Arming merchant ships is not the same as merchant ships!

This is a minimum of common sense, first of all, it must be armed, and sometimes the cannon is more expensive than the ship!

Because of this, not all shipbuilders are willing to build armed merchant ships, at most they are willing to add a few light guns to their ships.

"Indeed!"

Nodding, Zhang Di replied affirmatively.

"It is precisely because not everyone is willing to build armed merchant ships that they need the encouragement of the government!"

Hearing Zhang Di mention the government's encouragement again, Zhu Mingzhong motioned for him to continue.

"The so-called encouragement is nothing more than two ways, one is that the government subsidizes the cost of shipbuilding, as is the case in England, but they subsidize it by tax exemption for raw materials such as timber for shipbuilding......"

When Zhang Di told how the British exempted timber and asphalt and other raw materials imported by shipbuilders, Zhu Mingzhong's expression was somewhat strange, he did not expect that in this era, Britain would have such an advanced concept of "encouraging navigation".

"Of course, unlike the British, Jiangbei shipbuilding, except for the need to import wood, all kinds of materials are mainly self-produced, even the caulking asphalt, does not need to be imported from the West Indies like European countries, but from the remaining oil paste ...... coking plant."

When mentioning "tar paste", Zhang Di couldn't help but look up at Jing Luo, the collection and recycling of "tar paste" is Jing Luo's suggestion, who would have thought that those seemingly useless "tar paste" actually have so many uses, and can even make white wax from it, the price of those white wax is much lower than ordinary white wax, because of this, the wax factory in Qinghe can make cheaper candles.

For shipbuilding, the biggest use of "tar paste" is the asphalt produced from it. In the past, shipbuilding twist seams were made by twisters with putty and hemp twist to plug all the gaps on the ship, the whole body of the ship was painted with tung oil, so that it would never leak and seep, the putty used was mixed with tung oil and lime surface, and the hemp twist was chopped old hemp rope.

The first task of the twister is to clean all the seams of the new ship, which is called "slip seams" in the jargon. After slipping the seam, fill the seam with hemp twist, which is called "hemp down" in the jargon. Use a bladeless wooden chisel to repeatedly beat the hemp rope along the gap to make it solid and firm, and then smooth it with lime plaster. Hemp fiber is for crack prevention, and tung oil is for bonding. If it is a large ship, it takes dozens of twisters days or even ten days to complete.

In contrast, twisting with asphalt is extremely simple, just "pouring" the gap with boiling asphalt. And the putty that is far better with asphalt twisting, because the latter is crisp and easy to crack and fall off when shelled. Unlike asphalt, it is relatively soft and does not fall off easily. Of course, Zhang Di did not know that coal asphalt was far less durable than natural asphalt, and was just a temporary substitute.

"Therefore, there is naturally no preferential treatment in terms of raw material tariffs and freight, but what is the most expensive armed merchant ship? Artillery is the most expensive, and if the government can sell it to artillery at a low price, shipbuilders are naturally willing to build armed merchant ships. ”

Seeing that Jingluo did not speak, Zhang Di continued,

"At present, the large bird ships built by the Qingjiang Shipyard with a length of 10.4 zhang and a width of 2.2 zhang cost only about 800 taels of silver, and if they are equipped with a cannon, not only the barrel of the cannon needs no less than 250 taels of silver, but also needs to be equipped with 300 rounds of iron bullets, worth 68 taels, and then gunpowder is worth about 200 to 300 taels.

The bird boat in his mouth is the most common sea ship nowadays, and the reason why it is called "bird boat" is because of its fast sailing speed on the sea and resembling a seabird flying at high speed on the sea surface, so it is named. The bird boat was developed from the wave-opening boat in the Jiajing period. Because of its large load capacity and fast speed, it is mostly used by Fujian and Guangdong merchants to engage in ocean trade. At the same time, bird ships were often "cared for" by coastal pirates, who also used them as their own pirate ships after robbing merchants' bird ships at sea. Compared with the old-fashioned ship types such as Fu ship and sand boat, the bird boat is more suitable for installing artillery, which can be equipped with more than a dozen or even 20 cannons, and the main force of the Zheng family's naval army is more than 50 large bird ships.

Hearing him mention that the ship is not as expensive as the artillery, Zhu Mingzhong smiled and said,

"Yuelin, I know what you mean, you mean selling guns, selling guns at low prices to ship dealers, right?"

Thanks to the advanced technology of cannon casting, Jiangbei's cannon is almost equal to the price of cabbage compared with others, and even the price of gunpowder is relatively low because of the low price of raw materials and the use of water power production.

