It was getting late, and Wang Chenhao ordered the sailors to calibrate a float at the position of the shipwreck and then return to Tianjin, preparing to bring all the manpower and equipment tomorrow before coming to salvage the treasures on the shipwreck.

Later, after Wang Chenhao and Li Youyi returned home, they gathered around the ancient porcelain bottle they dug back for a while and looked at it, which was quite fulfilling.

That night, Wang Chenhao tossed and turned around and thought about how to dig out the treasures of the undersea shipwreck. Whenever he thought of the golden gold, silver and jewelry, and those rare antiques that were priceless, Wang Chenhao was so excited that he couldn't sleep.

Early the next morning, Wang Chenhao went to the newly built army yamen and military horse farm in Zhili. The training of the new army was carried out in an orderly manner. The synthesis drill at the first level of the regiment and battalion was much better than expected. This was all thanks to the rules and regulations formulated by Wang Chenhao. In addition, the German instructors had real power to train extremely strictly, while the soldiers were all recruits without bad habits. The officers were students from Beiyang Military Preparation School who were motivated and were very motivated. These aspects seemed inconspicuous, but in total, they played the effect of one plus one being far greater than two. The training results of the entire Zhili First Division can be described as a thousand miles a day.

The most difficult months of the troops' training have passed, and they are already on track at this time. Therefore, after Wang Chenhao inspected it every day, the rest of the work was handed over to German instructors such as Hannagan and officers at all levels, and there was no need to worry about it.

Wang Chenhao gave all his work a day and saved a lot of time to study how to dig treasures under the sea.

In terms of personnel, Wang Chenhao transferred fifty sailors from the Lushun Mine Camp as the Admiral of the Beiyang Navy. These sailors were known to Wang Chenhao and had been born and died in the Battle of Incheon Port with him. Because they often dived into the water dozens or even hundreds of meters deep, they were extremely water-based and were most suitable for salvage of shipwreck treasures.

In terms of equipment, Wang Chenhao purchased 100 sets of reciprocating pump diving machines, as well as related gas conveying pipes and other equipment from the Tianjin office of the Danish Shipwreck Salvage Company.

With these equipment and personnel, Wang Chenhao used the Meiyun transport ship as the salvage mother ship and quickly formed the world's largest private salvage team.

A few days later, Wang Chenhao personally led a salvage team to the site of the shipwreck that day, and then began the undersea excavation operation.

The shipwreck that Wang Chenhao accidentally discovered was an official ship from the fifth year of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty. A large number of gold, silver, copper coins, jade, pottery, porcelain, metal utensils, etc. were unearthed from it, with more than 1,000 pieces of large and small. In addition to gold, silver, jewelry, the most valuable ones were twelve blue and white porcelains produced in the fifth year of Jiajing in the Ming Dynasty, each with a market price of about 50,000 taels of silver.

Back then, he was looted by Kong Youde and Geng Zhongming, two prefectures and ten counties in Denglai, Shandong, for two years. A large number of wealthy officials were unable to leave by land and could only escape from sea to the capital. Some of them were sunk by Kong Youde's troops, some were sunk by themselves, some were silent, and some were sunk by the storm.

After Wang Chenhao's salvage team completed the excavation of the first wreck, the preliminary estimate of the total value was about 75 taels of silver, which really made Wang Chenhao feel happy. He immediately rewarded his subordinates with 10,000 taels of silver as encouragement, and also gave them a hush fee.

Everyone followed Wang Chenhao to eat and drink meat and soup, and naturally they would not talk too much. After learning that Wang Chenhao planned to use the salvage team all the time, the fifty sailors from the seconded Mines Battalion quit their original jobs and stayed in the salvage team since then.

Therefore, Wang Chenhao renamed the salvage team to the Marine Biological Environment Scientific Expedition Team, which was actually to cover up the truth and sell dog meat with mutton. The number of employees of the scientific expedition team was controlled within 80 people, and military management was implemented internally, and a commission system for basic salary and salvage rewards was implemented. The basic salary was 50 taels of silver per month. After each salvage was successful, Wang Chenhao would give a total reward ranging from 1,000 to 50,000 taels of silver to motivate them.

Wang Chenhao felt a little embarrassed when he digs the corner of the Beiyang Navy for the first time, but for his long-term great cause, he can only give up the small and take the big.

In the following days, Wang Chenhao drove the Jiaolong around the nearby waters and detected several wrecks one after another. The salvage team immediately started to work. Under Wang Chenhao's generous treatment, sometimes everyone who worked overtime was not tired. Whenever something valuable was unearthed, everyone was full of energy.

