Chapter 139: The Hero in Trouble
Chapter 139: The Hero in Trouble
On the sixth day of the first lunar month in the first year of the Tongzhi reign, Hailing.
Shao Quanzhong spent a happy Spring Festival reunion with his parents, wife and children. During the Spring Festival, he also went to pay New Year's greetings to his godfather.
Shao Shucai and his wife were extremely satisfied as they looked at Hu Liuniang, who spent the New Year with them.
This tall girl with long legs looks good at giving birth. My son is so useless, why didn't he get married earlier? The more grandchildren the Shao family has, the better.
Shao Quanzhong turned a blind eye to his parents' instigation and Hu Liuniang's attitude of letting others take advantage of him. After the New Year, he took a boat to Zhenjiang with 60 schoolchildren, including the German devil Evan and his three younger brothers.
The Xinyou Coup d'état took place in the capital, and the originally planned reign title of "Qixiang" was changed to "Tongzhi", and the two Empress Dowagers officially took charge of the government.
This seemed to have nothing to do with Shao Quanzhong, and Shao Quanzhong didn't care at all.
In the south of the Yangtze River, Li Xiucheng fought fiercely with the foreign rifle team, 6,000 Shanghai troops, and Zuo Zongtang's Chu army in the southeastern Sufu Province. In the north of the Yangtze River, the Hunan Army and Yuan Baoheng's Linhuai Army jointly attacked Chen Yucheng's Tongcheng. The confrontation was head-on, and both sides suffered heavy casualties.
Shao Quanzhong stayed out of the matter and had not returned to the barracks in Fengyang for more than a month. Our Huai Army had already suffered "heavy casualties" in pacifying northern Anhui, and needed to rest and recuperate. We couldn't be allowed to take on another tough challenge.
In the past ten days, there have been frequent telegrams from Zhenjiang and Hailing to London and Berlin. Evan and Liao Rong have already arranged for the young students to go to Berlin and London for further studies.
Both the Royal Naval College of the United Kingdom and the Berlin Military Academy warmly welcomed trainees with large sums of money.
Not only can they earn high tuition fees and have free manpower in the future, but they can also increase the influence of the British Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia on the Qing Dynasty. This is a three-pronged approach, as the government can provide subsidies for the work, and they can pay for it themselves, which is like pie in the sky.
Emery hurried to Zhenjiang. He also wanted to go to Berlin for further studies with Shao Quanzhong's sponsorship.
Emery became a naturalized Qing citizen and quickly became a loyal subordinate of Shao Quanzhong. Having him lead the students makes us feel much more at ease than having Evan as a broker.
Emery doesn't know German? Half of the Americans are of Prussian descent, right? There is not much difference between English and German. With Emery's learning ability, he probably learned German on the way to Europe.
Liao Rong is going to London with his students, and he also needs to study. The Haichang is now short of a captain, and Shao Quanzhong is scratching his head, so he decided to leave it in Zhenjiang for now.
Compared with the wealth and territory that Shao Quanzhong currently controls, sending students to school doesn't actually cost much.
The travel expenses for each person were 400 taels, and the annual tuition, allowance, rent, food, etc. were about 400 taels each year. There were a total of 82 people in the army and navy, and the first batch spent no more than 60,000 taels of silver.
Shao Quanzhong agreed to give Evan a commission of 10,000 taels of silver after the matter was settled, which added up to more than 70,000 taels.
Liao Rong and Emery were enough to lead the team. Shao Quanzhong followed to Zhenjiang to discuss the news of Wall's ship purchase with Liao Rong.
Liao Rong held the latest intelligence with a serious look on his face.
"After Henry Wall got 400,000 taels of silver, he kept raising the price, claiming that the American Civil War could not be arranged and that he would have to pay more for it. He also made up his mind and claimed that warships with stronger firepower should be built. Yang Fang and Wu Xu had no knowledge of shipbuilding at all, and they already had 400,000 taels of silver as sunk costs, so they continued to distribute it among the wealthy businessmen in Shanghai. Wall already had 1 million taels of silver in his hands, and he boarded a ship to Hong Kong, preparing to return home. It was really a ruthless deception."
