It's really no wonder that Zheng Chenggong's mind can't turn around, although he learned that there are many countries in Europe from the mouths of businessmen who returned from the ocean before. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

But in Zheng Chenggong's view, there are not too many countries with huge fleets in any region, for example, in Asia, in addition to the Daming Naval Division, what can other national naval divisions be counted as?

The fleet of the Japanese State is basically a remodeled fishing boat, at most it is a group of poorly equipped pirates, and the turtle fleet of North Korean Li Bingzhang may have two hits, but it can only run rampant on inland rivers, and even a detachment of the Daming Naval Division cannot compare.

However, in this European region, Zheng Chenggong's thinking has been completely subverted.

Not to mention the Portuguese and Spaniards, these two are old naval powers, and the Dutch now colonize all over the Asian and African continents, and even a few years ago, they occupied the Ming Dynasty's Taiwan.

As for the rising star of the British Navy, it is now also beginning to call out the Dutch, and as the current situation continues, the British Navy has a tendency to replace the Dutch Navy..........

In Europe, the territory of most countries is not even as large as that of a province in Daming, but in such a small place, there are four known naval powers.

Not only that, but now that a naval power has emerged, are these countries not interested in the territory of their neighbors, but want to invest their limited military funds in the construction of naval warships?

Could it be that there are really countless treasures on this sea?

In fact, Zheng Chenggong really wants to be crooked, the current state of European countries is a bit like the rise of the heroes in the Warring States Period of China, basically no one can help anyone, and even between countries, there is a special relationship, the cousin of the monarch of this country may be the king of another country, and the two sides basically have no deep hatred, even if it is a war, there is rarely a war to destroy the country.

Moreover, the territory of European countries is not large, and sometimes a country with tens of thousands of dead and wounded is not even as large as the territory occupied by a single warship to colonize Africa or the Americas.

If there is a lot of territory and resources outside, why should European countries fight for life and death on their own soil?

In fact, since the launch of overseas colonial plunder, almost all the major wars that have broken out in Europe have been closely related to the plundering of colonies.

For example, in this Anglo-Dutch war, regardless of the huge scale, but the British who won in the end did not occupy an inch of the Dutch territory, but only took most of Africa, which belonged to the Dutch colony.

As the opposing fleet approached, the Dutch envoys aboard the ironclad ship General Xuanwei quickly recognized the country to which the fleet belonged, the Bourbon Imperial Navy.

The Bourbon Empire, also known as the French Empire, was the name given to King Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715) of France.

Louis XIV, known as the "Sun King" (Roi Soleil), was one of the greatest monarchs in French history.

He reigned for a total of 72 years (1643-1715), making him one of the longest-serving monarchs in the world.

It is also a typical example of European absolute monarchy, believing that the monarchy is divinely bestowed, and "I am the state".

That's right, the idiom "I am the country" is based on the classic quotations of Louis XIV.

Today's European countries are actually in a similar situation to the Ming Dynasty, which has only recently ended a 30-year-long war between countries.

At that time, the disagreement between the Protestant and Catholic countries, and the uneven division of overseas colonies, led to a full-scale European war.

The British were isolated from the sea, thus avoiding being drawn into the war.

Most of the Dutch colonies were in the Far East, and other countries did not have nautical charts and could not get by, so the Dutch also avoided the war.

It was not until 1648 that the Habsburg royal family and the princely states of France, Sweden, and Brandenburg, Saxony, and Bavaria in the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted for thirty years of brutal war, finally had to sign the Peace of Westphalia.

The contract was signed and the war subsided, but the country's poor economic situation had to be mitigated as soon as possible.

In the end, the choices of these countries are almost exactly the same as those of the Ming Dynasty led by Li Hongfei......... Through colonial plunder, the domestic economy was quickly restored.

After all, the purpose of their war was to carve up their overseas colonies.

Although the European war was fought fiercely, the naval losses of various countries were not large, and the two major countries that did not participate in the war, Britain and the Netherlands, broke out in a large-scale naval war, so the navies of European countries began to take advantage of the opportunity to rise.

As the French Empire, which shared the English Channel with Britain (it was later replaced by France), naturally also embarked on the road of maritime colonization.

"The French? It's kind of interesting, I think, our fleet, there is a port to settle down. Zheng Chenggong had an idea in his heart.

