As a person who has built boats all his life, Wen Lao Er quickly figured out the difference between those sand boats, Guangzhou ships, Fu ships and Jinhewan ship types, in addition to performance, the biggest difference is the cost! A simplified version of the salmon-class cargo ship built by the Zhenzhou Shipyard is more than twice as many as the Fu ship and the Guangzhou ship of the same displacement, and it is estimated that it will cost three or four sand ships to replace it, and it will have to use large materials. Without the support of the main keel splicing technology, if you want to build as many ships as you want, you have to find as many trees as you want, and just getting these pieces of wood will have to break the trouser belts of the Mongol Empire. Although there is no shortage of hundred-year-old pine trees in Liaodong and Goryeo, cutting, transportation, and processing all require manpower, and even if all slaves are used, they have to be fed and drunk. Jinhewan currently doesn't have such a high capacity, so how many people have to be mobilized.

No matter how powerful an ancient country is, the labor force is numerous, no one mines and no one cultivates the land when it is shipbuilding, and the project that involves too much often makes the country unable to slow down for many years, regardless of whether the project is beneficial to the country and the people, once the cost is too large, it will become the result of disaster for the country and the people.

If the Mongol Empire was really crippled by the flood and desperately wanted to develop a large navy, it would not be far from disaster to the country and the people. To build such a big project when production has not yet resumed in the newly occupied area, you don't need to look at it, you can think of it, and how many people will have to be mobilized. There were already no people in the Central Plains who had been fighting for many years, and these people all had to come out of the north where the Mongol Empire had stabilized, and the impact on it was very deep.

If the southern invasion was successful, then the Mongol Empire would be able to obtain sufficient compensation from the Southern Song Dynasty, and the property, land, and population of the Southern Song Dynasty would make the Mongol Empire comfortable for several years. But if the southern invasion is not successful, then the Mongol Empire will be in big trouble. When a country's treasury is emptied to go to war, but it has not yet been won, you can imagine what the result will be. Not to mention whether there is a war or not, the economic recession and agricultural recession alone can kill the country.

But can the Mongol Empire's half-life gamble win? Everyone in the room thought it was unlikely. After the continuous development and transformation of Hong Tao's warships over the years, everyone knows very well what kind of combat effectiveness they are now. A fully manned Shark-class battleship can single-handedly take on at least five armed cargo ships converted into Salmon-class, and it has to be a full-fledged version of the Salmon-class built by the Golden River Bay Shipyard. Five Shark-class ships put together. The combat effectiveness has to be doubled, and it is not something that twenty-five armed cargo ships can withstand. This premise is that if the armed cargo ship is equipped with the same naval guns as the Jiao Shark class, if there are no naval guns of the same level, these five Jiao Shark-class battleships are probably five wolves into the flock. No matter how big the flock is, it's useless, the only thing you can do is to use your flesh and blood to tire the wolf so much that you can't bite it, but if you want to hurt the wolf, it's basically impossible.

"You've played poker before, right? If you want others to bet with you, you can't let him know that you have a leopard with three aces in your hand, and who is still betting if you know? And that's just one aspect. If you can get the opponent to have three kings in his hand, is it more likely that he will bet? I'm afraid I'll stake all my belongings, right? I asked Cixi to deliberately leak some of the shipbuilding drawings, just to increase the confidence of the other party, so that they thought that they had three Ks in their hands and dared to bet. Not only do you have to bet, but you also have to bet heavily on bankruptcy! We don't have the energy to spend a long time with the Mongol Empire, and we have more important things to do after solving it, and there are still many places in this world that we haven't been to. So it's best to be able to decide the winner with one hand. Our warships, artillery, and crews are three A's. These things are not clear to the Mongol Empire, and the playing of cards pays attention to card counting. They don't know the cards and dare to go to the table, who don't pit them? Hey, hey, hey......" Seeing that Wen Lao Er understood his thoughts, Hong Tao was relaxed, and he didn't need to explain it in detail, he just needed to make an analogy. He had already made this card game on the warship, and the sailors used it to pass the leisure time on the ship. Slowly, it became popular in Jinhe Bay. His father-in-law Bo Fu is a master among the masters, and he often loses his armor to win Hong Tao.

"Sir, what if they really go to the city of the Great Song and land? Now the Song Dynasty is busy reorganizing the Xiang army into a construction corps for them to burn cement, desperately reinforcing the city walls along the river, and it is said that a horse road parallel to the Yangtze River will be built in the south of the Yangtze River. If the Mongol army suddenly came from the sea. They're afraid they'll be caught off guard. Kong Pei had a more comprehensive grasp of the war, and he thought of another possibility, that is, before the fleet of Jinhewan went to the Mongolian sailors for a decisive battle, the Mongolian sailors would make the first move.

