Chapter 210 Princess Kaorani

The scale of the patrol fleet was too large. In order not to embarrass the U.S. Navy stationed in Pearl Harbor, the fleet stayed at the port of Honolulu.

After arriving all the way to the port in Hu Chuyuan's carriage, Hu Chuyuan invited Princess Kaorani to board the flagship Zhiyuan.

The Zhiyuan-class warship adopts the high-endboard design advocated by the United Kingdom. In order to increase the number of main guns, the two sides of the side adopt a serrated fendron design, and two more rectangular angles are added to the hull, and there are ten 275mm Krup's new tube retreat hoop main guns.

It is hard to believe that the Qing army has the third largest naval force in the world, but there are no warships of more than 8,000 tons. The highest tonnage is the Zhiyuan class. With the retirement of Jingyuan, Jingyuan and Weikang ironclad ships, the number of Zhiyuan has reached eight successively.

In the selection of the main gun, the Zhiyuan class is also relatively small. To some extent, it is for these reasons that the countries of the great powers have not been particularly obvious hostility to the development of the Qing navy.

In the eyes of Princess Kaorani and the Kingdom of Hawaii, this is already a super giant ship and has never seen it.

Princes Kaorani was particularly interested in visiting Zhiyuan and watched it from top to bottom.

After a visit, Hu Chuyuan invited Princess Kaorani to rest under the pergola of the bow and provided Princess Kaorani with brandy provided by Zhangyu Yantai Winery.

This project is jointly operated by CITIC News Agency and Zhang Bishi. It has hundreds of thousands of acres of vineyards in Yantai and introduces grape seeds and brewing technology from France. At present, it mainly produces Zhang Yugan red and grape brandy, and buys apples from Weihai and Yantai to make apple brandy, which is mainly sold to the United States.

In recent years, CITIC has also continued to cooperate with Zhang Bishi in Northeast China for whisky and beer projects, and has invested in alcohol industry projects such as Maotai, Tanggou and Shaoxing Huadiao in China.

During this visit to Europe and the United States, Hu Chuyuan also shouldered the task of promoting Chinese wine to the international market and opened a new export foreign exchange project for China, especially the apple brandy in Yantai. The quality and taste of this wine are very good. Last year, he won a world silver award at the French Agronomy Expo.

Apple brandy is also brandy, which belongs to strong wine. It tastes very sweet, but the degree is not low at all.

Princess Kaorani drank a small glass, and a glow-like blush gushed out on her cheeks, revealing a unique charm.

"Well...!"

She couldn't help admiring and said, "The taste of this wine is really good."

Hu Chuyuan smiled and clapped his hands gently to send a box of precious Yantai brandy. He said, "This is the brandy brewed by our country in Shandong Province. Last year, it won high praise and medals in France. I'm glad you like it. If you like, I would be happy to provide this brandy to the royal family as a special kind for entertaining VIPs. You can rest assured that over time, we can also provide better brandy, champagne and dry red one after another.

Princess Kaorani asked with a smile, "Really?"

Hu Chuyuan nodded seriously and said, "Of course it's true."

Princess Kaolani raised the crystal glass in her hand playfully and carefully watched the color of the glass of wine in the sun, becoming more and more serious.

After a while, she said, "It's really a very good wine... So, that's it, but I don't know if its price is right. For a small country like us, money is usually our biggest problem.

Hu Chuyuan replied confidently, "The price is not a problem. In the first ten years, we will supply it for free."

Princes Kaorani laughed with interest and said, "That's great."

At this point, she quietly turned her delicate and gorgeous cheek, stared at Hu Chuyuan boldly, and asked, "So... can you take me on the tour?"

Hu Chuyuan said, "If you just travel with the fleet in various countries, that's not a problem. If you are traveling together, you need to consider the possible impact. On this point, I think you should ask your foreign minister, or the Prime Minister.

Princes Kaorani shrugged her shoulders helplessly and said, "In fact, we can't even find a reliable prime minister, let alone a foreign minister. Americans always occupy these positions, but they are not real politicians. In my opinion, they are just a group of American vagrants. They have neither money nor much land here. They are just traders who want to rely on the coup to get everything, which makes me feel incomprehensible!"

