The emperor suddenly summoned him, not to mention the officials of various ministries for a while, only said that when they rushed to the noon gate and saw the prince waiting here, they knew that today's affairs were definitely not simple, in fact, it was true, because when they entered the imperial study and just sat down, Emperor Zhang's own intelligence system sent a top-secret information, Zheng Chenggong, the former Ming general who recovered Taiwan, died of illness in Taiwan a year ago......

Jiang Tian and Zhang Tao glanced at each other, looking at this information is really a different kind of taste in their hearts, if Zheng Chenggong really died of normal illness, then at this moment it should be the whole island mourning and then electing a new leader, I don't have the heart to make trouble at sea with us, but please make it very clear in the newspaper that Zheng did not dare to intrude on the mainland, and those former pirate leaders under him complained a lot, and last year they took the opportunity of the Satsuma Domain's initiative to shrink and invade the Ryukyus, and these pirates who were originally inextricably linked with the Japanese, I'm afraid that Zheng Chenggong's actions can't be tolerated, because of the change of history, Jiang Tian doesn't know if the surname of the country at this moment is not the tragic character who did his best for the Northern Expedition in the history he is familiar with, but the pirates left by his father are still the short-sighted and short-sighted characters, and the intelligence shows that Zheng Jing has succeeded as the new generation of Yanping King, and then regardless of the period of mourning, two fleets secretly left the port!

Now the truth of the matter seems to be obvious, Zhang Tao shook his head with some regret, as if he felt sorry for his comrade-in-arms who could not see the victory of the revolution, there must be some forces in Japan involved in this operation, they wanted to rob these two Chinese latest warships, and at the same time it was also a wake-up call to all the merchants who came and went on this route, telling them who was the boss of the sea, and the Zheng family wanted to re-control the trade routes with Japan. It's just that people are not as good as heaven, not to mention robbery, but let themselves hurt their muscles and bones and almost capsized in the gutter, assuming that Li Xiuyuan commanded not two ships, but the ocean-going fleet imagined by Jiang Tian, then they can only pray that their luck is so good that they can escape death against genius.

As for the officials who were summoned, they were silent one by one after hearing the whole story, it's not that they don't know what to say, it's just that these guys just turn over and over as long as they mention the war, in their opinion, whether the sea is infested by thieves has nothing to do with themselves, anyway, China has always come this way, it's a big deal, we just don't go to sea. However, these people also knew that anyone who dared to say this sentence would be equivalent to pronouncing the death penalty of Zhengzhì's life, so they had to pretend to be deaf and dumb.

Jiang Tian looked left and right, and knew that it was difficult for a strong man to expect these people to come up with some decent ideas, so he was no longer pretentious about the unspoken rules of officialdom and said: "A few days ago, I proposed to His Majesty the establishment of a multi-level mobilization system, it seems that it will encounter challenges before it is implemented, naval warfare is not better than land warfare, it may be protracted and more dependent on logistics and supplies, I will immediately start the naval reform work, and set up naval bases in Weihai, Jiaozhou, Jeju Island, Wusongkou and other places, and initially form a comprehensive battle against the Bohai Sea, The absolute control of the Yellow Sea, and at the same time escort the route north of the Yangtze River! ”

As soon as he finished speaking, he was opposed by the Minister of Finance: "What Master Jiang said lightly, Weihai and Wusongkou originally had the guards of the former Ming Dynasty, and it is not impossible to change them to naval bases, but this Jiaozhou Bay and Jeju Island are both deserted places, and it costs a lot to reopen the water village, but how can we solve the current situation?" ”

"Lord Cao's words are wrong." Jiang Tian looked at Cao Mo with a smile and said, "Lord Cao only said that it costs money to train troops and build a city, but he doesn't mention how much new tariffs are added every year just because of the opening of the sea and trade?" As far as I know, Tianjin alone paid tariffs last year, amounting to 10,000 yuan! The officials saved by abolishing the sea and changing to the sea also have hundreds of thousands of yuan a year, right? Master Cao has ever thought that if the sea is not quiet, all this money will be gone! ”

The adults who originally wanted to list some reasons immediately kept silent, everyone knew in their hearts that a large part of the country's finances now came from the sea, and at the same time, even if you had 10,000 reasons to quote scriptures, you should not refute Jiang Tian economically, this consensus applies to all fields, as long as Zhang Tao finally determines that something may bring benefits, then no one wants to prevent His Majesty the Emperor from making money.

