Chapter Nine Hundred and Sixty IX: I'm a Second-tier Dealer
During the discussion last night, Zhu Dawen, who was proposed to be the deputy supervisor of Tianjin Customs, raised a question.
That is, businessmen from various countries were worried that if they did not do business with the local Thirteenth Bank in Guangdong, their merchant ships would be attacked by the armed forces of the Guangdong local government, or that the Thirteenth Bank would collude with the Dutch to harass their merchant ships.
"If such a situation occurs, it will be difficult for merchants from various countries to protect themselves, which may lead to merchants from various countries being unwilling to trade with my country in Tianjin."
Zhu Dawen's worries were justified, because most of the businessmen he recruited were foreign merchants without official background. The only one with official background was the French East India Company, but this company currently did not have the ability to compete with the Dutch.
This means that the international trade group coming to Tianjin this time cannot rely on their own strength to ensure the safety of their fleet passing through the southern region of the empire.
So why are the local governments in the southern part of the Tatar Empire likely to go against their government?
Of course it was because of the news that had already reached Macau about the ongoing civil strife in the Tatar Empire.
Businessmen from various countries have reason to suspect that the Tatar Empire government may not be able to appeal to its remote southern local governments. No matter how willing they are to trade with the central government of the empire, they will not dare to act rashly as long as the governor-general in the southern part of the empire does not agree.
Businessmen are just looking for money.
It's just a matter of earning more or less, and there's no need to risk your life for it.
In response, Jia Liu took three measures.
He ordered the imperial minister Shuan Zhu, who was in charge of the imperial camp's literary work, to immediately draft an order to Li Shiyao, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, asking him to immediately submit to the capital, otherwise he would be punished for treason.
"In addition, I sent Li Shiyao's brother Li Fengyao to Guangdong to persuade his brother not to be stubborn. If he can be the first to come forward to reform, I will generously reward Li Shiyao and give the Li family a hereditary first-class earl."
Duke, Marquis and Earl are super-grade titles. If you have to compare them, Earl corresponds to the clan's Dorobele. If you are a hereditary first-class Earl, it will have a higher gold content.
Since the founding of the Qing Dynasty, the number of Han people who have been granted the title of uncle include Zhao Liangdong, Zheng Zuanxu, Ma Siwen, Xian Guoan, Zhou Quanbin, Wang Zhiding, Zhang Tingyu, Huang Tinggui, etc., but not more than ten people.
Even Li Shiyao's grandfather, Li Yongfang, was only granted the title of second-class uncle.
Therefore, Jia Liu's hereditary first-class uncle to Li Shiyao is definitely a generous reward.
It’s definitely very open and bright.
"...Tell Li Fengyao that his brother can consider it, but he must not destroy the trade that the imperial court has opened in the north. Otherwise, I will kill all the men, women, and children of the Li family, and dig out their ancestor Li Yongfang to crush the bones and spread the ashes!
"
Jia Liu is not threatening, but actually doing this.
Hundreds of thousands of old Manchus were ordered to be slaughtered by him. Do they still care about a fake Manchu and Tatar family?
Li Shiyao is really ignorant and will surely inspire the executioner attributes of the Six Emperors.
Of course, the original words would certainly not have been spoken directly to Li Fengyao, and the person who conveyed them would have expressed them in a euphemistic way.
The second is to write a letter to Wuchang, requesting Wuchang to dispatch troops to Jiangxi and Hunan to create military pressure on the Guangdong Green Camp.
To ensure that Li Shiyao would not easily send troops to harass merchant ships, Jia Liu would not hesitate to risk the Guangdong and Guangxi areas falling to Wuchang as long as he dared to do so.
Thirdly, you need to be hard-working to make iron.
It is urgent to build a powerful navy!
For this reason, Jia Liu specially met with the Beiyang Navy delegation headed by Zamul in the morning.
The predecessor of the Beiyang Navy was the Dagukou Division. It currently has more than 3,000 soldiers and more than 100 warships.
Whether it is the size of its troops or the number and quality of its warships, the Beiyang Navy is much worse than other naval divisions along the coast.
But the mental outlook and combat effectiveness have been greatly improved.
Mainly due to the large-scale military training movement initiated by Jia Liu personally in the Navy.
Asiha, who is in charge of the Ministry of War, has previously reported the basic situation of the Daqing Navy to His Majesty the Emperor. Currently, the coastal defense of Daqing is mainly responsible for the Eight Banners Navy and the Green Camp Navy respectively.
The Eight Banners Navy is divided into two branches: inside and outside the Pass. The Eight Banners Navy outside the Pass is mainly stationed in Heilongjiang, Morgan, Jilin and other places. It is small in scale, with a total troop strength of about 3,000, which can basically be ignored.
During the Battle of Yaksa, several battalions of the Eight Banners Navy outside the Pass were mainly responsible for transporting grain and grass to ensure that the army besieging Yaksa would not run out of food. Apart from that, they had no role.
