Needless to say, Li Hongzhang has money. He has been running China for decades, so it is impossible for him not to run his own family all his life. China Westernization of his generation could not help his five brothers get rid of poverty and become rich. In fact, even a few westernization officials who have been with him all their lives can wash out eight taels of oil after washing their bodies.

But there are different opinions about how much money he has. Liang Qichao said: It is almost incredible that the world is vying to say that Li Hongzhang is rich in the world. The gold-million industry is also interested. Good people use PPP (purchasing power evaluation) method to calculate millions of silver, which is about 654.38+0 billion yuan today.

There seems to be not many hard indicators based on real evidence. I heard that when Li Hongzhang stepped down as governor of Zhili, he gave all the eight million and two thousand pieces of silver that he had kept for decades to his successor, Wang Wenshao. It is said that this huge sum later fell into the hands of Yuan Shikai.

China is lucky that bees bite koalas. For thousands of years, we have been facing a self-contained world: mountains and thousands of miles of Gobi in the west, miasma areas unsuitable for human habitation in the south, Siberia frozen thousands of miles in the north and the sea in the east. Before the cold weapon era and the great geographical discovery, these barriers were superior to all the armies in the world, and the Romans and Persians could not surpass them. In this central kingdom similar to the subcontinent, we have everything and want nothing. Over time, China people think that the world belongs to China, China belongs to the world, and the rest is only foreign territory. Over time, China people who have no natural enemies have become Australian koalas who are sleepy all day.

Suddenly one day, there were more warships, and the wind and cloud suddenly rose. Westerners waved their old fists at this bloated 5,000-year-old koala, which almost killed it. Later, a busybody said: This is barbarian rampage, and adults can ignore villains. Hearing this, the old koala smiled foolishly and fell asleep peacefully again. Soon, a little bee harassed the old examination room in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895. The koala cried bitterly and said that it was not so painful for bees to bite before. This bee is too powerful! Tired of crying, eat some eucalyptus leaves, and the old koala fell asleep again.

Hurd, an inarticulate Englishman from the General Administration of Customs and Taxation of China, wrote pessimistically in his diary: I am afraid that today's China is still far from real reform. The giant sometimes jumps up and yawns. We thought he was awake and ready to watch him do something great, but after a while, we saw him sit down again, drink a mouthful of tea, light a pipe, yawn and fall asleep again.

While the old koala is sleeping soundly, let's study this mutant bee. This originally weak bee can now become a fertile African bee, but it originated from the catalysis of a group of American black ships that broke in 1853.

1on the morning of July 8, 853, Masahiro Abe, the chief senior officer of the edo shogunate (equivalent to the foreman of the Qing military department), received a report before getting up, saying that four black ships had maliciously entered the Puhe sea area of edo Bay. Masahiro Abe has an ominous premonition. The news that the American fleet was coming, which was said by Cousius, director of the Dutch Commercial Museum in Nagasaki a year ago, has really come now, and it rains all night. Just four days after the death of Tokugawa IeYoshi, the actual Japanese ruler and shogunate/kloc-0, a dark black ship came to your door, faster than mourning.

There is nothing to discuss. He immediately mobilized the Navy 12 wooden warships to meet the enemy.