The books brought by Niu Jinxing are not only educational, but also a large part of them are books about the current situation in Europe, and these books are the focus of Zhu Youxiao's own research. In Zhu Youxiao's consciousness, the Europe of later generations is like China's Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, but what is the specific status of Europe now, he is not clear at all, what he knows is only a little memory brought from his previous life, with these books brought by Niu Jinxing, Zhu Youxiao can study this problem in detail.

By studying the information brought by these books, Zhu Youxiao finally understood some of the situations that took place in Europe in the seventeenth century, and the causes and consequences that brought about these events. Spain is still a powerful empire on the sea, whether it is the number of colonies or the area, these are not comparable to England and France, but it is slowly aging, gradually losing its vitality and declining. Portugal had lost the basis for its hegemony because its population base was too small, but its caravans still had a certain size on the seas. The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and Denmark were still newly independent under Spanish rule, but Amsterdam in the Netherlands was the most developed place in the world for shipbuilding, with more than 15,000 ships built each year.

The situation in England is relatively complicated, the island country has developed capitalist handicraft factories and produces a huge number of industrial goods, but because its geographical location is not on the mainland of Europe, which has a considerable impact on the sales of its products, it is now trying to provoke the countries of the European mainland to fight each other, in an attempt to take advantage of it. At the end of the last century, although England successfully defeated the Spanish "Armada", this "Armada" was only a part of the Spanish Navy, and the Spanish Navy counterattacked, and a peace treaty was signed between them, and only partial rights were obtained. So now it is fighting with the Netherlands, uniting Italy, France and some Viking pirates, constantly robbing Spanish caravans, and as for the duel with the Netherlands at sea twenty years later, there is no eyebrow yet.

From Central Europe to Northern Europe, a series of wars were going on for imperial power. The Germans, who considered themselves to be the descendants of the Roman Empire, were still a federation of city-states, and France, Germany, and Italy, which were originally one family, each formed opposing sides of the war for the sake of imperial disputes and religious beliefs, and a series of wars constantly changed the outcome of each other's victories.

The kings of Europe were constantly changing inexplicably, and the succession of kings was sometimes inexplicable due to the intermingling of faith and power. For example, between England and Spain, the king of Spain married Mary, Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth I of England were half-sisters, and Elizabeth I killed Queen Mary because of her faith. The king of Spain tried to get his hands on the royal power of England, just like Elizabeth I's marriage proposal, but was rejected, and many profit seekers also tried to propose, but they were also rejected, and the result was that they were never married, and the Tudor dynasty of England, which had no heirs, chose the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, when electing the king, which was a very dramatic result.

There is no king in Europe who is called an emperor, they are all called kings, because their co-lord is the Roman pope, just like the vassal states in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period all had the king of Zhou as the co-lord. In the last years of the Zhou Dynasty, one of the vassal states, the Qin State, was so strong that it annexed the Liuhe Eight Desolations, and replaced the Zhou Dynasty. On the other hand, the European side is another system, their co-owners are elected by the vassal states, for the sake of the vassal states' own interests, the election is the weakest co-master, even if he becomes the emperor, it is also a rubber stamp of the big guy, which has little effect at all, plus the large number of vassal states, as well as the marriage relationship between the kings, the complex inheritance system, but it is a mess, and it is easy to produce a Bonaparte * Napoleon in France once emperor, but was beaten by the coalition again, and finally exiled. Therefore, the nature of Europeans is independence and freedom, and the tradition of the Chinese land is centralization and great unification.

Now England is seeking overseas expansion, and the strength is getting stronger and stronger, the Netherlands and Portugal are mainly trade-oriented, desperately trying to make money all over the world, France is preparing to dominate in Europe, Germany is still in the quagmire of state chaos, the future behemoth Russia is not yet the mainstream of Europe, or belongs to the barbarian natives, although its territory is already very large, but in Europe has not yet the right to speak, in the same position as the Vikings.

Now the land states of Europe are divided into two factions, one side is the supporters of Catholicism and the other is the supporters of Protestantism, and for their own interests and the king's inheritance, England supports the Protestants, gives them some financial support, and is actually sitting on the mountain and watching the tiger. France was originally an orthodox Catholic country, but for the sake of its own national interests, it strongly supported the Protestants, so the great powers pursued interests, and faith was just an excuse they used.

