"My lord, your subordinates have already read the conscription notice, and I have to say that you are really willing to pay for it, but I bet that even if you post this notice all over the Ming Dynasty, I am afraid that there will not be many literate people willing to join the Nanyang Fleet!" In Zhou Chong's study, Jiao Fang was gnawing on chicken paws with a bad image, and said to Zhou Chong with a smile.

"For what, the military salary I gave to those literate soldiers is high enough, there are so many poets and calligraphers in the Ming Dynasty, and not everyone can get famous, as far as I know, many poets and calligraphers who can only be children all their lives live in poverty, and they can't even eat, why are they unwilling to accept this well-paid profession?" Zhou Zhong is a very puzzled question.

"Hehe, the reason for this is very simple, it's on your recruitment list!" Jiao Fang smiled very thief, and at the same time still gnawed the chicken feet in his hand with a few teeth in his mouth, this is his favorite thing to eat, especially the chicken feet made in Zhou Chong's mansion, he tasted it once last time, since then, as long as he comes to Zhou Chong, he will definitely have a plate of chicken feet to gnaw slowly.

"Recruitment list text?" Zhou Zhong was even more puzzled when he heard this, "I asked the clerk in the governor's palace to write the recruitment list, and it was all according to my will, there is nothing wrong with it?" ”

Seeing that Zhou Chong still didn't understand, he saw that Jiao Fang sighed, tore off the last piece of chicken skin on the chicken feet with oily hands, stuffed it into his mouth and chewed it and said: "Lord Governor, you want to recruit some literate people to serve in the army, and I have two kinds of literate people, the first is businessmen, they need to use words to keep accounts, and at the same time, arithmetic is also a businessman must be proficient. But now Daming business is booming. Those businessmen are making a lot of brains one by one. Naturally, it is impossible to come to the army to endure hardships. ”

When he said this, Jiao Fang paused for a moment and then said: "In addition to the merchants, the rest are real poets and scholars, their poetry and literacy are in order to gain fame, but unfortunately the road to science and education is extremely difficult, and those who can really be admitted to the Jinshi can only appear in 10,000 scholars, and most of the rest are stuck at the level of children." There is no status at all, and even some poor children, the whole family will starve with him, but don't forget, adults, no matter how down, they are also scholars, and most of them have the temperament of scholars, in their opinion, the soldiers are vulgar people, and they may be forced to join the army to make a living because of life. But he would never want to be reduced to a vulgar soldier himself! ”

"I see!" Zhou Zhong slapped his thigh when he heard this, and shouted with surprise on his face. He now finally understood why no scholar wanted to join the army. To put it bluntly, he still looks down on being a soldier, Zhou Chong wrote on the document that he was recruiting soldiers, and with the high level of those who read, he would not be willing to become a vulgar soldier no matter what, even if they were very greedy for the generous treatment given by Zhou Chong, but they still gritted their teeth one by one and refused to let go of their bodies.

After understanding the reason, it is very simple to solve this problem, for example, Zhou Zhong immediately called the documents in the governor's palace and asked people to redraw a list of recruits for the Four Seas Fleet, but this time the list no longer writes the recruitment of soldiers, but the recruitment of civilian personnel for the army, including doctors, surveyors, cartographers, and so on.

These civilian jobs do not need to fight directly, they only need to learn some knowledge required when navigating, such as simple medical skills, positioning directions, measuring sea conditions, etc., which belong to the civilian system in the fleet, and the treatment is still several times that of ordinary soldiers.

Just changed the name, and it immediately had an effect, with the posting of those lists, soon a lot of poor scholars came up to apply, most of these people are a lot old, and they have taken countless exams, but they haven't even been able to get the fame of a showman, and the family has also exhausted their money, and they follow them all day long to eat chaff vegetables, and even some people can't open the pot, so now they can have such a well-paid position, although they have to take a certain risk in the army, but in order to live a good life at home, they can only fight.

Looking at the first batch of old men recruited, Zhou Zhong couldn't help but feel very helpless, the youngest of these scholars was also in his forties, and the oldest could almost be compared with Jiao Fang. Although these people can write first-hand articles, they don't know much about arithmetic, astronomy, medicine, etc., and they still need to find someone to train them, but they have long passed the golden age of learning, and Zhou Zhong is worried that even if these people are trained, they may not be able to do their jobs in the future.

However, even if the first batch of recruits was not satisfactory, Zhou Zhong still pinched his nose and accepted these old men, because Jiao Fang told him that this was done to "buy horse bones", and only when these first batch of participants got the treatment promised on the list, more scholars would be willing to join the Nanyang Fleet in the future.

