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Yu Garden, the largest garden in Shanghai County, is close to the Chenghuang Temple. It was built during the Ming Dynasty and is a private house. It was purchased by the Shanghai Chamber of Commerce during the Qianlong period. It took more than 20 years to complete the construction. It specially receives important officials of the court. The locals call it Daguanyuan.

Yuyuan should have been destroyed by the British, French and American coalition forces during the Xiaodaohui rebellion, but due to the butterfly effect brought by Li Weiguo, the great powers' army did not have the opportunity to send troops to Shanghai, which allowed Yuyuan to be completely preserved.

Now, the members of the chamber of commerce holding the Yuyuan land deed heard that the Taiping Army was coming, and learned that Li Weiguo was interested in purchasing Yuyuan as a private house, so they sold and gave it half to please Li Weiguo.

This Yu Garden is equivalent to the imperial palace in Shanghai. Li Weiguo had long taken a fancy to it. Seeing that the Chamber of Commerce was very aware, he accepted it with a smile, as the new house of Li's mansion.

This Yu Garden is much larger than the old Li family house in Jinling, and is much more luxurious. It covers an area of ​​more than 70 acres. It contains Xiangxue Hall, Dianchun Hall, Osmanthus Hall, Deyue Tower, Huashen Pavilion, Lotus Hall, etc. There are no mountains in Shanghai County, but there are rockery in Yu Garden. You can enjoy the scenery of Shanghai County by climbing up to a high place, including artificial lakes, waterfalls, pavilions, pavilions, precious flowers, plants, trees, corner towers, etc. It has both the natural beauty of Suzhou gardens and the palace buildings specially designed to receive court officials, and the veritable small palace in Jiangnan.

Living in Yu Garden is like living in the imperial palace, which shows that Li Weiguo's ambitions have expanded so quickly.

Yu represents An Tai and peaceful. Li’s father and mother like this name very much. Fu Shanxiang has liked lotus since he was a child, which means nobility. When he learned that lotus flowers were planted in the lotus hall of Yu Garden, he couldn’t wait to move into Yu Garden and transform the lotus hall into a small lotus building. On the one hand, it is used as the living place for her and Li Weiguo, and he can also take care of her lotus in the lake in person.

Only when a woman is at home is like a home. As the hostess, Fu Shanxiang personally manages Yuyuan and takes care of his parents, which makes Li Weiguo much more relaxed. He doesn’t have to worry about family affairs and can devote himself to the great cause of “stealing the country and rebelling”.

At present, for Li Weiguo, the most important thing is that the British and Hong Kong military agreed to sell a complete set of arsenal equipment to Li Weiguo.

Previously, the British and Hong Kong military always disagreed with selling British muskets, artillery technology and military factory production equipment to Li Weiguo because they only want to sell finished muskets and artillery, so that they can earn more money from Li Weiguo.

However, over time, things have changed.

On July 3, 1853, Tsarist Russia sent 80,000 troops to suddenly occupy Moldova and Wallachia, the territory of the Ottoman Empire, the two principalities of the Danube, and rejected the Sultan's request for withdrawal. In October, the Ottoman Turkish Empire declared war on Russia, marking the outbreak of the Crimean War and the ninth large-scale war between Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

This time it was not just a territorial war between Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire, because the Ottoman Empire formed ally with Britain and France. In this way, in the face of the large-scale military invasion of Tsarist Russia, Britain and France, which were in hostile relations with Tsarist Russia, could not sit idly by.

As the Ottoman Turkish Empire declared war on Tsarist Russia, the governments of Britain and France had agreed to intervene in the Russian-Turkey War. On the one hand, both countries began to mobilize large-scale military forces, and on the other hand, they began to suspend expansion operations in the global direction to avoid military conflicts with other countries and ensure that Britain and France can concentrate on the Crimean War.

When the news reached Asia, the British Army Command of Hong Kong, which was preparing to intervene in the Chinese civil war, had to terminate the military plan. At the same time, the British base camp transferred all military supplies to the Crimean battlefield. At this time, the British team was replacing muskets on a large scale, replacing the active Enfield p1842 muskets with two new muskets Enfield p1851 and Enfield p1853. However, due to the insufficient production capacity of the UK, it can only produce 20,000 to 30,000 muskets of this type each year, which is not enough to fully replace the military. In addition, the losses during the war will be huge, so the two new muskets, p1851 and p1853, were seriously lacking. The British base camp then terminated the supply to Asia, resulting in the British Hong Kong army stopping the replacement, and even the new muskets that were previously in service were transferred to the Crimean battlefield.

In this way, the British and Hong Kong military could no longer sell the muskets and cannons in their hands to Li Weiguo. However, they took Li Weiguo's large arms orders and deposits, and they were reluctant to return the money to Li Weiguo. At the same time, they wanted to earn more money from Li Weiguo, so they finally decided to sell the arsenal equipment to Li Weiguo and transfer the muskets and cannon production technology.

Li Weiguo was naturally happy to hear that. You should know that although technology blockades were not popular in this year, and countries did not prohibit export of their own advanced technology, there were exceptions, that is, military industry and technology generally did not export, and even if they were exported, they were only to trustworthy or friendly countries. Li Weiguo was able to obtain British arsenals and related military technology, more because Li Weiguo controlled the entire Jiangdong, and the British concession was under Li Weiguo's nose. Facing the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's possible attack on Shanghai, the British side considered that it was inconvenient to send troops to intervene in the Chinese civil war, so they helped Li Weiguo and sold him arsenal and military technology.

