Anti-Qing: Starting from the Jintian Uprising

Chapter 382 The Importance of Foreign Threats from Enemy Countries

When Song Zhengqing heard this, his heart skipped a beat and he had a bad feeling, so he hurriedly asked.

"problem occurs?"

"Tell me quickly, what happened?"

The secretary took a deep breath and then spoke.

"In reply to the district chief, when the main force of the police station was actively pursuing the invading natives, some thieves took advantage of the police station's lack of defense and attacked the police station prison."

"Attempting to break into the prison and rescue the prisoners!"

When Song Zhengqing heard this, his bad feeling became stronger.

I couldn't help but ask.

"and then?"

"What happened?"

The secretary continued.

"Fortunately, the remaining police officers were well-trained and responded quickly, blocking the thieves who attempted to break into the prison and protecting the safety of the police station."

"We even took a few prisoners!"

The police officers in the Concession Police Station are all retired military personnel, and they are not very proficient in handling and investigating cases.

But fighting and killing the enemy is definitely not a problem.

Upon hearing this, Song Zhengqing couldn't help but slowly exhale a breath, and then gave another order.

"By the way, tell the police station to remember to detain the suspects separately."

"Especially the suspects in this jailbreak and the suspects in the Guangweilou case, they must be detained separately."

Song Zhengqing suspected that the suspect in this prison break might have been sent by the Dutch to kill and silence people.

In this case, it would not be excessive for them to be more careful.

Upon hearing this, the secretary nodded to show that he understood, then turned around and left.

Song Zhengqing buried his head in writing a report, preparing to report the matter to the court and ask for a decision.

……

Late night, Forbidden City.

The bright moon hangs high in the sky, and the stars dot the dark sky, which is extremely beautiful.

The lights were still on in the Hall of Mental Cultivation.

Li Yi was sitting behind his desk, reading memorials and military reports.

There are now five things handed to him.

The first thing was that the Tang Dynasty signed military trade contracts with Tsarist Russia, Britain, France and other countries.

Tsarist Russia, Britain and France bought a total of nearly two million silver dollars worth of second-hand military equipment from the Tang Dynasty.

These include breech-loading rifles, breech-loading rifled cannons, rotary machine guns, as well as metal fixed bullets, shells for breech-loading cannons, rockets and other categories.

This large-scale military trade order not only helped the Tang Dynasty to clear out the old weapons inventory that the army had replaced.

He also provided Li Yi with the funds and initial investment needed to build a new large arsenal in the capital.

There’s even some room to spare!

As for why Britain, France and Tsarist Russia spent huge sums of money to purchase arms from the Tang Dynasty instead of producing them themselves?

The reason for Tsarist Russia is very simple, because they do not have the industrial capacity and cannot produce it themselves even if they want to.

To put it bluntly, the industrial capacity of Tsarist Russia at that time was not necessarily much stronger than that of the Qing Dynasty.

Before Tsar Alexander II of Russia carried out reforms to liberate serfs and develop industry.

Tsarist Russia and the Qing Dynasty are actually players of the same level.

Although Tsarist Russia was stronger than the Qing Dynasty, its strength was limited.

The most typical example is that even now, a considerable number of the gray beasts of Tsarist Russia are still equipped with old matchlock rifles produced in the last century.

The reason for Britain and France's failure is that they don't have enough time.

Although Britain and France have their own industrial capabilities.

However, it takes at least one or two years for a weapon to go from research and development to maturity, finalization, establishment of a production line, and mass production.

The fighting in Crimea is now in full swing, and weapons are urgently needed to replenish the front line.

How could they have so much time to slowly develop weapons and equip the army?
Besides, even if Britain and France have the ability to manufacture their own weapons, it does not prevent them from purchasing weapons from the Tang Dynasty.

There is no contradiction between the two!
Even if Britain and France start mass production of new weapons now, their production capacity will inevitably be limited in the short term due to the lack of expertise in production lines and supply chains.

It is definitely not enough to equip the army!

Under this premise, military purchases are made to purchase products from Datang that are mature in technology and have been tested in war, to fill their own production capacity gaps, and then replace them when their own production capacity stabilizes.

It is their best choice.

Besides, it is an established fact that the Tang Dynasty is now buying arms from abroad.

Or is it an established fact that they cannot change.

Those weapons are right there, but they don't buy them. There are plenty of people who would buy them.

Well, for example, a certain Slavic country that is fighting them to the death in Crimea.

Therefore, even if it was just to prevent Tsarist Russia from obtaining large quantities of arms and weapons so easily, and to raise the price for Tsarist Russia, they had to get involved in the arms purchase.

The second thing is to build a new large arsenal in the capital.

As for the location of the arsenal, Li Yi decided on Jingshan.

The main reason for choosing Jingshan is because Jingshan is very close to the capital and is easy to control.

When Li Yi decided to build the Foshan Arsenal in Foshan, this was also a consideration.

The reason why they were so anxious was to build the Jingshan Arsenal.

One reason was that the large arms orders from Tsarist Russia, Britain and France provided the Tang Dynasty with financial support for the construction of arsenals.

