In the third year of Yongxing in the Ming Dynasty, on the sixteenth day of the first month, the flavor of the New Year in the capital has not yet dissipated, Zhang Bin took Haizhou Hou Sun Chuanting and Liaoyang Hou Lu Xiangsheng on a journey.

Their first stop was Dagu Port, because there was such a large port near the capital, and the Tianxiong Army and the Qin Army had already rushed to Dagu Port to assemble and stand by, just waiting for them to lead the expedition.

At this time, Dagu Port has long ceased to be the original appearance, not only the port has been expanded several times, there is also a new city next to the port, the area of the new city is not very large, the radius is about ten miles, but the height of the city wall of the new city is two zhang, and the city wall is densely covered with artillery, and the guard is tight, just like a hedgehog.

Such a city was naturally not for the common people to live in, but for the garrison and the construction of military factories, and there were no other buildings in the city, that is, factories, dormitories, and barracks.

According to Zhang Bin's plan, this place will gradually be built into a fortress that can accommodate 100,000 troops to live and live, and in the future, both foot soldiers and sailors can be stationed here and take turns to rest.

With the expansion of the Ming Dynasty and the naturalization of the Meng Yuan, the threat from the north of the capital has become smaller and smaller, and with the development of shipbuilding and cannon casting technology, the future threat must come from the sea, so the guard of the port is particularly important, especially the gateway to the capital like Dagu Port, if the defense is not tight enough, the enemy uses warships to transport infantry to land.

This kind of thing is not impossible to happen, and it is impossible for the Daming Navy Division to be stationed in Dagu Port all the time, the vast sea, who knows which direction the enemy will come from, it is obviously unrealistic to defend at sea, and the only way to rely on the strait or port defense is to rely on the strait.

Of course, after the South Seas became the inland sea of the Ming Dynasty, it was impossible for the powers to attack the coastal areas of the Ming Dynasty from the sea, but in order to be precautionary, the gateway to the capital still had to be closely defended.

At this time, the city wall of Dagu Port New Town had been largely completed, but the construction of the barracks had not yet begun, but the musket factory and artillery factory had been completed and were preparing to be put into production.

In the afternoon of the same day, Zhang Bin and his entourage arrived at Dagu Port, at this time, Dagu Port was already full of warships, and the vicinity of the wharf was already full of Tianxiong Army and Qin Army who were ready to go.

Zhang Bin came to the port wharf, and after greeting the military generals who came to greet him, he said to Sun Chuanting and Lu Xiangsheng: "Boya, Jiandou, you first organize your men to board the ship, and I will go to the newly built musket factory and artillery factory to have a look." ”

After saying that, he patted Xu Fuyuan, the new waiter of the Ministry of Works, on the shoulder and motioned for him to lead the way.

Dagu New City is used to defend Dagu Port, not far from the port, less than a quarter of an hour, Xu Fuyuan led Zhang Bin to the city's artillery factory.

Zhang Bin looked at the spacious and bright workshop and the officials of the Ministry of Engineering who were directing the installation and commissioning of equipment, and couldn't help but say with relief: "Well, yes, the progress is very fast, the resumption of fasting, hard work, this Chinese New Year will also let you take people to work overtime." ”

Xu Fuyuan replied respectfully: "Teacher, the disciple is just in command, I don't dare to say that it is hard, what is really hard is these Jingying guards, they have not rested for more than two months." ”

Zhang Bin nodded and said approvingly: "Well, they are indeed doing a good job, so let's double their salaries and silver, let them work harder, and strive to complete all the projects of the artillery factory and the musket factory by the end of the month." ”

Xu Fuyuan hurriedly arched his hand and said, "The disciple understands. ”

Zhang Bin asked again: "Will the construction officially start at the beginning of next month, is there a problem?" ”

Xu Fuyuan nodded solemnly and said: "There is no problem, the household department has begun to recruit craftsmen near the capital, and it is estimated that they will be able to arrive before the end of the month." ”

Zhang Bin patted him on the shoulder again and advised: "Okay, I'll leave it to you here, do it well, this is related to the profit of tens of millions of taels of silver a year." ”

Xu Fuyuan arched his hand again and said, "Disciple understands. ”

Zhang Bin nodded, went to the musket factory again, and then returned to the dock with his personal guards.

