I want to ruin the country

Chapter 486: Several Foreign Beauties

Yining smiled and said,

"So, not only did you not use the silver you brought with you to buy the warship, you actually brought back quite a bit of money!"

Prince Gong said,

"The amount of silver we received in pounds was over 130 million taels, and there was also 20 million taels from North Korea, for a total of over 150 million taels.

The down payment for the warship was only four million taels, a drop in the bucket!

Yining Road,

"Sixth brother, you have made great contributions this time. After the New Year, you will join the Military Affairs Council and be responsible for foreign affairs!"

Although Prince Gong was prepared, he felt dizzy when he heard that he would be promoted to the Grand Council and given a special mission.

"Thank you, Your Majesty! It's not because of your ability, but because of your majesty's strategic planning. We went to the Western Ocean too late. If we had gone earlier, we would have made money and had ironclad ships. We would not have lost the war with the Westerners!"

Yining knew that this was Prince Gong's heartfelt words and said,

"Sixth brother, it's never too late to learn from shame and then be brave. I will not allow the shame of ten years ago to happen again!"

Prince Gong is now convinced by Yining.

"Your Majesty, I truly understand. Only with Your Majesty taking the lead can we in Daqing live a good life!

From now on, I will go through fire and water without hesitation!"

Yining Road,

"I won't let you take risks anymore!"

Prince Gong laughed and said,

"Actually, it's nice to go out for a stroll!"

Yining Road,

"I see two beautiful Western women, your concubines?"

Prince Gong said,

"There are not two, but seven or eight. I found them specially for the Emperor!"

"Ah, seven or eight, why do you have so many of these?"

Prince Gong laughed and said,

"Didn't the Emperor say before he left that the more the better?"

"I was just joking with you, but you took it seriously!"

"Of course not, you are not joking!"

"Oh my God!"

Prince Gong said,

"British, French, German, Dutch, I can't remember exactly, but they're from several countries. Isn't that nice of you, brother?"

Yining grinned,

"Stop talking, let's talk about it when we get back to Beijing!"

Yining asked Lu Yaxuan,

"Lord Lu must have made quite a bit of money!"

Lu Yaxuan said,

"Your Majesty, thanks to your blessing, I have earned over 120 million silver! This Western trade is truly lucrative!"

Yining Road,

"This is just the beginning. Over time, profits will definitely come down!"

He then asked Qiao Sansheng,

"How is Mr. Qiao?"

Qiao Sansheng only brought goods worth three million silver coins, but he also earned more than thirty million silver coins.

Although it is not as much as the emperor and Lu Yaxuan, it is still much more than what he earns in China in a year, and he is very satisfied.

“In reply to the emperor, the goods I brought were less than Lord Lu’s, so naturally my profits cannot compare to his!

But I also earned over 30 million taels of silver. Compared to what I could earn back home, that's probably six or seven years' worth of income!"

Ruijin was feeling depressed because no matter how much money the emperor earned, it all went into the imperial treasury.

But when he heard that Lu Yaxuan and Qiao Sansheng had made so much money, he became excited.

The tax rate for overseas trade is relatively high. The emperor's 150 million, plus Lu Yaxuan and Qiao Sanxing's 150 million silver, they have to pay more than 30 million taels of tax to the national treasury, which is also a considerable income!

If Ruijin had received 30 million taels of silver a few months ago, it would have definitely prospered.

Things are very different now. Ruijin is a worldly-wise man, and he is certainly happy, but he has also become very arrogant, and has forgotten the time when he cried over hundreds of thousands of silver coins!

This is why bran tastes as sweet as honey when you are hungry, but honey doesn’t taste sweet when you are full!

When everyone heard that so much money had been made, they were happy but also very surprised. It turned out that ocean trade was so profitable, and that the previous policy of closing the country to the outside world was indeed a big mistake!

They all toasted Yining and praised the emperor for his foresight and for finding such a way to make money.

In fact, Yining was also surprised. He knew that Chinese porcelain, tea and silk would be very popular in the West, but he did not expect the profits to be so huge.

Damn, I don’t know anything else, but just before and after the Opium War, Westerners made 600 million taels of silver from China using opium alone.

If you add Western clocks and watches and so on, it would be an astronomical figure.

If you took mine, please return it to me. If you ate mine, please spit it out. This is the first amount of money I got back today. It’s a big difference!

With this way of making money, the financial situation should not be too difficult. We should arrange for people to go to the West as soon as possible after the New Year. There is no time to waste.

Prince Gong didn't drink too much. In his own words, even though he had gotten off the boat, he felt his brain was still reeling.

After the welcoming banquet, Yining asked Prince Gong and his entourage to have a good rest in the hotel before setting off for Beijing tomorrow morning.

Ruijin excitedly arranged for people to collect taxes, and Yining also took Zhang Xiang and a large group of engineers back to the seaside to board the warship purchased by Prince Gong.

The five warships are from France, Germany and the United Kingdom.

The first one was a French battleship with a displacement of 5630 tons and an armor thickness of 110-120 mm. It was a standard ironclad ship.

The ship is 77.8 meters long, 17 meters wide, has a speed of 13 knots, and its armament includes 36 50-pound muzzle-loading guns.

This is the most advanced warship that France can build now.

The second battleship was a German battleship, comparable in displacement and size to the French battleship.

If he hadn't seen the third battleship, Yining would have felt a little disappointed. Why were the warships so small? They were much inferior to the warships of the Beiyang Fleet in the future.

He also knew that there was a gap of several decades between now and when the Beiyang Fleet purchased warships.

The third ship was a British warship, which was exactly the kind of warship Yining had been expecting.

Docked in the harbor, it was obviously much larger than the French and German warships on both sides.

It turns out that this warship has a displacement of 9137 tons, a length of 128 meters and a width of 17.8 meters, making it a true behemoth.

Its armor thickness averaged 114 mm, and the ship was equipped with 20 110-80 pound guns.

Yining didn't care how thick the armor was or how many guns it had.

Because he planned to replace the gun. After replacing the gun, he could only attack others. The enemy's gun could not reach him at all. What was the point of using armor?

Yining asked Zhang Xiang,

"How about it, is this head enough?"

Zhang Xiangdao,

"For the problem, any gun can be installed, it's not difficult!"

"Haha, now that you've completed the transformation, you can roam the five oceans with just these three ships!"

Zhang Xiang rolled his eyes.

"Without transportation and supplies, where are you going to run rampant?"

Yining Road,

"Our Dafu ship can be used as a transport ship, but it's just a bit slower!"

Zhang Xiangdao,

"That's your business. You can't get me a steamboat, and I'm not a magician!"

The other two ships parked on the two sides are ironclad ships with a displacement of more than 3,000 tons, which are relatively much smaller.