The Qing Dynasty today is no longer the Qing Dynasty at the beginning of Kangxi's personal rule. Since the Junggar tribe was dealt with neatly and efficiently five years ago, although the weather has not been good every year in recent years, the national strength has indeed been steadily improving.

The silver in the national treasury and the grain reserves increased year by year.

The Eight Banners Army is now strong and powerful, and they will attack any neighboring country that dares to provoke them.

For them, war is the fastest way to gain wealth and promotion.

They have not yet fully digested the wealth they obtained from the Dzungar royal court last time.

Seeing the crowd below getting furious, Kangxi curled the corners of his lips in satisfaction.

However, if they want to fight a naval battle, their current military strength and experience are not enough to support it. The island country is not like Junggar, and the Eight Banners Army are all landlubbers. The Jilin Navy and the Fujian Navy combined are not even a fraction of the Eight Banners Army.

Kangxi thought about it and issued another imperial decree to expand the navy, requiring Fujian, Jilin and Taizhou to expand the navy to 100,000 within two years.

The expansion of the Taizhou navy was still supervised by Shi Shipiu.

Weihaiwei was actually not within Kangxi's consideration.

Because compared with the coastal areas of Jiangnan, going to Japan from Weihaiwei requires going around Korea.

But that brat Yinreng was planning to build warships in Weihaiwei, and he also wanted to see what Yinreng could do to Weihaiwei.

Otherwise, he would not have allocated twenty firearms craftsmen to Yinreng.

Along with the imperial edict to expand the navy, there was also a secret order asking confidants in various places to investigate Japanese pirate spies.

It was already mid-September when Yinreng received the twenty firearms craftsmen.

At this time, under his leadership, Weihaiwei began to carry out large-scale construction.

He was committed to turning this area into a military base. He couldn't just build ships and cannons in a tent.

When he saw these twenty craftsmen, Yinreng was worried about the foundations of the houses.

He now wanted to get the cement out more and more.

Even without adding the two thousand people brought by Yinzhi, there were more than three thousand people in Weihaiwei, not including the shipbuilders he had just mobilized.

After the reconstruction is completed in the future, the officers, shipbuilders, firearms workers, and even their families here will come here. The number of people will only increase. Do we have to keep adding housing?

His money didn't come from the wind, so he should be frugal if possible.

The buildings of later generations are still more convenient.

The leader of the firearms craftsmen was called Majia Dodd. Yinreng was a little stunned when he found out.

This name was given by Aristotle!

Kangxi gave him a surprise. He thought it would take a long time before Kangxi was willing to send him the people he wanted.

However, the barracks here had not been built yet, and the twenty firearms craftsmen had no chance to start work, so Yinreng asked them if anyone knew how to smelt steel. The result did not disappoint him, as three of the twenty people knew a little bit about it.

That would make things much easier.

Now that the weather was gradually turning cooler, Yinreng first utilized the 3,000 soldiers of Weihaiwei and asked them to build houses in addition to training.

He took his men and found a place more than 30 miles away from Weihaiwei to build an iron smelting furnace.

Let's also study cement.

In November, Yinzhi no longer sent soldiers to patrol, so the two thousand people were conscripted by Yinreng to become construction workers.

Those pirates were indeed cunning. During the months when the Qing navy was out on patrol, they dared not commit crimes against the wind.

This made Yinzhi hate the spies hidden in the army even more.

Creating anything from nothing is always difficult. In order to make cement, Yinreng spent the whole day with the craftsmen, either burning lime or on the way to burning lime.

He only knew that one of the ingredients of cement was lime, and in his previous life, he and the craftsmen had experimented with the other ingredients for several years but had not been able to come up with the correct formula.

Fortunately, he had a good memory and remembered most of the excluded materials.

Now that we have eliminated other materials, we can save a lot of time.

Unfortunately, until the Chinese New Year, Yinreng still hadn't figured out the correct ratio of cement.

In early December, Yinreng and Yinzhi returned to the capital together by water.

When they were still some distance away from Tianjin Port, Yinreng saw from afar the huge ships anchored in the port.

Yinzhi stood beside him and saw the situation at the port with a hint of surprise in his eyes.

"Are these ships owned by foreigners?"

"Not entirely. Yin'er and Yinzhen formed a merchant caravan that went out to sea, and now they have two or three treasure ships. In addition, merchant caravans from Guangdong and Guangxi would occasionally come here to transport fruits and vegetables."

Yinreng had a bright smile on his face.

After the port was opened, it became much more convenient to transport materials from the south to the capital.

When their ship arrived at the port, they found that the dock was bustling with activity in unloading cargo.

After getting off the boat, the two did not stay in the port for long. They were quickly left surrounded by two hundred guards.

After successfully passing the checkpoint, Yinzhi looked up at the still early sky and asked,

"Should we go back to Beijing directly, or stay here for one night?"

Yinreng pondered for a moment and suggested,

"We've been on the boat for two or three days and we're really tired. Let's go meet the fourth brother first, stay here for one night, and then return to Beijing tomorrow."

"Alright."

Yinreng guessed that Yinzhen should not have returned to Beijing yet, and things happened just as he expected. However, when the two of them went to the yamen where Yinzhen worked, they did not see Yinzhen.

After asking carefully, they found out that the caravan they had just encountered at the dock was their own.

After Yinreng found out, a sense of hope suddenly rose in his heart. He wondered if they had found rubber this time.

Since last year, four caravans have returned to the Qing Dynasty, but each time there was no news that Yinreng wanted to know. In addition, there was no news from Yinsi. After being disappointed many times, Yinreng has now become accustomed to it.

But this time he happened to come across it, and he wanted to go to the dock to take a look.

When they returned to the dock again, the people unloading the cargo had not yet dispersed. Yinzhi felt that the place was in chaos, so he stopped Yinreng who wanted to join him and asked the guards to go find Yinzhen.

Soon, a figure wearing a black cloak walked out of the crowd and quickly approached Yinreng and the other man.

“Second brother, eldest brother!”

Yinzhen's pale face was filled with excitement.

"Why didn't you send a message to your brother before you two returned? He could have greeted you at the dock!"

"The second brother and I are surrounded by guards and we don't have any luggage, so why would we need you to pick us up?"

Yinzhi replied, and then turned his attention to the lively atmosphere at the dock, and couldn't help but praise it.

"You manage this place well!"

This is his first time to Tianjin Port.