On July 10, the 14th year of Chongzhen, Zhu Cihong, who had completely recovered, ended his southern tour and returned to Nanjing by dragon boat from Ningbo Mansion via Shanghai.

The first thing he did when he returned to Nanjing, Zhu Cihong ordered Shanghai, Ningbo, Taizhou, and Wenzhou to be the first batch of commercial ports, and sent envoys to Nanyang to inform the governors of the Netherlands (Netherlands), Spain, Portugal and other countries.

Zhu Cihong allowed these foreign devils to formally trade with the Ming Dynasty and send envoys to each other to establish embassies, mainly wanting to recover the foreign devils' stronghold in the territory of the Ming Dynasty.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with the great geographical discoveries, the world entered the era of sea power, and the emerging sea power countries in Europe expanded their influence in Asia.

In the fourth year of the Apocalypse (1624), the Dutch East India Company invaded Taiwan in order to establish a base for trade with China and Japan (the Ming Dynasty officially called Taiwan Dongfan), and built the city of Geransha and the city of Purumin in southern Taiwan for colonial rule.

Spain established a base in northern Taiwan to colonize, and Portugal leased Macau to the Ming Dynasty, paid rent every year and abided by the laws of the Ming Dynasty, which was quite honest.

Zhu Cihong will definitely take back these places, and now they will negotiate through economic negotiations, and if they still don't know what to do, they can only recover them by force.

After the Battle of Liuluo Bay, the Dutch who were chasing the carts at sea could not get any benefits, so they could only bow to Zheng Zhilong and trade by paying money to buy the Zheng family's banner, and all the goods were bought through the Zheng family's intermediary.

Once the Ming Dynasty opens a few more commercial ports and does business with them directly, Zhu Cihong believes that the foreign devils will be interested.

In order to better promote the development of maritime trade, Zhu Cihong abolished the ban on the construction of galleons by the private sector, and let the private merchants actively build ships and trade in the ocean.

In the middle and late Ming Dynasty, the ban of the imperial court was relaxed, and the maritime trade became more and more developed, Lin Feng, Wang Zhi, Xu Hai, and other maritime forces who were also thieves and merchants simply ignored the ban of the imperial court, and the maritime ban existed in name only.

Rather than having these merchants pretend to be pirates to disrupt the southeast coast, it is better to give them a name for formal trade.

In order to protect the coastal commercial port, Zhu Cihong formally established the Ming Royal Navy, and successively mobilized the warships of the coastal defense posts in Nanzhili and Zhejiang, and gathered all the large warships of more than 800 materials together, and each warship was equipped with six eighteen-pounder Hongyi cannons, ten twelve-pounder Hongyi cannons, and six six-pounder cannons, which can be arranged so much at most.

The other small boats of several hundred materials were all equipped with several six-gun Hongyi cannons, and the others served as coast guard ships on the Yangtze River and along the coast to hunt down pirates and bandits.

After Xu Hongji was executed, Zhu Cihong put Huaiyuan Marquis Chang Yanling in charge, and Shen Tingyang, who had transported grain from Shanghai to support Liaodong, served as his deputy.

From all the naval divisions in Nanzhili and Zhejiang, they could barely get together ten warships of more than 800 materials, and the Hongyi cannons equipped were all heavy Hongyi cannons made from the Taipingfu Heavy Artillery Factory.

As early as the tenth year of Chongzhen, Zhu Cihong considered establishing a navy, setting up a heavy artillery factory early and using the iron mold method to make cannons, specifically building large-caliber artillery of more than 18 pounds for the navy.

Zhu Cihong set up the Jinghai Fleet under the Ming Royal Navy, which was composed of Nanzhili and Zhejiang Naval Divisions, and was based in Zhoushan, Zhejiang.

Zhoushan is backed by Ningbo Prefecture and Shanghai County, its shape is like a boat, the geographical position is superior, the water is deep and the waves are flat, it is a rare deep-water port, and the East China Sea Fleet base of later generations is set up there.

Zhu Cihong successively established three large shipyards in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, Nanzhili, Taicang, and Taipingfu ports to build warships, and the docks were all of 10,000 tons.

Zhu Cihong also ordered a heavy recruitment of shipbuilding craftsmen in the provinces south of the Yangtze River, in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, with the sea ban in name only, some private shipbuilding workshops developed, they ignored the imperial court ban to make more than two masted ships, in the late Ming Dynasty, the civil shipbuilding industry is more developed than the official, these talents if not simply intolerable!

