Compared to the carved balustrades inside and outside the portholes, the corners and towers are painted in bright colors, and the edges are inlaid with shiny brass.

The Oriental Beauty is like an ugly duckling with an unattractive appearance, the whole body is painted black, only the bow and corners are wrapped in brass, and there is no superfluous decoration, and it is not very valued at first glance.

Zhao Hao is not surprised by this, the promotion of new equipment will always be met with strong resistance from the old forces. Whether it is an arquebus to a flintlock pistol, or a front-loading gun to a rear-loading gun, this is the case. Not to mention that each Karak galleon costs a huge amount of money, and the stock is huge.

Neither Spain nor Portugal had the courage to order the decommissioning of the Karak galleon. In fact, the Galen ship was kept up until all the galleons were sunk and scrapped, and then it was completely taken to the top of the junior ranks.

Nineteen years later, in the Anglo-Spanish naval battle, both the Spanish Armada and the British pirate fleet were mixed with every known ship in Europe, involving a dizzying array of models, even the Calais galleys, which had long since become obsolete for a hundred years.

Is it that the Europeans don't know how good the Galen ship is? Apparently this was not the case – in the famous Battle of Preveza thirty years earlier, a Venetian Galen battleship survived a siege by a dozen Ottomangala galleons unscathed, forcing the Turks to destroy the giant maritime battery with the flagship of their own detachment as a self-detonating ship.

But a glorious history is a treasure and a burden. Both in reality and conceptually, it is doomed that the upgrading of European warships will be very slow.

Zhao Hao had no baggage, only an extremely clear understanding of the development of the navy, and he unswervingly recognized the Galen ship. In the next few decades, it will be the capital ship of the coast guard fleet!

He took his senior officers and prepared to take a closer look at the Galen ship from the inside out, from top to bottom. In order to better understand the ship, I also hired a Chinese interpreter and a Portuguese shipwright on board as a tour guide.

It's not uncommon to have shipwrights on board, because ships are isolated in the vast seas, so the ability to survive on their own is very important. In Asia in particular, most of the ports where galleons berth have no capacity to repair Western sailing ships, so each galleon is staffed by a considerable number of skilled craftsmen, including carpenters, lacquerers, sailmakers and coopers. Without these people tinkering, it might have been a storm that would have left the battleship lying in the docks.

According to the Zhangzhou interpreter named Shi Xiang, the two galleons together have a total of 12 carpenters, 8 lacquer workers and 8 sailmakers, and 9 coopers who can work part-time as carpenters.

When he heard that there were eight sailmakers and that there were spare sails on board, Zhao Gongzi was overjoyed. He was worried about how to get these two big guys back to Tamna Island. He hurriedly asked Xiang Xuehai to take people to gather the craftsmen on the ship, urge them to repair the remaining masts and then hang the sails.

Wang Rulong and the others were very curious, what are so many coopers on the ship for? Shi Xiang told them that the cooper was one of the most important crew members on the ship, because they were responsible for the barrels that stored food and drink, and if the cooper was a lazy or drunkard, he would leak the barrel. That means more crew members will not be able to return.

As for this Portuguese shipwright, Shi Xiang introduced that he was the chief carpenter on the Oriental Beauty, named Blanco.

"Oh, so you know the ship well?" Zhao Gongzi had an arrogant look.

"No one knows the Oriental Beauty better than I do." Blanco is gray-haired, in his forties, and has the pride and cuteness of a craftsman. He couldn't stand Zhao Hao's questioning, and replied loudly with the help of Shi Xiang's mouth: "Because I am her father!" ”

"What the hell?" The generals looked at each other.

"Blanco is saying that he was involved in the whole process of building the ship." Shi Xiang hurriedly explained.

"The first keel of this boat was untied by my own hands." Blanco is emotional: "At the Alfama shipyard in Lisbon, it took us two years to build it little by little. I don't worry about this lovely little girl going on a long voyage for the first time, so I can take the initiative to be her chief carpenter so that I can take care of her health at all times! ”

Wang Rulong and the others felt a chill when they heard this, and couldn't help but glance at Zhao Shizhen on the side, and said in their hearts that this is disgusting, and there is a fight with the eldest nephew.

Sure enough, I saw Zhao Shizhen's face moved, and looked at this old carpenter from Europe with a look of meeting the same kind.

But Zhao Gongzi's attention was attracted by the information in Blanco's words. "You mean, this Oriental Beauty was not built at the shipyard in Goa?"

