Seeing that Zheng Jing was still muttering about the pros and cons, Jiang Tian said seemingly casually: "The Spanish envoy will return to Europe in a few days, and Your Majesty will order the Dinghai and the Sister Zhenhai, which has just completed the test installation, to form a task force together with four light cruisers and four supply ships. One is to protect important diplomatic envoys, and the other is to open the eyes of the Yi people in Luzon, Manraka and other places! How about saving them any dirty thoughts again, and then the prince will also take a boat back to Taiwan with the old prince? ”

This seemingly casual invitation really made Zheng Jing's face change several times, although he didn't understand what a task force was, but he knew very well in his heart that no matter what the purpose of the imperial court was to make such an armed parade, as long as this fleet appeared, the rules of the game there would change. At the same time, this is also to knock them Zheng family and the remnants of the island not to be double-hearted.

Seeing Zheng Jing's gloomy and uncertain expression, Jiang Tian also sighed in his heart, although Zheng Zhilong shamelessly engaged in political speculation in history and finally lost his life, but he gave birth to an excellent national hero. It's just that God doesn't fulfill people's wishes, although Zheng Chenggong has gained greater development opportunities in this historical time and space, he is more short-lived than in the history he is familiar with, so that even the spy personnel in ambush in Taiwan think that his death is very strange, and nine times out of ten it is related to the guy in front of him who seduced his younger brother and nurse. Whatever the reason for Zheng Chenggong's death, it seriously affected the originally well-planned Taiwan strategy. And the king of Yanping in front of him does not have much grandeur in history, and it seems that Taiwan's role in the future will still fall on Zheng Zhilong, who pretends to be old but is actually domineering.

Thinking of this, Jiang Tian decided to take advantage of the situation to bring out all the problems and plates, so he asked Xinyue to take a small wooden box that was tightly sealed: "Xiaguan here have some charts handed down by his mentor, and there are also some thoughts of His Majesty about the countries of the South Seas, since the prince asked about the purchase of the ship, it must be with the intention of passing through the ocean, so today I will take it and give it to the prince, and hope that the loyal and brave people on the island will not live up to the high expectations of the imperial court!" ”

Hearing that it was the sea chart left by the emperor, Zheng Jing quickly got up and respectfully took the small wooden box with both hands, and the generous gift he gave was exchanged for this trick, and he didn't know if this deal was cost-effective for a while.

A few days have passed in a blink of an eye, and the people of Beijing have returned to the normal track from the festive atmosphere of the emperor's birthday, as for the foreign envoys who look strange and wear strange clothes, everyone has become a little strange from the curiosity at the beginning, and in the crisp autumn weather, Beijing City has recovered a trace of the tranquil atmosphere of the ancient capital in the noisy weather, and the Tianjin Port is a completely different scene three hundred miles away. The two mighty and domineering giant ships of Dinghai and Zhenhai are preparing for sailing, and the people in the port, both Chinese and foreign, are pointing at these two formidable killing machines, while the Spanish envoy Fernando and the two generations of pirates of the Zheng clan are boarding the Dinghai battle cruiser as the flagship, and they will arrive at Keelung Harbor under the escort of the task force.

There were not many farewell crowds and ceremonies, only the local officials of Tianjin Wei came to see them off, even if there were still some traces left on the Dinghai after the last battle, it would not affect the visual impact of this giant ship, Li Xiuyuan, as the admiral who knew the battleship best, was once again appointed as the commander-in-chief of the fleet, but this time even this old sailor who had been at sea for most of his life did not know what would happen at the end of the sea. The next stop was Luzon, the base of the Spaniards in Southeast Asia, where Fernando and the other missionaries who had returned to Europe would return to Europe on Spanish ships with the task force of escorting the Spanish ships out of the Strait of Malacca and eventually to India.

