The journey to Europe is long, both for missions and for navies. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The size of the Ming navy is currently quite large, even in Europe, it can rank in the top five, second only to Britain and France, as well as the old and huge empires of Russia and Austria-Hungary, larger than the fleets of other small countries such as Prussia, Denmark, and Sweden, and stronger than the declining maritime empires such as the Netherlands and Spain.

The Ming Navy is equipped with a total of more than 500 warships of various types, and the capital ships are 100 American-made steam sailing ships, with a tonnage of about 5,000 tons to 6,000 tons, which are the main ships in the American Civil War. The Ming Dynasty purchased a total of 300 warships from the United States, in addition to 100 of them as capital ships, the remaining 200 were changed into transport ships, because these ships were originally fast cruisers used for cruising in the United States, and the firepower was not enough, but the speed was fast.

The main purpose of buying these ships was to prepare for the attack on Beiqi, and the purchase of ships alone cost more than 10 million taels of silver, and finally the Qing court reimbursed them through military expenses.

But now that the war has ended, especially last year, a new treaty of trade was reached with Britain, and the war crisis between the two countries was resolved, except for Britain, there were not many countries in the East that could threaten the Ming Dynasty, so maintaining such a large fleet tonnage became an unnecessary burden, not to mention that these ships were also about to grow old and become a burden in the upcoming era of ironclads.

It may no longer be suitable to be used as a warship, but as a merchant ship, it can be used for decades, after all, these ships themselves are new ships, and more than half of them are even Daming directly from the American slipway, which can be said to be completely new ships, and if the life of this iron-ribbed wood-hulled ship is well maintained, it is more than enough for thirty years.

Therefore, at the beginning of this year, the Navy began to sell these warships, starting with transport ships, then small-tonnage cruisers, and finally only planned to keep about 100 warships, and through the sale of these ships, especially the funds saved from the reduction of maintenance funds to continue to build ironclads.

Warships are easy to be reduced, but personnel are not easy to reduce, the Ming army has not been laid off so far, the main concern is that these soldiers have nowhere to be placed after the reduction, the Manchu Dynasty, whether it is the green battalion or the village Yong, once the biggest place has become bandits, rather than let the soldiers become bandits, it is better to stay in the army to raise.

And the soldiers who followed Zhu Jinglun on his visit this time, no matter what the circumstances, will not be dismissed, because they are absolutely elite, and it can even be said that almost all of them are officers. That's right, the navy specially selected officers of various ranks to form this naval fleet, which was specially used to escort Zhu Jinglun on his mission.

This is not to express the importance of the emperor, in fact, this is Zhu Jinglun's initiative to ask, and Zhu Jinglun is not a person who loves fame, the reason why he wants to do this is to train the navy.

The huge Ming navy, with a total strength of nearly 100,000, almost all of the soldiers have no experience in ocean navigation, because the qualifications of this army are too shallow, and most of the officers and soldiers have no more than five years of military experience.

This trip, which lasted for three months, was one of the best training in the ocean, and it was the first time that a fleet from China had arrived in Europe. It's a shame not to put it to good use.

The flagship is the ironclad ship, which is currently positioned as the flagship of the Ming Navy, named Guangdong, and named after the name of the province, which shows the importance attached to this warship. Through the experience accumulated after the construction of this ironclad ship, the Navy intends to build two ironclad ships in the later stage, named after Fujian and Guangxi, and the tonnage of these two ironclad ships will be comparable to the first class ironclad warrior class of the British Empire, that is, as high as more than 9,000 tons, approaching 10,000 tons, which is a huge challenge, but the Navy is not in a hurry, and the scheduled construction period is less than 10 years. Obviously, the Ming Navy is confident that within 10 years, they will not encounter challenges.

The journey was not only long but also arduous, and although there were only 10 capital ships in addition to the flagship, and 30 auxiliary ships, including coal carriers, supply ships and hospital ships, there were still accidents along the way.

Sickness is the biggest challenge encountered, the most humiliating also seasickness, from the Liangguang, Fujian area of the navy, it is said that most of them have sailing experience, although it may only be the experience of fishing boats, but not seasickness, but this long journey is really too challenging people's physical strength, in the most tired time, even some of the strong sailors of Fujian have seasickness.

At this time, the usual habits of life showed great superiority, and the best performance was precisely those who were dirty, poor, and thin before joining the army. The Tan people have been swimming in the river for a long time, and they do not leave the boat in life and death, and some may not go to the sea, but they even and sleep on the boat, and they are used to the shaking and bumps of the boat since they were babies, and in the end they perform the best.

And this kind of ocean sailing, one of the things they are most comfortable with is that their ordinary life is like this, that is, they are constantly exercising on the water, living in the water, and they go wherever the fish go. This also makes them feel much better than the average fisherman soldier, who does not feel lonely at all during such a long boat journey, because they have no land in their minds.

