Clippers!

Thinking of the type of bird boat that Yu Qinghe Shipyard had seen, looking at Zhang Di's improved bird boat, Zhu Mingzhong felt that its shape was somewhat similar to that of the flying clipper, of course, it was only similar in some aspects, and it was not even as good as those flying scissors without a hollow bow.

But even so, Zhang Di's suggestion still broadened Zhu Mingzhong's horizons. Let him see another possibility, perhaps combining a flying clipper boat with a bird boat. Perhaps a Chinese-style clipper could be developed.

Although he knew that this possibility was not high, especially because the weight of the Chinese hard sail limited the sail area, so if you wanted to increase the speed, you had to use the Western soft sail, but it did not prevent Zhu Mingzhong from discussing some details of the boat with Zhang Di.

"Maximize the area of the sail so that it can speed up ......"

Unless it can improve the stability of the course in the waves, another characteristic of the clipper ship is that its sail area is very large, generally using 3-4 masts fully equipped with sails, often with high masts, its height is up to 3/4 of the length of the ship, and there are moon sails and support sails on the top mast sails, and sometimes there are outstretched sail booms on both sides of the ship, called wing sails, which can be hung wing sails, which further enlarge the lateral extension area of the sail.

Recalling some of the characteristics of the flying clipper boat one by one, Zhu Mingzhong discussed with Zhang Di from time to time how to further modify the shape of the bird boat, and slowly its boat shape was approaching the flying clipping boat, but still maintained some inherent characteristics of the bird boat.

Looking at the sketches that have been sketched, I can see that the structure of the ship is somewhat like that of a warship. Zhang Di asked,

After all, the ship board is too thick and expensive, and this multiple ship board will increase the labor cost, not to mention, it will delay the construction period. Wouldn't this increase the price of the ship? ”

Ship price.

This is an important factor that must be considered by the manufacturer of ships, after all, for shipyards, the first thing they need to consider is the cost of shipbuilding.

"It's no problem to increase the price of the ship, a well-built merchant ship, if it is properly maintained, can be used for at least a few decades, compared to our ship's life is only more than ten years, or even lower......

The service life of Chinese sailing ships has been ignored, the reason is because it only has a single deck, or less maintenance or the use of wet wood in construction, which is not known, the most obvious example is the Zheng navy, when Zheng Chenggong restored Taiwan, it still has as many as 50 large bird ships equipped with 20 to 30 guns, but in the following ten years, because of the decay of the hull and other problems, resulting in its Penghu naval battle, the number of large bird ships is far inferior to the Qing army's 70, Moreover, most of those bird boats were newly built after the resumption of Taiwan, and the old bird boats have long been scrapped and damaged. The life span of the Qing army's sailor ships was also extremely short. Whatever the reason, one thing is for sure, the Western-style hull with multi-layer decks has a longer lifespan in theory.

"Eight hundred taels for a bird ship, a new ship...... Well, about 1600 taels should be able to be made, plus 8-10 guns, that is, about 5,000 taels, it is indeed a little expensive. ”

After pondering for a moment, thinking of the encouragement and support of later generations for shipbuilding, Zhu Mingzhong smiled.

"But it doesn't matter, we can provide a loan, if you buy a boat from us, you can get a loan of 30% of the total price from the Military Salary Bureau."

Loan-based shipbuilding was undoubtedly a common way in later generations, but it was premised on the premise that navigation was no longer a dangerous and dangerous route. Although the risk of navigation is still very large, the risk is relatively small for Chinese shipbuilders on the north-south route who only need to sail along the coast, and this risk is affordable by the Military Payroll Bureau.

"Loans? Salary Bureau? ”

Looking at Jing Luo suspiciously, Zhang Di was surprised.

"What if the ship sinks or is robbed by pirates?"

"On the insurance, you can also build an insurance company, specializing in the insurance work of maritime shipping, this sea has always been out of the sea has always been out of ten to one saying, of course, this is a bit exaggerated, but it is certain that banks and insurance should still have a certain profit!"

For finance, Zhu Mingzhong is also a layman, he only knows his name, but he doesn't know how to operate, Zhang Di is also a layman, even compared to the sinking and disappearance of merchant ships, the real problem is how to hold these armed merchant ships in their hands, instead of becoming other people's ships.

In the end, the solution to the problem was through the Toyo Corporation, which specialized in dealing with Japanese traders, for the Economic and Strategic Offices were the largest shareholder of the Toyo Corporation, and it was only through such semi-official enterprises that the merchant ships could be truly controlled. And to be able to call it up in time of war.