Li Xiuyuan is too familiar with this routine, his way is simply gunboat diplomacy plus detection route, for this reason, the imperial court has concentrated the main warships as much as possible to form a fleet, in addition to showing the prestige of ****, but also to prevent some thieves from making crooked ideas. In order to ensure the formation of the task force, the Naval Research Institute Ship Branch has mobilized all resources for repairing and maintaining these long-distance ships, and for this reason, even the Jinghai, which was damaged in battle, can only suspend maintenance, and the navy has carefully selected the personnel who sail and has 20 percent of the posts in reserve, so that in addition to reducing the labor intensity of the voyage, it can also allow the veteran and experienced sailors to bring out a group of apprentices by word and deed, and the Marine Corps has even selected a battalion to go to sea with the ship. As for the research institute, it did not let go of the opportunity of this voyage, and all kinds of talents were also stuffed on the ship, lest they miss the opportunity to link theory with practice.

With the end of the war, the seaborne trade also quickly recovered to the level in front of the station, but the small group of pirates that were scattered at sea still haunted from time to time, especially in the South China Seas, some European armed merchant ships also made a cameo appearance as pirates, and this time the Dutch suffered a big loss, Hongmaoyi estimated that he would not dare to bare his teeth towards the Royal Navy anymore, but he was not sure whether he would attack the Chinese merchant ships in the past, so since the imperial court sent such a powerful fleet to the sea, The captains who happened to be heading for the South Seas, both Chinese and foreign, unanimously chose to follow the fleet and go south together.

Although these people's ideas were very good, they found that they could not keep up with the speed of the warships not long after they sailed out, and if it had not been for the slow supply ships that had been merged in the open sea and dragged down the fleet, they would have left these merchant ships behind. Behind the most powerful fleet in the world, those Chinese captains are not to mention the pride of the sailors, even those European captains, because they have long been accustomed to the strength of the Central Empire, they don't feel that there is anything wrong with it except envy and jealousy. Only a handful of Chinese officials with inside knowledge know that this is not only the first time that China has returned to the Indian Ocean in nearly 300 years since Zheng He, nor is it only that China has once again led the development of navigation technology, but that this formation, which seems to be far less large than Zheng He's fleet, is already the limit of China's current capabilities.

Commander Li, who was standing on the bridge, is now also a famous admiral, but his family knows his own affairs, and he is just lucky. If there is no Jiang Tian's ear, will this new ship be used in the town? How should this battle be fought? He's out of order. Moreover, the new naval soldiers on this ship and those powerful weapons cannot be played without the training of the research institute, just when their comrades in the army are jealous of themselves. Who knows that he, the commander, is actually a puppet, and he can make these achievements as long as he is not an idiot.

is different from Li Xiuyuan's arrogance, whether it is the Spaniard or Zheng Zhilong, since he boarded the Dinghai, he has already understood that the rules of the game on this sea are going to be rewritten, not to mention this majestic giant ship and not to mention those weapons that seem to be extraordinary, only to say that the spirit of the sailors on this ship, as well as the strict military discipline that is forbidden by the order, not to mention that the Zheng family sailors who were born as pirates cannot be compared, even the invincible armada of the former empire on which the sun never sets, maybe the officers from the Spanish nobility can still be neat and tidy, However, these sailors of the Royal Chinese Navy were more disciplined than those noble officers.

"When I return to the big staff, I will choose the children of the clan and send them to the capital as protons......" Standing on the deck blowing the sea breeze, the old pirate who had been thinking about it for a long time finally compromised with reality: "Although the emperor did not make this request, we can't help but take the initiative to do it!" ”

Zheng Jing supported his grandfather and nodded with difficulty, thinking in his heart that it would be safest to choose who would come to the mainland. In fact, Zheng Chenggong died suddenly, he suddenly took over Taiwan with neither prestige nor means, it was precisely because he couldn't suppress those old pirates, otherwise how could Zheng Tai have the opportunity to defect with a fleet, if it weren't for some loyal protection of the young master, otherwise his head would have fallen to the ground. Now that the grandfather who created this family business has spoken, he can only obey the truth.