"Of course!" The old carpenter of Lisbon suddenly said with pride: "The Galen ship is the newest ship type in Europe, and only a few shipyards in Lisbon, Seville, London and Amsterdam will make it!" ”

In order to prove his words, he also led the crowd to the brass nameplate under the mainmast, pointed to the origin and number on it, and said: "Royal Shipyard of Alfama, Lisbon, Vlll Galen!" See clearly, this is an authentic royal product, not an inferior product made in the colonial shipyard! ”

"I think it's average." Zhao Gongzi said disdainfully: "Otherwise, why was he sent to East Asia, which is tens of thousands of miles away?" "I love to read

"This is to test its reliability, and it was specially sent to Asia for sea trials, you know?" The upright carpenter was tricked but didn't know it: "This is the eighth Galen ship built by the Alfama shipyard, and the technology is fully mature, so it will sail to the edge of the empire to serve, and prove that it is enough to replace those large and unworthy Karak ships with low-intensity actual combat!" ”

"But I think that ship is much more ornate than this one." Zhao Gongzi still said with a look of disbelief: "Obviously, your people pay more attention to that ship." ”

"That's because of the stupid Far Eastern officer, with a stone head, and blind." "They can't see the changes in Europe, and they think that the Carrack galleon is invincible. ”

"Really?" Zhao Gongzi's police officers, like him, joined the ranks of stimulating the old carpenter and said: "The officer is the one who uses the warship, so he should have more say, right?" ”

"Not necessarily. Let me tell you what the strength of this Galen ship is, and then you will judge after listening! In order to prove the excellence of the Galen ship, the old carpenter worked hard to explain the inside and outside of the ship, every place to be proud of.

Zhao Hao and his senior police officers also listened very carefully, and some even took out a small notebook to record. Especially the top-ranked captains such as Haierdi and Rong Sheng, they are holding back their energy to drive the first new warship in the garrison area.

One of their main interests was the ship's multi-layered all-through deck, which could accommodate hundreds of guns on a single ship. Everyone has about the same tonnage, but it is worth five thousand great fortune ships.

Another is the tall full-rigging sail, which adopts multiple sails, which lays the foundation for the superior performance of Western ships. Because a large number of dense cable-stayed cables can strengthen the mast, which in turn can achieve a higher mast height. Because the wind is stronger at higher ground than at sea, Western sailing ships with higher masts can gain greater speed when exposed to strong winds.

Although Wang Rulong and the others were arrogant, when they saw that the remaining mast on the Galen ship was twice as high as the big sail, they had to admit that it was impossible for a Chinese-style sailing ship to reach the speed of a Western sailing ship. Because if you hang a sail on such a high mast, the mast will be broken if the wind is strong.

And in naval warfare, speed is the initiative!

'Change, change, must change!' The generals gritted their teeth, feeling that they had to change the sails to Western-style.

This is the problem of the Chinese, seeing that others are better than themselves, they feel that they are worthless, and they want to learn everything.

Fortunately, Zhao Gongzi is not as arrogant as Wang Rulong. In his shipbuilding plan, the Chinese canopy occupies a very important position!

Especially after last night's naval battle, he was even more convinced that if the Portuguese had used Chinese sails on their ships, the outcome would probably have been different. Because the Chinese sail is supported by a series of trusses, it can still sail in the wind with thousands of holes, unlike the Western sail that is so delicate that it will be deflated if it is broken.

In a decisive battle with the Western fleet, this difference could determine the outcome of the battle. After all, in a naval battle at the level of the main fleet, it is not terrible for the ship to slow down, and it is terrible to not be able to move.

Zhao Gongzi even found a way to fight with the Western powers in the future - that is, relying on his own sails to not break, and to fight the sails of red-haired ghosts!

~~

The Chinese canopy sail is really a great invention, in addition to extreme endurance, it can also be sailed by the wind from all directions, and can sail with the wind and against the wind. In addition, sailors do not have to climb high masts, they only need to stand on the deck to operate, so the safety is much better.

As for the lack of access to wind. In fact, it should also be divided into two. Why can't Chinese sailboats get more wind power? It's because the mast is too short. Why is the mast too short? It's because the top and bottom of the canopy are one, there are no gaps, and the wind performance is so good that the mast is too high to withstand it.

At the beginning, Zheng He's fleet solved this problem by increasing the number of masts. However, the Ming Dynasty stipulates that private shipbuilding cannot exceed five masts, and Zhao Gongzi's thousand-material Dafu ship is already five masts.

However, Zhao Hao thinks that it should be possible to refer to the solution of later generations - as long as the support frame of the pengfan does not surround the mast, but only rises and falls in the slideway in front of the mast, the reinforcement of multiple cables can be realized. In this way, the load is borne by numerous cable-stayed cables, and the mast will naturally not break.

In fact, this idea has been embodied in the Guangzhou ship built in Guangzhou. Of course, what really gave a complete solution was the new warship with Western hull and Chinese hard sail built by the Americans for the governor of Fujian after the Opium War.

And there is a very real difficulty in using Western sails, that is, the manufacture of Western sails is a very complex technology. If nothing else, let's just say that the complex full rigging sail cable system, whether the boatmen of Daming can imitate it is a problem.

Therefore, Zhao Gongzi decided that in the test ship type, both kinds of sails should be tried, and when the time comes, he will use whichever one he wants.