At this moment, Li Weiguo and his group came directly to the Drum Tower on Zhongjie.

From a distance, I saw a tall building rising from the ground, which was the headquarters building of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank under construction.

"At this speed, the building will be completed in two months. It will take another decoration time to list and officially open for business." George, executive director of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, who accompanied Li Weiguo, reported to Li Weiguo.

Li Weiguo nodded. This speed was slow in the 21st century, but it seems that it will not affect the implementation of his overall plan.

"How are the procurement teams going overseas doing?"

"There is no news yet!" George shook his head and said, "According to your request, it will take one year for the equipment and materials purchased in Europe to travel back and forth, and it will be possible to come back in February next year. The equipment and materials purchased in the United States are very fast, and they can travel back and forth in seven or eight months, and the first batch of materials will be transported to Shanghai in another half a month."

Li Weiguo nodded, his speed was quite satisfying.

He held a board meeting before. In addition to carrying out banking, financial and credit business, investing in factories in China is the top priority. All the board members of the AIIB voted for this. The will was unprecedentedly consistent. They all understood that opening factories directly in China could make more money. After all, there were no giant cargo ships of millions of tons in this era. It took a lot of time and money to transport goods from Europe and the United States to China. The profit was obviously not as cost-effective as opening factories directly in China.

The Qing government obviously did not allow foreigners to open factories in China directly, so it became an inevitable choice for the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to open factories in China in the name of Li Weiguo. Li Weiguo could just use the money of these foreigners to strengthen his strength.

This is also one of the main reasons why Li Weiguo was rushing to buy European and American machinery and equipment to open factories in China. After all, the Second Opium War will soon break out, and then the great powers will get the privilege of legally opening factories in China. At that time, these merchants will not obey Li Weiguo's advice like they are now.

According to the plan proposed by Li Weiguo at the board of directors, the first batch of industrial equipment imported from Europe and the United States included an iron smelting plant, a steel smelting plant, a cement factory, a textile factory, a match factory, a printing factory, a paper factory, a fertilizer factory, a water plant, and a gas factory. Most of these factories are basic industrial facilities necessary for the development of a city's life and development, and have a huge consumer market. Therefore, all shareholders of the AIIB board of directors agreed to allocate funds to purchase related machinery and equipment without hesitation.

However, Li Weiguo knew that it was better to teach people how to fish than to teach people how to fish. It was not possible to rely solely on importing factory equipment from abroad. Once the machine was damaged, it would be subject to control. Therefore, Li Weiguo commissioned several Venetian merchants to import a large number of machine tool processing equipment from European and American countries in his personal name, including advanced gantry planers, Whitney milling machines, Brown grinders, horseshoe drilling machines, etc. With these equipment, you can process various required parts by yourself in the future without being subject to control.

Of course, it would cost at least one million taels of silver to purchase all these lathe equipment, which was quite expensive. Fortunately, Li Weiguo copied Xiao Yang and others' homes and got several million taels of silver, which happened to buy these machines and equipment.

In addition to entrusting foreign merchants to purchase a large number of machine tools and equipment, Li Weiguo's biggest investment was to purchase weapons and equipment, because Li Weiguo knew that the rise of Han warlords such as Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang, and Zuo Zongtang was to suppress the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom movement, so Li Weiguo naturally would not miss this god-given opportunity. He also wanted to get a share of the pie and take the opportunity to become a powerful warlord in a real-world warlord.

In the past, Li Weiguo bought hundreds of muskets and supporting ammunition, and just say hello to John and you will get the goods soon.

But since Li Weiguo trained 4,000 people in Chongming County and was preparing to purchase weapons and equipment for 4,000 people, John could not make the decision because this involved national security and interest disputes, and the British military also needed to consider its national strategic interests in China.

However, Li Weiguo has many methods, and he cannot buy such a large amount of arms from the British military for a while. However, Shanghai County is full of foreigners and can also start from British merchants. If British merchants do not sell, then start from merchants from other countries. Anyway, in this world, it is not only the British who are selling weapons and equipment. French, German, Swedes, and Americans are selling arms around the world, because this is one of the most profitable ways, and no one can get along with money.

In the end, the British military seemed to understand that Li Weiguo could buy arms from merchants from other countries, so there was no need to restrict them. Instead, it had an unhappy relationship with Li Weiguo, which affected future cooperation. In addition, selling arms to Li Weiguo could make a lot of money, so it finally agreed to sell weapons and equipment to Li Weiguo on a large scale.

So Li Weiguo invested 200,000 taels of silver to purchase 5,000 muskets, including 4,800 P1842 firing front-mounted smoothbore guns, and 200 P1851 firing front-mounted rifle guns.

Although Li Weiguo knew that rifled rifles were more advanced than smoothbore rifles, he also knew that before the rear-loaded rifles appeared, the front-loaded rifles were not suitable for large-scale evacuation combat. Because of the rifle, the gunman was very struggling to install bullets.

However, Li Weiguo still chose to buy two hundred P1851 front-mounted rifled guns. This was because Li Weiguo suddenly thought of the American War of Independence that a rifled gun was rewriting the entire American history. Recalling the special forces combat ideas of later generations, Li Weiguo decided to independently organize a unit that specializes in using rifled guns to fight independently on the battlefield, with shooting and killing important enemy targets as the primary task. When cooperating with the large force to fight head-on, it will have unexpected results.

In addition to muskets, Li Weiguo also spent 480,000 taels of silver to purchase six 24-pound cannons, ten 16-pound cannons used as infantry fire support, and four 68-pound and 32-pound cannons were used to defend the city.

Although the weapons and equipment purchased were equipped with a base ammunition standard, Li Weiguo knew that he did not have his own arsenal yet. Once a war broke out, the ammunition was consumed hugely and could not be replenished, so he had to stockpile guns and gunpowder on a large scale, which cost nearly 600,000 taels of silver.

Seeing the silver in his hand flowing out like water, Li Weiguo felt really distressed, but he had no choice but to let the child go and could not bear to ask for the wolf.

Just when Li Weiguo felt sorry for his squandered money, the British Embassy finally made some noise. Bao Ling had to admit that he had lost to Li Weiguo in the Liru Bank. Finally, he let go and took the initiative to invite Li Weiguo to attend a banquet.
Chapter completed!