On January 28, 1894, the day began to grow a little longer, and in the morning, the slightly chilling sea breeze of the Mediterranean still made people feel a little cold.

The sun just rose on the sea, and the sea water became colorful, and countless red flames seemed to be jumping on the water. Morning mist was filled with waves, and a group of twenty-three merchant ships and seven warships, perhaps the largest fleet in the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire slowly sailed away from Cataro Bay.

Boloevich stood on the bridge of the battleship "Crown Prince Rudolf" wearing a yellow military coat, looking at everything in front of him with interest, the fleet, the sea, the warships, and these things would be of great interest to him who was on a long-distance ocean sailing for the first time.

For an army officer, the "Crown Prince Rudolf" with a displacement of 8,500 tons is indeed a behemoth. The entire hull and superstructure are painted black. The three 240mm main guns and 12 150mm secondary guns equipped on it can feel a terrifying power.

Boloevich became a little excited and looked at the cannons carefully. As a soldier, he was naturally interested in these forces.

He turned his eyes to the merchant fleets, where at least half of the ships were filled with arms: 600,000 rifles, 300 new Maxim machine guns, 200 various artillery guns ranging from 37 mm to 70 mm caliber, 20 million bullets, tens of thousands of shells and hundreds of tons of explosives. The distance between each cargo ship was much larger than normal. Boloevich had no doubt that if an ammunition on any ship occurred, the entire ship would be blown into the air.

The other half of the ships were equipped with machinery and equipment. It is said that a governor of the Qing Dynasty was preparing to build a steel mill and an arsenal, which were ordered for him. These cargo ships carrying arms and cargo ships carrying machines were arranged in two columns, which looked quite spectacular.

He could not understand Lee Haydn's approach. Judging from the current situation, everything in the Far East was calm and there was no sign of a war. If it weren't for the war, what would he do to transport such a large number of soldiers there? Could it be that he could really sell it?

This is a arduous voyage. Even if you cross the Suez Canal, it is more than 7,000 nautical miles. The entire fleet is sailing at a speed of 7 to 9 knots. Even if it is not stopped day and night, it will take more than 40 days. But this is impossible. They have to add coal at least three times or even more on the way, and with the time to replenish supplies at the port, it will take fifty days even if the journey goes smoothly.

In fact, the entire fleet took fifty-seven days. In the Red Sea, a cargo ship was forced to be towed back to Djibouti due to a boiler failure. It took twenty days to repair the boiler. Li Haidn had to let it sail with other fleets to the Far East after repairing it alone.

In the Indian Ocean, the "Adris" cargo ship had a turbine failure. The entire fleet waited for it on the sea for two days before it started its voyage again. The last voyage was delayed for another day in the South China Sea.

It was March 27 when the entire fleet arrived in Hong Kong.

Lee Haydn left the entire fleet in Hong Kong, but he ran to Shanghai on the cruiser "Queen Teresa".

He asked Schroeder to send the ten ships of machinery and equipment ordered for Zhang Zhidong to Wuchang, and he was in charge of Shanghai and personally took charge of the acquisition of raw silk.

This year, the Spring Cocoon Market was similar to previous years. The purchase price of each burlap was about 37 taels of silver. Lee Haydn borrowed a total of 1.5 million pounds from Rothschild Bank and Land Credit Bank in Vienna, which was about 6.5 million taels of silver, and all of them were invested in the Spring Cocoon acquisition war.

By May, he had already accumulated about 600,000 tons of raw cocoons and nearly 30,000 tons of raw silk in Shanghai. In the summer, he had rushed to buy about 200,000 tons of summer cocoons and 50,000 tons of raw silk. At this time, Li Haydn had almost spent the loan, so he had to use the raw silk and silk cocoons in his hand to borrow 500,000 pounds from HSBC in the UK, and began to stockpile camphor and other items produced in Taiwan.

By July, he had already stockpiled about £3.2 million worth of goods in China.

At this time, politicians with sensitive sense of smell have clearly realized the tension in East Asia.

Li Hongzhang was upset by the recent situation in North Korea. Although there was news that there was a possibility of a war between China and Japan, he still believed that this possibility was not high. Lord Li's awareness of Japan and his strength to both sides remained ten years ago, which was the period of the Renwu change. That time, the Japanese finally retreated, and it is estimated that they would retreat again this time. In the turmoil in Korea, the king asked China to send troops to help quell the rebellion. As the sect leader, he had this obligation.

The problem is that the Japanese are also shouting to send troops.

This is a problem, but Li Hongzhang and Yuan Shikai in North Korea both underestimated the Japanese's determination this time.

Don't worry about it, this small country of Cheer is just trying to take advantage of it.

Due to a misjudgment, Li Hongzhang made the decision to send troops to North Korea.

The Japanese finally seized the opportunity and announced that they would also send troops to North Korea, and it was a mixed brigade with more than 7,000 people, twice as many as the Qing garrison in North Korea.

It was immediately lively at this time.

The war faction headed by Emperor Guangxu, Weng Tonghe, the Minister of Revenue, in the court, shouted and immediately started a war with the Japanese. The young emperor who was bewitched by the war faction had issued orders to all Beiyang to prepare for war. However, Li Hongzhang had no intention of a decisive battle with the Japanese. He knew very well about the situation of the Beiyang Navy and had no confidence in the war rivals. He knew better than anyone else about the virtues of the Huai Army under his command.

Land warfare is not good, naval warfare is not sure, and Lao Li just wants to passively avoid the war, but the guys in Beijing who can't see the situation clearly are relentless and constantly put pressure on him through the emperor.

The biggest problem is that the Beiyang Navy is not ready at all.

The Beiyang Fleet has not added another new warship for a full ten years, and the navy admiral Ding Ruchang has been reporting that the ships of the Beiyang ships were old and their artillery lagged behind, and asked the court to allocate funds to replace new naval guns for the fleet. However, these requirements were rejected one by one. The reason was very simple. In order to prepare for the Empress Dowager's expenses for the Empress Dowager's birthday celebration, Weng Tonghe proposed to stop purchasing all foreign arms within two years. Not only did he refuse to allocate funds to purchase new warships and artillery, but he also no longer allocated funds to purchase shells and carry out daily maintenance of warships.

The Japanese have been preparing for it, and even the emperor is sluggishly raising his food and adding equipment to the navy. Until now, after ten years, they have finally revealed their fangs.

It is not the question of whether to start a war or not, but the pro-war factions in the court have to make a big fuss about this, with the purpose of overthrowing him, Li Hongzhang. As for the result of the war, these people have never cared about it.

This is the reason why Qingliu wants to start a war, especially Weng Tonghe, which is a great opportunity to overthrow Li Hongzhang. Li Hongzhang is very clear that since his brother Weng Tongshu, a corrupt official, was impeached and dismissed by himself, the leader of the Qingliu school has always regarded himself as an enemy. Over the years, almost every time he put forward a certain reform proposal, such as changing the imperial examination, emphasizing Western France or practicing the navy, Weng Tonghe will definitely sing a counter-top tune and dragging him down.

This time, the same is true. They didn't know that war was related to the danger of the country, or they knew it, but they didn't take it seriously.

So Li Hongzhang was not ready to start a war.
Chapter completed!