This time, through the investigation of the Beiyang Navy's north and south ammunition depots and multiple military material depots, although it is impossible to thoroughly investigate the backlog of more than ten years due to time and manpower limitations, this random inspection has exposed the Lots of extremely tough questions. Because Yang Shixiang was assisting him, there was abundant evidence that the military supplies purchased in the Lishan case were shoddy, priced in boxes, and deducted from them. Lu Hong, as the official in charge of the case in the imperial envoy's office, He also had a comprehensive view of the huge military resources of Beiyang's arsenal for the first time. To his great surprise, the entire Beiyang military supplies were not managed by the naval yamen assistant Tateyama, but directly by Ding Ruchang. However, the amount of silver used for procurement every year was very large, and Beiyang's accounts were all It is definitely a very challenging thing to count all the running accounts. This is also an important reason why these officials dare to reach out to make money. Lu Hong spent a lot of effort to sort out some of the accounts of the Nanbang ammunition depot. Even Yang Shixiang who accompanied him was very surprised by the results. The accounts showed that from 1889 to 1893, 120mm, There are more than 27,000 150mm high-explosive bombs worth more than 1.08 million taels. There are more than 4,000 armor-piercing bombs made by the Jiangnan Bureau with a caliber of 260mm and above. The price is even more confusing, but at least it is more than 800,000 taels There are all kinds of military The amount of material procurement exceeded 1.8 million taels, but when taking stock of the inventory, excluding the ammunition required for daily training, the shortage was as high as 60%. Yang Shixiang calmly and immediately counted all these on the head of Assistant Lishan, and Lu Hong casually created , a simple measuring tool based on the snap gauges and plug gauges commonly used in machine tool processing in later generations, quickly detected a large number of unqualified artillery shells, with problems such as too large and too small calibers, trachoma, and rust As for this high-explosive bomb Now even Lu Hong had a hard time judging whether the internal explosives met the standard, because even if he asked the gunners in the navy, they didn't know anything about it. The clues and ready-made inspection results provided by Yang Shixiang allowed the imperial envoy Wang Renkan to use his writing style as a scholar. In the court, Weng Tonghe was obviously more interested in the backlog of military supplies in the Beiyang Arms Depot. After giving the order While arresting Tateyama, Mr. Wengge also gave Li Hongzhang eye drops without hesitation. Soon, the impeachment of the Huai Army's misuse of military expenditures quickly appeared in the court, and the biggest evidence naturally came from the arsenal list submitted by Lu Hong to Wang Renkan. In just one arsenal, there were Nearly 20,000 artillery shells of various types, not to mention small-caliber shells for machine guns, gunpowder and firearms. Once the order came, it was passed directly to Wang Renkan. Weng Tonghe asked him to thoroughly investigate the corruption problem in the navy, and The official order to establish a military discipline camp was finally issued belatedly! Li Hongzhang, who was dealing with North Korean affairs, was inexplicable and had to ask his close aide Zhou Fu to write a letter to defend the matter. Sun Yuwen, the military minister who was close to Li Hongzhang in the court, also defended the big boss and even went directly to the palace to report to the West Palace. Cixi reported the matter, but this time, the old woman, who was busy celebrating her sixtieth birthday, had no intention of paying attention to the internal fighting among the big bosses below, and directly kicked the matter back to the little emperor Guangxu. Obtaining this good opportunity, Weng Tonghe almost without hesitation stopped two military expenditures allocated to Beiyang on the pretext that the Ministry of Revenue was short of money and Beiyang had sufficient armaments This made Li Hongzhang extremely dissatisfied, but he had to temporarily endure it. After all, the most important thing before him now is not the corruption case uncovered here in Beiyang, but the increasingly worse situation in North Korea. He immediately contacted Yang Shixiang secretly via telegram. On the same day, this young think-tank from the Huai Clan hurriedly came to visit Wang Renkan. After a secret discussion between the two, he hurriedly left. Then, Lu Hong was recruited, but he heard an announcement. He was very surprised by the news. "Lu Hong, Yang Pingshi mentioned that the Huai Army will soon send troops to North Korea, so Li Zhongtang would like to ask us to suspend the inspection of naval discipline until we start this diplomatic dispute with Japan!" Wang Renkan was obviously very satisfied with Lu Hong's previous visit. A series of investigations, this Beiyang inspection, can be said to have yielded numerous results. ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Down There? Lu Hong frowned. The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1899 was over. The Beiyang was completely destroyed. There was no need for further inspection. However, it would be too complicated to explain this matter. However, it seemed impossible for Wang Renkan to intervene. Beiyang affairs He immediately suggested: "Sir, this matter of supervising military discipline does not matter in war or peacetime, but if there is a conflict with the Japanese country, we in Lushun will not be able to supervise the navy. By then, the navy will But running all over the sea" Wang Renkan frowned. He naturally understood what Lu Hong meant and did not agree with the matter of letting go of the Beiyang Navy now. However, he and Li Hongzhang did not have any bad feelings between Weng and Li. Nowadays, state affairs are very important, and Li Hongzhang's words are naturally very appropriate. However, Lu Hong's words do make sense. After all, he is the imperial envoy to supervise various naval forces. If?Something really happened to the Beiyang Navy, but I was not here, which would make people gossip! "Lu Hong, tell me what you think?" He glanced at Lu Hong and immediately asked. At this moment, Lu Hong was naturally no longer hiding his long-premeditated plan. Although he had been promoted quite quickly, he had absolutely no chance to intervene and influence the actions of the Beiyang Navy. In fact, war was already imminent. , now Little Japan must have been inquiring about Li Hongzhang's troop dispatch plan, and at this point, he can't tell this at all! However, there is another thing that I can do, and that is to bring more naval power under my control Of course, in the name of the Imperial Envoy! "Sir, since we are supervising the naval discipline, then But regardless of the Beiyang, Nanyang, or Guangdong Navy With your current status, although it is not convenient for you to directly command the Beiyang Navy, you can first mobilize the warships of the Nanyang Navy and the Guangdong Navy to focus on improving military discipline And once you have a ship, you can follow Beiyang at any time and move forward and retreat freely!" Lu Hong carefully laid out his little plan. In fact, the purpose of this was very clear "Lu Hong, are you worried that once the war starts, Beiyang will be destroyed? Not enough to fight Japan?" He asked immediately with a serious look. On this issue, Lu Hong was naturally merciless, "My lord, when we meet on a narrow road, only the brave can win Although the Beiyang Navy is not weak, in fact, I listen to Yang Shixiang and Li Zhongtang has no intention of fighting Japan. Although the purpose of conducting military exercises in Dagu was to show off one's power, it verified my inference that in terms of military art, this was definitely not a good idea Is there any reason to expose one's family background to the enemy? " Wang Renkan paused for a moment after Lu Hong analyzed this. Thinking about it, thinking about the secret conversation between Yang Shixiang and himself, it really revealed Li Zhongtang's true thoughts Master Zhongtang really didn't want to fight! Instead, they are fully prepared to invite Britain and Russia to mediate the Korean affairs! "If the British Minister Eugenia and the Russian Minister Casini intervene in the North Korean negotiations, with the strong national power of the two countries, how do you think Japan will respond?" He also immediately thought of other possibilities and immediately refuted Lu Honglai. Lu Hong secretly smiled. Theoretically speaking, Japan in this era cannot be compared with Britain and Russia. Wang Renkan and Li Hongzhang have such a plan. It is definitely not a foolish opinion, but they do have limitations in their vision. , Little Japan is an absolute gambler and desperado. Declaring war on China is obviously an important step, and it is this gambling step that plunges Little Japan into the whirlpool of militarism. He immediately responded in a very decisive tone: "My lord, in my opinion, the war between China and Japan seems to be inevitable. I am worried about the long-term and immediate worries. Why don't you make preparations in advance? If the war has not started, how can you supervise the military discipline matters?" It is also the icing on the cake. If war breaks out, it will be your foresight" Wang Renkan obviously had not made up his mind and would wave to Lu Hong to go down first. Later, he called Yan Fu and listened to the big mouth's opinion. By the next morning, he finally made up his mind Obviously, Lu Hong's proposal was a very good compromise. If he agreed to Li Hongzhang's request and temporarily stopped supervising Beiyang affairs, I'm afraid Weng Tonghe in the court would also There are some opinions, and if you go to the Guangdong Navy, it would be putting the cart before the horse. Three days later, Wang Renkan received the telegram from the Military Aircraft Department almost as quickly as he could. Weng Tonghe had no objection to his proposal to temporarily transfer the Beiyang, Nanyang, Guangdong, and Fujian navies to conduct military discipline inspections. Weng Tonghe approved it as soon as possible. The old man obviously doesn't mind if the champion king cleans up the mess in the water tank! On the same day, May 27, 1894, a large number of warships from the Beiyang Navy entered the port one after another, and Wang Renkan quickly received invitations from Ding Ruchang and Yang Shixiang, which made Lu Hong, who was accompanying him, somewhat excited.