Copper money, copper money, copper is money, money is copper!

A bronze cannon is as light as a thousand catties, and as heavy as two or three thousand catties. The Longqing Tongbao of the Ming Dynasty weighs one penny and three cents, and contains ninety-fifty percent copper. A heavy artillery costs two or three hundred thousand yuan for materials alone, who can withstand this?

If you just equip the ship with a few cannons, the price of the cannons will be higher than the price of the ship.

Comparatively speaking, human life is so cheap, so whether it is the officers and soldiers or the sea owners, they know that the bronze cannon is good, it is not easy to blow up, and it will not hurt people if it is blown up, but no one is willing to spend this unjust money, and they can't afford it.

Only a fool like Zhao Gongzi, who has a lot of money, is willing to give the soldiers a sense of security.

Oh no, he's not the only one. In the same year, there was also a Han Han in Western Europe, who also decided to equip his fleet with bronze cannons. Her name was Quinn Elizabeth, and her purpose was to compete with the Spanish Armada.

In this way, it seems that Zhao Gongzi is not very simple.

Of course, if you want to be extravagant, you have to have this strength! Daming is a country lacking copper, you ask the officials and soldiers and those sea lords, can they get so much copper?

In fact, there are copper mines in Tongling, but they are all from the imperial court. All the copper mines in the Ming Dynasty belonged to the imperial court, and Zhao Gongzi couldn't touch them at all. So he can only play copper coins and bronze ideas.

However, the large-scale purchase of copper coins and copper utensils will inevitably cause copper prices to skyrocket. With the keen business acumen of a Ming businessman, can you spend several times more money on a cannon Believe it or not?

Therefore, Zhao Gongzi almost did not buy copper directly, but relied on the big killer of Jiangnan Bank to issue small amounts of silver tickets to absorb copper coins on the market.

Ordinary people have a simple perception that they are more at ease with small bills, as if even if they can't be realized, the loss will not be too big.

And copper money in daily transactions, there is indeed a bulky, low price problem, has always been 13 pounds of money, but only worth one or two silver, whether it is circulation or storage, it is very inconvenient.

Therefore, as soon as the small amount of silver tickets was introduced, a large number of copper coins were withdrawn from circulation. The effect is much better than a large silver ticket!

Especially after defeating Hengtongji and expelling it from Jiangnan, the people firmly believe in the strength of Jiangnan Bank. Hengtong Ji is scheming, taking advantage of the right time and place and people can't run out, who else can beat Jiangnan Bank? Jiangnan Bank can be said to be invincible in the world!

The copper coins on the market soon became significantly smaller, and they converged into the bank vault of Jiangnan Bank from all directions. Then Jiangnan Group bought these copper coins at a silver premium, and all of them were transported to Xishan Island, where they were melted and re-disassembled to refine bronze!

Moreover, there are many temples in the south of the Yangtze River, and almost every county has a bell casting master, Zhao Gongzi gave an order, and hired two hundred skilled bell casting masters from Wuhu, Suzhou, Nanjing and other places, and cast a total of 500 cannons into the bronze refined!

How else to put it, the war is fought in terms of logistics and financial resources? Zhao Gongzi is backed by Jiangnan, which is rich in the world, and the resources that can be mobilized in a short period of time can make Queen Elizabeth have the idea of giving up her virginity.

If he tries to start in a different place, it will be difficult to build fifty doors!

Of course, this is also inseparable from the strong support of Xue Ying's sister, without this genius beautiful girl in the middle of the planning, Jiangnan Group would not be able to operate efficiently, and mobilize the resources of the entire Jiangnan for my use.

The moment the cannon roared, Zhao Gongzi remembered that he hadn't seen Xue Ying for more than half a year and missed her.

~~

After the artillery was fired, the military exercise ended successfully, and the medium and large warships returned to Hong Kong in a formation.

The Marines landed on Ushijima Beach in small boats to retrieve shells fired by the artillerymen. The solid shells are ten pounds in size and five pounds in size, but they are all cast in iron. No matter how rich Zhao Gongzi is, he can't just don't want it when he finishes fighting.

According to the regulations, after the training of shelling land targets, more than 70 percent of the shells must be recovered before they can be considered qualified. Eighty percent of recycling is considered good, and ninety percent is excellent, which is recorded in the assessment results.

Qi Jiguang was originally a detail controller, and he ran into a guy like Zhao Gongzi who thought that management was unscientific if he didn't quantify it, and he was trained by two Virgos, oh no, the police force, it's not surprising how perverted it is.

Zhao Gongzi invited all the guests to Hong Kong for a luncheon. When they got off the parade ship and stood on the pier and looked up at those great fortune ships, they really felt what it meant to be as tall as a building, and they really understood their own insignificance.

In fact, Zhao Hao also saw his main fleet for the first time.

These 20 ships are from the orders he placed a year ago with Longjiang Bao Shipyard and Suzhou Shipyard.

At that time, he placed an order for 200 ships in each of the two official shipyards. The first ships were built in March, but the hull had to sit for several months so that the timber parts of the ship could be fully fitted together. The second is that the size of these boats is obviously prohibited in the inland river, and can only be hung under the name of the Caojiang Yushi Yamen first. He had to wait until Zhao Gongzi got the permission to ship the grain and was qualified to build a thousand material sea ships, and then Uncle Wu dared to transfer the ownership to him.

Therefore, it was not until July, when Chen Huaixiu led the crowd back to Jiangnan, that he completed the formalities at two shipyards in Taicang, Nanjing, and brought up 80 ships with thousands of materials.

