For this royal expedition, Zhu Youxiao's support is very strong, and Zhu Changhao, the king of Duan, and Zhu Yousong, the son of King Fu, did not disappoint Zhu Youxiao, Zhu Changhao recruited more than 100 students in Daming Institute of Technology, and also recruited more than 400 craftsmen of all colors in the society, and Zhu Youxiang also quickly found 5,000 people from the soldiers who retired in the past two years, as for the weapons, needless to say, they are all new equipment, new rifles, hand-cranked machine guns, mortars, infantry guns are all equipped, and there is enough ammunition. In terms of materials, almost all the production equipment is available, that is, the necessary accessories required by the steelmaking plant have prepared a set, and when you get there, as long as you find the ore, you can smelt qualified steel in two months, which is a necessary thing, because after getting there, if you want to get these things from the Ming Dynasty, the transportation cost required is too high.

After four months of full preparation, all these preparations were complete, the ships were naturally purchased from the shipyard built by Qi Jin, and two hundred were purchased at once, of which fifty were new-type warships, and the rest were armed merchant ships, the so-called armed merchant ships were not equipped with cannons, because the structure of the hull required was much stronger than that of the armed merchant ships, and the cost was almost twice as high, fifty warships were enough, and there were not many naval fleets that were stronger than this fleet.

In July, when the sea breeze was at its peak, the mighty armed caravan that had taken to the sea for the first time embarked on an expedition, and all the soldiers on the ten warships sent by Niu Jinxing joined the caravan, and they were the vanguard of the caravan, responsible for guiding the route. The fleet departed from Quanzhou Port, all the way to Xingjiapo, because this is also a familiar road, now there are more merchant ships from the coast of Guangdong to there, most of them are sail ships, only a few large fleets use steam engines, but like the fleet of the Ming Royal Trading Company, they use a steam engine power, but when there is wind, try not to use a steam engine. Except for the soldiers on the ten warships in the vanguard, which belong to the navy, the rest are landlubbers, and they are all messy at sea, and they have all been soldiers, and they can bear it, but these guys who have gone to sea are still training them, in their words, that is, they train more in peacetime and shed less blood in wartime, and these old soldiers certainly understand better.

On a relatively luxurious armed merchant ship in the middle, Duan Wang Zhu Changhao, Hui Wang Zhu Changrun, Gui Wang Zhu Changying, and Fu Wang Shi Zhu Yousong, the four of them were talking, talking about this expedition.

Duanwang Zhu Changrun said: "Two brothers, virtuous nephews, this time His Majesty spent more than 10 million taels of silver to build our fleet of luxury Daming Royal Trading Bank overseas branches, which was unthinkable in the past, I think that when my father was in power, I wanted hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to kick the threshold of the household, and now His Majesty is 10 million taels of silver, and the four of us each account for half of the shares, that is, 1.5 million taels of silver, although it is borrowed from Tenglong Bank, this is also a great deal, I have a bad conscience, if we sneak away, will Your Majesty chase us to the ends of the earth, why is he so relieved of us? Were there such enlightened emperors in all dynasties? ”

Zhu Yousong, the son of King Fu, said: "Hey, hey, Uncle Duanwang, do you have the courage to do this?" If you dare to run, I will help you tie up Uncle Hui and Uncle Gui first, and neither of them can beat me at school. ”

After a sentence was finished, he shouted "hey, hey", and the three princes each kicked him, Duanwang was happy, King Hui and King Gui were angry, this kid didn't open the pot and mentioned the pot, in the school's playground and in the martial arts room, regardless of the elder, no matter whose fist was big, usually the two princes always bullied him with their seniority, and when he arrived at the martial arts room, he flattened the two uncles, and always beat his nose and face were swollen.