The total strength of the Eight Banners Navy in Guannei is more than 10,000. Due to its small number, it mainly plays a supervisory role in coastal defense and has little effect in actual combat.
The Eight Banners Navy in Tianjin was abolished by Jia Liu long ago, and now the remaining Eight Banners Navy are located in Jingkou (Zhenjiang), Zhapu (Hangzhou), Fuzhou and Guangzhou.
Therefore, the Lvying Navy was the main force of the Qing Dynasty's coastal defense, mainly serving the four provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu, with a total strength of 100,000 and more than 700 large and small warships.
At present, except for the Jiangsu Lvying Navy, which is nominally subordinate to the Central Committee of the Reform Court, the navies of Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang provinces should be classified as "local armed forces" for various reasons.
Among them, the Fujian Lvying Navy was severely damaged by the Black Flag Army led by Yang Yuchun. It is now unable to go to sea and retreat to the coastal areas of Fujian.
The Zhejiang Green Camp Navy was also attacked by the Black Flag Army in the Battle of Dinghai. Although the main force still existed, due to the serious fear of war and the discord between the Zhejiang Governor and the Hangzhou General, the Zhejiang Green Camp Navy now looks like a
No one cares about children who have lost their parents.
The Guangdong Navy is now intact and is considered the strongest existing maritime combat force in the Qing Dynasty. According to data from the Ministry of War, the Guangdong Navy has more than 17,000 men and more than 200 large and small gunboats.
Regarding the Jiangsu Navy, Jia Liuyi combined the Jiangsu Navy and the Tianjin Navy into one in the name of the imperial court, and also transferred some local naval forces with a similar security nature to the northern coast and reorganized them into the Beiyang Navy.
The naval headquarters is located in Qingdao in the coastal area of Shandong.
The navies of Zhejiang, Fujian, and Guangdong provinces plan to be reorganized into the Nanyang Navy with the navy under Yang Yuchun, and the naval base will be placed in Xiamen, Fujian, or the coastal areas of Guangdong.
Therefore, Lao Ji, who was familiar with united front work, was asked to secretly dispatch candidates to the south to carry out instigation work against civil and military officials in the three provinces, including the navy. With the help of military and righteousness, the navy officers and soldiers in the south could return to the embrace of the imperial court.
I'm afraid it will take several months to see results from this work of instigating rebellion.
"You have to prepare. The Navy will expand to 20,000 men within half a year..."
After Zamul and others arrived, Jia Liu directly stated that the imperial court wanted to expand the Beiyang Navy and proposed six methods: "train troops, simplify weapons, build ships, raise wages, employ people, and last for a long time."
Needless to say, military training, simple weapons is naturally to eliminate the Navy's original weapons that do not conform to the trend of the times, and let the Ministry of Industry build more copper and iron cannons for the Navy.
For shipbuilding, the Beiyang Shipyard was opened in Tianjin, which imitated three-masted gunboats from Western countries on a large scale, and also produced ironclads.
It is not a warship made of all iron, but a wooden warship covered with thick iron armor to resist attacks. It may be more appropriate to call it an armored ship.
Since there is no steam engine, the ironclad ships currently being built are all driven by manpower and cannot sustain long voyages. However, they are extremely fast in short-distance sprints and are invincible in offshore combat.
Once the steam engine is developed, the ironclad can be turned into a battleship that does not require manpower.
In my impression, Britain and France only had steam engine-driven armored ships decades later, and then they came to China and shocked the Qing army and people.
This means that the ship is strong and the artillery is powerful.
Everything has a development process. Western countries have gone through decades from the birth, improvement, and use of steam engines to civilian and military uses.
Jia Liu moved this time forward because he did not need decades to prove that something was bound to appear.
Steam engines already existed, so did the steel industry, and the concept of ironclads also existed, so Jia Liu only needed to piece together the existing hardware like a musical tailor.
No need to prove, no need to explore.
This is the benefit of being a time traveler.
To put it bluntly, the Sixth Emperor is not a great production and R&D developer, nor is he a pioneer in technology, he is just a second-rate dealer who makes things together.
Typical application of borrowing doctrine.
Optimistic estimates suggest that China's navy will be fully equipped with ironclad ships in ten years' time.
A conservative estimate would be fifteen years at most.
If everything goes well and goes well, Jia Liu thinks that on his fortieth birthday, he will be sitting on a black-smoking ironclad, overlooking the great old revolutionary base on the beach in Normandy.
As long as a few hundred cannons are mounted on the coast, the old towns can be shocked and surrendered. The beautiful era has finally arrived. What a wonderful era.
Just thinking about it makes me happy.
For the sake of this beautiful imperial era, Jia Liu personally wrote a note to the navy after the meeting with the navy - "Building a powerful Royal Navy is in line with the trend of the development of the empire."
At the same time, he wrote a note to his confidant, Beiyang Navy Admiral Zamul - "The Royal Navy only obeys me and my descendants, and this cannot change for a hundred years."