Hidden Dragon in Qing Dynasty

In the middle of the map, the Minjiang River was located in the depths of the Wuyishan. It stretched from the depths of Fuzhou to the sea, and opposite the sea was the renowned Taiwan Island. However, at this time, Taiwan was still in the incomplete development state, and everything was in the transition phase from the Wilderness to farming.

At this time, the flowers in the Taiwan Strait were still concentrated on one side of the continent. From Zhangzhou Prefecture, they headed north to Quanzhou Prefecture, Xinghua Prefecture, Fuzhou Prefecture, and Funing Prefecture … A string of seaport cities gradually flourished relying on the westerner's business transactions. Although this kind of business transaction was not something that the Great Qing would be happy to see, once something like this appeared, it would be difficult to turn back.

Fuzhou Prefecture relied on the Minjiang River and the harbor. Furthermore, they had signed a trade treaty with the English and French and other countries, so they were now an important commercial city in the southeast. The population was growing rapidly, and the majority of Great Qing's taxes in Fujian originated from this.

East of Fuzhou Palace, there was an area called Ma Wei. This was Zuo Zongtang's dream, the birthplace of the Great Qing's Navy.

In 1866, Zuo Zongtang found an excellent port in Fuzhou City that was just nice for him to build his dream shipyard and school. With the help of Lin Zexu's son-in-law Shen Baozhen, in just two years, Mawei Shipyard and the ship's school had already completed most of the infrastructure, and the first two batches of students were already in place.

This was a rare school in the Great Qing that taught mainly western knowledge. Here, not only did they teach English, French and foreign history, they also taught basic mathematics, analytic geometry, calculus, physics, mechanics, hull manufacturing, steam engine manufacturing, and so on. Of course, they also taught geography, navigation astronomy, navigation theory, etc.

Fortunately, it was a faraway place in Fujian and not a more sealed north area. Luckily, this place was under the control of Xiang Army Zuo Zongtang, otherwise, the academy would have been closed for a long time.

The most important person to be trained in the Naval Academy was, of course, the talented student of the Navy. The expensive school would not only train commercial captains, these young students would also have to undergo strict military training in addition to the various cultural courses.

The unstoppable swimming lessons, as well as the sailing lessons every few days, these students had even learned from the Ryukyu and started classes on military chess deduction and other subjects.

They were all future military officers and seedlings, so Zuo Zongtang would naturally not be stingy with their education funds. The amount of bullets these children used to hit the target had to be placed in a regular Green Camp, and they would also have to scare a quartermaster to death.

It was precisely because of this harsh training that in the short span of two years, the first batch of students had quickly matured. If they were not compared to the universities of Ryukyu, their standards were definitely the highest in Asia.

The sea breeze was blowing and the seabirds were squabbling. On the deck, a group of young people around the age of twenty were taking turns to operate the sextant and other navigational tools. Under the guidance of French instructor Ri Yige, the young people of the Ship Regime Academy were currently undergoing their usual training.

However, the atmosphere today was a little different, the usually attentive students were all a little dazed, there were even some who were whispering, which made Instructor Ri Yige feel very awkward. He always thought that there was a problem with his teaching method.

"Yan Fu... "Big Brother Yan, come over here. Quickly come over …" Dodging the instructor's gaze, a few young students at the back of the deck waved towards another person. Soon enough, that student called Yan Fu sneaked a glance at the instructor, and quickly walked over.

"Liu Buchan, are you crazy? Aren't you afraid of the instructor deducting your credits? "I told you that the exam is in half a month's time, you guys be careful …"

Liu Buchan said with an indifferent expression, "Who cares about those people now? Ye Baoyun, tell Brother Yan about the latest news! "

The young man called Ye Baoyun lowered his voice and said, "A few days ago, someone from my house sent me Dan Yi to tell me secretly that the Prime Minister Xiao had already sealed off Ba's internal and external information flow. It seems that the war is about to begin …"

"Really?" A heroic young student in the crowd said, "This is great, this group of Russian people are too arrogant. They killed so many Chinese people in Belait, we must avenge them! "Hate that we're just students, hateful that we don't even have a single battleship!"

The one who spoke was called Deng Shichang, he was one of the most outstanding students, at such a young age, he had a valiant aura. From the first day of entering the academy, he had already vowed to become a real warship Captain.

The ancient people had their own thoughts, and in Deng Shichang's heart, dying together with the ship was his dream.

Liu Buchan sighed and shook his head, "Who says that's not the case. The other side of the sea has already produced Iron-armored battleship that surpasses the Europeans, but what about us? And I'm going to use this old triangular sailboat to train... "Damn it, what era is it now? If we don't get on the steamboat quickly, how long do we have to drag it for?"

Everyone felt the same way and sighed. Yan Fu said helplessly, "The government has spent all their money on the Xishan Camp and the Northwest Plains, where would they find the money to buy a new ship? Lord Zuo and Lord Ceng wouldn't dare to do it even if they wanted to! Buying a battleship was a huge matter, and it was a taboo for them to do so. If they dared to buy a warship without permission, wouldn't that mean they were trying to cede their territory and fend for themselves?! "That's why it's so difficult …"

After a while, everyone became silent. After a while, Liu Buchan changed the topic: "Forget about this, let's think about next year's big test. We brothers will have to snatch all the spots to send to Europe, don't leave even a single one behind. That is the dream of all the naval officer! "

At the mention of these two names, everyone's breath quickened. "That's right, we can't miss even a single one of them. Let's go together! Let's go together!"

Right at this moment, French instructor, who was at the bow of the boat, finally discovered them. He frowned as he walked towards Deng Shichang and the others, he had decided to punish these students who dared to be careless.

Liu Buchan and the rest noticed the instructor's atmosphere, and immediately went forward with bitter expressions to receive the instructor's rebuke, but just as they took two steps, they shockingly discovered, the instructor opposite them had a drastic change in expression.

Moreover, the instructor's eyes clearly looked past them, towards the back of the crowd, towards the sea far away from the back of the sailboat.

Deng Shichang and the rest subconsciously turned their heads to look, wanting to see what had happened.

"Oh my god! What is that? "