Just when Ashikaga Kazuki left Japan smoothly with the envoys of the Wakoku shogunate and rushed to Shuangyu Port by boat, Zhouzhong's side was also full of joy, because the European craftsmen he had hired at great expense had finally made achievements.

First of all, the artillery workshop was the first to come out of the good news, it turned out that some problems of the artillery have been improved, and now it can be fired normally, Zhou Zhong also rushed over to take a look, and it turned out that the firing range of the Franc machine gun is about one to three miles, this is mainly because with the current level of technology, the rear gun can not be completely sealed, there is always a leak, so the range is shorter than the front gun.

However, Zhou Zhong didn't care about this, originally the Franc cannon he mainly wanted to use on sea ships, in the bumpy environment of the sea, and there is no scientific aiming system and radar, the artillery can only be hit when it is close, so the range of the artillery is not too meaningful, but the Franc machine can shoot three shells in 20 seconds, which is simply taken advantage of in naval battles.

Artillery was a project that Priest Nader began to preside over, and it began before the arrival of European craftsmen, so it is not surprising that the first to make achievements was made, but the second to make achievements was not the shipbuilding industry, which Zhou Zhong paid the most attention to, but the glass workshop led by two European craftsmen.

Speaking of the various European craftsmen that Father John recruited, many of them had a very similar experience to Priest Nader, they had worked in many factories, and they knew a lot of miscellaneous techniques, two of them had burned glass in Europe, and many people knew this kind of technique in Europe and Central Asia, and it was not a secret technique.

At the request of these two glass craftsmen. Zhou Zhong quickly built a glass workshop. And I found all the materials I needed. As a result, the two craftsmen quickly burned good glass products, just because the iron content in the raw materials is relatively high, resulting in some green glass, but this is not a big problem, Zhou Zhong later generations have also read some information about glass in the book, so he suggested that the two craftsmen use quartz as the main raw material, and then add a small amount of lead when firing, and the result is the most primitive lead glass. It is brighter and more transparent than ordinary glass.

With this primitive lead glass, Zhou Zhong let people grind out the concave and convex mirror, and then the telescope was also made, the reason why he was in such a hurry was because Zhou Zhong had included the telescope in the gift list to Zhengde, Zhengde is fun and likes the military, it just happens that the telescope is fun and has great military use, I believe he will like it very much.

In addition, after having glass, Zhou Zhong has been studying how to make mirrors, although glass mirrors in Europe have appeared. But it has always been in the hands of the Venetians, and it is a mirror the size of a book. In Europe, it can be sold for hundreds of thousands of gold francs, which is simply a huge profit, which cannot even be compared with the speed of smuggling in mirrors.

Speaking of mirrors, Zhou Chong's first thought was the mirror reaction he learned in chemistry class when he was in school, but unfortunately he had neither silver nitrate nor glucose in his hands.

Fortunately, Zhou Zhong still remembers another method, which is to first apply molten tin to the glass, and then smear mercury and let it stand, and after a period of time, the mercury and tin form an alloy that is not easy to fall off the glass. However, because mercury is poisonous, there is a certain risk of making mirrors in this way, and even mercury poisoning may occur over time.

But now Zhou Zhong can't care so much about giving gifts to Zhengde, so he taught the method to the two European craftsmen, let them study it first, and ask themselves if they have any questions. As for himself, he would never touch mercury, after all, he and Jinxuan were going to have children in the future, and if he came into contact with mercury, it was likely to cause the child to be deformed, and he didn't dare to take this risk.

Binoculars and glass mirrors, as well as the corn and sweet potatoes that Zhou Chong prepared before, and then added some more ordinary gifts, but in Zhou Chong's opinion, it was still a little thin, and after thinking about it, he simply took out some of the chili sauce made of chili peppers this year, and then packed it in glass bottles, and then packaged it in silk and nanmu boxes, making the chili sauce look very high-end, so that the gift is one more.

In addition to the above gifts, Zhou Zhong also has a heavyweight gift, this gift is the newly developed Franco machine gun. Originally, because there was a problem with the development of the Franc machine artillery, Zhou Zhong didn't dare to guarantee how many of these cannons could be made when he left, but he didn't expect that Priest Nader would solve the problem so quickly, and when he left, he would definitely be able to cast better, so Zhou Zhong thought about it for a while, and simply gave this new type of artillery as a gift.

Although the Fran machine artillery is not satisfactory in the firing range, but its rate of fire is a must, if it can be equipped in the army of the Ming Dynasty, especially in the border army in the north, then it can undoubtedly greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the border army, which can certainly occupy a lot of advantages in the fight against the Tatar and Tile Thorn armies that go south from time to time.