"In that case, let's discuss how to send troops!" Seeing that everyone was silent, Zhang Tao stood up and set the tone: "What is the Ministry of National Defense?" ”

After Jiang Qiguo changed from the original secretary of the Ministry of War to the Minister of National Defense, in fact, there are not many things that can be managed in national defense, and there are few things that he can call the shots, but fortunately, he was also born in the Northern Expedition and has long been accustomed to the style of his boss, since he has decided to fight, then he can only make a fuss about how to fight, thinking of this, he asked Zhang Tao rhetorically: "Weichen is brave, may I ask who does His Majesty want to fight?" What does it look like? ”

This seems to be a nonsensical question, but in fact it just proves this guy's sophistication, and there are obviously two enemies now, one is the Taiwanese Zheng family who is clamoring for a counterattack on the mainland, and the other is the Japanese pirates who follow the autumn wind, and there may be Dutch, Portuguese and the like to provide weapons assistance. The reality is that China is not afraid of any enemy on the ground, even if these few families come together to challenge. However, at sea, there is not so much confidence, although this time with two new ships successfully played a six-to-zero exchange ratio, but no one can guarantee that people will be able to ignore your performance next time, and there are only these two ships in the entire navy.

As a veteran, Zhang Tao of course understood the meaning of these words, so he only said after a little muttering: "First of all, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will issue a protest and ask the Japanese authorities if there is a reasonable explanation for this. The point is that the protest should be submitted to the Emperor of Japan, not to Edo Castle. ”

Jiang Tian sneered when he heard this plan, this is a standard diplomatic method, but even if it is a diplomatic note to delay time, Zhang Tao did not forget to make trouble for the Japanese, what kind of explanation does the emperor of Kyoto have the right to give? In the end, the ball still has to be kicked to the Tokugawa shogunate, but in legal terms, our approach is correct, and even if the Tokugawa family is unhappy, it is useless. In addition, it takes a lot of time for the Japanese to argue with each other, which is conducive to finding out who is stabbing in the back.

Thinking of this, Jiang Tian asked: "I don't know if there is a statistic in each department, what is the chance that our ships going to sea will encounter pirates, and is there an increasing trend recently?" ”

When everyone heard this question, they couldn't help but look at Cao Mo, because he, the Ministry of Finance, temporarily supervises foreign economic and trade matters, after all, there are still many things that need to be run in in the early stage of reform, and they are all dealing with money anyway, so in addition to customs, the department with the most complete number of foreign trade is the Ministry of Finance.

Old man Cao quietly took out his handkerchief and coughed, seemingly confident, but he didn't expect to be asked this question at all: "This...... If we talk about the ships and goods entering the customs, I still have a record here, but the pirates will not explain it to the customs, and the military should know better. ”

Jiang Qiguo secretly scolded the old fox, knowing that these civilian officials have nothing good, the Chinese navy is not strong, they are still crying and shouting to cut the funds, but now they want to push the responsibility over when they encounter something: "The Ministry of Defense has received reports of encountering pirates, but our navy rarely goes to sea, and most of them are old boats, and they can't go far, unless there are pirates blatantly operating along the coast, otherwise as long as they hijack the ships and leave, it is impossible for our side to know." Speaking of which, a while ago, the imperial court wanted to abolish the sea and change the sea, so it was reluctant to pull out some old and weak people to maintain the offshore routes, and there was no chance to travel far. ”

It's just a simple question, if there is a number of jù, there is a number of jù, and if there is no count, it can almost lead to a confrontation between the civil and military, Zhang Tao has no good way except for being extremely unhappy in his heart: "What is the meaning of the virtuous brother asking this?" ”