At the same time, on the other deck, Garcia drooled at the hexagonal rifled guns covered with gun jackets, and he stared at the guns for a long time, but many key positions were covered so he couldn't see a name. But judging from the complexity and workmanship level of this gun, it is more than one grade better than the smoothbore guns I bought.

"The Dutch didn't lose unjustly!" Even the half-barreled Fernando did not gloat over the defeat of the enemy, and the only thing he was glad about today was that he had finally formed an alliance with such a powerful country, although the benefits of the alliance could not be seen in a short time, but it was better than the idiots around the king who came up with the idea, as long as he brought back these weapons and military ideas that were more advanced than Europe, Spain would have the day to return to the hegemony.

Garcia retracted his gaze and looked at his master: "If we had established ties with China a few years earlier, the war in Europe would not be what it is now. ”

The war they were talking about was the Eleventh Years' War with the French, and the news that had just been brought by the merchant ships showed that the situation was very unfavorable to Spain. It was precisely because of the loss of this war that Spain completely lost its position as the hegemon in Europe, and also led to the rise of France to become the largest army power in Europe. Jiang Tian got this information at the same time, but he didn't care much. In order to let Europe shed blood in these three hundred years, he doesn't mind supporting a few more younger brothers, such as Austria, which is also the Habsburg family, will sooner or later compete with the Bourbon family in France for the Spanish throne, the Medici family will also go downhill in the vigorous voyage, and England, which was ruled by Cromwell's dictatorship, not only suppressed Irish independence, but also robbed at sea because of economic embarrassment.

Everything depends on whether Fernando can do a good job of advertising for China in the European aristocracy, so Zhang Tao did not hesitate to assign a few young and motivated imperial doctors to form a medical group in Europe, and what they carried with them was the top-secret vaccinia vaccine sealed in a low-temperature incubator, as well as the traditional dry powder of human pox vaccine, their duty was not only to advertise Chinese medicine to improve China's influence, Another important task is to observe whether these primitive vaccinia vaccines can be stored at low temperature for such a long time, for which there is also a group of room temperature refrigerated for comparison, and the behavior of using the Spanish aristocracy as guinea pigs is only dared to do by these two traversers.

When this mixed fleet of military and civilian ships arrived at Keelung Port by the northwest wind, in addition to those merchant ships bringing a large number of goods to announce the official lifting of the imperial court's blockade of Taiwan, Jiang Tian's gift to the Zheng family also officially arrived, and among the trophies of the Ryukyu naval battle were three Dutch armed merchant ships, one of which was Zheng Tai's ship, and Zheng Tai himself was sent over. This can be regarded as the return of the other party's heavy bribes, Jiang Tian and Zhang Tao have carefully studied, although these three ships represent the highest shipbuilding level in Europe, but they are a little worse than the ship type that China is about to promote, if the auction can't sell much, just Zheng Jing came to the door to give gifts, and the new ship can't be built for a while, so the money he sent should be to buy these second-hand goods, anyway, after Taiwan was annexed, the original half-concealed bilateral trade relations were legal, and China was equivalent to having the largest commercial fleet in Asia, The overstretched capacity problem was easily solved, and the central government didn't have to care about these three merchant ships, but the largest Galen battleship was the research institute.

Taiwan's big and small pirates have long known that they have been recruited, although the previous official positions can not be counted, but their ships are still there, and they have the recognition of the imperial court, as long as they can continue to be attached to the Zheng family's surroundings, then there will be no change in this day, so when the Dinghai appeared outside the urgently expanded port, the shore was already full of gongs and drums and firecrackers. When Zheng Zhilong stepped on the land of Taiwan wearing a python robe and jade belt with the support of Zheng Jing, who was also dressed in the same costume, regardless of whether it was sincere or false, a group of old pirates came to visit him with tears in their eyes, but they put Li Xiuyuan, who followed closely, aside.

