Lin Wenbing, a bit like Ye Qi, has the same face as a reader, and looks very delicate. However, if you know how ruthless and aggressive his style of doing things is, you will look at this smiling young man differently.

He wore a dark arrow sleeve robe, covered with a gown, and the strap on the front of the gown was loosely tied with a bow on his chest to prevent the sea breeze from blowing. Getting off the ship, there are people from the General's Mansion waiting there on the dock, "Mr. Lin, the lord ordered me to wait here to greet you, saying that you don't have to go back to the general's mansion after seeing you, he is in the shipyard, if the adult is not very tired from the journey, please go to the shipyard to see the lord." ”

Shipyard?

Lin Wenbing was a little surprised, but he immediately understood. At present, the South China Army is in and out of a large amount of materials every day, which one does not rely on ships? There are also contacts between various places and cruising the sea frontier, all of which rely on the construction of sea ships.

I don't know what kind of ship the lord will see in person, and how much it can transport? How much material is folded on a big ship?

In the past few years, with Ye Qi working in Jiangnan, Lin Wenbing knows the huge profits of shipping, and he quietly calculated, the cost of shipping is almost outrageously low compared with Caoyun. And like Hai Rui, Qiu Jun, a bachelor from Qiongzhou Prefecture, proposed the idea of shipping rice many years ago. In his view, sea transportation can save 780 percent of the cost compared with land transportation, and 30 to 40 percent less than river transportation. Therefore, he believes that the country should not rely solely on river transport, but should be supplemented by maritime transport in the long run. "Today, the Cao River is profitable, and the annual transportation is abundant, and there is no capital for shipping. However, those who are good at planning the country are always ahead of the future. And for the unexpected. It is better to worry than to regret it. He believes that we should not be careless because the river is flowing smoothly at the moment, and we should plan things first, and do not regret it until something happens. In case one day the inland river transportation is not passable, because the country's "wealth is all from the southeast." It will lead to a river, for example, the throat of the human body, and if you can't eat it for a day, you will die. ”

If there were large ships, they would be able to transport rice, refined salt, vegetable oil, and other materials that were almost equal to the amount of soil in Nanzhong and sell them from the south to the north for a profit. these years. Since the collapse of the first emperor, there have been continuous floods, droughts and locust plagues, and even if there are no such disasters, the last time the earth is moved from time to time. Countless people have also been displaced.

There is no need to ask for favors along the way. There is also no cost of cleaning and dredging the river every year. Why didn't the princes in the court know to change the transportation to the sea?

When he was drinking and listening to music with several leaders of the Cao Gang, he mentioned it to these people who were begging for a living along the canal. Unexpectedly, it attracted a bit of banter.

"Lin Xianggong. Do you know the suffering of our Cao Gang? The outside said that we were blackmailing the county when we accepted Caomi, but they didn't know what we were going to do along the way north. From the first of all, it is 'over Huai' to submit papers, and there are all kinds of bad rules and benefits as usual. A gang of ships would cost five or six hundred taels to a thousand taels of silver. As soon as this pass is passed, along the road through the gate and the dam, red envelopes must be sent everywhere, and each boat will cost more than a dozen taels of silver. Finally arrived in Tongzhou, there were more tricks, to vote for the four yamen, someone specially charged, each boat thirteen taels of silver, ten taels of four yamen, three taels is the charge d'affaires. When the rice was put ashore and put into the warehouse, the number of people who reached out to ask for money was unknown, and it always cost thirty or fifty taels. Therefore, our so-called extortion of states and counties is nothing more than a contradiction in and out. It's impossible for the brothers to fill this hole for the Ming court out of their own pockets, right? ”

"That's not all, once there is some trouble along the way, such as the Cao boat being hit by another ship and sinking, then the Cao rice on the boat will be compensated by our Cao Gang brothers. If it weren't for these years, Li Xianggong, Ye Xianggong and you helped the brothers of the two gangs of Yancao, so that the brothers made some copper on the sale of salt, in this long year of famine, I don't know how many brothers of the Cao Gang would have sold their children and daughters and their families were ruined. ”