It can be said that in order to leave a good impression on Emperor Zhengde who met for the first time, Zhou Zhong tried his best to make a good impression on the gifts, although Wu Shan and Ma Liang have been persuading him not to care too much about these gifts, as long as he can go to the capital, His Majesty the Emperor will be very happy, but Zhou Chong doesn't dare to believe in the character of Emperor Zhengde, this guy is notoriously out of tune, in case he doesn't do anything in place and makes the other party disgusted, it will be too unworthy, so he would rather be careful now.

This morning, Zhou Zhong went to the shipyard to hold a launching ceremony for a newly built Fu ship, which was one of the few Fu ships he had seen in the shipyard that was about to be completed, this was the first ship in the batch of Fu ships to be completed, and the other Fu ships were about to be completed.

This batch of ships is the largest ship built by the shipyard so far, each ship is about 15 zhang, half the size of the previous cargo ships of about 10 zhang, and some places have been improved by Zhou Zhong and craftsmen, making these ships not only safer, but also faster, Zhou Zhong intends to use this kind of ship as one of the main ships of the Chamber of Commerce in the future.

It is also worth mentioning that Chilawa's design for the new ship has also been completed, and when the Fufu ship in the dockyard is completed, the construction of the new ship he designed will begin immediately. Although the new ship is based on the Clark ship, it combines many shipbuilding techniques in the Central Plains, coupled with some improvement suggestions put forward by Zhou Chong, so that this new type of Clark ship is faster and more stable than the old Clark ship, and the operation is also much simpler, and multiple guns can be placed on both sides of the hull, which can be said to be very similar to the sail battleships of later generations.

As the designer of this new type of ship, Chilawa naturally has the right to name it, he thought about it for a few days, and then discussed it with his wife and daughter, and finally decided to take out the most syllabic syllables of his and his wife Helen's name, and combine them into the name of this new ship, which translates to the Valen ship, which sounds somewhat similar to the Galen ship of later generations, but Zhou Zhong believes that this kind of ship is better than the Galen ship.

After the first Daifuku ship was launched, Zhou Zhong named the ship "Nanyang", when he went out in the future, the Nanyang will be his specific ship, and during this time the Nanyang will step up the time for sea trials, and when he goes to the capital, he will take the Nanyang to the capital by sea.

After the Nanyang was launched, the vacated dock was immediately drained, and then prepared to lay the keel of the Valenship, but this was not an easy task, and it would take at least a few days to prepare, plus Chilawa and the others had been busy directing the craftsmen to work, so he had nothing to do, so he didn't have lunch at the shipyard and came back.

When Zhou Chong came home, he happened to see Jinxuan, Bang'er and Bai Mengwan three daughters entertaining Miss Sila, in fact, it is not a hospitality, since the last time Sila came to visit, she and Jinxuan three daughters have become good sisters, as long as she has time, she will come to them, and stay for a day, lunch is also eaten at home, sometimes Zhou Chong feels like he has another person in his home.

"Sila, what did you learn from Jinxuan today?" Zhou Zhong looked at the far-looking Siela who used the chopsticks and asked with a smile, Siela has always admired the culture of the Central Plains, and she also wants to be a real Central Plains woman, so she has been learning the skills of Central Plains women from Jinxuan and them during this time, such as female workers and the like, last time she stabbed her ten fingers in order to learn embroidery.

Siela has long been accustomed to eating here, so she didn't have any special indication of Zhou Chong's arrival, I saw her stretch out her chopsticks and take a piece of favorite tofu into her mouth, and said while eating: "Today I learned to cook from Bang'er, and I also began to learn to read and write, I believe that it won't be long before I can understand the content of the book!" ”

"Literacy? It's a tough task, and you have to be prepared to endure hardships. Zhou Chong was also a little surprised when he heard this, but he was not optimistic about Sila's preparation for literacy, Da Ming still used traditional Chinese characters that were more difficult to write, not only had many strokes, but also some of the glyphs were very similar, and he might admit his mistake if he was not careful.

"By the way, which of these dishes did you make, how about I taste it?" Zhou Zhong also washed his hands and sat down at this time, and then smiled at Sila, but as soon as his words came out, the three girls next to him all laughed out loud, and Ciela also showed an embarrassed expression on her face.

"What's the matter, you can't have burned my kitchen, right?" Zhou Zhong looked at the expressions of several people, and joked at the moment, but as soon as his words came out, Jinxuan and their faces showed a little strange look. (To be continued......)

PS: The body has really deteriorated, a common cold has dragged on for a month, it is useless to take medicine, it was serious last night, it was fever and diarrhea, the whole body is sore, alas, everyone should also take care of their bodies, and they must strengthen their exercise after this illness.