Sending away the two chattering guys, Zhao Yu's ears finally became quiet, he lay on the table and looked at the flying clipper model, but his heart was not calm, and today he was never close to his wishes. The model of this ship had been made as early as when he first arrived in Qiongzhou, which was his most difficult period, thinking that once he could not gain a foothold in Qiongzhou, he tried his best to build a flying clipping ship, with its performance and speed ahead of the times, no ship could catch up with him.

But because of one thing or another, it was never put into practice, and the model ship can only be dusted in the studio to this day. But now that he wants money and money, he wants people, and there are still a large number of shipbuilding timber available in Nanyang, Zhao Yu feels that it is time for the flying clipper to come out, and it can also be said that it is time to come into being. He knew that the sea trade would still be the main source of filling the inner treasury for a certain period of time.

However, their strong large-scale involvement, especially in the most lucrative spice business, will inevitably lead to new competition and trade frictions, and maritime trade is also an important source of income for many countries and states. Once it rises to competition at the national level, trade frictions rise to the highest form of competition, triggering a war until the winner is decided and a boss is played.

Therefore, Zhao Yu knew that in order to win this trade war, it was necessary to have a strong ocean-going fleet, and although his naval army occupied an overwhelming advantage in the naval battle with Meng Yuan, the warships used were suitable for near-sea operations, not long-distance ocean-going operations. It has become an urgent matter to build a new type of warship and an ocean-going fleet.

However, the clipper ship was not suitable for use as a warship, and of course it was not the only choice for Zhao Yu, he knew that three hundred years later, another kind of warship was born in the Western Age of Discovery, and it also became the pioneer of battleships.

In the fifteenth century, the Western world also embarked on maritime expeditions in search of the legendary spice lands of the East. At that time, three-masted galleys in the Mediterranean were too poor to function on the ocean. A sailing ship known as the Clark became a much-loved vessel, with plenty of space for a large crew and cargo on the way back. When Magellan set sail around the world, he used Clark sailboats.

But the Clark sailboat had a huge design problem. The huge front and rear buildings make the center of gravity of the ship too high, which is very easy to attract the wind, which can easily capsize the ship in the event of a strong storm, and also reduce the wind area of the sail, making it difficult for the ship to maneuver against the wind. As a result, the Clark sailboat was improved, which is now known as the Galen sailboat.

The Galen is a fully sailed ship, mostly equipped with three to five masts. With the exception of the last mast, which uses a spinnaker, it is mostly equipped with a crosssail as a sail. It features a lowered bow and an extended hull that is more slender and narrower, and its unique structure replaces the traditional curved stern with a square stern building, which reduces the wind resistance on the foreboard, allowing for increased speed and ease of steering. It has unprecedented stability when sailing on the surface, making it more suitable for ocean navigation.

Several countries claim to have invented the Galen, but regardless of who pioneered it, most of the seafaring nations quickly adopted the Galen, and the British, Spaniards, French, Danes, and Dutch all changed the design according to their own needs and developed their own unique designs. Due to their versatility, the Galen could also be easily converted into commercial and military sailboats, which were usually armed with several cannons or heavy guns.

In Britain, shipbuilders began to develop light Galen ships, and in order to make them more suitable for long-range artillery combat and improve handling, they lowered the head superstructure, moved it into the hull, and even placed it inside the head hang. The wall panels of the lower hull were penetrated so that the heavy guns could be placed on the lower deck. The voluminous shape inherited from the Clark sailboat was modified so that the keel was three times as long as the width of the boat. The shipbuilding structure was simplified, especially the front shipbuilding, which was greatly reduced in size.

After Spain established a colony in the Americas, it was necessary to carry a large number of goods and soldiers across the Atlantic, so the Galen ships built by the Spaniards generally had four masts, with two masts in the front and two in the back with spinnakers. The standard length is about fifty meters, and the displacement is 1,200 tons. The use of diagonal ribs allows it to have several long decks, and the aft deck even has as many as seven layers, with a draft of up to eight meters, and of course the large hull gives it a good endurance, making it the largest seagoing ship in the world for a long time.