The second reason is that the Foshan Arsenal is too far from the capital and is not easy to control. Li Yi wants to know the development of the Arsenal nearby, or to check and balance the Foshan Arsenal, so as to prevent the Foshan Arsenal from becoming a military-industrial complex of a certain lighthouse.

It is very necessary to build a new large-scale arsenal to compete with the Foshan Arsenal.

Third, there can be no development without competition.

If there was only one Foshan Arsenal in the Tang Dynasty, it would not take long before the Foshan Arsenal would inevitably become slack and lack the ambition to make progress due to its monopoly position.

It may even further breed corruption and power struggles.

These are inevitable things.

Because that is human nature.

If you want to solve this problem, the method is actually very simple.

That is to support another large arsenal to compete with the Foshan Arsenal.

Only with competition can there be development, and only with competition can there be vitality.

What if the Foshan Arsenal and the Jingshan Arsenal fell together?
The answer is very simple, just support the third arsenal.

As long as there is external competition, even if we degenerate, we can’t go any lower.

This is the importance of having external enemies and foreign threats.

The fourth is to supplement the current military equipment gap of the Tang army.

The fifth reason is that Li Yi plans to boost the industrial development in the north by building a large arsenal.

Further promote Datang's move towards industrialization!
The third thing was the news coming back from outside the Great Wall.

After the internal strife in Chengde, the Manchu Qing Dynasty was divided into Eastern Qing and Western Qing.

While the Dongqing retreated to Liaodong, it sent envoys to contact the Tang Dynasty in an attempt to redeem their Emperor Yi.

Xiqing also sent envoys, but their purpose was to submit to the Tang Dynasty and obtain the title from it.

Now, two letters from Dongqing and Xiqing have been delivered to Li Yi.

Looking at the contents of the two letters, Li Yi's expression was somewhat conflicted.

Logically speaking, the Tang Dynasty’s main focus at present should be on handling affairs within the Great Wall.

In other words, in a short period of time, they were unable to go out and recover Liaodong or even the grassland.

In this case, let's temporarily make peace with Dongqing and Xiqingxu, support their internal struggles, so as to maintain the balance between the forces outside the Great Wall, and continuously weaken the various forces outside the Great Wall.

It should be the best choice!

Well, this is called offshore balance, or continental balance of power.

Of course, Li Yi did not learn this trick from some troublemaker, but from his ancestors.

When it comes to balancing things, our Chinese ancestors have long been very good at it.

But from a personal emotional point of view, Li Yi feels disgusted!
He really dislikes the Qing Dynasty!

Whether it was Xiqing's request to submit, or Dongqing's request to release Yi, Li Yi was unwilling to agree.

Rationally he knew he should agree, but emotionally he was unwilling to agree.

So, Li Yi fell into a dilemma.

Taking a deep breath, Li Yi put the two letters in front of him aside.

He would deal with other matters first and then make a decision after convening the staff to discuss the matter.

Thinking about these things, Li Yi flipped through the next report.

What was reported in this memorial was related to Shi Dakai's troops.

Zhang Suimou, who was sent by Shi Dakai to discuss the details of surrender, has arrived in the capital and is temporarily staying in the Honglu Temple.

Just wait for Li Yi to find time and then meet him.

Li Yi approved the memorial and instructed the attendant office to arrange a time to meet with Zhang Suimou.

Besides that, there is one last thing.

That is, Guangnan Governor Chen Yucheng requested to recruit soldiers in Guangnan and recruit good families as soldiers to solve the current situation in Guangnan. The shortage of troops is facing the Tang Dynasty.

Looking at Chen Yucheng's report, Li Yi fell into deep thought.

To a certain extent, soldiers were recruited from Guangnan, trained locally, and then sent to the local battlefield.

It is indeed the best solution to solve the problem of shortage of troops faced by the Tang Dynasty in the current situation in Guangnan.

However, Li Yi felt something was wrong in his heart.

The reason is simple: Chen Yucheng’s power in Guangnan is too great.

In order to conquer Yue, Li Yi gave Chen Yucheng the power to make decisions on the spot.

The entire expeditionary force was under his command.

After taking over Northern Vietnam and dividing it into Guangnan Province, Li Yi gave Chen Yucheng full power in order to pacify the area as quickly as possible.

In other words, in the current Guangnan Province, Chen Yucheng can intervene in everything, whether it is finance, administration, or other matters.

In addition, he had already gained control of the military power.

This is the integration of the financial, political and military powers.

When the three powers are combined into one, that means you are a local tyrant.

If Li Yi gave Chen Yucheng the power to recruit soldiers locally in Guangnan, then Chen Yucheng's power would be too great.

This does not mean that Li Yi does not trust Chen Yucheng.

Although it is very likely that Chen Yucheng has no other thoughts now.

However, today he was able to request to recruit soldiers locally in Guangnan due to the shortage of troops.

Tomorrow, due to the difficulty in replenishing military equipment, we will request to build an arsenal in Guangnan so that we can replenish military equipment nearby.

The day after tomorrow, we can request to collect military pay in Guangnan due to the trouble of transporting military funds...

If this really happened, Chen Yucheng would have to rebel even if he didn't want to.

(End of this chapter)