In the blink of an eye, we have entered the tenth year of the Apocalypse, if we count according to the Western calendar, that is, 1630 AD, but according to the current situation, there still seems to be no sign of chaos. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

And a small happy event happened, that is, the queen Zhang Yan is also pregnant, although as His Majesty the emperor, Zhu Youxiao already has a prince and proves that he is not in good health, but the queen's pregnancy also shows that the queen Zhang Yan still has the ability to be a mother.

This also indicates that there will still be an eldest son in the future, although Zhu Youxiao doesn't care about this, but for officials who abide by Confucian etiquette, it is indeed a happy event on the cake.

But Zhu Youxiao didn't have time to see Empress Zhang Yan, who had been in the Ming Ship Administration Bureau for almost a month now, in order to develop the first wooden steam-powered warship of the Ming Dynasty with Mao Yuanyi.

According to the sketch plan, the first steam-powered warship of the Ming Dynasty was not small, and in order for him to have enough power, it was necessary to have large enough cylinders and boilers. As a result, the whole warship reached 30 tons and was 70 feet long, but the absolute part was the main body of the twin horizontal steam engine composed of boilers and cylinders, and it was mainly placed at the front end of the bottom of the warship, and a large amount of coal was stored at the rear end. And above it was a double-decker side casemate, and on the deck there was also a large-caliber gun, the firepower of which was no smaller than that of the Fuship.

The power was much faster, about eleven knots in modern terms. In short, if it is wrapped in armor, it is indeed worthy of the most advanced warships in the world today and even in the world, and even surpasses the soft sail ships of the Western Ocean, after all, the power relied on is different.

However, the construction of steam-powered warships does not mean that they can be immediately applied to the Praetorian Navy.

This kind of thing that is beyond the times is not something that traditional boatmen can control, and even what a propeller is and how to operate it needs to be taught step by step, so that these people can become familiar with it little by little.

Zhu Youxiao is a highly educated origin, and can also understand English literature, of course, even if it is Chinese literature, many places also need Zhu Youxiao to translate.

Many times, it was Zhu Youxiao who studied it first, figured it out and then explained it to Mao Yuanyi, and then Mao Yuanyi found a way to overcome a problem after understanding the principle.

Eventually, Mao Yuanyi designed a set of near-modern power conversion devices and speed control devices for converting water vapor into mechanical energy, and established the basic operation methods of how to start a warship.

But this is also the result of many experiments on his own, so it takes a lot of time.

And now, he still has to personally teach naval reserve talents such as Gu San Mazi who have received theoretical basic training in the Royal Military Academy and the Daming Ocean Academy.

It took several months for a warship to finally be able to operate in the coastal area of the Bohai Sea outside Jinmen, and it was only then that Zhu Youxiao named him "Zheng He".

The name Zheng He was naturally chosen to commemorate Zheng He, who once preached the majesty of the Ming Sea, there is no doubt about it.

However, Zheng He is now not used for combat or even combat training, or even for piloting training for the cadets, and Gu Sanmazi and other naval officers will definitely command naval battles in the future, rather than come to sail ships, so they have to step up the training of a group of technical naval officers and men who are full-time sailors.

Gu San Mazi and other first batch of trainees who learned to operate steam-powered ships soon became instructors of the Daming Ocean Academy, and began to train their respective technical naval officers and soldiers.

In this way, after more than half a year, the North Sea Fleet, with the first steam-powered warship as the main component, was officially established.

Originally, Zhu Youxiao planned to use the East China Sea Fleet as the main fleet of the naval system first, otherwise he would not have established the Daming Ocean Academy in Nanjing, and the Nanjing Navy with a naval foundation was also in the southeast.

But now the imperial court is starting to negotiate with Zheng Zhilong's Zhao'an, in order not to make Zheng Zhilong alert, Zhu Youxiao listened to Yang Sichang's suggestion to first establish a major naval force in the Bohai Sea that his imperial court can control, and then extend the Yellow Sea, and finally can threaten the Houjin, and can also control the East China Sea in the south.

Moreover, there are also Liaodong Peninsula and Denglai Peninsula to protect the navy from being attacked by Zheng Zhilong or other large pirates in the early stage because of its fledgling.

The only flaw is that the north has no strategic value other than to strengthen its control over North Korea.

The fundamental purpose of Zhu Youxiao's establishment of the navy was to break the elevation of Zheng Zhilong and other pirates to the Ming Dynasty, and then break the increasingly strong control of the Western colonizers over the South Seas, and sell a large number of products of the Royal Weaving Bureau and the Royal Industrial Company to gain more wealth accumulation.

In this era of primitive capital accumulation, Zhu Youxiao, as the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, could not make a fortune only by relying on domestic demand, after all, the old interest groups were defeated, and new interest groups would be born.

In a closed social space, affected by the speed of development of the productive forces, wealth will be at a constant value for a certain period of time, and if we want to obtain a large amount of wealth resources in a short period of time, and then let all strata in the country enjoy the benefits, so as to alleviate the contradictions, we can only rely on external plunder.

However, now that the main naval power is established in the North Sea, it means that the Ming Dynasty will not immediately participate in the competition for maritime interests in the South Sea.

In this way, Zhu Youxiao's small actions in the Beihai area did not make Zheng Zhilong and Li Kuiqi and other pirates realize the seriousness of this problem, and under the temptation of Zhu Youxiao's high-ranking officials, they naturally thought that the Ming Dynasty was just preparing for the future attack on the Manchu Dynasty.

Because Xiong Wencan, the governor of Liangguang who was in charge of Zhao'an, said this to Zheng Zhilong, Zheng Zhilong was also convinced.

This can't help but blame Zheng Zhilong for being stupid, he is not good in politics, and he is not even as good as his son Zheng Chenggong.

In the original history, Zheng Zhilong first attached himself to the imperial court because he was deeply influenced by the traditional idea of returning to the roots, and later controlled the Longwu regime, but he surrendered to the Manchu Qing because he protected his own interests, but ended up with a tragic ending.

If he had relied on his naval superiority as firmly as his son Zheng Chenggong, he might have been able to start and finish well, and perhaps he would have been able to establish a nation overseas, but it is not known.

More than 20,000 people of the Fifth Army, plus Gu Sanmazi's original headquarters, plus slightly better officers and soldiers drawn from other southern armies, especially the naval forces along the Yangtze River, jointly disrupted the mixed Praetorian Guard Navy with a total of about 30,000 people, and temporarily formed the North Sea Fleet.

Qin Botong became the chief officer of the North Sea Fleet and the commander of the First Fleet, while Gu Sanmazi was the commander of the Second Fleet of the North Sea, and Li Rusi, who was also a subordinate of Yuan Keli and had studied in the Royal Military Academy like Gu Sanmazi, was the commander of the Third Fleet in the North Sea.

Zheng He, as the flagship of the North Sea Fleet, was personally commanded by Qin Botong.

While the North Sea Fleet was training and expanding in the Bohai Sea, the Royal Weaving Bureau ran into a troublesome matter.

It turned out that Zheng Zhilong, while negotiating with Xiong Wencan, the governor of Liangguang, was engaged in Zhao'an, but on the other hand, he reduced the export volume of goods from the Royal Weaving Bureau, and even lowered the price of the Royal Weaving Bureau on the grounds of recent maritime insecurity.

After hearing this, Zhu Youxiao simply asked the First Fleet of the North Sea, which had been training for three months, to go south immediately on the grounds of the enthronement ceremony of the King of the Ryukyus, and the First Fleet of the North Sea was responsible for transporting congratulatory gifts to the Ryukyu Kingdom.