I see! This canal has become a way for countless people to make a fortune, no wonder they have to be willing to go by sea, once the sea is implemented, where will they go to extort silver?! I understood all kinds of shady and disadvantages in Caoyun, but also strengthened Lin Wenbing's determination to ship, without him, the cost of shipping is too low! Not to mention anything else, it is also to transport 1,000 stone cao rice to Beijing, starting from Hangzhou along the canal north, along the way to the water level, gates, official documents, yamen and many other factors, but if you sail from Hangzhou Bay to the north to Tianjin Nigu (Tanggu), or use the current two-masted sailing ship in the south to go directly from Beitang along the Baihe River to the west, I'm afraid that the boat has not yet crossed the Huai River, and the rice on the sea has been sold on the Chaoyangmen wharf?!

It was precisely because he was so enthusiastic about shipping that he heard that Shouhan was supervising the construction of new ships in the shipyard, so he handed over the things that could be used at any time to a personal entourage, and he urged the two generals' entourage one after another, "Hurry! Take me to the shipyard! ”

Two slipways have recently been built in the shipyard with huge slides leading to the water. On the slipway, two huge new ships are under intense construction there.

Of course, the so-called huge is also relative, at most in Lin Wenbing and the shipyard's Cheng Zheng (factory director?) In Wang Quan's eyes, it was a giant ship.

The hull with a total length of nearly 60 meters (including the bow mast) is nearly 50 meters long without the bow mast.

The bow of the ship is five meters long, and the stern is six meters long.

The keel made of wrought iron, ductile iron and some high-manganese steel was twelve meters wide, and the workers were nervously and orderly installing the various plates and parts of the preset gun emplacements.

"Kobayashi Xianggong, how is this boat?"

Wang Quanxian found Lin Wenbing, greeted him loudly, didn't care about greetings, and came up to ask him what his impression of the boat was.

"Nice big boat! Sturdy, sturdy, how much drainage? ”

"I've calculated, it's probably more than a thousand tons! Thirty cannons can be loaded! If it is transported over a long distance, it can carry seven or eight hundred tons of goods, and if it is a short distance, it can carry more than a thousand tons! ”

"Uncle Wang," Lin Wenbing consciously called Wang Quan an elder, and this old man also worked hard for the maritime foundation of Nanzhong, and deserved such a title.

"What are the long distances and short distances? Is running Guangzhou a long distance, but running Kyushu and Nagasaki is a long distance? ”

"Guangzhou? It should be considered a short distance, right?! ”

Wang Quan was a little angry. If he regarded every ship in the shipyard as his own child, then the big ship made after the Gothenburg was his youngest child, and he was naturally very fond of it.

He didn't care that there was Shouhan there on the side, watching the workers nervously carry out construction work on the hull, and pulled Lin Wenbing to a small room next to the slipway.

The furnishings in the room are very simple, and it should be used for Wang Quan and others to have a short rest and meeting here. There is a painting hanging on the wall, which looks like it should be the ship that is under construction, after completion, commonly known as renderings.

It shows a three-masted galleon, each with square sails hanging from each mast. The mainmast and foremast are equipped with an upper mast, a mid-mast and a mainsail. The aftermast is hung with a mid-mast sail and a large triangular mid-mast sail. In the bow, there is a bow mast equipped with a jib bobb girder; Hanging below that were two other square sails: a slash sail and a slash mid-mast sail.

"Uncle Wang. this boat. How much effort does it take? ”

Seeing the big ship on the screen, and then looking at the hull under intense construction outside the window, Lin Wenbing couldn't help but be amazed and surprised.