“…… Of course, in addition to this kind of merchant ship, we can also build another kind of bird boat, of course, stronger than the traditional bird boat, but relatively cheap, the cost is controlled at about 1,000 taels, this kind of ship can use shang, sinker requires very little manpower. ”

As early as the 16th or 17th century, brigs appeared in the Netherlands, and from Shi Si, Zhu Mingzhong had seen the drawings of brigs, so he would mention this kind of sail.

"The small crew can reduce the operating costs, coupled with the speed of the bird ship, which is itself faster than ordinary merchant ships, the advantage in speed can give him a leading edge in trade, coupled with its relatively low cost, it can make it the main force of merchant ships. Thus constituting a large merchant fleet. ”

Discussing merchant ships with Zhang Di, Zhu Ziyang's mind naturally came to mind of the Dutchman known as the "coachman of the sea".

"Just like the Dutch, in the days of the "sea coachmen", I heard Shi Si say that at that time there were hundreds of shipyards in the capital Amsterdam alone, and the whole country could start building hundreds of ships at the same time. At that time, the shipbuilding technology in the Netherlands was the most advanced in the world, and the cost of ships was 1/3 to even half lower than that of Inge. At that time, the Netherlands had 15,000 merchant ships and had a virtual monopoly on maritime trade throughout the world. Timber from Norway, fish from Denmark, grain from Poland, furs from Russia, spices from Southeast Asia, cotton textiles from India, silk and porcelain from China, etc., were mostly transshipped by Dutch merchant ships and sold by Dutch merchants. At that time, Amsterdam was the center of international trade, and more than 2,000 merchant ships often docked in the harbor. ”

When mentioning the 2,000 merchant ships in the Dutch port, Zhu Mingzhong's tone was a little envious, while Zhang Di seemed a little fascinated, and the two of them almost thought that if they had such a huge fleet, maybe at sea, there would be no opponent in Jiangbei.

In contrast to their large merchant fleet, the Dutch also had a powerful navy, with the Dutch navy almost twice as many ships as large as the British and French navies. They cruised the world's oceans, protected their merchant ships, and plundered overseas colonies. ”

Overseas colonies, Zhang Di can't remember clearly, this is the first time he has heard this word, and this word was originally said from the mouth of Jingluo, and even the move to open up Taiwan is also for colonization.

The land of colonization and immigration, this is the original intention of overseas exploration. Looking at Jinglue, Zhang Di can feel Jinglue's desire for colonies, perhaps, for him, Taiwan is just the beginning, to the south of Taiwan, there is a large area of land in the South Seas. If Europeans thousands of miles away could establish colonies in the South Seas, why couldn't the Ming Dynasty?

And if you want to open up a colony, you have to have a large number of merchant ships and a large number of maritime merchants! Listening to Jinglu's words, Zhang Di vaguely realized that perhaps, the future of China is likely to usher in the era of maritime business, after all, whether it is the current Jinglu or Zheng Chenggong in Nanjing, they are full of longing for the sea.

"Perhaps, one day, China will also be able to become a new "sea coachman"! ”

This is not impossible, as long as China goes to the sea, with its advantage in population, soon, Chinese merchant ships will appear in all corners of the world, after all, merchant ships need crews and colonies. And this can be solved by demographic advantage.

Although China's population is only a few tens of millions after the Manchu massacre, it still far exceeds that of European countries, and more importantly, based on his understanding of history, Zhu Mingzhong knows very well how "considerable" the Chinese are in terms of population recovery.

Eventually, all of this will translate into the most valuable resource of the colonial era - the human resource! The surplus population of the homeland will move with merchant ships to at least the rest of the world. and then redraw the world map.

Looking forward to the changes brought to the world map after China became a "sea coachman", Zhu Ziyang raised his eyebrows lightly, and a slight smile appeared on his face. He patted him on the shoulder and said.

"How? At that time, maybe the ships sailing in the world were all designed by you, and in the history books, whenever this era is mentioned, your name will be mentioned, because if there is no ship designed by you, perhaps, this era would not be able to be created so smoothly! ”

Zhu Mingzhong, who inadvertently threw out a "grand plan", looked at Zhang Di, with a taste of appreciation in his tone, the reason why this is so is because Zhang Di should be regarded as the first Chinese engineer to introduce Western shipbuilding concepts, perhaps, he will create a new era of Chinese ships.

Who knows?

After all, anything is possible in this world!

And for Zhang Di, he had never thought of something so far away, so much so that when he left the public house of the envoy, the words of the envoy were still swirling in his mind. Even a little lost his soul, after all, he never thought that shipbuilding could also change the world.

For Zhu Mingzhong, the initiator, naturally he didn't know what kind of huge waves his words set off in the hearts of others, but as in the past, he opened a secret report, which was a secret report from the Loyal and Righteous Army, which was the former Military Justice Department, which was re-named after the reorganization of the Loyal and Righteous Army at the end of the year......