Not only does the Galen have good seaworthiness, a sturdy hull, but also the ability to carry more supplies, and its extraordinary endurance makes it suitable for many different aspects of ocean exploration, ocean trade and naval warfare. And the era that was created coincided with the Age of Discovery, when the countries of Western Europe competed to establish maritime power. Therefore, the advent of the galleon also had a certain impact on the development of the situation in Europe.

In addition, the great success of the galleon was such that it remained the standard of design for warships, including battleships, until the end of the sailing era. Among them, the requirements for seaworthiness and firepower are the overriding conditions, so as to seize a favorable position and give full play to superior firepower in battle. It became the main ship in the war, all of which had the characteristics of low broadside, crosssail, and cannon guns on both sides, and many of these ships were arranged in a long column to give full play to the firepower advantage of the two sides, which was also the first time that the name "battleship" was used......

According to Zhao Hao's idea, of course, I hope to form an ocean-going fleet with Galen as the main force, because when we mention Galen sailing, we will inevitably think of the Spanish treasure fleet, because the Spanish Galen sailing ship full of treasures of the New World will always stimulate our imagination and entangle our thoughts. This was early in the 3 centuries of Spanish rule in the New World, when the treasure fleet developed and became an integral part of the economic system.

And a typical treasure fleet is made up of many types of ships. Heavily armed galleons and merchant ships became the bulk of the fleet, with some small delivery ships, small reconnaissance ships, accompanying the fleet along with supply ships, and the only difference between merchant ships and galleons was the amount of weapons loaded. They left Spain laden with manufactured goods needed by the Spanish colonies in the New World, bringing back with ships full of gold, silver, and industrial raw materials.

As a former modern person, Zhao Yu certainly knows what such a fleet means to a country, he can not only help the country get rid of the financial crisis, provide a lot of funds for the country's development and construction, support a country's economy, but also make it rise rapidly among the great powers, prestige in the world, and expand the territory to overseas places.

The future is plump, realistic and skinny. This time he made a lot of money overseas, but for Zhao Hao, it only alleviated the crisis, and he was far from being able to spend money lavishly. And this money has already found the in-law's family, first of all, the workshop moved out to build an industrial town, and each million yuan can't be paid; secondly, the renovation of Lin'an City to solve the housing problem of officials, although in the end there is not much loss, but it must be paid in advance; In addition, the burial of the biological mother and the empress dowager Feng'an also require a large amount of silver.

The manufacture of clippers was not within the budget at the beginning, and its iron-wood structure, material costs, R&D and manufacturing expenses were not small. Galen galleons generally use oak as keels, pine as masts, and some hardwood as hulls and decks, and it is expensive to make a Galen sailboat, requiring a large number of carpenters, blacksmiths, and shipwrights to spend months to complete, but the problem is that Galen sailboats still only exist in his mind, and there is not even a ship model!

However, Zhao Yu is unwilling to give up once he has an idea, especially if it is not easy to come by himself, and his life is short, and time is fleeting after a little relaxation, thinking about going away with many regrets, he is still a little unwilling. But wanting to do it is not the same as doing it brutally, things must be prioritized, and there must be a reasonable plan.

After pondering for a long time, Zhao Yu figured out that the most lacking thing at the moment is money, so making money is still the first thing. And as we all know, the faster the trafficked goods run and the more they are loaded, the lower the cost and the more profits they make. Therefore, he made the clipper a priority, and the speed of the boat was one thing, and secondly, there was a seasonal sale in it. Even if it's a fruit, everyone wants to eat it for the first bite, and at the cost of paying a higher price.

The current trafficking of incense medicine is also the same reason, affected by the trade winds, cargo ships can only go back and forth once a year, everyone rushes to traffic goods in a season, the natural quantity is cheap, but with the flying clippers can be staggered travel, in time to start selling before a large number of incense drugs are on the market, that is, scorpion feces are unique, and the result of no competitors is that the price is opened with themselves. The latecomers will only eat the ashes.

