By this time, the workers had begun to apply whale oil to the slides to lubricate them. The preparation for the launch of the pen www.biquge.info will soon be completed.

"Major General, the only problem now is that the cannons on this ship are not ready." "So, for a long time the ship was only able to fight with 18-pounder and 12-pounder guns. ”

In fact, the 24-pounder guns originally prepared for this ship were sufficient, but because of the possible orders from the Ming Dynasty, these cannons were all turned into military supplies for sale by Zheng Sen with a stroke of his pen. So much so that the "Enterprise" was temporarily denied the 24-pounder gun.

"Anyway, under normal conditions, in a short period of time, there is no battle where the Enterprise must be used." Zheng Sen said, "As for training, let's use 12-pounder guns and 18-pounder guns first." And now we have completely new technology, and in the future a new batch of 24-pounder guns will perform even better, much better than now. So, artillery isn't my biggest concern right now. My biggest concern right now is the level of our sailors. ”

In the past two years, the Zheng family has trained a group of sailors on Western-style sailing ships through the rapid development of whaling ships, but the accelerated sailors are only quick rookies after all, and in terms of various skills, they are still incomparable with those who have drifted at sea for decades, and in addition, in the past two years, these sailors also lack experience in sailing in relatively bad sea conditions. These things are not all solved by training.

"With this boat, we can get some training for those sailors to go to sea." Zheng Sen said.

Ocean voyages are an indispensable step in the training of good sailors, and Zheng Sen estimates that there will be no major war with the Spaniards or the Dutch in the next two years. Therefore, the Enterprise can be used for ocean-going training.

Zheng Sen had already made a plan: after the Enterprise was launched and outfitted, he could let the sailors drive the ship south, along the East Sands, the West Deserts, and then to Manila, Mindanao, and Batavia. Finally, continue south to the island of Papua and will land for some corresponding investigations. In addition to training, there is also a side mission to find various minerals, such as struvite for agricultural production, and copper mines on the islands of Mindanao and Papua.

At the same time, Zheng Sen vaguely remembered that there were huge and high-quality copper mines in the southern part of Papua Island and Minnanao Island. In the next few years, Zheng Sen intends to build a number of bases on the islands of present-day Southeast Asia and mine struvite and copper ore there.

Of course, this voyage of the "Enterprise" also contains the meaning of hidden demonstrations. Zheng Sen remembered that there were a lot of cannibals in Southeast Asia, but these cannibals would not pose any threat to Zheng Sen, and these natives who were still in the Stone Age were just troublesome at most. If you can't even deal with the natives who don't even have metal weapons, what will you do against the Manchus and the Europeans in the future? In addition, Zheng Sen is in Taiwan, and he already has a lot of experience in dealing with those cannibals, for example, now, relying on Fu. Longevity. Paste, almost all of Taiwan's raw fans are no longer a climate. This kind of trick can also be used against raw fans in other places.

But that's all in the future, and the most important thing right now is to get the boat in the water.

Between the slipway and the harbor, there are several wooden slides, which are the passages through which the boats are launched. Now that the ship is largely finished, the various shelves that originally surrounded the ship have been removed, and only a few thick cables remain to tie the ship.

"It's almost time, isn't it?" Zheng Sen asked.

The navy has been a relatively superstitious service since ancient times, and it attaches great importance to all kinds of omens and rules related to luck. Of course, the Zheng family's navy was also like this, and all kinds of rules were popular, and these rules were even extended to the steam age and even the nuclear power age. For example, when the sailors of the Zheng family ate fish, they were very taboo and said, "When this side is finished, turn the fish over and eat it." Because the word "turn" is too unlucky. For another example, it is taboo to say the word "Shen", and by the way, it is not easy to say the same sound of "Chen", and when I arrived on the boat, I had to follow the method of avoiding it, and read the word with a different initial, or simply read it as the sound of "floating".

First of all, of course, it is necessary to find a Taoist priest to calculate the auspicious time, so as not to collide with any god when he goes into the water.

"It's a while." Fabio looked at his pocket watch and replied.