The effect of buying horse bones is really good, just after the first batch of old men were taken to Shuangyu Port by Zhou Chong, and then gathered together for training, the treatment of these old men was also quickly issued, each of them had a settlement fee of dozens of taels of silver, and at the same time there was a generous monthly remuneration, what made them even more satisfied was that they were in the military as civilians, and there was an essential difference between them and those vulgar soldiers.

These old men have lived long enough, and naturally they know more people, especially some scholars who share their illnesses and sympathize with them, and they are also their close friends, so after these people stabilized, they began to write letters to their friends, telling them about their life in Shuangyu Port, and the fact that the Nanyang Fleet still needs a large number of manpower, persuading them to come and apply, and even the governor has promised them that as long as they serve in the army for ten years, they can be arranged to serve in the local area in the future as long as they are willing. At the very least, it was also an official position such as a warden and a bookkeeper, which was the life they had dreamed of before.

It is also with this batch of horse bones to help Zhou Chong do propaganda for free, and soon more people are willing to join the Nanyang Fleet as civilians, among which there are many professionals who know medicine, arithmetic, and astronomy, these people only need a little training, they can be qualified for positions in the army, and even many poor Xiucai are also willing to join the army, these people's status is much higher than those old children, and the Xiucai class also has more talents, so Zhou Chong regarded them as more advanced horse bones, and they were all accepted.

In addition to personnel, the warships of the Nanyang Fleet are also urgently built in the major shipyards along the coast, with the establishment of the Governor's Mansion of the Four Seas, the Ming Dynasty's maritime ban policy is almost in name only, businessmen everywhere are desperately trying to go to the sea, after all, everyone knows that the most profitable thing now is the sea trade, especially after the Governor's Mansion of the Four Seas cleaned up the sea several times, not only the Ming coast can no longer see pirates, and even on the way from the Ming Dynasty to the South Seas, it is very rare to hear that there are pirates who dare to come to the wilderness, so now the sea route is several times safer than the present.

But if you want to go to sea, you must have a sea ship, but unfortunately the construction of a sea ship is not an easy task, there must be a special person in charge, where there is a profit, where there will be a businessman, soon there are countless shipyards along the coast of Daming, these shipbuilders took the opportunity of the sea trade boom, and made a lot of money.

However, although the shipbuilding industry of the Ming Dynasty is thriving, when it comes to the best shipyards, it is still a few large shipyards under the name of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce, which were vigorously supported by Zhou Chonggang as soon as he took over the Chamber of Commerce, and later joined by European shipbuilding masters such as Chilawa, as a result, the shipyards of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce combined the shipbuilding advantages of the East and the West, and successfully developed excellent ships such as the Wallen ship, and now only the shipyards of the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce have the strength to build this new type of ship.

The Wallen ships are not only civilian, but also military, and their performance is better than that of the Fu ships and the galleons of the Europeans, so the warships of the Nanyang Fleet are all used Wallen warships, but the Nanyang Fleet alone needs more than 100 Warren warships, and there are also two fleets in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, they also need a lot of Warren warships, but in this way, the shipyards under the name of Nanyang Merchant Ships alone are not enough to build so many warships. Only then did Zhou Zhong agree to hand over the construction drawings of the Valen battleship, and some large shipyards were designated by the imperial court to build it, but these large shipyards had signed confidentiality agreements with the imperial court, and anyone who dared to divulge the construction method of the Valen battleship would be killed!

Now all the shipyards that have received orders from the Nanyang Fleet have stepped up construction, among which the fastest Nanyang Chamber of Commerce shipyard has already handed over the first batch of warships, and is now building the second batch, and it is estimated that the ships will be delivered in three months at the latest, and the other shipyards will also be completed, as long as the construction of these warships is completed, they will be immediately equipped with weapons, the main of which is artillery.

Speaking of artillery, the firearms workshop that Zhou Zhong engaged in in the Nanyang Chamber of Commerce has become independent from the Chamber of Commerce, after all, firearms cannot be privately owned, so it was classified under the name of the Governor's Palace, and now it has developed into a huge firearms factory, divided into artillery, muskets, grenades, gunpowder and other branches, in addition to some other related industries, such as steel mills, arquebuses, etc., Liuheng Island, where the North Port District and Nangang District of Shuangyu Port are located, has almost been occupied by these huge factoriesThe entire Liuheng Island has also become the largest heavy industry base in Daming.

Zhou Zhong is watching Liuheng Island from the original desolate to the current prosperous base of heavy industry, but it is not a good thing for heavy industry to gather together, for example, the natural environment of Liuheng Island has been greatly damaged, and the whole island is full of huge factories, which also brings huge trouble to the planning of Shuangyu Port, for example, Zhou Zhong has encountered a headache now. (To be continued......)