Jiang Tian nodded: "If there are frequent piracy activities recently, it proves that Taiwan may have settled and is in power by those who advocate counteroffensive, if there are not too many pirate attacks, it proves that this incident is just that some people are interested in our new ship, and want to test our naval reform through guò actual combat, and even hope that Tong guò can grab a ship to study its combat effectiveness." It is only possible to mobilize so many ships and ambush us in Japan's inland sea, which must be in collusion with Japan, or at least some Japanese forces colluding with Taiwan, so the legal basis for our crusade against Japan is sufficient, but we must consider how to deal with the Taiwan side in this war. ”

Everyone else knows that because the safety of the current transportation depends on navigation, it is necessary to build a navy that can at least protect the transportation lines in the coastal waters, and this military expenditure may not be much less than the previous maintenance of the canal, but a few people can realize that the investment of the navy is not only to maintain the transportation of national strategic materials, but also related to the future to go outside to grab money, food, and women. However, since Jiang Qiguo saw that the topic was pushed to the military side, he couldn't let go of this opportunity: "In the final analysis, if there are a few more new ships, even if there are 100 warships in Taiwan, only 20 new ships can destroy Taiwan and Japan together!" ”

"Twenty!" Cao Mo's eyes widened: "Lord Jiang is really a big breath, do you know how much silver this Dinghai ship costs?" ”

Originally, the cost of the battleship was kept secret, especially since this was the cost of the test ship, which could not be compared with the mass production type in the future. But the Naval Research Institute had already spent almost all the funds, and Jiang Tian could only make a report asking for additional funds to build a ship, so Cao Mo could figure out how much this cutting-edge warship was worth.

Jiang Qiguo was more aware of this number, thinking that Cao Mo had only seen the overall offer of ships and weapons, and did not know that a ship needed more money and training to form combat effectiveness. But if he didn't take advantage of this time to ask for money, he Jiang Qiguo felt that he was sorry for the brothers in the navy: "Lord Cao, don't panic, let me ask you, is it cost-effective to spend money to raise an elite army, or is it cost-effective to let Zheng Zhixue go straight into the Yangtze River to coerce Nanjing?" ”

Although most of the so-called Japanese robbers were pretended to be their own people, and the local landlords took advantage of the military disaster to scrape up the land and were even more ruthless, but after all, these were all rogue criminals, and as long as there was an elite army on the road to intercept them, they could be quelled. The Zheng family is different, people are playing the banner of restoring the former Ming Dynasty, and they are pulling the tiger skin of Huaxia Zhengshuo, if he is allowed to land on the Yangtze River, its political significance is self-evident, and this responsibility is not something that anyone can bear, so Cao Mo, who was robbed, was very interested in keeping silent.

Seeing that the opinions on the expansion of armaments and warfare had been unified, Zhang Tao asked at the right time: "If you prepare now, how long will it take ten years to be able to gather a minimum crusade fleet?" ”

Speaking of this question, Jiang Qiguo, who is the Minister of National Defense, is not qualified to reply, and only Jiang Tian, who has been advocating the reform of the navy, can answer: "If Japan is only the target of the crusade, without considering the landing operation, it is only necessary to send out the Weihaiwei fleet, and the preparation time will not exceed two months." However, even if we send troops in the name of crusading against the Japanese Japanese invaders, our real enemy is still Taiwan's fleet, which is a group of navies that are not inferior to us in terms of equipment and far superior to ours in terms of experience, and only one or two advanced warships cannot shake their superiority at sea, and it is only appropriate to fight steadily step by step, so that in addition to mobilizing warships to train the troops, we also need to consider urgently building a number of warships that are slightly better than the other side in terms of performance and relatively low in cost to supplement the front line. ”

