The storm is always calm before it comes!

For Shi Yiwen, he seems to be far away from the undercurrent of the Ming Dynasty. After all, to a certain extent, Tianjin is far away from the central court of the Ming Dynasty, and the reason why he came here is entirely because of Zhang Juzheng. Twenty days ago, when Zhang Juzheng asked him to find a way to solve the problem of the penal colony, he plunged into the shipyard by the Haihe River and built a boat here.

In fact, two large ships have been built in the shipyard, and unlike the traditional Chinese-style sand boats or bird boats, these two large boats are "old lock boats", which are a kind of sailing boats developed by the Portuguese in Macao decades ago. With traditional Chinese sail outfits and streamlined Western-style hulls, it is faster than traditional Chinese sailing boats, requires fewer manpower than Western-style sailing boats, and is easier to build and maintain, making it more suitable for ocean voyages than traditional Chinese sailing boats.

It's just that the "old lock ship" built by Shi Yiwen is a mid-19th century ship type, with a stronger structure, a larger carrying capacity, and in order to block pirate attacks, it can also be equipped with twenty or thirty guns, this kind of armed merchant ship is very suitable for this era.

But now Edwin needed a faster ship, after all, he didn't want to waste too much time on a long voyage at sea, and he had to fight quickly, so as soon as he received the task, he found a ship suitable for this task from the space library. The remaining problem is to build this ship, in fact, in the Age of Discovery, the construction speed of wooden ships is very fast, as long as there are sufficient raw materials and workers, sometimes, it only takes ten days, you can build a large ship of thousands of tons, after 16 days of intense construction, in the shipyard by the Haihe River on the slipway of two newly built sailing ships with a very novel style.

These two ships are not very large, and the displacement is only about 1,000 tons, but the shape of the ship is extremely graceful, the side of the ship is low, and its ship type is extremely novel, it can be said that it is a completely new type of ship. This novel sailing ship has a large length-to-width ratio, and its waterline is particularly graceful, with a concave waterline surface at the head, and a long, sharp curved scissor-shaped head column that can split the waves at sea to reduce wave resistance.

Both of these beautiful ships had three masts, and as can be seen by the wide dimensions of the transom, they were able to hang very large sails, well beyond the width of the hull. Moreover, the mast is very high, basically up to three-quarters of the total length of the ship, which is a rare tall mast, and because of the long proportion of the hull, the interference between the three masts will be relatively small.

Of course, the ship's armament does not seem to be very strong, only the upper deck is equipped with guns, and it seems that it does not consider the problem of self-defense at all, but because of the long hull, although the ship only has guns on the upper deck, there are still as many as forty-two guns on the left and right sides. So its force is still not weak.

At this time, although the two ships had not yet been launched, the first impression of anyone who saw them was that they must be very fast ships. Of course, not everyone thinks that such a speed makes sense on the sea, at least for ***, he doesn't think that such a fast ship can come in handy.

"Director-General, actually, I think that even if the ship is fast, it will be at sea...... It's not really useful,"

pursed his mouth, *** looked at the General Taxation Department of the Bank Customs staring at the two big ships around him, it was he who recruited himself to the capital and recruited into this Western company, but some of the things he did to him were difficult to understand.

In fact, compared to these two ships, he prefers those two "duck butts", compared to the Fu ship used in the past to fight the Japanese invaders, its hull is very strong, the board is up to a foot thick, and the thin hull of the Fu ship is completely different, but compared to the Fu ship, it is more agile, not only can resist the wind and waves at sea, but also with a strong hull and artillery can resist pirate attacks. But...... Now, the Director-General has asked him to switch to these two "flying clippers".

"Oh? Nothing to do? How so? ”

Shi Yiwen asked incomprehensibly, for the *** who has repeatedly injured the Japanese at sea, although he can't talk about obeying his words, but as a layman, he always needs to respect the opinion of the insider.

"Director-General, when this ship arrives at sea, it is nothing more than relying on the star plate and compass to indicate the direction, and then sailing along the current and wind direction, the speed is fast, but it is not conducive to mastering the course, and after going to sea from Dagu, all the way south should try to sail along the Yellow Water Ocean and the Black Water Ocean, so as to avoid losing its course, but the water here is shallow and there are many reefs, and the speed is fast, in case it hits the reef, it is the ship that destroys and kills......"

Listening to ***'s explanation, Shi Yiwen smiled.

"Oh, I see...... In that case, let's go to the deep sea, to the depths of the Black Water Ocean. ”

The so-called Yellow Water Ocean is actually a shallow coastal area, and most of the ancient sea voyages were sailed along the coastline, which is the best choice to avoid sea loss. Of course, reefs and dark sand in coastal areas are threats that can be encountered at any time during navigation, but compared to the threat of blackwater ocean, that is, the threat of trek in the open sea, these risks are acceptable.

But for Shi Yiwen, of course, he will not let his ships continue to sail at the junction of shallow and deep seas in order to be safe, after all, in the future, they will always go to the open sea, since they want to open up the sea for trade, go to the ocean, to Europe, to the Americas is the ultimate goal.

"Go to Blackwater!"

With his eyes wide open, he looked at the director general in confusion and asked.

"Director-General, going to Heishuiyang is a risk of dying and living, and it is better not to enter this Heishuiyang unless it is a last resort."

In the face of ***'s dissuasion, Shi Yiwen asked rhetorically.

"General Li, if we don't go to Heishuiyang, then how will we go to Japan and trade with the Japanese Kingdom in the future?"

"Director-General, when the time comes, we just need to follow the monsoon, we are going to the West Ocean this time, and we have never been to those places in Xia, so recklessly breaking into the Black Water Ocean may cost us our lives."

Wang Erxi, who was standing beside General Li, heard him say this, and his heart suddenly became nervous, should this really cost his life, when he put some nervous eyes on the general director, he listened to the general director.

"There will inevitably be some risks in sea navigation, and these risks are acceptable, what, General Li, are you afraid?"

In the face of Shi Yiwen's questioning, *** said in annoyance.

"Director-General, I am not worried about myself, but about you and the brothers on the ship, after all, the Secretary-General has a noble status."

In fact, he wanted to say that he was worried that the brothers would lose their lives in vain. Listening to his answer, Shi Yiwen wrote.

"Since you say that my status is so noble, I don't worry about it myself, what do you have to worry about, just go to sea, since I dare to say so, I naturally have my own way!"

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