Since neither the UK nor the Netherlands are the best options, why not choose a third country?

France had only ended the war not long ago, and its national defense was very weak, and Zheng Chenggong's fleet was the safest when it was anchored in France.

After all, as long as they dare to fight the idea of steam warships, not to mention the Daming Navy, even the British and Dutch will not agree.

The British and Dutch envoys racked their brains to persuade the Nanyang sailors to go to their own country, but the French only noticed that a large-scale naval battle had broken out here, and came to fight soy sauce, but in the end they picked up a big bargain for nothing............

You must know that the steam warship of the Ming Dynasty Navy Division was famous.

Zheng Chenggong's choice to repair warships in shipyards in Europe is the same as the later generations of aircraft carriers of the United States, which were driven into Huaxia shipyards for maintenance.

This is a great opportunity to learn about the construction of a steam battleship.

So when Zheng Chenggong mentioned this matter to the French admiral who came to cruise, the other party almost didn't think about it, so he agreed and promised that he would mobilize the most famous craftsmen in the whole of France to help the Ming Navy repair the warship.

It is not known whether the French mobilized shipbuilders or scientific researchers.

Fortunately, Zheng Chenggong was not stupid, he proposed to repair only the deck of the battleship and the damaged sails, as for the steam power system, it would be repaired and maintained by the accompanying engineers, and the French would provide the necessary materials.

Steam power system, the Europeans would not have made it, let them glance at it from a distance is already a great gift, how can they be qualified to participate in the repair?

Following Zheng Chenggong's order, the Nanyang Naval Division escorted John Powell and nearly 400 naval officers under his command to the French naval port of Onfleur under the leadership of the French naval fleet.

The British envoy Joseph Holaff and his entourage returned to London with the defeated fleet that had lost all its captains, and the Ming envoy incident must be resolved as soon as possible, otherwise the Dutch will have the upper hand and the British Empire will be completely powerless.

As for the remaining Dutch envoys, although they also wanted to return to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as soon as possible at this moment, they could only do it in a hurry.

It is not difficult to see from the naval battle that the British have completely controlled the English Channel, and without the escort of the Ming Dynasty navy, the Dutch will not be able to return to their country by sea.

The only way to do this now is to start from France, pass through Belgium, and eventually reach the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Although the journey was long, the good news was that France and Belgium were now friendly with the Dutch, and they could return to their home country in five days at most.

............

The visit of the Ming Navy to France made the coastal port city of Honfleur quickly boil.

Especially after the General Xuanwei, which did not need to use sails (the sails were broken) and whose speed far exceeded that of the French Navy, sailed into the military port, the French people once again had a new understanding of the mysterious ancient oriental country.

Marco Polo's travels once wrote: The ancient country of the distant East is full of gold.

Now, Zheng Chenggong led the fleet to France, so that France, and even all Europeans, understand that the ancient country of the East is not only full of gold, but also has powerful warships, that completely made of steel, and the current battleship artillery of the entire Europe cannot break the opponent's defense, which is simply invincible.

Not only steel warships, but even those wooden steam warships can easily crush the navies of European countries with a pair of tens.

In the eyes of the French, the distant and mysterious ancient country of the East is definitely a powerful and wealthy country.

Even the French Prime Minister Mazarin (Louis XIV is still not in power), after learning the news, personally ordered to gather the shipbuilders of the whole country to go to the port of Honfleur to help friends from the East repair the warship.

With the current level of shipbuilding in European countries, repairing the deck and mast is not too difficult to do, and the only thing that is difficult, in addition to the steam power system, is to repair the depression of the General Xuanwei.

The ironclad ship General Xuanwei uses riveting technology, and it is difficult for the whole of Europe to build a machine for producing rivets, but fortunately, although the battleship is full of potholes, the overall protection capacity has not decreased much.

Therefore, after discussing with the accompanying technicians, Zheng Chenggong decided to repair only the mast of the General Xuanwei, and the bullet holes and dents on the battleship would be repaired after returning to the Baoshan Shipyard.

And the steam warship, which lost power, was only sealed and reinforced with a simple hull to ensure that it could sail to the sea.

After dismantling the ship's guns (and adding them to ships with damaged guns), the sail-powered ship had a top speed of only five knots.

