Salt and iron have always been commodities monopolized by the imperial court, and private salt and iron have always been important targets of the imperial court's severe crackdown. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info [Burning ^ Wen ^ Library] The Zheng family has always been a big smuggler of smuggling smuggling salt before it was annexed to the Wu Dynasty, and since it was annexed, it has directly put on the cloak of legality for illicit salt. Because people can not use iron, but they have to eat salt, the profit of illegal salt is much higher than that of illegal iron, so the smuggling of illegal salt is also quite oily.

Xu Wei led the fleet to Annan this time to find Chinese maritime merchants, he originally planned to buy another batch of cool oil and other seafood with strong "Chinese characteristics", who knew that one night he and Zheng Zhihu went shopping and actually saw a salt shaker on the food stall in the night market. This couldn't help but make his jaw drop in shock.

He has lived in Fujian and Guangdong for many years, and these seaside provinces are not short of salt, but the salt that can be seen is all black and yellow, and there is a bitter taste in it. And even in Fujian and Guangdong, salt can be regarded as a luxury. Even in the kitchen of a large family, salt is a precious thing that the chef carries with him, and he is only reluctant to put a little bit when cooking. But now these patriarchs run a small stall with snow-white salt so openly placed on the table, who thinks that the taste is weak, can add it to the snack themselves, and do not see others to bring this salt back, this can only show one reason, the salt here must be very cheap, and the amount is also very large. For Xu Wei and Zheng Zhihu, this is too sensational.

So he and Zheng Zhihu tasted the salt together in the eyes of the stunned naturalized people and elders. This snow-white salt already felt incredible to them, but even more incredible things were still to come, there was no trace of bitterness in the mouth, but a little sweetness, which they had never seen in the course of their lives for decades. The two of them almost jumped up, if such salt can be transported back to Fujian and Guangdong, isn't it an excellent commodity? Immediately, they proposed to the personnel of the Ministry of Commerce who accompanied them shopping to monopolize the right to operate this snow salt.

After receiving the news, the Ministry of Commerce was stunned, the salt in the old time and space was indeed monopolized by the state, and because the salt provided was far higher and cheaper than the ordinary private salt, there was almost no private salt in the country in the old time and space. However, in this time and space, the natives of this time and space, whether it is mineral salt or sea salt, cannot remove other elements such as potassium and magnesium in it, so whether it is official salt or private salt, the taste is the same. Therefore, among all the products exported by Dongfang Port, salt has always been a very high-quality export product, even if it was Jinyi Wei Qianhu Cen Min did not forget to bring fifty kilograms of snow salt when he went back.

But the Zheng family will always have a monopoly in their minds, no matter what product you have, whether it is cool oil, flower water, perfume, even when they see salt, they also want to monopolize one. Of course, the Ministry of Commerce would not be willing to hand over the monopoly of the salt industry to these pirates, but Fujian and Guangdong were a vacuum for the Senate at this stage, and it was simply impossible to carry out the Fujian-Guangdong trade until the steam engine and the free wheel entered mass production. Rather than letting the market continue to maintain a vacuum, it is better to simply hand over the management rights to the Zheng family first, who have been operating for more than ten years, and both the means of operation and the potential market are much better than their own outsiders. And the contract signed by the Ministry of Commerce with them is one year, although it is not known when large-scale maritime trade will be launched, but after a year, the Senate's free ship will also be outfitted, and then the cooperation agreement of 1630 will be signed according to the actual situation.

Although Zheng Zhihu was not satisfied with the terms and conditions given by the Chinese maritime merchants and the amount of goods they could ship, they were able to make a lot of money in terms of the goods they were now transporting from the port of the East. However, he had a bigger business he wanted to negotiate with the Senate, and that was to buy the most important equipment.

The Executive Committee did not express any objection to this purchase plan, which already had the arms purchase of Champong Port in the past, and now it is not a big deal to sell weapons and equipment to Zheng Zhilong, anyway, the ones sold are all monkey versions. You must know that the rifles used by the Marines now are Senate rifles, although these rifles are rifled, but they are not chrome-plated, and the rifling has long been worn out badly under the two months of continuous shooting training and combat. Recently, some soldiers have begun to report to officers that the accuracy of their guns is decreasing, so the Armament Department has long been looking for a home for these Senate rifles, and since they are being sent now, they will naturally not let them go.