Knowing this basic information about Europe, Zhu Youxiao's determination to win over Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands was even more strengthened to combat the expansion of England and France into Asia. The current England has just entered India, and it is not as arrogant as the later generations, and there is also a message from here, the current Mumbai is not the trade center of England in India, the real trade center is in Surat, nearly five hundred miles north of Mumbai, it seems that he has provided wrong information, and Duanwang Zhu Changhao only inquired about the situation in Mumbai, did not ask about the situation of the English, in fact, it has become an international trade center, and a large number of handicraft factories have been built, and it seems that he has to think of robbing again. By the way, this task will be handed over to Zhu Yousong, maybe he can grab some big horses, and it's not bad for everyone to assign them, Zhu Youxiao thought disgustingly.

Judging from the intelligence collected by Niu Jinxing, the warships in Europe are all sail battleships now, with a displacement of between 1,200 tons and 2,000 tons, slightly larger than the new warships of the Ming Dynasty, and the largest warship of the Ming Army is only 1,000 tons, and the 800 tons of the smaller ones account for the majority, not that Zhu Youxiao is reluctant to build too big, but that the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty is not up to par, and there is a waste of building a 2,000-ton sail battleship, and a ship needs thousands of trees, and it must be oak, teak, elm, etc., It also takes more than seven years to dry for the best, which is a serious constraint. Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty still has a lot of elm, and it is not of much use except for shipbuilding, so it has made hundreds of wooden ships, and it seems that in the future, it will have to rely on capturing European battleships to increase its own warships.

In addition, there is another problem, the warships of the Ming army are different from the battleships of Europe, this is determined by the weapon, the Ming army uses flowering cannons, and the shells can explode, but there are not many of them, and the most is to rely on mortars to attack, which does not require the structure of the hull to be subjected to too much reaction force, in order to form artillery coverage, the mortars are still concentrated in the bow, which is very convenient to attack in motion, and now the European sail battleships are relying on the side-chord cannon as the main strike fire, This resulted in the formation of a line of battle formations in motion. In Zhu Youxiao's view, these two types of ships have their own advantages and disadvantages, but when engaged, the Ming fleet can face the enemy by turning the bow, while the European battleships need to be in constant movement to bombard.

These are all things that Zhu Youxiao planned in the sixth year of the Apocalypse, and now the building of Daming Renmin University has begun to take shape, and it is estimated that the first batch of students will be recruited after this summer, and Zhu Youxiao does not have to worry about this matter anymore, Sun Yuanhua has arranged these things properly.

What Zhu Youxiao needs to do now is to consider who to send to Europe to contact Spain and Portugal, and then how to persuade the Netherlands to join forces with Spain and Portugal. Of course, although he now knew that Sun Yuzhi had bolted the Dutch to the chariot a long time ago, he didn't need to think about it at all, but after all, it was a warship of the Dutch East India Company, and it did not represent the Dutch government. By the way, thinking of Sun Yuzhi and Zhu Youxiao, there is a suitable candidate, isn't Sun Yuzhi the most suitable person? So Zhu Youxiao asked people to contact the Portuguese consul living in Macao and asked them to send someone to discuss this issue

After the Portuguese consul in Macao, Sanchez, received Zhu Youxiao's notice. Soon arrived in the capital, Zhu Youxiao and Sun Chengzong had a conversation with him, Zhu Youxiao told him very bluntly, Daming saw that Portugal's overseas trade was strongly suppressed by England, and the scale of the Dutch sea coachman was also seriously squeezed out of Portugal's trade scale, and Spain had gradually lost the momentum of the maritime hegemon under the run of England, so it was recommended to join forces with Daming to jointly fight against the forces of England and block them on that small island. However, because the Ming seized the Spanish island of Luzon, I hope that Portugal can make peace from the middle, and it is impossible to retreat, but it will not seize the interests of Spain from other places, and it can also share the interests of the English in Asia with them, as for the Dutch, they can tell them unceremoniously that if they do not cooperate with the Ming, the Ming will expel them from the Asian sphere of influence, which basically does not need to be discussed with them, just invite them to watch a naval battle.