Yang Wanli's eyes immediately glowed with a feverish light, and it was obvious that the legendary drawings of Zheng He's treasure ship aroused his great interest.

Seeing Yang Wanli's expression, Zhu Cihong was very satisfied, it seems that this guy is a full sailing master, but he is faintly worried, if he sees the drawings of Zheng He's treasure ship with more than 5,000 materials, will he be shocked with excitement on the spot?

In order to show his shipbuilding skills, Yang Wanli said: "The kind of Hongyi galleon that His Highness said is more slender than the Fu ship, low in front and high in the back, wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, and the bow is pointed like a knife, better at breaking the waves and moving forward, and the speed is faster, but it is not as stable as the Fu ship, the villain learned from his father to build a thousand-material Hongyi warship, the warship has two decks, at least four masts, divided into bow masts, foremasts, mainmast and aftermast, the bow mast is hung with a single sail, the foremast and mainmast are hung with three sails, and the backmast is hung with a spinnaker......"

"Ahem....... Yang Wanli! Shen Shouchong looked at him dissatisfiedly and coughed repeatedly.

When he heard General Shen's reminder, his body was shocked, and he hurriedly said: "Your Highness forgives your sins, the villain is rude......"

Zhu Cihong not only did not blame him, but also praised him, this Yang Wanli said that the head of the way shows that he has done a lot of painstaking research on European galleons and is a talent.

For example, Zhao Shizhen, a famous musket manufacturing expert in the late Ming Dynasty, was completely self-taught, but he was able to research more than ten kinds of firecrackers by himself, including the reloader firecracker such as the Zhidian gun, which represents the development trend of firearms, and the thunderbolt of the prototype machine gun.

Yang Wanli is obviously a craftsman who is keen on shipbuilding, and when he talks about shipbuilding, he immediately enters the state and forgets everything, such a person is exactly what he needs.

Zhu Cihong said with a smile: "It doesn't matter, if you build a two-thousand-material Hongyi warship, how much time will it take, and how much silver will it need?" ”

Yang Wanli immediately said: "If the materials are complete, the dock is ready, and there are enough craftsmen, it will take a total of four months from the start of construction to the completion of the launch, and it will take about two thousand five hundred taels of silver." ”

At present, the total cost of the world's largest British warship, the Sea Monarch, is 40,000 pounds (including artillery), half of which is paid to shipbuilders, and the Ming Dynasty built only 2,500 taels of sealed ships.

After the abolition of the Western Ocean, the imperial court renamed Zheng He's treasure ship as Fengzhou, which was sent to Ryukyu to canonize the king of Ryukyu to show the prestige of the country.

In the past 100 years, the Ming Dynasty has made a total of five missions to the Ryukyus, and each time it will rebuild a sealed boat, which is basically about 15 zhang long and 3 zhang wide.

Among them, the most recent envoy to the Ryukyus was in the sixth year of Chongzhen, the envoy Du Sance, the boat was 20 zhang long, 6 zhang wide (66 meters long, 20 meters wide), which was larger than the British Sea King with a total length of 51 meters and a width of 14.7 meters, and the cost was 2,500 taels of silver.

Zhu Cihong heard that the cost was not high, and he was faintly excited in his heart, he wanted to spend money to build it! Let's start with hundreds or thousands!

However, Yang Wanli's words made him feel that building these warships was not as simple as he imagined.

Yang Wanli said: "Your Highness, the villain heard that the Hongyi people use oak or teak for shipbuilding, and these woods are mostly produced in Myanmar and Siam. ”

According to Yang Wanli's introduction, there are many kinds of wood used in shipbuilding, which are generally taken from local materials, the best of the best, according to the different characteristics and properties of wood used in different parts of the ship, commonly used types are fir wood, pine wood, cypress wood, pine wood, etc.

with pine or fir. The side panels and floor panels of the ship are made of double or triple wooden planks, and tung oil and lime hatches are used to prevent water leakage. Each ship is generally divided into more than ten cabins, even if one or two cabins leak, it will not cause the whole ship to sink.

However, the best quality is oak and teak, and most of the wood used for Hongyi's sail warships was oak at first, and sometimes elm was used under the waterline in order to save oak.

Zhu Cihong also heard that there are no tropical rainforests in the whole of Europe, and after the Europeans sailed to Africa and Asia, they discovered a better marine material than oak, which is teak.

Teak is almost a wood born specifically for navigation, teak is dense, lighter than water, and does not warp or crack in the case of large changes in sun, rain, dryness and wetness; Strong water resistance, fire resistance, can resist termites and sea insects in different sea areas, extremely rot resistance, good drying performance, good adhesive, paint, waxing performance.

Oak and teak wood are less wood chips for battleships, once the battleship starts a war with the enemy or pirates, the solid cannonball hits the wood of the ship, the less debris is produced, the better, too much debris is easy to hurt people, which is equal to the explosion effect of the later flowering bomb, which is very dangerous.