As for where the money for shipbuilding comes from, he decided to see what Jiang Tian said first, and then saw Jiang Tian walk to the corner of the study, pull out a map of the East Asian sea from a pile of maps, point to some places on the map and say: "China's coastal areas are full of food, I judge that it is unlikely that Zheng will violate the border on a large scale, at most it is a small-scale landing harassment, but because most of its soldiers are from Fujian and Zhejiang, so we need to beware of someone colluding with the thief. Units in all localities should remain in a state of readiness at all times. Soldiers from the army who are familiar with water were selected to set up a marine corps on Jeju Island to intensify training and prevent Zheng Wei from seizing the island, and the navy ships set up a regular patrol mechanism from Wusong Pass to Jeju Island to protect the shipping routes on the one hand, and prevent ships with ulterior motives from infiltrating the Yellow Sea on the other. If the Japanese side is vague or unable to give a satisfactory answer, it can occupy Tsushima at the right time, on the one hand, to test Japan's attitude, and on the other hand, to completely control the shipping route between Korea and Japan, so as to clear the way for our future northward movement! ”

Jiang Tian was impassioned, but the ministers below looked at each other, seeing that this meant that the emperor not only wanted to solve the Japanese and Taiwan, but even wanted to completely occupy Japan! Isn't it imperative to prepare for the Northern Expedition? Why did you instead aim at the sea? The geographical location of Tsushima Island can be seen to be very important even if it is a military idiot, and it is simply offensive and defensible to get here and face Japan, according to this plan, I am afraid that this battle may not be completely completed in three years, so what should I do about the Northern Expedition?

In order to improve the combat effectiveness of the navy in a short period of time, Jiang Tian had no choice but to take out some things that were in the experimental stage, such as a newly designed iron-ribbed wood-hulled ship destroyer, which had a displacement of only six or seven hundred tons, and installed a gun emplacement that could rotate 200 degrees in the bow and stern, and a 75-mm hexagonal rifled gun that had just been successfully tested. This gun, which is similar to the historical Wisworth rifled gun, has three times the range of the existing smoothbore gun, and its accuracy is not on the same level, but the disadvantage is that it is troublesome to maintain and the tonnage is too large, so it cannot be promoted in the field army. The destroyer with only two guns was equipped with six Thunderbolt gun positions and four rocket nests, and the Thunderbolt was also replaced by a new type of rifle gun designed by Jiang Tian, although it is called a rifle gun, but it can not be compared with the machine gun with a fast rate of fire in later generations, in fact, this is an enlarged revolver rifle, which is an emergency modification of the design according to Li Xiuyuan's combat report, although the Thunderbolt is very powerful in close combat, but the long-term shooting and reloading operation make the shooter's physical fitness decline very quickly, A single contact battle left many of the sailors in the gun emplacements too tired to stand up. Therefore, Jiang Tian changed to this kind of revolver magazine loaded with eight paper shells, and the stability of both reloading and shooting has been significantly improved. The most important thing is that this kind of ship does not use the steel keel that costs people and money, but uses the cheapest iron rib wooden hull structure in the existing production process, which not only greatly reduces the consumption of steel, but also can be produced by ordinary civilian shipyards as long as there are drawings.

Because King Ji has the largest private shipyard in North China, he received an order for the production of ten destroyers this time, and it is precisely because of this contract with sufficient oil and water that King Ji, who was dissatisfied with the transfer of national policies, shut up, as for the hard indicators that the order requires the first ship to be launched within three months, King Ji did not take it too seriously, as the so-called heavy reward must have brave men, as long as the money is sufficient, the craftsmen who have recruited themselves will naturally work hard. In fact, he also wanted to see what Jiang Tian's so-called war mobilization looked like. The rest of the matter was much simpler, with the emperor's edict, Jiang Tian mobilized all the material reserves in the imperial village, the apples, pears, hawthorns and other fruits stored in the winter were collected to make canned food, the excess grain was made into pieces of compressed biscuits that the soldiers hated, various planned battlefield rations were produced in batches, and the manufacture of weapons was changed from the army-based refitting plan to the navy-based, and then a light cavalry was stationed on Jeju Island to temporarily take charge of the island's defense before the marines became an army. At the same time, he also began to try to domesticate military horses on the island.

Unlike the heat of military preparations, in the diplomatic sphere not only is the pace noticeably much slower, but an invisible intelligence war is quietly unfolding.