When Wang Chenhao followed the eunuch to the Summer Palace, the morning court had already begun.

Emperor Guangxu has been very active recently. I don’t know if he was inspired by Kang Youwei. In short, he is becoming more and more eager to achieve the real emperor’s rule.

This time, Li Hongzhang met Emperor Guangxu when he came to the palace and brought two memorials. One was to say hello to Prince Gong and build a railway connecting Beijing to outside the pass; the second was to rectify the matter of the Zhili Navy and Army.

Emperor Guangxu always agreed to the construction of railways, but Prince Chun, who was in charge of the naval yamen in the first two years of Sino-Japanese War, died of illness and delayed. After the Sino-Japanese War, Guangxu became more aware that the defeat of the mainland was closely related to the railway. In addition, Prince Gong Yi in the court helped him, Guangxu agreed on the spot and asked Yi and other backbones of the naval yamen to study and decide on their own.

Of course, the construction of the Beijing-Hei Railway Project was huge, which would cost more than 20 million taels of silver. However, the Ministry of Revenue was limited, and some officials with good relations with Zhang Zhidong insisted on building the Beijing-Han Railway at the same time. Guangxu approved Li Hongzhang to build the Beiyang Railway, but he could not help Nanyang to build the railway, which was in a dilemma. Weng Tonghe did not want the Ministry of Revenue to be hollowed out by Beiyang and Li Hongzhang, so he asked Nanyang to raise funds for the construction of the railway on his own, so Emperor Guangxu approved it.

Then Li Hongzhang proposed to rectify the Zhili Navy and Army. The memorial clarified the shortcomings of the Navy and Army after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and asked for the order to reform.

During this period, Emperor Guangxu has been listening to Kang Youwei's memorials handed over by Weng Tonghe, and mentioned military reforms many times, which have been recognized by Emperor Guangxu. In addition, after the Censor impeached Lu Shi's decadent state, the Military Affairs Office also believed that Li Hongzhang's Huai Army was not enough to defend the country and needed reform.

Emperor Guangxu had never directly proposed military reform before, mainly taking into account Li Hongzhang's attitude. After all, the military of the state was mainly supported by Li Hongzhang's Huai Army system. If Li Hongzhang opposed it, the court would not be able to reform the military.

Now that Li Hongzhang took the initiative to propose military reform, Emperor Guangxu was immediately overjoyed and asked what good strategies Li Hongzhang had.

Li Hongzhang then proposed that the Beiyang Navy had not added ships and guns in the past eight years. The two armored iron battleships, Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, were lagging behind. At present, the Western navy has entered the era of all-steel battleships, and the gap between the Beiyang Navy is too big. At the same time, Japan has two Fuji-class battleships built in the UK. The Dingzhen two ships are not opponents. Please order new battleships and form a new fleet.

In the army, Li Hongzhang was preparing to rectify the Huai Army and imitate the troops of Western powers to train the new army of the Qing Empire. At the same time, he asked for an order to eliminate the old Eight Banners soldiers and Green Camp soldiers to save military expenses to train the new army.

Guangxu did not object to the training of the new army and the new fleet, because Cixi's Summer Palace had been repaired and the funds could be allocated to Beiyang.

What Emperor Guangxu wanted to know was what kind of naval and army Li Hongzhang was planning to build and who was used to train, which was related to the court's control over the new army.

Of course, there were many meanings that Guangxu wanted to compete for power with power groups such as Cixi and Li Hongzhang during this period.

Li Hongzhang then called the new army. Li Hongzhang planned to merge the Song Qing army and Nie Shicheng army, and Cha Hannagan, the chief of the Beiyang Navy, was appointed as the new army consultant to cooperate in the training of the new army.

In the naval aspect, Li Hongzhang said that the Beiyang Navy Admiral Wang Chenhao was well versed in maritime affairs, was very familiar with the Beiyang Navy, and was well aware of the naval development of various powers, so he was prepared to serve as the new naval secretary.

The others were nothing. When the words Wang Chenhao were spoken from Li Hongzhang, they immediately caused huge waves in the court like a bomb.

Emperor Guangxu had no objection. Wang Chenhao's contribution in the Sino-Japanese War was obvious to all. Emperor Guangxu also had a very good impression of him. On the one hand, he appreciated Wang Chenhao's courage and skills, and on the other hand, as a young man, Emperor Guangxu had the intention to win over Wang Chenhao.

However, the civil and military ministers had two oppositions. The royal family officials, led by Prince Qing Yili, did not want the new navy to fall into the hands of the Beiyang. They did not want to cultivate another Li Hongzhang. They had always been looking forward to bringing the Beiyang Navy under the direct control of the royal family.