Ocean-going sailing vessels made of traditional cedar or elm have a service life of up to five to seven years and are at risk of sinking due to corrosion and leakage of seawater and marine life.

However, the navy warships made of teak can be used for 30 to 50 years, which is basically the same as the life of today's steel warships, and it took 60 years for Britain's largest sea-king to be accidentally sunk by the French Navy in a naval battle.

Zhu Cihong said with a smile: "You don't have to worry about the problem of wood!" ”

Siam is a loyal vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, and pays tribute on time every year, but it is obedient, and it is not a piece of cake to buy some wood?

Besides, that Myanmar will be defeated sooner or later, that is the inherent land of the Ming Dynasty!

Two hundred and sixty years ago, after Zhu Yuanzhang, the Taizu of the Ming Dynasty, sent the general Mu Ying to attack Yunnan to defeat the remnants of the Mongol forces, Mu Ying was named the Marquis of Xiping, and his descendants entered the title of the Duke of Qianguo and the town of Yunnan.

That is, the Myanmar Propaganda Department and the Mengyang Propaganda Division, which are located in present-day Mengyang, Myanmar; Mubang Xuanwei Division, which is located in present-day Xingwei, Burma; 800 Propaganda Divisions (in present-day eastern Shan State, Myanmar and Chiang Mai in Thailand), Cheli Propaganda Divisions (with jurisdiction equivalent to Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, China), and Laos.

At that time, the Ming Dynasty conferred the title of consolation envoy to the local upper-level elements, and these Tusi accepted the title of Ming Dynasty and obeyed the three divisions of Yunnan (i.e., the Duhua Division, the Political Envoy Division, and the Inspectorate Division, and there was no governor at that time).

From the Hongwu to the orthodox years, the Ming Dynasty adopted various measures and even means of war to smash the border crisis caused by the separatist force Luchuan, and the territory of the southwest frontier was greatly expanded, and the territory of the Ming Dynasty at its peak included almost the entire territory of Myanmar in later generations.

These are all historical basis, Zhu Cihong has long been thinking that after the Manchu Qing Dynasty is resolved, the countries in the southwest will be counted as one, and all of them will come from ancient times!

Zhu Cihong said to Yang Wanli: "This palace plans to expand the shipyard, and build two more large shipyard docks, and this shipyard will be handed over to you in the future, this palace wants you to build a hundred Hongyi warships with more than 1,500 materials within five years, is there a problem?" ”

Yang Wanli's body was shocked, and he was stunned for a while, and then he hurriedly knelt down and said: "Thank you for the great kindness of His Royal Highness the Prince, the villain will definitely complete the task set by His Highness within three years!" ”

Zhu Cihong said secretly: You have technology, Lao Tzu has money and power, this matter is stable!

Zhu Cihong copied the eight major Jin merchants, Beijing Xungui, Nanjing Xungui, and Jiangnan gentry merchants, and obtained a total of nearly 200 million taels of silver, as well as a large number of assets.

It can be said that half of the silver of the Ming Dynasty and even one-fifth of the world's silver are in his hands, which is Zhu Cihong's confidence!

Most of this money had to be spent on cash-for-work to develop the economy, and so much silver flowed into the market, and the economic problems at the end of the Ming Dynasty would be alleviated to a certain extent.

In the next few years, large-scale supervision of warships will also require an investment of tens of millions of taels of silver, plus the investment of hundreds of thousands of people required for timber mining, transportation, and construction of warships, which can greatly promote economic development.

Although Zhu Cihong only needs to build 100 fifth-class warships with a displacement of 7 or 800 tons, it is enough for the Ming Navy to be majestic in the southeast sea and dominate Asia.

The Dutch, Spaniards, and Portuguese in Asia had the largest influence in Asia, the Dutch Batavia in Asia, with a displacement of 1,200 tons, and most of the other warships were fifth-class warships equipped with 20 to 40 guns.

The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and England did not have a hundred ships combined, and the trade was not permanent, and they were fighting with each other.

Although the Zheng family has thousands of ships, there are only a few hundred warships equipped with artillery, and they are all small ships with a displacement of one or two hundred tons, and the number of fifth-class battleships is pitiful, at most a dozen.

Zheng Zhilong had built several large warships a decade earlier, but the Dutch stormed the harbor and dropped them, triggering the massive Battle of Liaoluo Bay.

As long as Zhu Cihong can build a hundred fifth-class battleships with a displacement of 800 tons, he can completely beat all the robbers in the southeast sea, regardless of red hair or black hair, fuck it!

In order to obtain the blueprints of larger-class battleships, Zhu Cihong has already considered readjusting the scope of Jinyiwei's intelligence collection, sending Jinyiwei overseas, and even to European countries to make technical drawings......

(End of chapter)