"How much effort? Just wood, do you know what to do? Look everywhere. It's all out of order! In the end, it was the lord who asked the two wives to write a letter home. I found teak wood from Siam. That's enough timber to build this ship! ”

Walk up to the slipway and take a closer look at the boat, the main body of which is largely finished. The hull was covered with teak planks of different thicknesses. The long supporting timber of the bilge is particularly thick and strong. They were used for longitudinal reinforcement of the ship, since here the hull was bent upwards from the bottom, and the pressure was particularly high. The beams are also thick in timber - they are laid along the hull and support more than a hundred heavy deck beams (which alternately support the wooden decks). The deck beams weigh up to 1 metric ton each and are hoisted into the hull by special lifting equipment. The inner cladding of the bottom and side walls of the hull is an ornament and does not belong to any specialized pressure-bearing components.

"Lord, such a big ship, it costs a lot to build!"

After listening to Wang Quan's statement just now, in order to raise timber for the construction of the ship, Shouhan even asked his cheap old man to collect teak from Siam, and from then on, he knew how amazing the consumption of this big ship should be.

"How much does it cost? The specific number is still Wang Chengzheng suing you! Shouhan smiled wryly, he originally thought that it would be easy to build a sailor, but he didn't expect that it would take so much effort to build a Gothenburg! Why can other traversers create a sailor that can easily fight across several oceans?

Talent (mainly sailors, gunners and captains), ships, artillery seem to be out of the slightest!

"More than 4,000 pieces of fine teak. 50 tons of steel, 56,000 nails, 10,000 bolts and other materials, 25 tons of ropes, including 9 tons of anchor ropes, 2,000 square meters of cloth sails. ”

As if he were saying his child's birthday, Wang Quan was fluent in the consumption of materials for the construction of the ship.

If it weren't for the fact that Shouhan had made a series of very unnatural industrial projects such as small blast furnaces and Guoxiama looms, I am afraid that the two numbers of steel and canvas would have made him look good.

Lin Wenbing smacked his tongue when he heard this, and wanted to say something, but seeing that Shouhan's eyes were only staring at the construction on the slipway, he also set his eyes on the construction site of the ship.

The hull is being planked right now. This link is the outer cladding of the teak longitudinal plank section of the hull. Installation starts from the bottom of the keel, one row at a time. When installed, the hull decking is tightly edged – a method of laying the outer surface that makes it flat and smooth, known as sailboat lining. The teak planks that form the external longitudinal reinforcement structure are called strip crossings. After each plank has been processed, it is hoisted into a predetermined position and fixed with a fixture. Holes were also made for wood screws that needed to be drilled and buried. The tar-coated linen yarn package, known as 'hemp wadding', has been wound around the tip of a teak screw and a nail hole that is plugged with a teak stopper glued here.

After the hull planking and internal equipment were installed, more than 3,000 60-centimeter-long nails carefully made by the Taipingdong Arsenal were hammered into the hull and riveted to the inside. In total, more than 80 tons of steel and iron were used in the shipbuilding work, including keels, tens of thousands of marine nails, and trims, and in addition to the huge keel, which weighed more than 30 tons, the heaviest forged part was 250 knees. Each weighs 80 kilograms and is used to secure the deck to the hull, which consumes a full 20 tons of steel.

As for the more than thirty guns of the size that accompanied the ship, they were not included.

"Wen Bing, how about looking at this boat?"

Boarding the new ship that had been built, blowing the wind blowing from the sea, and asking about the smell of paint that had not yet dissipated, Shouhan's mood was also very good. He had already talked to Lin Wenbing these days, and was ready to send him to the capital to open a branch of the Han Yuan firm. Of course. In Beijing, it is called the Longsheng.

"Good ship!"

Lin Wenbing praised loudly.

His mouth was full of praise, but his eyes were always on the several sailors who were experiencing the rudder of the new ship, and they were slowly appreciating the rudder. Familiarize yourself with the handling of this boat.