"Oh, that's fine," said Zheng Sen, "and this is the right time to discuss with you about the expansion of the shipyard." ”

Fabio's ears immediately pricked up: "Major General, what are your plans?" ”

"Now that our business is getting bigger, we don't have enough boats. In the future, for example, we may need more, larger transports, more whaling ships, more patrol vessels, and more capital warships like Enterprise. The location here is also a little narrower, and the slipway that can accommodate is also limited. Even if it is expanded here, the additional shipbuilding capacity is limited. So I wondered if I should find another place and build a new No. 2 shipyard. ”

"The Major General plans to build another shipyard? However, the backlog of orders from shipyards is not enough to the point that two shipyards are needed. According to the calculations, the expansion on the basis of the original factory can completely solve the problem. Don't...... Could it be that Major General, where do you have new business? Fabio asked suddenly.

"We've got a little bit of a breakthrough in some technologies." "And in the future, we may need to buy a lot of raw materials from outside." This requires more ships. After all, it costs a lot of money to hire Dutch or Spanish people to transport it. ”

Fabio listened and nodded. He knew that the Zheng family had recently started purchasing struvite in bulk from Nanyang to use as fertilizer. Generally speaking, tropical land, because there is too much rain, fertility is easy to lose, so it is generally barren. Taiwan will not be an exception, although the light and heat conditions are good, even in the Xiaoice environment, rice can be three crops a year, but when it comes to the yield of each mu in each season, it is still far from the future generations. Of course, there is a lack of improved varieties such as super rice, but in fact, even if there are good seeds, the fertility of the land cannot support high yields. In addition to planting rice, the Zheng family now grows a large number of various cash crops in Taiwan, and many cash crops consume more fertility than rice, so the source of fertilizer has become a big problem.

In the era when there were no chemical fertilizers, we had to rely on manure and farm manure. However, the quantities of these two things are also very limited, and there is no guarantee of the fertility required for high-intensity planting. And in Zheng Sen's era, it would be impossible to make chemical fertilizer. Because if you want chemical fertilizer, you must first have synthetic ammonia, and if you want synthetic ammonia, you must first have large-scale pressure vessel manufacturing technology, and you must have large-scale pressure vessel manufacturing technology...... Poor Zheng Sen can't even break through the most basic crucible steelmaking technology now. After all, traversers are not omnipotent.

But fortunately, there is one thing in the world that can provide enough fertility. In some islands in the ocean, a large number of seabirds live, and over millions of years, their droppings have gradually accumulated and accumulated to form gray-white rocks up to tens of meters thick, which are called struvite stones. This is a gift from nature, a natural high-quality compound fertilizer. Contains a large amount of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is an out-and-out golden knella.

In later generations, struvite in Southeast Asia has long been exhausted. But in Zheng Sen's current era, there are many such rocks on the uninhabited islands of Southeast Asia. These rocks can be used as base fertilizer as long as they are brought back and then broken into powder, which may not be as effective as later fertilizers, but they are long-lasting and do not have the same adverse effect on the land itself as fertilizers do.

With the development of the plantation economy, Taiwan's demand for fertilizer is increasing, so now in several ports controlled by the Zheng family in Taiwan, Dutch ships and Spanish ships often come and go full of struvite, and then drag all kinds of porcelain, silk, and tea back.

Struvite is a natural thing, and there are many uninhabited islands in the South Seas today, and it is almost cost-free to mine them. But let the Dutch and Spaniards sell it, and the price is not low. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare more ships by yourself, find a few desert islands rich in struvite by yourself, and mine and transport them by yourself.

At this time, a group of monks gathered around the left side of the "Enterprising" that was about to be launched, sat down, knocked on the wooden fish, bell chime, lit all kinds of incense and candles, recited scriptures, and started to do rituals. On the starboard side of the ship, a group of Taoist priests were also on the altar, burning talisman paper and wielding a peachwood sword. And in the direction of the bow of the boat, the Catholic Rev. Lee De is sprinkling holy water blessings on the boat. Fortunately, there are no Arabs in the Zheng family's fleet now, otherwise, there would be a platform at the stern of the boat to invite an imam.

Originally, Pastor Lee was very reluctant to do things with a group of infidels. But looking at the expenses given by the Zheng family, of course, this is not the main thing, the main thing is that there are still some Catholics among the sailors of the Zheng family, how can the priest not consider the needs of the believers? Moreover, should God's priests shrink from the presence of pagans?

So for a while, the vicinity of the "Enterprise" suddenly became lively, and all kinds of musical instruments and all kinds of scriptures sounded together.

"Major General, the auspicious time has arrived!" In the midst of this uproar, Liu De gently walked to Zheng Sen's side and said.

Zheng Sen nodded, walked to the high platform in front, glanced at the giant ship again, and then gently pulled a wrench.