In the grass house, Chen Yue leaned over the table and continued the great cause of cartography.

With a ruler in one hand and a sharpened charcoal in the other, a figure of a sailboat appeared on the white paper. Carefully drawing lines with charcoal, Chen Yue was extraordinarily attentive and extraordinarily careful.

In the era when there was no eraser, it was difficult to erase if the painting was wrong, and even if it was erased, it would leave a black mess, which was very ugly.

After marking the last size data on the map with charcoal, Chen Yue sighed and straightened up, his body already covered in sweat.

Fortunately, the technology is not lagging behind, and the drawn graphics are still perfect, and the next step is to make a model of the sailboat according to the data on the map.

The Galen galleon, the main type of ship in the West in the 17th century, was used by the Spanish to cross the Atlantic Ocean to establish the colony of the Americas, and sailed around the world across South America to the East.

Chen Yue designed a four-masted galleon of the Galen type, with a displacement of about 600 tons, two decks, and the ability to carry more than 60 heavy guns. Of course, it cannot be compared with the warships and battleships with a displacement of thousands of tons and hundreds of guns that have appeared in the West, but they are already large along the coast of Daming.

At least compared to the main battleship of the Ming Dynasty, Fuchuan, it is already a behemoth. Since Zheng He went to the West, with the imperial court banning the sea, the shipbuilding technology of the Ming Dynasty has fallen too far behind. At that time, the treasure ships of Zheng He's fleet were generally large fortune ships with a displacement of more than 1,000 tons, and now the largest naval warships of the Ming Dynasty are only 400 materials and have a displacement of about 100 tons.

It is precisely the backwardness of shipbuilding technology that makes small countries like the Netherlands and Spain have no way to do it, and they are beaten to their doorstep. Although the Ming Dynasty also fought many battles with the colonists, and also won several times, such as the Battle of Liuluo Bay, the fleet commanded by Zheng Zhilong defeated the invading Dutch. However, it was by besieging several Dutch Galen ships with an absolute number of ships that the Dutch were able to repel the Dutch.

It can be seen that at this time, the Ming warships were already much inferior to the West. Western warships can carry dozens or even hundreds of cannons, and the Ming army's Fu ships can carry at most two, because the structure of the Fu ships cannot resist the tearing force of the guns when they fire.

Fortunately, now that he has his own, Daming's warship manufacturing can still catch up. In another time and space, Chen Yue was fond of ship model making, and personally designed and produced a model of a sail battleship, which was a battleship that was rampant in the eighteenth century, and Chen Yue also made a ship model.

But even if you make a model sailboat, it is not so easy to make it into a real warship, it requires a lot of skilled shipwrights, too many materials, and a lot of time.

According to Chen Yue's estimates, it will take at least half a year to build this four-masted Galen ship, and it must be complete with wood and other materials, even if it does not count the wages, the cost of materials alone is not less than 10,000 taels of silver.

If you count the sixty-four heavy guns loaded, the total cost is at least three or four hundred thousand taels. And this is just a price, such a huge amount of money, even if the Ming court wants to equip the navy with such a ship, it is powerless. Western countries, such as the Netherlands and England, rely on overseas looting, and the power of the whole country can only build dozens of capital warships. And now the Dutch entrenched in Dongfan Island only have an armed sailing ship loaded with more than a dozen guns, which is not as good as the one designed by Chen Yue.

Looking at the sailboat graphics on the drawings, Chen Yue smiled with satisfaction.

"Why does this ship look weird?" Chen Yan, who was waiting on the side, couldn't help but say that Chen Yan had followed Chen Yue around in the past few years and had seen too many ships, but he had never seen anything like this.

"Strange? Maybe. Chen Yue glanced at Chen Yan and couldn't help laughing, "Go and call Zhang Chengkai and Liu Neng." ”

"Yes, Grandpa." Chen Yan turned around and went.

Although Wu Wan'er wanted to stay in the grass house and wait for Chen Yue's food, clothing, and daily life, but now is the period of filial piety, if she lives with her concubine, it will not affect well, so Chen Yue asked Wu Wan'er to go to Zhoushan and asked her to go to Zhoushan Island to settle down first, so now only Chen Yan is the big man who is waiting for Chen Yue.

Fortunately, after all these years of military life, Chen Yue has long been accustomed to everything.

Zhang Chengkai and Liu Neng quickly walked in and bowed to Chen Yue.

After arriving in Hangzhou, the main people went to Zhoushan Island with Qian Fenglin, and a small number of people stayed in Hangzhou and obeyed Chen Yue's orders.

Zhang Chengkai is a native of Fujian, originally a maritime businessman, and is more familiar with the coastal areas of Fujian and Zhejiang, so he was left to listen to it.

"Look, how is this ship?" Waving his hand to get the two up, Chen Yue pointed to the drawings on the table and smiled.

Hearing this, the two walked to the table to watch carefully, and unlike Liu Neng, who looked confused, Zhang Chengkai's eyes widened wider and wider.

"Grandpa, is this a Xiyi ship?" Zhang Chengkai asked with a shocked face, when he was young, he and his father went to sea to trade, the ship was sacked by pirates, his father was buried in the sea, he escaped to the shore by luck, moved to Beijing, and later joined Chen Yue's subordinates.

He has been running around at sea for several years, and when he was in the Wa Kingdom, Zhang Chengkai saw the Dutch sea ships and was very familiar with the drawings.

"It is worthy of being a person who has been to sea, and it is indeed knowledgeable, it is the Xiyi Galen ship, when I was in Beijing, I saw the drawings on the Tang Ruowang Mansion, and I copied them a few times out of curiosity, but I didn't expect to be able to draw them now." As a military family, but he could draw drawings of Xiyi sea ships, Chen Yue had to make an excuse for himself and pushed the pot on the missionary John Tang. John Tang should still be in Beijing now, an official in the Manchu court, and no one is expected to go to verify it.

"I once talked to John Tang, and he looked down on my Ming ship, which showed that the ship was too far behind Xiyi. I wonder if it's true? ”

"It's true, Xiyi ships have many cannons, far stronger than Ming ships, when their subordinates ran to the sea in the past, every time they encountered Xiyi ships, they had to flee early, but the speed was not as fast as Xiyi ships, and they often couldn't escape and could only let them loot, hoping to leave their lives." Zhang Chengkai said in a somewhat heavy tone.

"Since the Xiyi ship is better than ours, now that we have the drawings, we can try to build the Xiyi warship, you are a crew member, you should also know some shipbuilding technology, what do you think?" Chen Yue asked.

"I've worked as a carpenter on ships, and I know a little bit about shipbuilding, so we can try to do it. But where did the shipwright come from, how to get wood and other materials, are you planning to build a shipyard? ”

It is not so easy to build a shipyard, and Zhang Chengkai alone cannot do it.

Chen Yue shook his head, "I don't have that much time to build a shipyard, smuggling is rampant in Zhejiang and Fujian, the gentry are mostly involved in overseas smuggling, there must be many private shipyards, your task is to find a reliable shipyard and let them cooperate with us to build ships!" ”