"Yes!"

Hu Chuyuan smiled bitterly.

Americans have neither a demographic advantage nor a military or economic advantage here. Their only advantage is that they are Americans and whites, that's all.

In addition, they also have the influence of the church.

He thought for a moment and said, "Although we should not joke with each other, let me tell you a joke. If I bid 30 million US dollars to buy the ownership of this country... then no country dares to be wild here."

"What?"

Princess Kaorani looked very angry and wanted to stand up angrily.

Hu Chuyuan continued: "It's just a joke, and there is no disrespect. In fact, your biggest problem is to establish a solid self-government system. If you don't even have the ability to govern this country, you can't blame other countries for being ambitious for you.

"Oh?"

Princess Kaorani thought silently.

For a moment, she didn't know what to say.

Hu Chuyuan said, "Choose a suitable prime minister. It's better not to be an American or Chinese, but it's better to be capable. If you and the queen are sure that you can follow the patrol fleet to participate in the tour, then we can choose a suitable person on the way.

Hawaii is not the point, so there is no definite answer in Hu Chuyuan's heart.

Accompanied by the visiting fleet admiral Ye Zukui, Hu Chuyuan introduced other warships to Princess Kaorani one after another. In the evening, they returned to the palace together.

Queen Liliukalani is not a very politically minded person. She hastily agreed with Princess Kaolani's idea, and even hoped to calm down the rude demands of the Americans for Hawaii.

After a few more days of leisurely holidays in Hawaii, Hu Chuyuan officially led the fleet to the United States and held a meeting with U.S. President Grove Cleveland in San Francisco.

In private, Hu Chuyuan tested Cleveland's bottom line and confirmed that the White House did not have a plan to annex the Hawaiian Islands. At least Cleveland himself did not support it very much.

In this case, Hu Chuyuan is not polite. After modifying the original trade agreement, he and Cleveland reached another two-state announcement, prohibiting other countries from occupying, or controlling the Kingdom of Hawaii in other ways, and maintaining the reading surname of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

The two countries hope that the Kingdom of Hawaii can improve the existing constitution and respect its implementation.

Under this premise, the Kingdom of Hawaii will open Pearl Harbor to the U.S. Navy as a Pacific naval base. At the same time, China also has the right to use the U.S. facilities of Pearl Harbor and station in Pearl Harbor.

The United States is not the focus of this tour diplomacy. Hu Chuyuan did not stay in the United States for too long. He soon continued to go to Mexico and reached a new arms sales agreement with Mexican President Diarra to sell four Fuzhou-class warships and four Chunyu-class destroyers to Mexico, and in accordance with the plans and requirements put forward by Mexico. Customized a number of defense ships and cruisers.

Hu Chuyuan has stayed in Mexico for a lot of time, mainly because he has completed the asset transformation, and large domestic investment projects have entered the return period one after another.

This means that he has the ability to make larger-scale investments in North America and Latin America, so he stayed in Mexico for nearly a month and personally finalized the business of the rich countries of the Americas to buy the operating rights of the Proano silver mine.

Calculating the Cunnington silver mine already owned by Sikoo Yanghang's BHP company, and the four world-class silver mines controlled by Wells Fargo Investment Bank of the Americas in the United States and Peru, the total output of silver mines controlled by Wells of the Americas has reached an average of 3,500 tons per year, or about 94.5 million taels of silver.

In mid-July, Hu Chuyuan began to travel to Peru and Chile, detoured Argentina, visited Brazil and Venezuela, and then officially went to Spain.

In Seville, the ancient capital of Spain, Hu Chuyuan and the regent Queen Maria Cristina signed an agreement. The Kingdom of Spain officially recognized the Qing Empire's territorial rights over Guam and the surrounding islands, and sold the Caroling Islands, including Palau, to the Qing Empire at a price of 3 million pounds. .

From the beginning, the Qing Dynasty did not have a frontal military conflict with Spain. In fact, there was not even a side conflict, and the two sides could maintain a relatively good relationship.

