Although the terrible bombing advertisements of the new Dongfang Chef School from the previous life always appeared in his mind, Marin still insisted on using the name "Royal West Point". Anyway, except for myself, no one else will want to be crooked.

In particular, you need to use Chinese to think crookedly. But the problem is that the Ming Dynasty was the time when the Chinese people were most confident. Even if Western food is passed on, it will not be called Western food, and Western food will not be called Western food in the past, but it will be called Yi or something.

For example, now, Ma Lin's title within the Ming Dynasty is "Dongfanbo", and as for the title of the Grand Duke of Beihai Kingdom, it was directly ignored by the Ming Dynasty. In their opinion, Yangyi or something, not to mention the grand duke, even the king seems ridiculous, no different from the chieftains of the southwest Shaomin region. Therefore, these days, no one will think of this word crookedly.

Of course, Ma Lin also understood this mentality of the Ming Dynasty, but he was not very angry. Why? Because in Marin's eyes, these people are ancient NPCs, what is there to do with them? Besides, if you lower your posture, you can get a lot of benefits from the Ming Dynasty, so why not?

No, at this moment, two more ships of silk and porcelain were brought back from Panama. Roughly calculated, it can bring Marin a net profit of about 200,000 gold coins.

In this regard, the eyes of the Portuguese were already red and almost exploded. Because, according to the agreement, they should be the masters of the Ming Empire!

However, in reality, they simply did not have the ability to control the Ming Empire. In the previous conflict, they did not reap the benefits. The fleet sent out this time has just arrived in Malacca and is being repaired, intending to launch a full-scale attack on the coast of the Ming Empire.

In fact, Portugal was also very envious of Marin's methods, and planned to learn Marin's methods and pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty as a barbarian chieftain in Southeast Asia. But it's a pity that they are reluctant to give up the Kuala Lumpur tin mine and refuse to return the land of the Kingdom of Malacca, a subject of the Ming Dynasty, so naturally they can't talk about it with the Ming Dynasty. Therefore, they can only fantasize about subduing the Ming Dynasty with the fleet, and then try to negotiate.

But unfortunately, the Portuguese did not know that the Ming Dynasty would not succumb to the enemy's force, which is why so many people in later generations admired the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the current reigning Emperor Zhengde was the most fond of war in the middle and late Ming Dynasty, and there were ghosts who could subdue the Ming Dynasty.

In addition, Kong Tai's side had already received instructions from Ma Lin and was ready to report to the Ming Dynasty. No, the spy ship sent by Conté to the Strait of Malacca discovered the arrival of the Portuguese fleet and rushed to Keelung by clipper to deliver a message to Conté.

"Arrived so late?" Kong Tai was a little depressed. He had been prepared for a long time, but he didn't expect the Portuguese to be so inefficient, a few months later than he had expected.

As for why this is so? Mainly because this Portuguese fleet, led by da Gama, made waves along the coast of the Kingdom of Benin on the west coast of Africa, and also landed and robbed.

The Kingdom of Benin is a well-known ancient country in West Africa, and it has a lot of trade with other parts of West Africa, so there is also a lot of gold. Da Gama was a greedy man, and when he passed along the coast of Benin, he saw that a civil war was breaking out in the area, so he stepped in and sent troops ashore to help the weaker side and defeat the stronger side. However, after the victory, all the benefits were taken away......

By intervening in the civil war of the Kingdom of Benin, da Gama earned 1,500 pounds of gold and a boatload of ivory. Then, he stopped and stopped off the west coast of Africa, looking for an opportunity to get off the beaten track.

However, Africa is too backward in this era. Unless there are a few civilized countries in West Africa, there are few decent countries on the southwest coast of Africa. The only slightly decent Congolese kingdom is an ally of Portugal. And the Portuguese colonists, who were professional robbers, were obviously insiders and knew that only the city had more oil and water. And those coastal tribal villages, although easy to take, have little oil and water. Even, hundreds of villages are not as much oil and water as a small town. The reason is simple - in this era, only in the cities was active in trade, and there were many goods. And the more commodities, the more money (golden sands) will be. Such a place, after the ransacking, has enough oil and water. And the average small village can only grab some poor food, as well as some livestock, and there is really no profit.