In addition to the use of ductile iron as the keel of the boat. The boat is a little different. A rudder disc and tiller cord are used. Improved boat handling. The rudder weighs a little over 4 tonnes and is housed in six solid pivots, the rings on the stern post. Assisted by a large twin steering disc on the weather deck. The rudder works. The twin steering discs have a diameter of 1.7 meters and consist of two perfectly parallel rudder discs with spokes, which are normally operated by two helmsmen. In the event of extreme weather conditions such as high winds and waves at sea, it is necessary to increase the number of helmsmen to four. The drum wheel was between these rudder discs, and the tiller cord wound around it and through the pulleys in the corners to the tiller on the lower deck. The tiller cord had to be stiff and durable - it was made of deerskin from twenty great men. The tiller consists of two metal parts and is 6 meters long; The two components are joined together to form an extremely stable structure.

"The gun emplacements and sails are in place, please give the ship a name!"

Wang Quan took the pen, ink, paper and inkstone, and respectfully placed it on the long table in the cabin, which was used by the captain to consult the charts and write the logbook in the future.

"In the future, such ships will be named after the provincial capital of the mainland and the city where our various offices in the south and central China are located! This is the first ship, so let's name it Guangzhou! ”

While speaking, Shouhan's brush words that were really not good and flattering were splashed on the fine rice paper, and the two big characters of the sea bowl jumped on the paper in Guangzhou.

"Wen Bing, give you an errand."

"Please command, my lord!"

"The ship's two trials, short and long, will be handed over to you. After this mission is done, the ship will send you north. ”

On the ninth day of November in the third year of Chongzhen, the copycat version of the Gothenburg began its maiden voyage.

Go north to Guangzhou.

The ship was not loaded with much either, except for a thousand tons of rice, ten tons of wrought iron. In addition, there were some miscellaneous items on board, twenty large franc machines, six eight-pounder guns, two Clon cannons, and two forty-pounder mortar cannons. Of course, these are meant to prevent self-defense from encountering pirates along the way.

He was accompanied by six fortune boats.

"Untie the cable! Weigh! ”

The Canton, which had just slowly slid down from the slipway a few days ago, began its sailing career with this command.

"Raise the mainsail!"

More than 100 sailors on board began to get busy nervously, some operating rigging, others throwing chains into the sea, preparing to test the speed of the new ship. The boatswain and first mate were at the bow of the Canton using a sextant in their hands to measure the course.

One of the requirements of this northward trial voyage is that the coastal islands must not be used as a reference, and the route and location must be calculated by means of a guò sextant.

The people on the ship were arguing fiercely about judging the location of the ship based on their calculations, while Lin Wenbing sat alone in his cabin. Shouhan said very clearly, a short-distance trial voyage to Guangzhou, so where is the right place to go for a long-distance voyage?

Going to Fuso? Bring back a boatload of rice in exchange for copper, gold, silver, sulfur, etc.? Or go to Cotton Island, transport the rough rolled sugar there back to the sugar house, and they will refine it to make white sugar like snow, and then sell it to the mainland or to the Fuso dwarf and the red hair?

However, it seems that none of them can achieve the effect of both testing the ships and training the sailors! These routes, whether they are going east to Fuso, or south to Cotton Island or even Little Luzon, are all sea routes that the sailors are familiar with, and they cannot completely implement the intentions of the lord. Moreover, just exchanging some gold and silver and other items will not show my means!

Tangled all the way, the ship arrived at the port of Guangzhou in a few days, and the big and small people of the city ship division have already been used by the people of the Han and Yuan Dynasty firms, "to threaten the knot with grace, to know with reason, to move with affection." Seeing the arrival of this new ship that he had never seen before, he only saw the flag of the Han Yuan merchant hanging on the mast, and ordered the soldiers of the city to drive away the small boats and make way for the big ship.

After handing over the cargo with Li Peiting, who was the general representative here, especially when the Guangzhou ship unloaded a thousand tons of rice and ten tons of steel as ballast, Peiting's eyes were full of silver and the light was shining, and he had to set up a banquet to fight with Lin Wenbing's wine and meat.