At first, Wang Chenhao stayed in the scientific expedition team for five or six hours a day to detect shipwrecks and supervise the work of the employees. After that, as the employees became orderly and everything was on track, Wang Chenhao reduced the time he stayed in the scientific expedition team, but he assigned his confidant Wang Meng to manage it and left some personal soldiers to supervise and assist to prevent chaos.

In less than a month, Wang Chenhao's scientific expedition team got a lot of treasures in the Bohai Sea. The precious metal jewelry made of gold and silver, such as gold and silver, was worth more than one million taels. Wang Chenhao melted it and cast it into simple gold bars for easy exchange. More than 400 pieces of jade, pottery and porcelain were used. Wang Chenhao contacted some antique dealers in Tianjin and Beijing, and sold three million taels of silver. Most of the other metal utensils were worthless, but they could not stand the number, which was long in the year, nearly 5,000 pieces, and finally sold tens of thousands of taels of silver.

In such a short period of time, a scientific expedition team with less than 100 people received more than 4 million taels of silver for Wang Chenhao, which really made him so happy that he couldn't find the North for a while.

During this period, the fundraising project of the steel company under Wang Shizhen also made progress. According to the strategy of making money from Wang Chenhao, Wang Shizhen bought all the mining rights of the mines from Qian'an to Luan County. He first prepared an iron ore collection factory with 20,000 taels of silver and hired local laborers to dig wells to mine iron ore. Because the veins are shallow and easy to mine, it formed a large scale in less than half a month, and quickly attracted the attention of wealthy businessmen in the Zhili area.

Wang Shizhen then registered a shell company called Zhili Steel Company, which claimed that it would produce 200,000 tons of steel and 1 million tons of pig iron. Then Wang Shizhen bribed editors from more than a dozen domestic and foreign newspapers, causing him to publish the news that the Zhili Steel Company, the largest steel company in China, was about to be established, which immediately attracted great attention from relevant people at home and abroad.

Although Wang Shizhen is known as a scholar of military affairs, he is not proficient in the specific operations of financing. At this time, he feels that he needs help.

So Wang Shizhen found his two friends Cao Fuzhen and Tang Shaoyi to help. Cao Fuzhen is the manager of Tianjin Yisheng Money House. He is proficient in finance and is good at running a business.

Wang Chenhao was also very brave and directly ordered Wang Shizhen to sell five million shares at a price of ten taels of silver. He used Li Hongzhang's signature to sell stocks to people of all walks of life, scholars, farmers, industrial and commercial. At the same time, he made a big splash in newspapers, saying that if he invested ten taels of silver this year, he would double in a year, and even earn back the capital and profit, and invest more and make more profits.

At the beginning, the scholars, farmers, industrial and commercial officials in Zhili were very conservative in all walks of life, and there were not many people who subscribed.

Wang Chenhao knew that the Chinese people were very conservative about the money bags in their hands. If they wanted to pay them out, they would have to have a child care.

So Wang Chenhao ordered people to secretly release fake news that more than a dozen foreign steel giants have invested more than 30 million taels of silver. Due to the lack of domestic information, the Qing government has no regulatory system in this regard. The Zhili Steel Company is an official background. The boss behind it is Wang Chenhao, who is in the limelight recently. Therefore, for domestic businessmen, the Zhili Steel Company is extremely credible, and soon a large number of wealthy businessmen from Tianjin came to negotiate.

The first big breakthrough was done by Cao Fuzhen. Through the industry relationship network, he successfully convinced Shanghai Yishan Tianjin Branch, Yuchang Yinhao, Yidehou Money Store, Yongsheng Money Store, Chunxing Money Store and Yisheng Money Store to invest in steel company projects, subscribed 1.1 million shares, and obtained a total of more than 11 million taels of silver financing.

After the first group of people subscribed to stocks, people from all walks of life in Zhili were moved by the people of all walks of life and soon followed the crowd to buy the shares of Zhili Steel Company.

It’s strange that the more courage Wang Chenhao is, the more he brags, and more people believe him. For a time, a whirlwind blew up the Zhili realm. It was rumored that investing in Zhili Steel Company was a profitable deal. In less than a month, all of these five million stocks were subscribed, and the stock prices were still rising.

After Wang Chenhao's malicious and false speculation, a shell company that had not yet been built received 50 million taels of silver by issuing stocks alone. This was not uncommon in Wang Chenhao's era, but it was a shocking event in the late Qing Dynasty in 1895.

Of course, not many people know the inside story of this kind of thing. Using power to make money was a hidden rule in the officialdom in the late Qing Dynasty. As long as Wang Chenhao works carefully and does not give anyone a handle, this is a fortune.
Chapter completed!