Once on the coast of East Africa, da Gama's fleet grabbed several small coastal city-states on the territory of the Swahili (a mixture of Arab traders and local blacks, from the coast of Mozambique to the southern coast of Somalia, full of Swahili people, and there were also many Swahili people).

Da Gama was very cunning, and instead of forcibly attacking the city, he used trade to deceive the city gates, and then launched a surprise attack, which allowed him to break several small Swahili city-states and plunder a large amount of wealth.

By the time da Gama's fleet arrived at the Indian supply port, his ships were loaded with precious goods such as golden sand, ivory, rhinoceros horn, and precious stones.

If he had returned to Europe at this time, da Gama would have made a fortune again. However, he was in charge of the invasion of the Ming Dynasty, so these goods could only be temporarily stored in Goa, the Portuguese trading base in India, and brought back when they were ready to return.

Then, Da Gama slowly led the fleet to the port of Malacca, and was then discovered by Conté's spies and rushed to report the news......

At this time, Da Gama did not know that Kong Tai had already presented 20 12-pounder Napoleon cannons to the Ming court a few months ago, and also presented the clay mold casting method of Napoleon cannons.

At this time, Zhang Yong, one of the "Eight Tigers of Zhengde", was supervising the craftsmen of the War Bureau to cast cannons. After Liu Jin fell, Zhang Yong, who overthrew him, did not gain the same power as Liu Jin. The reason is that this guy doesn't have Liu Jin's ability. Therefore, he could only compete with Gu Dayong and the rest of the tigers for favor. Zhang Yong knows a little about military affairs, so he is in charge of the Imperial Horse Supervisor in charge of the military affairs in the Inner Court, as well as the War Bureau of the Eighth Inner Bureau.

After Kong Tai presented the clay mold casting method of the 12-pounder cannon, Zhang Yong, relying on the favor of Zhengde, snatched the technology and task of casting the cannon from the Ministry of Industry, and the military bureau of the inner court cast the cannon.

Now, a few months later, the first batch of clay molds that were originally made have almost dried out. Then, it's time to cast the cannon......

Cast copper cannons are much simpler than cast iron cannons, and they are not prone to internal problems. Therefore, Zhang Yong commanded the military battle bureau to cast artillery, and there was no problem. The only problem is probably that when Kong Tai presented the cannon casting technology, he did not send the gun carriage drawings, but only the gun body casting technology. In other words, Zhang Yong's military battle, the 12-pounder Napoleon cannon cast, actually only had a bare barrel...... Of course, there are also cannon ears, and you can add Wangshan Mountain ......

However, there is nothing wrong with that. Because, except for the artillery of the North Sea State, the artillery of other countries did not have gun carriages with wheels. At most, it's two more earrings. The Wangshan behind the gun body and the aiming mountain are all considered "high-tech......

After being poured into gunpowder and dry-blown up, only 13 of the first 120 12-pounder Napoleon guns manufactured by the Bureau of Warfare had some problems and needed to be rebuilt. In other words, the pass rate is as high as about 9%.

This is because Marin did not dedicate the Rodman method of intimal cooling to the Ming court. This is a big killer for casting heavy artillery, and Marin will not be stupid to give it to the Ming Dynasty.

But despite this, the pass rate of nearly ninety percent still made Zhang Yong ecstatic. Because, in the past, the pass rate of the war bureau was much lower than this, not even half. Therefore, he can also be regarded as "meritorious".

If Ma Lin knew Zhang Yong's thoughts, he would probably be sprayed to death. You know, the bronze cannon is not difficult in the first place, and you have also made a scrap rate of more than 10%, which is simply ......

This is estimated to be related to the fact that the management of craftsmen in the Ming Dynasty was not very strict, and some things were clearly scrapped due to personal operation errors, rather than technical problems. For this, Beihai is very strict in the process, so the scrap rate is extremely low. The management of the Ming Dynasty was not strict, and Zhang Yong kept an eye on it this time, and it caused so many scraps. If you don't personally watch it in the future, it is estimated that the scrap rate will be higher......

Fortunately, there was a problem with the casting of the copper cannon, and it was melted and rebuilt. Anyway, copper doesn't oxidize as easily as iron. At most, it's just a little bit of mud molding......