Shao Quanzhong didn't understand. "Compared to the foreign guns and bullets, which cost less than ten taels of silver, they sold them to the Qing Dynasty for three hundred taels. At most, they made a lot of money, but it can't be considered a scam, right?"
Liao Rong shook his head. "You don't understand. Look at the warship models listed by Wall. In the end, only three warships were ordered. The flagship 'Daqing' is a wooden warship, and the other two 'Jiangsu' and 'Zhejiang' are simply auxiliary ships. Even if the cost of shipbuilding has increased due to the American Civil War, it will not exceed 180,000 taels. Most importantly, these two types of warships cannot withstand the wind and waves of the Pacific Ocean and cannot be sailed back to the Qing Dynasty..."
Shao Quanzhong understood and gritted his teeth, "Okay, you don't plan to give the warships to the Qing Dynasty, right? Most likely you want to build the warships and sell them to the US Navy to fight the civil war and make a fortune. The Wall Brothers are greedy and want to cheat a million silver and run away, right?"
"Do you want to report the Wall Brothers' scam to the court?"
Shao Quanzhong rolled his eyes and said, "No need. We are outsiders, and even if we report it, they may not believe us. Wu Xu and Yang Fang will even blame us for meddling in other people's business. But, hey, we can't let these two foreign bastards swindle our Chinese money away."
Shao Quanzhong had a murderous look on his face. "Liu Niang, telegraph Fengyang and ask Haiqing to personally lead the Detective Division's action team to Zhenjiang. Inform You Sihai that I want to borrow a steamship from him to sail directly to Hong Kong to catch up with Wall." He turned his head and glanced at Liao Rong. "Let's wait here in Zhenjiang first. Didn't Wall go to Hong Kong? Let's chase him to Hong Kong. Brother Liao, this time, I may need to use your influence in the Triad."
Three days later, a steamship arrived in Zhenjiang. Haiqing, along with eight skilled and brave eunuchs from the Detective Department's Action Team 1 and twelve martial arts masters from the Action Team 2, arrived at the same time on a speedboat.
Shao Quanzhong waved his hand and said, "Brothers, come with me to Hong Kong to send some students to Europe, and do a business worth one million silver coins."
Emery, Evan, and Liao Rong led eighty students on board. Hai Qing followed Shao Quanzhong with a bitter look on his face.
"Second brother, you've put me in charge of the Detective Division, and that's really hurting me. There's nothing wrong with the Supervision Division, but the two action teams are both tough guys."
"What? They dare not obey your orders? Any disobedient master, no matter how high he is, should be driven out."
"No, they obey my command, but they don't obey each other. I wanted to choose two captains, but I couldn't choose one, and they had several fights among themselves. We can't let my eldest brother be their captain, right? How about you transfer Hu Liuniang over here, second brother?"
"Bah, that's wishful thinking, no way!"
Even if Hu Liuniang went, she could only be the captain of the second team. Who would take care of those eight eunuchs? Even Hai Qing couldn't beat them...
"call out!"
A streak of fireworks appeared on the river surface in the north.
"Haiqing, let's go. It's no big deal if you take these twenty people with you first. We can study it slowly. Haiqing - Haiqing - Third Brother!"
Haiqing opened his mouth wide and looked up at the northern sky. Shao Quanzhong called out three times before he reacted.
Hai Qing was still in a daze, "Second brother, that was a signal from my master."
"Who is your master?"
Shao Quanzhong didn't react for a moment.
"Dong Haichuan. He has been working in Prince Su's Mansion. Why is he here on the river?"
"Come if you want. Maybe the Prince Su sent him on a business trip."
"No, this is a distress signal. My master is in danger. Second brother, you must help with this!"
Shao Quanzhong looked up and saw a paddle boat paddling towards him at a high speed on the river, and not far behind it, a long dragon warship was following closely behind.
"boom!"
The Changlong warship fired cannons, which hit the side of the paddle boat, stirring up a water column several meters high.
"Boom!"
There were several more shots in succession, and the paddle boat was hit and cut in half. It was about to sink into the river, and more than a dozen people on board fell into the water.
Hai Qing was so anxious that he jumped up and down, "Among the people who fell into the water, there was my master. The old man who was choking on water was my brother's martial arts master Yang Luchan."
(End of this chapter)