"The New Year is approaching, and there will be a spring famine soon, which is a good opportunity for rice prices to rise. News from all over the world. In Guangdong, Fujian, and Guangxi, the government treasury is not full, and there is a shortage of military and civilian food, so there will be people who will make trouble. these years. There are a lot of such chaos in Guangdong and Fujian! ”

As a guest invited by Li Peiting to accompany him. Qian Yaoming's father-in-law has already made a lot of fortune. While talking, the little eunuch who was waiting next to him couldn't stop wiping the oil stains on the corners of his mouth and the sweat on his forehead with a silk scarf.

"It's a shame that this provincial city has Li Gongzi here to take care of it, otherwise. I'm afraid there are thieves too! ”

Qian Yaoming is not a lie, since Chongzhen ascended the throne, his fate is really bad, just in time for the Xiaoice River period, which has not been encountered in a century, and all kinds of natural disasters have been renovated.

The crops in the fields were finished, and the houses in the village had collapsed, but the people were still there. People have to eat every day when they open their eyes, but where does the food come from? Where does the money come from to buy grain?

And so, the king of grass came out!

small groups of roadblockers, beating sticks, and carrying dead dogs; Large groups gathered in the mountains and forests, robbed houses, and even looted villages. Such things are not uncommon in neighboring Fujian, Jiangxi and other places, and even in northern Guangdong, it is common to hear of bandits looting good people.

Now, a total of about 3,000 tons of rice transported by Lin Wenbing's fleet are put into the market around the New Year, not only can the bigwigs in the Guangdong officialdom earn money for the New Year, but also play a decisive role in the peace and stability of the Pearl River Delta region.

Officials also made a profit in this trade. It is no longer enough to describe the profits made by the officials, not to mention others, Qian Yaoming, who is inseparable from Li Peiting in front of him, has already put the Oiran sisters on the Pearl River into the house as concubines.

Hearing that the Lin Xianggong in front of him will go north to the capital soon, Gonggong Qian immediately patted his chest and promised, "Lin Xian'er, you are a good brother of the second son of Li, and our family is also a friendship with the Li family brothers who burn yellow paper and cut off the head of the chicken, you just have to rest assured, go to take care of your business first, when you go north to the capital, our family also has a few godbrothers in the capital, I write to you to bring it, and hand it over to them when you arrive in the capital, they will naturally take care of you!" ”

Hearing this, Lin Wenbing naturally raised his glass to toast and thanked Father-in-law Qian, and a few gems from India quietly slipped into the purse on Father-in-law Qian's waist.

Sending away the drunken father-in-law Qian, Li Peiting and Lin Wenbing sat down and ordered someone to make a new pot of tea, and the two sat opposite each other under the lamp, drinking tea and talking.

Hearing the introduction of the new ship Guangzhou, Li Peiting couldn't help but be fascinated.

"! The lord spent such a big price to build this boat, and it is simply a gluttonous thing to transport rice to Guangdong! You should go to Tianzhu! Go there, go grab these," he played with a thumb-sized gem that Lin Wenbing brought him, "grab these gems, and then go to the capital, go to Nanjing, and I will also help you sell a batch in Guangzhou." Once you come down, the cost of your ship will come out! ”

"To Tianzhu?"

Lin Wenbing's mind jumped suddenly, it seemed that Li Peiting's proposal was good, Tianzhu's journey was relatively long, and it met the requirements of long-distance sea trials; Everyone is not familiar with the route to Tianzhu, and you can also train the sailors, and there are strongholds of the Nanzhong Army along the way. Even if there is something to do, it will be much easier to do.

"Second son, thank you for your advice, I will get up in three days, go back to Nanzhong to explain this matter to the lord, and then, raise supplies and go to Tianzhu Tailugu is!" (To be continued......)

PS: Continue to ask for a collection and ask for a monthly pass!