Guangxu knew Yi Li and the others' thoughts, so why didn't he want to put the navy into the hands of the royal family? It's a pity that the royal family has withered, so who can take on the throne of the new navy?

Therefore, the clamor of Yi Li and others was directly ignored by Emperor Guangxu, and the royal family could only spend money on training the navy.

Another objection is naturally Li Hongzhang's old rival Weng Tonghe. Weng Tonghe had long realized that Li Hongzhang wanted to support Wang Chenhao to the stage, so he decided not to let Li Hongzhang get what he wanted, and it was necessary to make things difficult and stop them.

Weng Tonghe immediately came out to object, saying that the navy was expensive and the court was short of funds and could not afford to train the navy. Wang Chenhao was still young and had insufficient experience, so he could not entrust this major national affairs to him.

Weng Tonghe firmly opposed it and asked for a replacement.

However, Li Hongzhang said that no one else could be used. Weng Tong and Lin Lin recommended a lot of candidates. Li Hongzhang all rejected them one by one on the grounds that the new fleet needed new naval talent training.

Since the Beiyang Navy was controlled by Li Hongzhang, he said that no one was available, and it was useless for Weng Tong and stared at him.

Weng Tonghe and Li Hongzhang fought in the court with red faces and refused to give in to each other.

Soon, Li Hongzao, the Qingliu faction and others, plus officials from the Nanyang faction, helped the war and supported Weng Tonghe, while Prince Gong Yi was neutral, leaving Li Hongzhang at a disadvantage.

After all, Weng Tonghe was the teacher of Emperor Guangxu. Guangxu also considered the relationship between Li Hongzhang and Wang Chenhao, so he said that the new navy was expensive and needed to be considered carefully, thus rejecting Li Hongzhang's proposal.

Li Hongzhang seemed to have guessed this result a long time ago, so he took the lead and said that Wang Chenhao was not only well versed in maritime affairs, but also proficient in the tactics of the Western Mainland Division, and requested that he be appointed as the new army training minister.

Everyone in the court was stunned. Unexpectedly, Li Hongzhang had this killer weapon.

Emperor Guangxu was interested and hurriedly asked in-depth questions. Li Hongzhang then submitted Wang Chenhao's idea of ​​compiling a new army to Emperor Guangxu.

After reading it, Emperor Guangxu called out three words "good" in a row, and seemed very excited. Then he circulated the memorials to a group of ministers. Soon some officials who knew military affairs below suddenly exclaimed a lot of praise.

Emperor Guangxu refuted Li Hongzhang once before and favored Weng Tonghe. Now Li Hongzhang has retired and asked Wang Chenhao to be the second most important minister of the army training. Now Emperor Guangxu is not willing to refuse anymore, so he nodded in agreement.

Weng Tonghe didn't expect that Li Hongzhang would play with him and was a little dissatisfied, so he joined forces with officials from the Nanyang faction to ask for an order to train the new army, requiring everyone to be treated equally.

Emperor Guangxu was a little displeased when he saw Weng Tonghe in such an entanglement. But he felt that he could not only win over Beiyang, and Nanyang was not weak. In order to deal with the Later Party, Emperor Guangxu also had to give face to Nanyang.

Considering that the training of the Lu Division did not require much funding, and as the emperor Guangxu needed to check and balance each other, Guangxu finally decided to train a new army at the North and South China and the North and South China to train each other in a year. The winning side would be the standard for the training of the court's new army, and then the selection of the training minister would be decided.

This result was also expected by Li Hongzhang, so the problem of compiling a new army was also solved. Overall, Li Hongzhang's goal has been achieved.

After that, Emperor Guangxu discussed the specific details with the ministers. Li Hongzhang was just for the purpose of making a name for himself and did not expect it at all, because the average cost of a 15,000-ton all-steel battleship in 1891 was as high as 1.2 million pounds, and the price was more than 1.5 million pounds. If it was paid in installments, it would be estimated that it would be possible to buy it.

According to the exchange rate in 1895, this one million pounds was about 13 million taels of silver, and a battleship accounted for one-eighth of the annual fiscal revenue of the Qing Empire. If the maintenance costs and daily expenses were included, it would be too difficult for the poor Qing Empire.

At this time, the Qing Empire allocated 4 million taels of silver to the Beiyang Navy every year. After deducting the misappropriated 3 million taels, the Beiyang Navy could only get about 1 million taels each year. This money was used for daily maintenance and maintenance, so how easy was it to build a new navy?

Li Hongzhang had already figured out all the links, so he could only talk about the Navy. His real purpose was to help Wang Chenhao get the title of Army Training Minister.

This kind of roundabout political method is simple and practical. Unfortunately, Weng Tonghe lost his composure when he saw Li Hongzhang, which led to Li Hongzhang succeeding.
Chapter completed!