This trip is not only a test for the navy, but also a test for the diplomatic department, they need to arrange the fleet's itinerary in advance, the ports that the fleet arrives at along the way, berthing or refueling coal and water, or foreign affairs activities with the local area, they need to be responsible.

It can be said that this is a joint training between the Navy and the Department of Foreign Affairs.

In addition to anchoring in India, Zhu Jinglun also met with British colonial officials in India, as well as some princely states, and stopped for a day.

Arrived in South Africa and stopped for half a day. After passing through South Africa, the main stop was the French colonial port, which was arranged by the French, who probably wanted to show their strength to the Ming Kingdom. Unfortunately, the fact that even France could not do without the support of the British colonial ports if it wanted to make a world-wide ocean voyage.

Two years ago, the Senegalese port of Dakar, which fell into the French colony, docked for two days, although this colonial port is still very desolate, but the French built the Governor's Mansion is quite luxurious, the French explained that this Governor's Palace was actually built by the profits of the Portuguese slave trade in the past, in fact, the French sold slaves less than the Portuguese, but now they put on a face against the slave trade, as if they had given freedom to the blacks, and they mainly wanted to show friendship to Zhu Jinglun, Because Daming's anti-coolie trade position is very firm, this time to France, the French government will also express its position on this, now in advance, so that the guests are happy, why not.

After Dakar, along the coast of Africa, sailed to Lisbon, Portugal, before resting again. The attitude of the Portuguese was not very enthusiastic, and there was no person of status to receive Zhu Jinglun, and Zhu Jinglun and his party did not get off the ship, only a few bishops boarded the ship to welcome Zhu Jinglun and his party.

Because the Ming Dynasty forcibly entered Macao, and in the final agreement with the British, there was no mention of the status of Macau, Portugal completely lost Macau, their government could not get over the face, of course it would not be welcome, to allow the Ming fleet to dock, it was already to give face, but after the Ming army entered Macao, it did not smash the Macau churches that had existed for hundreds of years, nor did they interfere with their religious activities, and the church recognized this.

As naval officers, they have all received training in various geographical knowledge, but they do not have an objective understanding, knowing that there are still soldiers who insist on not believing that the earth is round, and it can be said that their knowledge level may not reach the level of a middle school student in later generations.

But the biggest impact of this voyage on them was not intellectual, but conceptual. After sailing thousands of miles along the way, they found that the world seemed to be divided among white people. After a while, some instructors pointed to a globe or a high-scale map and told them that this was the territory or colony of such and such a country, and after so many places, they did not see a piece of land occupied by Chinese.

This kind of intuitive stimulation is more useful than any preaching, reflecting that the stimulation in everyone's heart may be different, and some will only be amazed, but there are already people who have a sense of crisis, they see that the vast area from Europe to the Ming Dynasty has basically been carved up by the Europeans, although in many places the Europeans have only built a port, but all the places worth developing, without exception, have been controlled by the Europeans, especially in some countries at the door of the Ming Dynasty, some countries they have heard of, Borneo was destroyed by the Netherlands, and Java was destroyed by the Netherlands, the kingdom of Tianzhu (India) was destroyed by the British.

And the French have already hit Vietnam.

After Portugal and Spain, the reception standard is much higher.

This was mainly due to the relationship between Spain and France, Portugal was a British protectorate, they could not give face to France, but Spain could not withdraw.

It is also a Catholic state, and France is a patron state appointed by the Pope, and outside of Europe, it is France's glorious duty to protect Catholicism.

As a declining empire, Spain's overseas interests were largely protected by France.

Six years ago, France, which was at war with the Qing court, why would it go to fight the Vietnamese halfway, although there were reasons for France to want to expand in Vietnam, but the most direct reason was that the Spanish missionaries were killed in Vietnam, and France fought the Vietnamese in the name of protecting the religion, so Spain also sent troops to participate in that war, which is the reason.

As for Spain itself, they are already powerless to open up their interests to the Ming Dynasty, and it is not easy to hold on to the one acre and three points of land in the Philippines.

The Spaniards did not say anything, but Zhu Jinglun said that he told the Spanish diplomats that it was the bounden duty of the Ming government to protect the interests of Chinese businessmen in the Philippines, and he also hoped that the Spanish colonial government would treat the Chinese as they should be, so as not to cause unnecessary conflicts between the two countries.

The Spaniards also gave assurances about this, and highly praised the operation of Chinese businessmen in the Philippines, which is of great significance to the construction of the Philippines, and welcomed Chinese businessmen to invest and trade.

These are all nonsense, I believe that if it weren't for the crazy expansion of the navy of the Ming Dynasty over the years, the overseas Chinese would be a group of fat pigs to be slaughtered in the eyes of the Spaniards.

After leaving the Spanish port of La Coruña, the next stop is Bordeaux, which is to the territory of France, after Bordeaux is received by all classes of the local people, it will set sail into the French port of Calais in the English Channel, where the final fleet will dock, and then Zhu Jinglun and his party will go ashore and take a train to Paris to end the voyage of 30,000 miles. (To be continued.) )