The Senate rifle uses standard parts of the assembly line, although there are still some size differences, but under the quality inspectors of the military industry department using the measurement tools of old time and space, there is basically no situation where the same rifle cannot be interchanged. Therefore, even if this batch of Senate rifles is to be sold to the Zheng family, these barrels must be replaced with smoothbore barrels made locally in Dongfang Port.

However, to the surprise of the Executive Committee and the Ministry of Commerce, although this Zheng Zhihu looks five big and three thick, he is not a muscular product in his head. He replied very clearly that what he wanted was not the Senate rifle recommended to him by the Ministry of Commerce, but a spring gun and a ship-based machine gun.

This is easy to understand, the Zheng family fleet is most often faced with not the two sides in a formation to shoot and slash, but on the sea surface between ships and ships. At this stage, the combined fleet of the Medeno and Yanin is mainly dominant, and their six-pounder and twelve-pounder guns are already the most terrifying existence in this time and space. The maximum firing distance of a six-pounder gun was 500 meters, and that of a twelve-pounder gun was up to 800 meters.

However, due to the lack of muzzle stabilization ability of the guns of this time and space, although the individual ships used as launch platforms are large, they will still produce large turbulence due to the waves. Therefore, the artillery battles between the fleets of this time and space all take place within three hundred meters. Mainly due to the tedious reloading of breech guns, and if one hit misses, the time it takes to reload can completely turn the tide of battle, so the Medenor had an order not to open fire until the opponent has entered two hundred yards.

However, Zheng Zhihu clearly saw in the warning shooting that day that the ease with which the spring cannon was loaded and fired was almost outrageous, not to mention the fierceness of the ship-based machine gun's firepower was unheard of. At that time, he made up his mind to buy such a powerful weapon back.

After discussion, the Executive Committee came to the conclusion that although the Zheng family had seen the machine guns and spring cannons of the Coast Guard, it was impossible for the natives of this time and space to make these weapons - they had no way to imitate the machine guns and spring cannons, so the Ministry of Commerce also obtained the approval of the Executive Committee and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to allow the leaders of the Zheng family to go on board the ship to watch the machine guns and spring cannons and make relevant shooting demonstrations.

With the technical means of the natives of this time and space, it may be possible to create one or two delicate objects that can be passed down to the world, but there is nothing that can be done about this kind of weapon that can be mass-produced and equipped with the army. Even if they were to be copied from these weapons, they would not be able to make them, let alone that they did not have the materials to produce barrels and springs - new products that were determined to be ready for small-scale production only a year later. It can be said responsibly that without the support of the industrial system of the Senate, these machine guns and spring guns could not last for half a month and could only be turned into scrap products.

However, Zheng Zhihu did not know this, he only knew that the armament of these Chinese in front of him was simply the strongest weapon in history, so he asked Xu Wei to return to Fujian first with a few fully loaded cargo ships, and he stayed in Dongfang Port with his own three ships of sailors, and he insisted on buying these "medium * reserves".

On the 17th, Zheng Zhihu was invited to lead three captains to board the Chunxiao to watch the shooting demonstration of spring cannons and machine guns.

From the moment he boarded the ship, Zheng Zhihu began to feel very awkward, because today the Chunxiao did not have a cruising mission, but only anchored in the harbor to rest, and some of the sailors returned to the naval base on the shore, and there were only more than 20 sailors on board. The moment they got on the boat, they couldn't help but be stunned on the spot. On deck there were six sailors kneeling on the deck in the bow direction of the ship, rubbing the polished stone in their hands with the polished stones of the grinding wheels in their hands, and behind them were six sailors who were carefully scrubbing the plank with rags in their hands.

The only thought in the hearts of Zheng Zhihu and the two captains was - this is too clean, right? Looking around, the Chunxiao was not much different from their own Fu ship in appearance, the same length, the same mast, the difference was that it was equipped with a spring cannon and a machine gun, and the other thing was that the mast was not hung with a hard sail, but a soft sail like the Medeno sea ship.