On this basis, Hu Chuyuan and the regent Queen Maria Christina continued to sign some of the new military and foreign trade agreements. The two sides are likely to jointly develop a new type of low-cost battleship and a contract for the sale of six Chunyu-class destroyers.

The two sides will give each other the most favorable trade country treatment, and Spain will give the minimum tariff treatment to China's silk, hemp fabrics, tea, porcelain and other agricultural and handicraft products.

As the basis of this agreement, Hu Chuyuan promised that Spanish businessmen could officially trade and invest in Chinese vassal states such as North Vietnam, North Korea and the Philippines, as well as the industrial and international concessions opened by China.

After that, Hu Chuyuan arrived in France and the United Kingdom and carried out a series of diplomatic activities on the issue of the ownership of the islands in the central Pacific. At the same time, he also helped Princess Kaorani get involved in the diplomatic world and helped her find several suitable candidates for prime ministers.

In October 1895, Hu Chuyuan finally arrived in Germany and held consultations on the joint development of a new battleship between China and Germany.

Before that, the two countries had jointly developed Fuzhou-class ironclad ships. The Qing Navy loaded 14 Fuzhou-class ironclads, 8 in Germany and 6 in the United States. The average price of a single ship was reduced from the expected 1.95 million taels of silver to 1.42 million taels of silver.

Compared with the ironclad ships of the same class developed and manufactured by the United States and the United States, the technical advantages of the Fuzhou class are very obvious. After the inspection of the Sino-Japanese naval battle, the ironclad ships of this class are also very reliable and stable.

Under the pressure of the royal power class, Germany urgently needs a battleship of the same class. At present, it has a corresponding research and construction plan. If it is shared with China and built two for China in Germany, Germany can suppress the average price with the advantage of the total number.

In addition, Germany is very eager to introduce spring-grade steam turbine technology. Germany is completely at a disadvantage in this regard, while China's steam turbine technology is much ahead.

The research work of steam turbines in the UK has also been maintained at a high level, but there is still some experience in specific practical applications.

Hu Chuyuan is very clear that Germany has accelerated the research of steam turbines, which can form a breakthrough in the past few years and be put into practice on a large scale around 1905.

He took out the technology and exchanged the German diesel engine and gun body manufacturing technology. The two sides are integrated, and it is completely possible to build a more advanced spring rain class... As a supplementary condition, while the technology is transferred to Germany, the production and continued research and development are still the responsibility of the machinery factory wholly owned by BASF Group.

Of course, a more important role is to contain Britain and France.

Germany needs China to contain Britain, France and Russia in Asia, and China also needs Germany to contain Britain, France and Russia in Europe.

In addition to the navy, in terms of the army, the urgency of joint research and development by the two sides is also increasing. As the world's first army power, Germany still lacks stable and advanced rifles, while China has two kinds.

In terms of artillery, although China has made great progress, heavy artillery, especially more than 245mm, still needs to be imported from Germany. Even if it is more than 180mm, the artillery imported from Germany is obviously better.

This is not a problem of steel and raw materials, not just a matter of processing accuracy, but also a "rules"... A complete set of detailed rules formulated by the Germans in artillery production.

Considering the long-term space for cooperation, the German Emperor Wilhelm II transferred the Marshall Islands to the Qing Empire free of charge. At the same time, the two sides signed a more reasonable trade agreement to determine the strongest foreign trade most-favoured-nation relations between the two sides.

It was during this period that in order to give Princess Kaorani more opportunities to appear, and in order to let the European powers agree with the reading surname of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Hu Chuyuan has been using her as his female companion during this period and taking her into diplomatic occasions in various countries.

Such behavior makes people generally believe that Princess Kaorani, the first heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Hawaii, is Hu Chuyuan's lover, and there is an ulterior between them.

This is really wronged. The relationship between them is very pure.

Anyway, Hu Chuyuan is already a man with two wives. In Europe, it is easy to regard him as one of the men in the Ottoman Empire, with the legal surname of polygamy.

(to be continued)