"After all, in the past, it was not because it was not necessary to load guns, or because it was not needed, but because the price of guns was too expensive! If the cannons are allowed to be installed by the people, so that the officials of the ports are not allowed to make things difficult, and they are willing to sell their guns at a low price, how can the shippers refuse? ”

Listening to Zhang Di's reasons, Zhu Mingzhong naturally did not object, what was the most raging thing on the sea in the Age of Discovery? It is piracy, and the greatest influence on overseas trade is also piracy, and even the navies of various countries occasionally make cameo appearances as pirates, and the merchant ships of Chinese maritime merchants are fat in the eyes of pirates, because there are few or no cannons on board.

"Well, it's not impossible to provide artillery to the ship's merchants, after all, it is impossible for this naval warship to escort ships day and night, and when sailing at sea, the shipbuilders probably have to rely on themselves. The cannon can be given to them, and the price can be lower......"

Zhu Mingzhong did not feel that there was anything for the sale of artillery, after all, with the commissioning of the Liguo Iron Works, the problem of raw materials restricting the production of artillery has basically been solved, and in the future, with the transportation of wood from North Korea as a ballast will also be more and more, when the time comes, with the implementation of the new cannon casting method, the army and navy will eliminate a number of old guns, and sell the old guns to ship dealers at a low price can make a profit. Of course, the purchase of artillery by shipbuilders can also stimulate the production capacity of the cannon foundry, so that the cannon factory can obtain a huge profit.

This kind of good thing for the benefit of the country and the people, how could Zhu Mingzhong refuse?

"If you want to build an armed merchant ship, what kind of ship will you build, the question is, to build a bird ship?"

Looking at Zhang Di's body, Zhu Mingzhong asked rhetorically.

"Although this bird ship is fast and suitable for sea navigation, its board is weak and can even be said to be vulnerable, although it is relatively suitable for loading guns, but such a ship is still okay as a merchant ship, and it is probably a little reluctant to be an armed merchant ship!"

Not only is the "bird ship" reluctant, all the Chinese ships are extremely reluctant, although in the Chinese ship type, now the "bird boat" is the most suitable for the installation of artillery, and even the Zheng Jun Navy Division has more than a dozen "big bird ships" equipped with 24 or even 36 guns, although most of its artillery are 5-6 kg of light artillery, 8 kg or more of artillery is only a few, but it can still be called the "peak" of Chinese sailing warships, but unfortunately even so, it is still not suitable as a warship, even if it is used as an armed merchant ship, it is also a little reluctant.

"The strategy is extremely that this bird ship is indeed not suitable as a warship, even if it is used as an armed merchant ship, its hull is too thin, but the bird ship also has its advantages, although its strength is not as good as that of Western ships, but the width and width are the same as Western ships, so the lower officials think that the bird ship can be used as a type, learn from the method of building a Western ship, and transform the bird ship, add keels, lay ship ribs, and place thick plates, combining the length of the two, you can get a new ship, and the new ship can be equipped with more than ten or twenty guns......

On the way back to Qinghe, Zhang Di had already conceived of the appearance of the new ship in his mind, and now he was just putting his ideas one by one, and even after explaining, he also took out a notepad from his pocket, pointed to the sketches drawn with pencils on the notebook, and introduced his ideas to Jingluo.

And this is the biggest advantage of the pencil, even sitting on a horse-drawn sleigh, it does not prevent him from making new sketches and writing down ideas on paper. It doesn't need to grind ink like you would with a brush, and it won't be as fluffy and easy to break as a charcoal pen.

Looking at those sketches, when Zhang Di explained, Zhu Mingzhong, as an engineering student, could quickly figure out his thoughts and ideas, because he had drawn the drawings of the Constitution, and was imitating the drawings of the "Victory", although those drawings were only part of the drawings, but the advantages of the structure of Western ships had long been clear, but despite this, he had never thought of combining the two into one, combining the advantages of the two, and building a new type of merchant ship.

“…… As a result, the new merchant ship had thicker planks, but its load was higher than in the past, and most importantly, its hull was extremely strong compared to the old ships, which could not only withstand the gun backs, but also did not cause fatal damage to the hull even if it was a shell hole ship in naval warfare. ”

However, despite the combination of the advantages of the two, in Zhu Mingzhong's view, this new type of merchant ship still retains many characteristics of Chinese ships, such as most of the Chinese sea ships are pointed bottom ships, which become narrower and narrower the further down, and the heavy artillery should be placed at the bottom in order to stabilize the center of gravity downward, so it is difficult to equip a large number of guns. For warships, maybe this is insufficient, but for armed merchant ships, there is no problem, after all, it itself does not need to be equipped with many artillery, but the European ship cross-section is U-shaped, but the lower the belly, the bigger the belly, so its loading capacity will exceed that of Chinese merchant ships, but in terms of speed, Chinese sea ships seem to have a certain advantage.

Looking at the simplicity of Zhang Di's drawing, when comparing the advantages and disadvantages in his heart, another thought slowly appeared in Zhu Mingzhong's heart.

"Yuelin, in fact, we can ......"