The reason why the armor rate of the Ming Dynasty army is so low, on the one hand, is because the Ming Dynasty's treasury is empty, the military budget is very short, and there is no way to equip the whole army with iron armor, and more importantly, under the production efficiency of this era, the iron armor completely needs to be manually beaten and molded piece by piece, and a skilled blacksmith can't make a set of iron armor out in a month, plus the corruption of the Ming Dynasty, the military workshop cut corners when building armor, and the armor in the armory is all like goods, and it can't prevent the bows and arrows of the Manchu Iron Cavalry.

Guo Zhiyuan loves soldiers like a son, every soldier is his baby bump, and naturally he doesn't want his soldiers to sacrifice in battle because of insufficient protection, so he gave Zhao Shizhen an order early in the morning to invent a new type of plate armor, Guo Zhiyuan hopes that this new plate armor will not be as bulky as the current standard plate armor of the Ming Dynasty, which will affect the flexibility of soldiers' actions, and at the same time have enough protection, at least to be able to prevent bows and arrows shot from 100 meters away.

Zhao Shizhen is worthy of being a weapons expert, and soon invented this new type of plate armor, he cleverly adopted a three-layer design, that is, the outermost layer is protected by a thin iron sheet, and the middle is made of fishing nets and wood chips and cotton wool as a sandwich, and the inner lining is wrapped in leather, so that the plate armor will not be too bulky to affect the soldier's flexibility, but also to ensure sufficient protection, even if the arrow can shoot through the thin iron sheet on the surface, it will be stuck by the fine and flexible fishing net in the middle, and then through the buffer of wood chips and cotton wool, it will not cause fatal injury to the soldier.

This design has been close to the design principle of body armor in later generations, and it is undoubtedly leading in this era, but there is a problem in this, that is, in order not to affect the flexibility of soldiers' actions, the iron sheet used cannot be too thick, and it must be a whole piece, like the fish scale armor we are familiar with, using layers of iron sheets the size of fish scales, and then wearing them with thin threads, it looks mighty, but it is not only troublesome to make, but it is inevitable that cracks will appear, and the protective effect cannot be achieved.

But there is a problem in this, with the technology of this era, to make such a whole piece of thin iron sheet, can only be knocked manually, a skilled blacksmith with a hammer can not knock out a few pieces a month, now with a hydraulic machine tool, this problem is easy to solve, with a hydraulic machine tool stamping forming, less than half an hour can make a new plate armor, so at most not three years Guo Zhiyuan can make his 30,000 self-new army armor rate 100%!

Therefore, Guo Zhiyuan was overjoyed when he learned the news of the successful invention of hydraulic machine tools, waved his hand, and immediately ordered the vigorous construction of the Dongfan Military Factory, and strive to form a production capacity in three months.

In addition to building a military factory, the third major thing Guo Zhiyuan has to do is to build a shipyard! Although Guo Zhiyuan defeated the Japanese pirate coalition this time, he was actually fighting a land war, and Dongfan's naval combat capability was still a short board, and without warships, Dongfan's naval combat capability could not be improved. And with Guo Zhiyuan's vision, it is impossible to be limited to Dongfan, but to become the maker of the maritime order, and the real opponent in his eyes is not the pirates and pirates, but Spain, the Netherlands, and other Western powers with powerful naval fleets! To confront these Western powers, Guo Zhiyuan has to form a more powerful maritime fleet than them, and the premise of all this is that Dongfan must first have its own shipyard!

However, the difficulty of building a shipyard is greater than that of building a military factory, and the technical difficulty is also higher, not only shipbuilding drawings are needed, but also skilled shipbuilding craftsmen are needed.

The shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty was originally the world's leading, especially in the period of Zhu Di, the Ming Dynasty's shipbuilding technology can be said to be the world's first! Since 1405 AD, Zheng He went to the Western Ocean for the first time, and led the fleet for the first time to reach more than 200 ships, the largest of which is called the "treasure ship", with a length of 151 meters and a width of 60 meters, which is the largest sailing ship in the world at that time, which can carry a weight of up to 800 tons and accommodate thousands of people at the same time, and this "treasure ship" has more than 60 ships in the fleet!

And what is the level of the most advanced shipbuilding technology in Western countries at this time? Eighty years after Zheng He's first voyage to the West, the famous Western navigator Christopher Columbus also began his voyage, but the length of the ship he took at that time was only 35 meters, which was 116 meters shorter than the "treasure ship" of the Ming Dynasty! Not only that, but the various functions of the ship were also greatly reduced, and the displacement of the ship alone was 100 times weaker, so it is really not a brag to say that China's shipbuilding technology was hundreds of years ahead of the West at that time.

It is a pity that after the Ming Dynasty became the ancestor, the Ming Dynasty resumed the sea ban policy, and the shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty naturally turned from prosperity to decline, and the once powerful Ming sailors fell to the "soft-footed shrimp" that even the Japanese could not deal with, and the advanced shipbuilding drawings were shelved and damaged by moths, and the craftsmen with skilled shipbuilding technology were hungry and had to go into exile to find another way to make a living, which also led to the gradual backwardness of the shipbuilding technology that was leading the world, and it was difficult to show the glory of the past.

Originally, Guo Zhiyuan thought that the dead camel was bigger than the horse, since the shipbuilding drawings of the government-run shipyard were shelved and put in the warehouse to feed the moths, and the skilled craftsmen in the government-run shipyard had low incomes, and even their livelihood became difficult, so it was better to give it to me, it was a waste paper waste person in you, and it was a baby bump in my place, but I knew that Emperor Wanli rejected his request to build a shipyard.

Of course, Guo Zhiyuan is not a person who gives up so easily, he has made two preparations from the beginning, and it is of course best for Emperor Wanli to approve his request, if he does not approve it, he will secretly build it himself! He asked Zhang Cheng to use the intelligence network in his hand to buy off the corrupt officials of the government-run shipyard, let them secretly steal the shipbuilding drawings in the warehouse, and then Zhang Cheng found someone to copy the imitation drawings and hand them back to the warehouse.

At the same time, Guo Zhiyuan also asked Zhang Cheng to recruit skilled craftsmen in the government-run shipyard, these skilled craftsmen in the government-run shipyard get a meager salary, and it is difficult to even support their families, if it were not for the imperial court's strict control of craftsmen, they would have fled long ago, but this is not a problem for Zhang Cheng, he first sent the families of these skilled craftsmen to Dongfan, solved their worries, and then bought off the officials of the official shipyard who only recognized silver, let them turn a blind eye, and wait for him to successfully take those skilled craftsmen to Dongfan, The officials will report the disappearance of a person to the above.