Zheng Zhihu was stunned, this kind of soft sail is so good? Before he could figure it out, he saw two people in white uniforms coming out of the cabin, and the person walking in front was eight feet tall, with a strong body, half a head taller than Zheng Zhihu, with a round face and a smile on his face. However, Zheng Zhihu's gaze was quickly attracted by the person behind him, "Isn't this Brother Zhong Bin Zhong?" ”

It was the captain of the Chunxiao Yang Junbo and the deputy captain Zhong Bin who came out, hearing Zheng Zhihu greeting, Zhong Bin couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed on his face, he was also a member of the Eighteen Zhi in his early years, and later rebelled with Li Kuiqi, and then rebelled from Li Kuiqi's department, and then fought a big battle at sea with Liu Xiang, who also belonged to the Eighteen Zhi, and then defeated Annan. Zheng Zhihu knew the beginning, but he didn't expect to see Zhong Bin on this Chinese's soft sail boat.

"Oh, it turned out to be the second master of the python, I haven't seen you for a long time, have you ever been well?" Zhong Bin hurriedly clenched his fists. But when he saw Yang Junbo in front of him saluting the army, he hurriedly changed his fist clenching action to a salute action.

"Oh?" Yang Junbo couldn't help laughing, "It turns out that they are all old acquaintances, so it's easy to talk." As he spoke, he turned to face Zhong Bin and ordered: "Comrade Zhong Bin, then you will preside over the reception this time." ”

Zhong Bin was stunned for a moment, but immediately reacted and hurriedly saluted. Yang Junbo returned the gift in a chic manner and stood behind Zhong Bin, leaving Zheng Zhihu and his party who were still stunned.

Zheng Zhihu was accompanied by several veterans of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade and Gu Qingqian, the head of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade, in addition to the three captains of the Zheng family's fleet. However, the elders of the Ministry of Commerce and Trade did not speak, since this matter was handed over to Zhong Bin by the navy, it should be handed over to Zhong Bin to be responsible.

Zhong Bin walked over very simply and saluted Zheng Zhihu, where has Zheng Zhihu seen Zhong Bin doing this? couldn't help but be stunned, and unconsciously took a step back. "Senate Navy Second Lieutenant Zhong Bin welcomes everyone to board the ship."

Saying that, Zhong Bin turned to the sailors who were cleaning the deck and shouted, "Clean the deck and ring the bell." ”

The sailors stood up like springs, sorted their things, poured the water from the buckets into the sea, and two of them carried them into the cabin. The star consul was on the tail tower and rang the bell with great force.

Immediately, I heard a sharp and rhythmic whistle in the naval base in the distance, and I could see the sailors in white sailor uniforms running out of the barracks of the base, lining up on the playground in the base, then counting the number of people, and then starting to run to the dock under the leadership of the non-commissioned officer.

When they arrived at the dock, the soldiers stopped, and their neat steps suddenly became messy, and they ran along the wooden trestle to the Chunxiao.

"Sure enough, it's still a rabble, and it was neat at the beginning, but it was a mess when it came to the trestle." Zheng Zhihu couldn't help but muttered quietly, and the three captains on the side nodded in agreement.

The veterans of the Ministry of Commerce just laughed lightly, no one expressed their opinions, and even Yang Junbo chuckled and went upstairs.

Zhong Bin stabbed Zheng Zhihu with his finger, "Second Master Python, the pace of boarding the bridge cannot be uniform, otherwise something will inevitably happen." ”

Zheng Zhihu couldn't help but be stunned, "How can you say this?" He didn't know that this was actually completely excusable, that it was the mid-nineteenth century that humans understood that resonance was harmful to bridges, and how could these natives who didn't even know that the earth was round know about the dangers of resonance?

Zhong Bin whispered a few words to him, which made Zheng Zhihu's eyes widen and wider, in fact, Zhong Bin also knew nothing. Although he has been receiving cultural education since he was captured, he is in his thirties after all, and the speed of receiving knowledge is still not high, but with the level of universal knowledge and education he has learned from the cultural crash course now based on the physical knowledge of the old time and space, he has been able to sweep the vast majority of the natives of this time and space.

Zheng Zhihu listened to Zhong Bin's superficial explanation of resonance, and naturally he would not believe it all, but in his hometown Anping, there was a stone bridge that collapsed inexplicably, and drowned more than a dozen children jumping on it together. According to Zhong Bin, could it be the accident caused by the children jumping on it at the same pace? Isn't that ridiculous?

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