At this time, both the Tianxiong Army and the Qin Army had already boarded the Zhenyuan cruiser, just waiting for him to give orders.

Zhang Bin didn't delay, he directly took a group of civil and military generals to board the flagship, then waved his hand and said loudly: "Let's go." ”

With the waving of the flag, more than 100 warships left the port one after another, and then lined up in a long line and headed straight for the South Seas.

The Ming Dynasty set off in this way, and the Taishi Wei Guogong took Haizhou Hou Sun Chuanting and Liaoyang Hou Lu Xiangsheng, and took the Tianxiong Army and the Qin Army to the south by boat, and began the journey to conquer the South Seas.

The destination of the fleet's trip was not Annan, nor Donghu, but Xingang City, because Zhang Bin did not know much about the situation of the Nanyang countries at this time, so he specially ordered Zheng Zhilong, the Marquis of Nanyang, to send elite scouts from the end of last year to follow the caravan of Dongshengtang to the Nanyang countries to inquire about the news.

More than ten days later, the fleet arrived in Xingang City, Zheng Zhilong had been waiting for a long time, Zhang Bin did not delay, directly led a group of generals to the conference room of the Nanyang Governor's Palace, and immediately ordered Zheng Zhilong to take out the latest map of Nanyang, spread it on the conference table, and report the current situation of the Nanyang countries.

Zheng Zhilong had already prepared for this, and as soon as the map was unfolded, he pointed to the Nanyang countries on the map and introduced them one by one.

At this time, the most powerful in Nanyang is the Donghu Dynasty, according to Zheng Zhilong's investigation, the Donghu Dynasty is about to dominate the Southeast Peninsula at this time, except for Annam and Champong, almost all other countries on the Southeast Peninsula have been wiped out by the Donghu Dynasty, even the relatively strong Siam has been defeated and retreated by the Donghu Dynasty, only a small part of the territory near the capital Dacheng is held, and other places are occupied by the Donghu Dynasty!

Zhang Bin looked at the vast area on the map equivalent to the entire territory of Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia in the later generations, and couldn't help frowning: "How many people does the Donghu Dynasty have now, what is the approximate number of troops, and what about the weapons and equipment?" ”

Zheng Zhilong reported in detail: "The population of the Donghu Dynasty is now not less than 10 million, as for the number of troops, we have not yet fully figured out, only near Siam Ayutthaya there are more than 200,000 troops of the Donghu Dynasty, and there are no less than 100,000 troops near its capital city of Ava, other places are too scattered, and there is still a need for further spying, as for weapons and equipment, they still rely on swords, guns, bows and arrows, but they seem to have purchased some muskets and artillery from the Dutch. ”

This alone proves that there are no less than 300,000 troops, which sounds a bit scary, but if you just have swords, guns, bows and arrows, even if they have 500,000 or even a million troops, it is useless, in the face of advanced muskets and artillery, cold weapons are not afraid at all, and now the key to determining victory or defeat is the number of muskets and artillery.

Zhang Bin listened to Zheng Zhilong's report, frowned and pondered for a while, and then asked, "Have you found out how many muskets and artillery they have?" ”

When Zheng Zhilong heard this, he couldn't help but be embarrassed and said: "This, we really don't know very well, but according to the analysis of their battle situation with Siam, their muskets should be hundreds, and the artillery should not exceed a hundred, because Siam's combat power is there, if they have thousands of muskets and hundreds of artillery, Siam would have been destroyed by them a long time ago." ”

This is true, it seems that the number of muskets and artillery they have is not very large, and they can't destroy Siam, which is enough to prove everything.

Zhang Bin nodded, and then asked, "What about Annan and Zhancheng, what is the situation now?" ”