readx; With the conclusion of the treaty, there was no need for João to stay in Beijing any longer, and on the same day he offered to return to Goa, India, and mobilize all the Portuguese troops in the colonies to fight back to the mainland. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info

Zhu Youzhen also treated Joao with great courtesy and personally sent him to Tianjin Dagu. Of course, in order to avoid the discussion of the ministers, his trip was under the guise of inspecting Tianjin's coastal defense, and sending Joao was only a stop. Tianjin is only more than 200 miles away from Beijing, and the fast horse can go back and forth on the same day, so the cabinet did not stop it, but only sent Qian Longxi, Li Biao, Lai Zongdao and other cabinet ministers to follow to prevent the emperor from sneaking to the front line again.

There was nothing to say on the way, and soon the group came to Dagu Port. Everyone raised their eyes to look at the wharf, and saw four large three-masted galleons quietly moored in the harbor, each with two rows of twelve gun emplacements on the side of the ship, and the muzzles of the ship's guns with black holes sticking out of the gun emplacements pointed majestically to the sea. There was also a larger main gun in the bow and stern, larger in caliber than the Hongyi cannon used by the officers and soldiers to defend the city, and these were the four battleships of the Portuguese Navy.

Compared with these four behemoths with a displacement of 800 tons, the largest of Tianjin Wei's sailor ships is only 400 materials, which is converted into a displacement of dozens of tons, like a child's toy ship, not at all in the same heavyweight. Li Biao and Lai Zongdao were originally quite disdainful of the Portuguese mission, believing that such a small barbarian country was not worthy of the emperor's grand reception with great fanfare. At this time, when they saw the warships of the Portuguese Navy, they were all dumbfounded, knowing that the existing naval divisions of the imperial court were really out of reach.

Zhu Youzhen hurriedly asked, "I don't know which warship His Excellency the King leased to me?" ”

Joao smiled: "These four are Enrique-class battleships with a displacement of eight hundred tons, equipped with two twenty-caliber main guns, and forty-eight broadside guns. They are named Lisbon, Porto, Faro and Princess Anna, and they are all the main warships of the Portuguese Navy. The Lisbon is my flagship, and the other three are of your Majesty's choice. ”

At this time, Anna interjected with a smile: "Since my brother left me in China, then please ask His Majesty the Emperor to choose this battleship named after me, and we can also be companions!" ”

Everyone laughed, so the handover ceremony was immediately held, Zhu Youzhen paid the Portuguese a year's rent of 50,000 taels of silver, and Joao handed over the "Princess Anna" to Zhu Youzhen in its entirety, except for the sailors.

Zhu Youzhen immediately asked Zheng Sen and other sailors who had returned from their studies to take over the battleship, and together with several ministers, they boarded the "Princess Anna" and set sail to see off the Portuguese mission. With the help of the salty sea breeze, the huge white sails on the three mainmasts were all raised, casting beautiful reflections on the sea, and several ministers could not help but praise each other.

Zhu Youjian took a deep breath while holding the boat, and his mood was also excited. Back then, Zheng He once led a fleet much larger than today to the Western Ocean six times, how spectacular it was! It is a pity that the later implementation of the policy of "no piece of board can go to the sea" and the forced abolition of martial arts led to China missing an excellent development opportunity. Now, the Ming Dynasty has regained the ability to sail to the ocean, and Zhu Youzhen believes that one day, China's warships and merchant ships will sail to the seven seas and not lose to any maritime power in the world!

The other three Portuguese battleships were moving away, and Anna, who was beside Zhu Youzhen, waved her arms desperately to the opposite side, until the battleship was completely submerged in the horizon and stared for a long time, her face full of worry and loss that could not be concealed.

Zhu Youzhen hurriedly smiled and comforted her: "Your Excellency the princess doesn't need to worry too much about her relatives, Joao is a brave king, and he will definitely defeat the Spaniards and successfully restore the country, and your brothers and sisters should meet again soon." During this time, you can live in Jingshi with peace of mind. ”

Anna pursed her lips and retorted: "I am the ambassador of Portugal, how can I live leisurely." After returning to Beijing, I ask His Majesty the Emperor to immediately allocate me a piece of land so that I can build an embassy. In addition, we have agreed to open up Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Dengzhou, and Tianjin as treaty ports, and we will also build consulates in these four ports. Before I docked, I wanted to take a break because there was a lot of work to do! As he spoke, he walked into the cabin by himself.

Qian Longxi reminded Zhu Youzhen: "Holy Lord, although this person is a woman, you must not be unguarded. If the Yi people use the embassy to spy on our country's intelligence, it will be very unfavorable to our country. ”

Zhu Youjian said: "This is inevitable, even if there is no embassy, foreign countries can also buy some shameless Chinese to be traitors, which is more difficult to guard against than foreigners in the embassy." Of course, when dealing with foreign envoys, you must pay attention to the right of proportion. That's why I want to set up a diplomatic academy to be responsible for related matters. ”

After seeing off the Portuguese mission, Zhu Youzhen inspected the defense of Dagu in a hurry, and then hurriedly returned to Beijing and immediately made two important decisions.

The first is the formal establishment of the Foreign Affairs Academy, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Rites, and Xu Guangqi, the attendant of the Ministry of Rites, serves as the first president. In fact, Zhu Youzhen really wanted to set up a first-class Ministry of Foreign Affairs in accordance with the institutional setup of a modern state, because diplomacy is too important. However, the reform of government institutions will affect the whole body, and Zhu Youzhen has no choice but to act cautiously, first using this diplomatic yuan to make a transition, and then do the work.

The Foreign Affairs Council has two tasks at this stage. The first was to notify all vassal states as soon as possible to send envoys to meet with them, so that Zhu Youzhen could take the opportunity to examine whether the Ming Dynasty's policy toward overseas countries was appropriate.

The second is that the organizers make great efforts to learn foreign languages. For example, Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, Dutch, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and so on, at least 50 people should pay close attention to studying and preparing for the training of diplomatic talents. Even Mongolian and Jurchen languages must be learned, and although Zhu Youzhen does not intend to develop any form of relationship with such forces, it is always necessary to engage in espionage work and persuade surrender on the battlefield. This work is in charge of Qiulina, in fact, she is equivalent to concurrently serving as the dean of the School of Foreign Chinese.

The second important decision was the formation of the North Sea Fleet. Prior to this, the coastal guard posts of the imperial court also had more or less water power, but they were scattered, and the ships, personnel, and equipment were very poor, and they could not meet the needs of the operation at all.

Zhu Youzhen's first step was to let Zheng Sen serve as the admiral of the North Sea Fleet and concurrently serve as the captain of the "Princess Anna". The home port of the fleet was located in Shanhaiguan, and shipyards were built in Tianjin and Dengzhou, where the "Princess Anna" was first copied and naval training was carried out. Later, Zhu Youzhen planned to integrate all the naval divisions of the various guard posts near the Bohai Sea into the North Sea Fleet, so that the initial combat effectiveness could be formed in a short period of time.

Of course, the construction of the Navy did not happen overnight. After Zhu Youzhen arranged these two things, he quickly turned his attention to several fronts in China.