Don't look at the official shipyards, the drawings are the same, but the ships of the Longjiang factory are better than the Suzhou shipyard in terms of materials and construction quality. Zhao Hao was not surprised by this, otherwise he would not have valued Yang Fan so much, and wanted him to take command at Jiangnan Shipyard.

So Zhao Hao decided to select half of the best quality ships from the Dafu ships built by Longjiang Factory as warships, assemble artillery, and sail to Tamluo Island to join the Coast Guard Corps in the garrison area!

The reason why only half of it is used is that the artillery is limited on the one hand, and the main thing is that there is too little shortage of sailors. It is these twenty warships that have already hollowed out the sailors of Jiangnan Shipping. The newly established Daming Royal Shipping does not have enough skilled hands to transport grain......

~~

But the luncheon was held on the 101 ship, which served as the flagship. Zhao Gongzi entertained a sumptuous luncheon for the guests of the Li Dynasty in the spacious and gorgeous top aft cabin of this unexpected blacktail ship.

Where did this Wanhu blacktail ship come from? Speaking of which, I have to thank the number one sea lord in Fujian and Guangdong.

In the autumn of last year, the Zeng Demon King, who had been rampant in the South Seas for many years, led hundreds of large and small ships to invade Guangzhou, killing and plundering the people, and finally the Beijing division was shaken and ordered to strictly order Fujian and Guangdong to suppress it. Two famous anti-Japanese generals, Yu Dayou, the general soldier of Guangdong, and Li Xi, the general soldier of Fujian, mobilized the elite naval and land armies of the two provinces to jointly attack and suppress.

The governor of Fujian appeased Zeng Yiyi's sworn enemy, another sea lord Lin Daoqian, and with his assistance, he continued to disintegrate and divide Zeng Yiyi's henchmen. Finally, at the beginning of June this year, he broke through Zeng Yi's nest in Zhelin in one fell swoop.

Zeng Yiyi was very alert, and when he saw that things were not good, he immediately set sail and fled at night, and his henchmen also fled for their lives.

The owners and shipwrights of the Zhelin shipyard were also frightened, although they had not participated in the robbery, they had been building a ship for Zeng Yi, and when the officials and soldiers came, they would definitely not let them go, so they discussed and fled for their lives.

In the past, they all fled to Guangdong because of something in Fujian, and they fled to Fujian if they had something to do in Guangdong. However, this time Fujian and Guangdong jointly suppressed bandits, and Guangdong is afraid that it will also suffer. They hated Lin Daoqian, who colluded with the officials and soldiers, and for a while they felt cornered.

At this time, someone suddenly remembered that the big customer, Manager Tang, was coming. Since last year, Manager Tang has spent a lot of money to order blacktail boats from them, and has also vigorously lobbied them to move the ship yard to Jiangnan, and offered a price that people can't refuse. It's a pity that life is more important, and no one dares to betray Zeng Yi.

But now it's different from the past, Zeng Yiyi has already fled, who can care where they go?

However, you have to sell yourself at a good price, at the beginning, people asked you not to go at a high price, but now you are fleeing empty-handed, and you will inevitably be looked down upon by the other party.

It happened that there was a newly completed Wanhu blacktail ship parked in the dry dock, which was a new ship prepared for Zeng Yi, but it had not yet been installed with artillery and had not hung sails, so when Zeng Yi escaped, he didn't expect this ship at all.

As soon as the owner and the craftsmen discussed, they used this Wanhu blacktail boat that Manager Tang couldn't ask for as a meeting gift. Therefore, the shipyard worked together to open the gate and release the water at the fastest speed, hang the sail and pull the anchor, and escaped from Zhelin Bay before dawn, all the way east to Penghu.

The owner asked the henchman to go to Penghu to find the warehouse of Jiangnan Trading Company to send a message according to the contact information left by Manager Tang. That Tang manager Tang Paul happened to be in Penghu, he was worthy of being the son of Tang Fat, as soon as he heard that the official army was going to enter Zhelin, he hurried over to see if there was any leakage to pick up.

The two sides hit it off, and Paul Tang promised that the original conditions would still be counted, and he would buy the Wanhu blacktail boat at a price of 20,000 taels. As a result, this car, which originally belonged to Zeng Yi, became the flagship of the Coast Guard Corps of the Tamna Garrison District.

~~

After the luncheon, the trip of the Li Dynasty guests came to an end, and Zhu Jue sent a boat to send them to Jingyi County. Then how to go is a matter for County Supervisor Yin.

Zhao Gongzi stood on the deck of the 101 ship, watched them get off the Wuwei ship, board an armed sand boat, and happily waved goodbye to the guests.

Regardless of whether the guests are happy or not, Zhao Gongzi is very pleasant anyway.

When he turned around, he saw Zhao Shizhen, who had not been seen for a long time, and ran over with a smile on his face.

"Uncle, it can be seen that you are old!" The eldest nephew who sent the cannon for thousands of miles spoke, knelt in front of him, and kowtowed firmly.

"Get up, good boy!" Zhao Gongzi smiled when he saw him, and the bright smile from the heart showed that the eldest nephew had made a great contribution again.

To be able to build these bronze cannons, the eldest nephew has to take the first credit!

At the end of last year, after the research center received the task of making copper cannons, Zhao Shizhen and Zhang Jian set up a research team, with a few cannon casting masters recruited from the Ordnance Bureau, with a few bronze tributes made by the Franc machine, and a few ghost-like drawings given by Zhao Gongzi. It took half a year to complete the development, testing and finalization of three bronze cannons, and also formulated standardized production process specifications.

ps. The second update, there is another chapter, ask for a monthly pass!