Zhao Yu's plan was to take advantage of the fact that the clippers were not affected by the trade winds, and that they were fast and had a large load, and only trafficked in tea, silk, and incense of high value. Others, such as porcelain and Chinese herbal medicine, were sold on ordinary merchant ships. The return voyage could trade horses, gold, silver, jewelry and other goods urgently needed by the Great Song Dynasty. Therefore, the size of the fleet should not be too large at first, and gradually expand after a certain amount of accumulation.

Of course, the establishment of a flying clipper fleet is also of practical significance, and it can be used to quickly increase troops overseas and transport urgently needed materials. And it can also be used as a temporary cameo under the warship, Zheng Yong is right, artillery can't be installed, don't we still have ballistas? In the current era of cold weapons, you can dominate the sea, and you can still run if you can't beat it, and there is no faster ship on the earth at this time.

Relatively speaking, Zhao Yu thought that the demand for Galen ships was not so urgent. At present, the main enemy of the Great Song Dynasty is still the Mongol and Yuan, and coastal operations are still the main form of warfare. Moreover, the Mengyuan naval army also has no ocean-going combat capability, and now it has been defeated again and again, and it has already suffered a great loss of vitality, and it is simply unable to confront its own naval army. As for the outbreak of war due to trade frictions, it is not certain when it will break out, but it is not enough to trigger a war in a short period of time.

At the same time, building an ocean-going fleet is not only about warships, but also about getting familiar with ships, training, and becoming an army also takes time. Therefore, Zhao Hao thought that he could make technical reserves at the moment, design first, and build one or two test ships to verify their performance, optimize the design, train sailors, and have a talent reserve, and then have money to quickly carry out large-scale manufacturing and installation.

After pondering the pros and cons, Zhao Yu put this matter on the agenda, and took out two hours every afternoon to discuss with several masters who would be in prison. To be honest, he also has no bottom in his mind about whether he can build a flying clipper, after all, the imitation turtle boat is much more complicated in terms of structure, and the modern flying clipper has been eliminated for more than 200 years, and he has never seen the real thing at all.

Even the ship model was made by Zhao Yu based on the records and surviving pictures, and those masters were even more blinded, which was very different from the type of ship they often involved. In this way, he can only bite the bullet and first imitate the original ship model without pretense and disassemble the ship model, and explain it little by little from the materials, to the manufacture of accessories, and how to assemble, so that they can be clear and understandable.

At the same time, Zhao ordered the shipyard to which the Ordnance Supervisor belonged to to start making preparations, collecting and purchasing the necessary materials, building the dock, installing and debugging the necessary equipment, and selecting craftsmen, so that the work could begin as soon as the workshop was over. He also ordered Zheng Yong to select a group of sailors from the Imperial Navy to build a simulated training ground for training the operation of soft sails and formulating rules.

Zhao Yu wanted to go to the court, and he had to summon his ministers to listen to the report, discuss with the deacons, and review the chapters. At present, I am studying the manufacturing process of clipping boats, and when I have a little free time, I go into the studio, calculate data, draw drawings, and prepare for the construction of Galen sailboats. I don't have time to take care of the affairs of the palace, and I can't say a few words to the concubines.

"Hey, how do you arrange an audience for foreign ministers today, and there are a lot fewer official documents?" This day is not the day of the court, but Zhao Yu still came to the study early in the morning, and Chen Shishi, who was in the Imperial Office, sent today's work arrangements and official documents that needed to be processed as usual, but he frowned and asked strangely after reading it.

"Your Majesty, today is the summer solstice, and the routine is to rest for three days, and all ministries and provinces have been sealed, so naturally there will be a lot less official business." Chen Shishi smiled when he heard it.

"Alas, I'm so busy, why didn't you go back to rest?" Zhao Yu shook his head with a wry smile when he heard this, and asked again.

"Back to Your Majesty, my subordinates will take turns today, and they will rest tomorrow." Chen Shishi replied.

"I have a lot of things, and you can't be idle, and I also suffer you, and I can't accompany my family!" Zhao Yu nodded.

"Your Majesty, don't say that, my father often said that you can't abolish your public for personal reasons, and the summer solstice at home is just a small gathering in the house, and there is nothing to do!" Chen Shishi said......