At the beginning, Cheng Guoxiang and others in the Ministry of Taxation were still persuading Zhu Cihong, saying that this was too much of a waste of money, what was the use of such a large dock, and now the largest warship of the Red Fan Ghost was only 3,000 materials.

Zhu Cihong was unmoved, although these old-fashioned people have learned a little about foreign devils, they do not have a strong sense of sea power, and they will not think of the development of the times.

In the era of sea power of giant ships and heavy artillery, caliber is justice, and the firing range is the truth in real time, and the development tonnage of warships will only get bigger and bigger in the future, and a shipbuilding dock will be used for at least a hundred years, and it will be a waste of money not to make it bigger.

Zhu Cihong wasted a lot of tongues, and spent an hour making up a history lesson for them, explaining the development history of Spain and the Netherlands to several important ministers in as much detail as possible, and even listed the examples of Zheng He's voyage to the West to prove the importance of building a strong navy.

Although several important ministers listened to the clouds, they still insisted on implementing the policy with the inertial thinking of "the crown prince's decision is correct", especially Cheng Guoxiang, who was responsible for tax collection, through more than half a year of taxation, the tax department can be said to be a rolling source of money, and 20 million taels of money in half a year, plus the prince's old bottom, Nanjing is not bad at all!

I heard that the navy was built to protect the commercial port, and the commercial port can levy customs duties, Cheng Guoxiang dialed the abacus for a quarter of an hour and had no objection, it turned out that this was a profitable business!

When it was over, Cheng Guoxiang, the secretary of the Ministry of Taxation, bowed to Zhu Cihong and said: "His Royal Highness's talent is really shocking, and the minister was shocked by His Royal Highness's extraordinary wisdom, and his heart was shaken, and he couldn't live in fear!" ”

Zhu Cihong smiled and secretly said that you are blowing this rainbow fart, this palace is going to heaven! You can't enjoy the rainbow fart of this old thing without any culture.

With the establishment of the Admiralty, Zhu Cihong officially appointed Shen Shouchong as the chief of the Jinghai Fleet of the Ming Royal Navy, and Huang Binqing, a staff general of Zhoushan, and Shen Tingyang, the deputy general of the Caojiang Naval Division, as the vice admiral of the Jinghai Fleet.

After the appointment, Zhu Cihong summoned the three to discuss the reorganization of the naval soldiers of the Jinghai Fleet.

Shen Shouchong and Huang Binqing were overjoyed, and they rubbed their fists and palms, ready to do a big job, while Shen Tingyang was worried, for fear that he would not be able to do well, after all, he was born as a civilian official and had little experience in naval warfare, unlike the two who had been in charge of the sailors for generations.

Zhu Cihong looked at them solemnly and said, "In the plan of this palace, the navy is even more important than the army, and it will play a huge role in the future, you must not take it lightly!" ”

"Yes!" The three of them took the order with a bang.

Zhu Cihong continued: "The navy is different from the army, the requirements for the selection of soldiers will be higher, the selection of personnel is not based on the individual's martial arts skills, to choose between the age of twenty and twenty-five smart and clever, but also to be literate, the most important thing is to choose soldiers who can swim!" ”

Shen Shouchong was a little puzzled: "Your Highness, the last general who can swim can understand, but why choose a young and literate one?" ”

Zhu Cihong said: "When the navy has to master far more things than the army, let's just say that this ship, not only must be able to steer, pull the sails, anchor, and get on the cable, but also learn to read charts, use sextants, and flag language, these things need to be learned, so you must be young and smart, and literate, and in the future, you must learn to count and apply artillery, including the three of you, you must study seriously." ”

"Yes!"

Shen Shouchong and the others had a solemn face, when they were in charge of the sailors in the past, they only patrolled the coastal sea, but they didn't expect that the requirements for the navy developed by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince were so high, and it seemed that they had to work hard.

Zhu Cihong thought for a while, and then said: "Sailors try to choose from the original Tanhu and nine surnamed fishing boats in Zhejiang, and let them learn if they can't read!" ”

Tando was one of the lowly people, who could only live at sea all his life, was proficient in water, and was accustomed to boating, and after more than 200 years of inheritance, he had a much stronger understanding of the sea than ordinary people.

(End of chapter)