Commander Li didn't care that he was left out in the cold, besides, he, the commander of the naval fleet, could only be regarded as a small character in front of Zheng Zhilong, when the supplies he was most concerned about now would be in place, he couldn't afford to delay such a long sea journey, and the Dutch who came with him at the same time were mixed, and they challenged the Asian hegemon several times, just to expand their colonies and commercial interests, but what was the result? Not only did a number of important warships sink to the bottom of the sea, but even the island in front of him was taken away by Zheng Zhilong, the son of an old opponent, and now this old immortal has not only returned, but also gained the support of the even more terrifying Central Empire. They are not aristocratic fools like Fernando, and with such a powerful sergeant support, it is conceivable that the Zheng family will do something in the future.

In addition to opening up sea routes, Li Xiuyuan's task is actually the most important thing is to get in touch with the leaders of Chinese descent in Nanyang, and if the empire wants to extend its hand to Nanyang in the future, it cannot expect these foreigners to travel to the treaty, in addition to sending warships to carry out gunboat diplomacy, uniting the entire overseas Chinese is the top priority. It's just that Taiwan is too close to the mainland and the Zheng family is present, and the merchants here will not take the initiative to contact the imperial court, but he believes that once the task force appears on the sea surface of the South Seas, the reputation of the Chinese Empire once again passing through the sea will spread to all corners, and those compatriots who have been oppressed and slaughtered will naturally flock to it, even if they can't repay their blood debts now, but those people who see the empire's fleet will naturally be able to restrain themselves.

The truth is wilder than he guessed, at this time Southeast Asia has already known the news of the total destruction of the Dutch fleet, all kinds of gossip is spread with nose and eyes, Batavia, who is not very well-informed, is now not only worried about what retaliation will be taken by the Chinese Empire, but also worried that other colonial countries are eyeing him, will Britain take the opportunity to reach into Southeast Asia? Will the Spaniards snatch passing merchant ships alone? So at this moment the atmosphere in the South Seas is in a delicate balance, once there is definite news this balance will be broken, but no one expected that the Chinese Empire would show off its force in such a way, when the task force docked at the port of Luzon, the merchants and pirates of various countries finally saw this legendary country with far more advanced navigation technology than themselves, how frightening the fangs really showed. If Zheng He's fleet was still a fleet that has always been in the nature of friendly exchanges and visits more than 200 years ago, then this task force can be regarded as the first real gunboat diplomatic operation in Chinese history, and its profound impact can be said to be a turning point in the butterfly wings of the traverser to completely change the course of history.

When they played with a European pirate ship of unknown nationality like a mouse playing with a cat for a long time near the Natuna Islands, in front of Spanish and Dutch merchants, and blew the sailing ship of at least 400 tons into parts with just one salvo, if anyone wanted to challenge the Chinese navy in these waters, it could only be said that he was really impatient. It was also from this moment that the most difficult southern part of the Chinese Empire's String of Pearls project had developed in an irreversible direction, and it had nothing to do with the will of those colonists, who could only perish with those who went along with it.

But these are all later words, when the fleet was still anchored in Keelung, there was a small episode, on a certain inconspicuous merchant ship, a young man dressed as a merchant was not in a hurry to sell all kinds of goods to this place that had been blocked for several months, he probed his head to look out of the porthole, until the crowd of people who greeted Zheng Zhilong on the side of the warship walked away, and the people who watched the excitement were also clean, and he put down his heart and picked up the baggage he was carrying, He took out from his baggage something that was obviously not close to business, and that was an ornamented sword with a bright yellow spike hanging from its scabbard.

After hanging the sword on his belt, he tidied up his clothes and walked off the boat towards the military port, seeing that he was about to walk to the sentry post of the Marine Corps' temporary cameo, before he could identify himself, a person hugged his fist beside him coldly and smiled: "Childe has worked hard all the way, I don't know when I will return to Beijing?" ”