"Lao Kong's concern does exist, so let's let Wennan say hello to the Great Song Dynasty and station our main fleet outside the port of Mingzhou, not into the Yongjiang River, just in the open sea, only in Mingzhou to replenish, and send ships to patrol along the coastline to Haizhou every day. Now is not the time to launch a general attack on the Mongol sailors, they have to wait for them to build more ships and spend about the same amount of money, and they will come out on their own without us looking for them. Hong Tao felt that more than 50 ships were far from the financial limit of the Mongol Empire, and according to historical records, the Mongol army attacked Japan with 5,000 ships and transported 200,000 people. Even if the Mongol Empire had occupied the Southern Song Dynasty back then, the ships were not good ships, so let's get a two-fold discount, how could they have the capacity of 500 to 1,000 ships. Gambling with fate often only has one chance, and showing the hole cards will scare others away early, so Hong Tao would rather be in a passive defensive state than lose this opportunity once and for all.

Under his own leadership, the ocean-going trade of the Great Song Dynasty was booming, and the taxes were more than one or two percent higher than before, and the national strength could only rise and not fall. When all the cities along the river are heightened and thickened with cement, and then a cement road is built, it will be even more difficult to attack the defense line of the Southern Song Dynasty from the land. The same is true of Jinhewan, which is now embarking on the reconstruction of the country, relying on the colonial rule of neighboring countries and the monopoly of maritime shipping, the future Jinhe Empire will usher in a second period of rapid development. In the face of the two thriving countries of the Great Song Dynasty and the Jinhe Empire, as long as the Mongol Empire could not find a target to continue plundering, it would inevitably decline slowly.

Even if they imitate the cannon, it is exactly the same level as Jinhewan, and they can't fight if they consume it. Don't look at Jinhewan's small population and small territory, in fact, it is sucking the blood of all the surrounding countries, as long as the mainland is not disturbed, the war potential is bottomless. If Hong Tao is allowed to free his hands, he can continue to weaken and squeeze the Mongol Empire from the European side, accelerating the weakening and fragmentation of this vast and loose empire. And with the existence of the freak Hong Tao in Jinhewan, fighting a war is not a matter of losing money, and it can still make money, who can win by fighting with countries that are getting richer and richer?

"I will order the fleet to prepare tomorrow, and in two days I will leave for Mingzhou." Kong Pei felt that Hong Tao was right, and he did not doubt the feasibility at all, so he immediately accepted it.

"Don't be in a hurry, let the fleet prepare first, I'll go with you and go to Mingzhou to meet Wennan. Cixi, is there any movement on the side of the Great Song Dynasty? "It's been almost a month since Hong Tao came back, and he has been busy with the restructuring of Jinhewan, and he hasn't bothered to ask about the situation in the Great Song Dynasty, let alone meet Wennan.

"The Great Song is not a good thing, and they are also quietly learning our artillery. It is said that the workshop is in Shaozhou, where there are copper mines and smelting workshops, and more than half a year ago, the mountain was suddenly sealed by the imperial court, saying that it was forbidden to steal mining, but in fact it was not like that. Some people heard loud rumbling noises in the mountains all day long, and saw smoke during the day and fire at night. Where is the mining used such a large formation, isn't this very similar to the foundry on the south bank, in addition to the forbidden army, there are many craftsmen from other places who live in the mountains. As soon as he talked about the Great Song Dynasty, Cixi began to sue again, he never thought that the Great Song Dynasty was a friendly country, and he hated all countries that damaged Jinhewan.

"Hah! It's rare that Da Song has opened his mind and knows how to arm himself...... This is a good thing, let them figure it out for themselves, as long as they don't make a copper shortage, I want to see who gets the cannon out first between the Great Song Dynasty and Mongolia, and you should also pay attention to this aspect. Hearing that the Great Song Dynasty was also developing cannons, Hong Tao laughed instead, it seems that the power of the artillery not only frightened the Mongol Empire, but also the Great Song Dynasty was scared enough. The purpose of their artillery research was probably not only to deal with the Mongols, but also to allow others to snore on the side of the couch, which is simply too penetrating.

It's just that Hong Tao is a little worried that the annual output of thousands of tons of copper in the Southern Song Dynasty is not enough to toss, and without any information, Shengsheng relies on repeated tests to get out of artillery, which consumes much more energy and financial resources than Jinhewan. Even with their own accurate guidance, Qi Zu and the others wasted four years to get the formula of the bronze alloy out, and the yield rate was less than 15% so far. If Mongolia and the Great Song Dynasty started to play with artillery, even if Hong Tao gave them the alloy formula, this poor yield alone would have to consume the vitality of the two great empires.

"Tao Yanzi...... Oh, the old man forgot, it was Premier Hong...... "A few days ago, he was still Tao, and he became the emperor in less than two months, which made the old man Bofu a little unaccustomed, no matter how unruly the Tan family was, the imperial power was still rooted in their hearts."

"Grandpa, don't change your words, how to call it Shunyo." Hong Tao is actually not used to it, and now the people of Jinhewan, who know that he is going to be the emperor, look at him differently, and he does not have the peaceful smile and cordial feeling he used to have.

(To be continued.) )