged into Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau.
Liu Hai has now seen through this incident that these older generation warlords are really protective of their families.
But the factories they built were immediately relocated once they were transferred to other places.
For example, Zhang Zhidong set up the Guangzhou Gun Factory when he was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. When he was transferred to the governor of Huguang this year, he moved the gun factory he organized to the foot of Dabie Mountain in Hanyang and named it "Hubei Gun Factory".
Purchase additional machinery and build factories.
It seems that Li Hongzhang also made this mistake. He felt that placing the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau he founded on the territory of the Hunan Army would eventually give Liu Hai an advantage, so he simply abolished the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and moved the machinery.
Arriving at his own territory in Tianjin.
But you can move the machines away, but people can't take away the workers trained by Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau over decades. They are huge treasures, and they are much more valuable than those machines.
With these talents, Liu Hai can start production immediately after the Shanghai Shipyard and Shanghai Manufacturing Bureau are completed, without having to continue to train talents.
At the end of the 18th year of Guangxu's reign in 1890, the Shanghai shipyard that Liu Hai had been waiting for was finally completed.
This shipyard was completely designed by British designers, and the production equipment inside it is entirely advanced industrial equipment brought from modern times by Liu Hai.
The Shanghai Shipyard now has one 50,000-ton shipyard, three 20,000-ton shipyards, eight 10,000-ton shipyards, and eight 5,000-ton shipyards.
This scale can be ranked first in the Far East. Even in the European powers, there are only a few shipyards of this scale.
After the construction of the Shanghai Shipyard was completed, Liu Hai went to cut the ribbon in person and appointed his staff Xuan Hai to supervise the construction of the Shanghai Shipyard.
Liu Hai had high hopes for the Shanghai Shipyard, so when the Shanghai Shipyard was completed, he immediately placed three orders for the Nanyang Navy at the Shanghai Shipyard.
The Shanghai Shipyard is required to build three cruisers based on the Cossack-class light cruiser ordered by Liu Hai from the UK.
In Liu Hai's opinion, this was not a difficult task, but as soon as he gave the order, Xuan Hai came to see him.
Liu Hai was still surprised by Xuan Hai's arrival. During this period, the Shanghai Shipyard had just started construction. He should be too busy, so how could he have time to find him?
Liu Hai met Xuan Hai in the flower hall. As soon as Xuan Hai saw Liu Hai, he kept complaining to Liu Hai.
"Sir, you didn't think carefully about letting us build a cruiser. We can build the hull, but we can't build the boiler. We can't let the warship float on the water, right?"
Liu Hai was a little unhappy after hearing this. He had sent the latest equipment to Jiangnan Shipyard. Not to mention the Qing Dynasty, even in the entire Qing Dynasty, no shipyard could surpass Jiangnan Shipyard.
Now they are only building three light cruisers of less than 2,000 tons, and they actually told themselves that they could not build boilers.
"Xuan Hai, the equipment of our Jiangnan Weaving Factory is the best in the world. You actually told me that we can't build a boiler. Are you kidding me?"
After hearing this, Xuan Hai knew that Liu Hai was an amateur in building warships, so he explained to him: "Sir, when it comes to building warships, it is no exaggeration to say that our Shanghai Shipyard is the best in the world, and its assembly speed is the fastest in the world.
"
Liu Hai was quite satisfied after hearing this, at least this sentence still touched his heart.
As a result, Xuan Hai's next words gave him a severe blow, "But sir, assembling warships and manufacturing boilers are two different things. This not only requires special steel, but also precision connecting equipment and talents, which our Shanghai manufacturing plant has
No."
Xuan Hai paused and continued to complain: "Besides, we can't produce artillery. If we want to wait for the gun factory to complete the production and install the artillery, we have to wait for several years. I'm afraid the warship will rust in the water."