It seems that on the way back, we can only rely on tugboats to help.

It took about a month to repair and maintain all the steam warships, and on the third day after Zheng Chenggong and others arrived at the port of Honfleur, the British envoy Joseph Holaff, with British Prime Minister Cromwell, personally arrived at the port of Honfleur and called on Zuo Hongyu and his party from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Ming Dynasty.

At the same time, French Prime Minister Mazarin also visited in person.

As for the Dutch.......... The geographical location is not advantageous!

After a while of greetings, the three parties went straight to the point.

"Mr. Zuo, I am very sorry for the conflict that occurred three days ago. Due to an intelligence error, Admiral John Powell mistook you for a Dutch support fleet, and this is what happened unpleasantly. I would like to order the intelligence services to reflect and ensure that this will not happen again in the future. "The first to speak was British Prime Minister Cromwell.

Worthy of a politician, he directly turned a large-scale naval battle between the two sides into a skirmish.

After all, as long as this incident is characterized as a conflict, it will not be so troublesome to resolve.

"It doesn't matter what the reason is, what matters is that our Daming Naval Division has lost a steam warship and hundreds of soldiers have been killed or wounded. You're not going to just use a conflict and try to expose it. Zuo Hongyu is neither humble nor arrogant.

He wasn't worried about the British at all, after all, Zheng Chenggong still had nearly 400 British naval officers and sailors in his hands.

"Since it is our fault, it is natural to make compensation, and we will pay half a million pounds sterling (about fifty thousand taels of silver) as compensation for your army." Cromwell said.

Cromwell spoke only of reparations, not war reparations.

"Half a million pounds? This is the sincerity of your country? Zuo Hongyu's face was ugly, if he hadn't been negotiating, he would have gone crazy on the spot.

Fifty thousand taels of silver is just enough to compensate for a little shell money.

"This........ We can discuss it again, but please understand that our losses in this conflict are even greater, and that we are now at war with the Dutch, and that our treasury is empty, so we really cannot afford to compensate for it. Cromwell cried as soon as he opened his mouth.

To be honest, according to what he meant, he didn't bother to pay attention to this group of Eastern robbers at all, at most he would suffer this dumb loss, and he wouldn't be looking for the other party's bad luck.

After all, the two countries are thousands of miles apart, no matter how powerful the Ming Dynasty's naval division is, can it still carry out landing operations against the British Empire?

If it weren't for the fact that Britain had reached a critical period of war with the Dutch and didn't want things to go wrong, Cromwell wouldn't have come in person.

Of course, the temptation of the steam battleship was also one of the reasons that prompted Cromwell to compromise.

"Humph! Your country is at war with the Dutch, so what does it have to do with us? Do you want me to lend you money to fight? Zuo Hongyu didn't buy it.

Now it is to take advantage of the fact that the British are being dragged by the Dutch, so as to make a big splash, how can Zuo Hongyu let go of this kind of good opportunity?

Besides, a country that can build so many large warships can only come up with a mere 50,000 taels of silver, and the ghost will believe you.

Although warships in Europe were generally relatively cheap to build (mainly for labor, and some shipyards even used African slaves for free), a third-class sail battleship would cost no less than 80,000 pounds (about 8,000 taels of silver).

There are nearly 1,000 warships of all sizes in the British Navy, and the value will definitely not be less than 150 million pounds, although they are not saved in one year or two, but they will not be as little as 500,000 pounds, and they will die!

Moreover, when Joseph Horaff went to Daming before, he also opened his mouth and wanted to win the purchase share of fifty steam warships, which was a super order of 100 million pounds.

Now Cromwell says that the treasury has no money, who will believe it?

If there is no money, then the next steam battleship business, don't talk about it.

"A million pounds, no more." Cromwell said with a look of pain.

"A steam battleship, the cost is about 1.8 million pounds, and now because of your intelligence mistakes, we have lost a steam battleship, the power system has been destroyed, and this steam battleship is equivalent to being completely scrapped. Even if the guns on the ship were still usable, the losses were around 1.5 million pounds, plus the minor damage of the remaining battleships, and the pensions of nearly a hundred soldiers............ These add up, less than two million pounds (two hundred thousand taels of silver), and we won't talk about it. Zuo Hongyu gave the final bottom line.

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