As a result, the transaction of the arsenal with a total amount of one million taels of silver was successfully negotiated. The British side of Hong Kong helped Li Weiguo build an arsenal in Shanghai. After completion, the arsenal could produce a full set of parts and launch medicines for p1842, p1851 and p1853 type muskets, as well as 12-pound cannons, 16-pound cannons, 24-pound cannons, 32-pound cannons, and supporting flowering ammunition production equipment and technology. Even the 64-pound fortress cannons were forced by Li Weiguo to agree to provide equipment and transfer 64-pound cannon barrel production, processing technology, and supporting flowering ammunition production equipment.

A total of 372 sets of machinery and equipment were provided by the Hong Kong Arsenal. The rest were shipped directly from the Mumbai Arsenal, the largest arsenal in the UK and India colonized, and arrived in Shanghai in two months.

Li Weiguo arranged the address of the arsenal outside the south city of Shanghai County. It was a good location with wide terrain and convenient transportation. It was supposed to be forcibly opened by France to become a new French concession after the Second Raven War. Now Li Weiguo is taking it first, so it is naturally impossible to give it to the French again.

Of course, choosing here is also a little thought from Li Weiguo. He remembers that Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang will establish the first modern military factory in Chinese history here - Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau.

Li Weiguo knew that he would fight with these giants sooner or later, so from now on, he took the lead in establishing the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, so that future generations would know that the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was established by Li Weiguo.

This can be regarded as a little bad thing that Li Weiguo deliberately made!

As an arsenal, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is responsible for providing military supplies such as guns, cannons and ammunition to the Li family army. The importance of this is self-evident.

Now it is the year of war, Li Weiguo hopes that the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau can be put into production as soon as possible, so he allows foreign foreigners to serve as important positions and technical consultants. At the same time, he spends a lot of money to hire a large number of Chinese technical workers who know foreign languages ​​from Hong Kong and Macau, so that they can be apprenticed to foreigners. After a few years, they can fully understand the skills and experience of foreign technicians. Then Li Weiguo is gradually firing these foreigners.

As for why these foreigners were fired, the reason is very simple. The Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau is a military industry, which can be said to be the fundamental interest of Li Weiguo. If foreigners hold important positions, it is very dangerous, especially if Li Weiguo knows that after the end of the Crimean War in a few years, the British and French coalition forces will go to war with the Qing Dynasty and launch the second Raven War. Obviously, Li Weiguo will not not participate at that time. He will eventually showdown with Britain and France on the road of confrontation. Therefore, foreigners are not allowed in his Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau. The key is to prevent foreigners from knowing the situation inside. The war is just about arms and materials. If the British and French coalition forces know how many guns, can be used in Li Weiguo's arsenal, they can judge how long the Li family army can last, which is extremely unfavorable to the Li family army.

Li Weiguo was very considerate, so he hired a large number of Chinese technicians who knew foreign languages ​​from Hong Kong and Macau, and tried to let them thoroughly understand various technologies within three or four years to achieve the level of replacing foreign technicians and consultants. In this way, before the Second Opium War broke out, it was necessary to ensure that the entire Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was owned and reduce the risk of leaks.

After hearing Li Weiguo's strategy, Wu Yong and Fu Xuexian agreed very much. At the same time, they suggested that this could be implemented in Jiangwan Industrial Zone, because now all factories in Jiangwan Industrial Zone are controlled by foreigners. The local workers selected previously did not understand foreign languages, and basically followed foreigners while learning foreign languages. Language barriers lead to a very slow learning speed. If Chinese technicians who understand foreign languages ​​are also hired from Hong Kong, Macau and other places, let these technicians learn foreign skills first, and then teach other Chinese apprentices in Chinese, the overall progress will be greatly accelerated.

Li Weiguo listened to the suggestions of Wu Yong and Fu Xuexian, and immediately sent people to Hong Kong and Macau to recruit talents and technicians who understand foreign languages. At the same time, Li Weiguo could learn from it. It was not limited to Hong Kong and Macau. He also sent people to Southeast Asia to visit Singapore, the Western Philippines, and the Dutch East India to recruit overseas Chinese to return to China. These Southeast Asian Chinese were exposed to Western education earlier and had more talents. Inviting them to return to China can improve various industries faster, which is the most suitable.

In particular, Li Weiguo also sent someone to inquire about the situation of local Chinese students studying abroad, especially those Chinese who graduated from famous foreign universities. They should try their best to get them back to China and use them for Li Weiguo.

To this end, Li Weiguo specially established a foundation for overseas Chinese to contribute to the return of China, investing 5 million taels of silver, specifically to attract foreign Chinese talents to return to China.

The nature of this foundation is basically the same as the talent recruitment hall established by Li Weiguo before, except that the talent recruitment hall is aimed at domestic talents, while the foundation is aimed at Chinese talents from abroad.

Of course, Li Weiguo did not make strict regulations that he must be an overseas Chinese. If foreign foreigners are talented and are willing to come to Shanghai to do things for Li Weiguo, it is also very welcome. However, this hope is very slim and Li Weiguo did not take it seriously.
Chapter completed!