King Duan smiled and said: "It's a shame that Your Majesty is not a cautious person now, otherwise if the four of us say this, it will be a big crime to raid the family, how can Your Majesty have such great ambitions?" ”

King Gui said: "Many people say that Your Majesty is the reincarnation of Grandpa Tai, and in my opinion, Grandpa Tai may not have such a big belly and such high wisdom. ”

King Hui said: "I think Your Majesty is Lu Banye worshiped the grandfather as a teacher and then reincarnated, or you see that he has liked carpenter work since he was a child, and he is wise and martial when he becomes an emperor, do you make sense?" ”

Zhu Yousong, who got up from the ground, said: "Don't guess, let me tell you, Your Majesty, he is the Jade Emperor, he can pinch and calculate, today the three of you are talking about him here, he already knows, and when he goes back, everyone has three hundred big boards on their buttocks." ”

"Oops, oops", "Uncle Wang spares his life, I don't dare to talk nonsense anymore." This time, the three of them moved their hands and feet together, and they beat them violently.

The four of them were making trouble, there was a knock on the door outside, and when they opened the door, it turned out that Sun Yuzhi was coming, and the four of them stopped messing around and began to sit down seriously and discuss the next move with Sun Yuzhi.

Sun Yuzhi didn't become a clerk as Sun Chengzong said, it would be too cheap, so Zhu Youxiao gave him a position as a general manager, in fact, he was a chief of staff and housekeeper, who not only participated in military operations, but also was responsible for assisting King Duan in handling some trivial matters.

What they discussed was an inexplicable order from Zhu Youxiao, after passing through the Strait of Malacca, sail along the coast of India, destroy all ships in England and France, whether it is merchant ships or warships, if the Dutch participate in the war, even they will be sunk together, and they will not care about Spain, as long as they do not take the initiative to provoke us, leave him alone, as for the reason, Zhu Youxiao did not say, just tell them to do so. But these people can't tell which country those white people are from, what about this? After discussing and discussing, it was decided to go to Singapore and ask the Portuguese, and they should be able to tell the difference.

Why did Zhu Youxiao give such an order? The reason is this, Spain is now going downhill, Portugal and the Netherlands are small countries and widows, no matter how they develop, they will not become super enemies, while the English and France are different, their national strength is developing too fast, and if they don't control their development speed now, they may start to colonize India in a few decades, and then begin to form a super "empire on which the sun never sets", and France will run rampant in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean, occupying a series of small island groups. Now they must cut off their hands and feet stretching out to the Indian Ocean, only let them scourge in the Atlantic and the Americas, Australia will also become their colony, and now those indigenous Maori are still with kangaroos as companions, and Zhu Youxiao will take this voyage as an opportunity to encourage merchants from all over the world to form expeditions to Australia and Java to explore, control trade, colonize the whole of Australia, and become the second Ming Dynasty.

The reason why this time is huge is to succeed in one fell swoop, set an example for businessmen everywhere, stimulate the enthusiasm of the Ming people for exploration, and prepare for the spread of the Ming civilization to the world.

Understand to execute, not to understand also to execute, in the Ming Dynasty like this kind of thing is a normal phenomenon in the army, and this caravan is the nature of the army, especially Zhu Yousong admires his imperial brother, the five of them briefly discussed, and decided to do this after supplementing supplies in Malacca.

In Malacca, there were already many Ming merchants here, and now it has become a commodity distribution center, where Ming merchants can live in peace with the Portuguese, because Portugal has a place like Macao in the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming navy has seized the Luzon Islands, which is a symbol of strength. Seeing the huge fleet of the Ming Royal Trading Company to the port of Singapore to replenish supplies, the merchants came to inquire, and even the Portuguese officials living in Singapore came to visit, after all, this fleet is under the royal banner, and should be given enough attention, so as not to make the Portuguese in Macau unhappy, and now the Ming Dynasty is strong enough to make them respect.

In the Ming merchants did not get much useful information, Duanwang Zhu Changhao was a little puzzled, so he was ready to find a Portuguese guide, at this time, the Portuguese governor in Malacca, Mr. Sival, came, just to ask him about these situations, and when the guests and hosts were seated, they began to talk about the English and the French.

This brief conversation decided the world pattern in later generations, which no one expected, and perhaps there were some inexplicable factors here, perhaps it was determined by the world trade pattern and mutual status of Portugal and Daming at that time.