Although great results were achieved, the casualties were also relatively huge, with the crew of the Yue Fei killed 42 and 345, and the crew of the Qi Jiguang killed 11 and wounded 9. In addition, the hull of the Yue Fei was seriously damaged and was almost towed back.

The captured Brasswick was paralyzed by Qi Jiguang and did not participate in the main artillery battle, so the hull was the most well-preserved, and as long as the mast was repaired, it could be put into use directly.

The Batavia, which was badly damaged, was badly damaged, and the Pedremose was in better condition, although both ships had to be repaired in the dockyard for some time before they could be used.

Zhao Yan immediately asked the fleet to bring the captive ships back to the dock in Longkou Port for maintenance, and sent people to speed up the construction of the dock in Qingdao, after all, from Qingdao to Longkou, it would take two days, and the slower ships would take three days.

On the eighth day of June, Su Buheng also drove the Weiqing back to Qingdao, and also brought back a 600-ton merchant ship, which was relatively intact and seemed to be forced to land.

"Xia Guan chased after the sea for most of the day to catch up with this merchant ship, and because our battleship was too slow, the other three were all run." Su Buheng thought that Zhao Yan reported the process of the pursuit.

"Hmmm! It doesn't matter if you run, anyway, it's a long time. Zhao Yan said with a smile, the Dutch can build the Batavia company from scratch, the most important way is to rob, grab other people's ships, and turn them into their own ships, so far the Batavia company has more than 10,000 merchant ships, more than 40 warships, 150 armed merchant ships, the Dutch can, why can't he.

"My lord, what about those Hongyi people?" Su Buheng asked for instructions, and there were more than 1,000 Dutch captured this time.

"Leave one to teach the crew to drive the boat, and the rest will be pulled to repair the road first." Zhao Yan has adopted a consistent policy, and free labor does not need to be in vain.

Then the personnel of the trading house and Wen Bangliang, who was proficient in maritime trade, re-evaluated the value of the captured goods, and Wen Bangliang counted the goods up and down, and finally came up with a staggering figure, these goods were transported to the capital, and then transported back from the book to sell, at least six or seven million taels.

Zhao Yan didn't expect that with just one attempt, he intercepted three Dutch warships and six merchant ships, and this time with ships, the navy had to be expanded again.

However, whether the direction of the expansion is armed or trade makes Zhao Yan hesitate. Eventually, he decided to take the trade route, and now he was short of transport ships.

First of all, so much cotton in Songjiang Prefecture has to be transported back, and there must be enough ships, and at present, it is mainly dependent on hiring those boat gangs and dozens of their own offshore ships to transport it, but it is still a little insufficient. However, the merchant ships captured this time were obviously overused to transport cotton, and Zhao Yan felt that it was time to get involved in the trade.

Then Zhao Yan came to the shipyard, the workers of the shipyard were in full swing of shipbuilding, and the clerk in charge of shipbuilding hurriedly rushed out to greet him.

The Batavia was still parked outside, and Zhao Yan asked, "Why don't you drag it for repairs?" ”

"That ship is too big for our dock to get into." The scribe explained.

"Hmmm! The shipyard needs to be built as soon as possible, and it will take some time for these ships to be repaired. Zhao Yan nodded and asked.

"The Yue Fei can be repaired in three or five days, the Brasswick can be repaired in about eight days, the Pedremoth has to be repaired in half a month, and the largest one can be repaired in half a month, and it will take about three months to complete it." Said the boatsmith on the side.

"How is the speed of shipbuilding at the shipyard now?" Zhao Yan asked.

"After the arrival of hundreds of shipwrights last month, the shipbuilding speed has doubled compared to last year, and the 20 500-ton clippers should be completed within this year."

Last month, Zhao Yan inspected the military affairs of Denglai, and by the way, all the shipwrights were scavenged, and the construction technology of the clipper ship was not complicated, or even very simple, so the construction speed was about to double next year.

"If I allocate another two million taels to the shipyard, how many 1,000-ton clippers can I build?" Zhao Yan asked.

Wen Bangliang estimated that this batch of captured goods could be turned into at least more than 3 million taels when sold to Yueben, and at least 6 or 7 million taels could be turned into goods when they were brought back from Yueben.

This also stimulated Zhao Yan's fanaticism for maritime trade, and it was nothing to spend two million taels to build a ship, but the premise was that the captured goods could be cashed into silver, otherwise the finances would still be very tight.

As long as the scale of the transport ships is expanded, Zhao Yan can bring more silver, and there is no need to worry about military spending. Clippers are undoubtedly the most practical of transport vessels, and although they cannot be used as combat ships, they are high-speed sailing ships, making it difficult for pirates to catch up even when they are full of cargo, but they can shorten the time of trade when they are faster.

"The cost of a 1,000-ton clipper is estimated to be 50,000 taels, plus the cost of expansion, it should be no problem to build 30 ships, but it will take more than a year to complete." The scribe reckoned.

"My lord, we Shandong is not suitable for building sea ships, the wood for shipbuilding has to be transported from the south, the freight is too high, in the humble opinion of the villain, it is better to set up the shipyard in Songjiang, and the wood is transported from Zhejiang, and the cost can be reduced by at least three percent." Said the boatsmith on the side.

"Well, this suggestion is very construction, go back and get a hundred taels of silver." Zhao Yan smiled and patted the boatwright's shoulder.

"Master Xie." The shipwright was overjoyed and said that he had a promising future in his work under the chief soldier, and he was never stingy with the reward for these craftsmen.

Zhao Yan then named the Batavia Shanghai, the Pedremoth Qingdao, and the Brathwick Longjiao.

He also asked Su Buheng to set up a navigation battalion, which is a department similar to the army recruit battalion, which is mainly used to train soldiers and strip the training away.

The first phase of the nautical battalion will recruit 3,000 people, and these 3,000 people will be trained as sailors. At the same time, a battalion of 5,000 marines was formed, with a total of 8,000 people. Sailors were instructors who were proficient in seamanship, junior officers were drawn from the Army, in principle, loyalty came first, and soldiers from the Marine Battalion were drawn directly from the recruit battalion.

Then Zhao Yan asked a Dutch to go back, and gave them to the governor of Taiwan, Puttman, asking them to ransom the prisoners, 500 taels for a crew member, and 1,000 taels for officers.

At the same time, the Dutch proposed sovereignty over Taiwan and demanded that the Dutch withdraw from Taiwan immediately.

The Dutch naturally won't do what Zhao Yan said, Zhao Yan is just declaring war on them in disguise, anyway, it will be polite to meet you in the future, and the ship that should be robbed will definitely not be soft.

At present, the important thing is to dispose of the stolen goods, and Zhao Yan immediately wrote another letter, which was addressed to Tokugawa Iemitsu, the shogunate of Tokugawa.

The letter first greeted Tokugawa Iemitsu and expressed his intention to trade with him, and hoped that it would be a large-scale trade, with saltpeter, sulfur, and copper. He recognized the dominance of the Shigetokugawa shogunate and could supply them with arms trade.

At present, the Tokugawa shogunate has entered a state of seclusion, that is, the policy implemented not long ago, mainly in order to consolidate its rule, the Tokugawa shogunate forbade other daimyo to engage in profitable maritime trade, and also imposed various taxes on the daimyo to consume their strength.

This policy of closing the country to the outside world has protected the natural economy of the rural areas from being impacted by the commodity economy to a certain extent, and has a certain effect on social stability.

However, the Tokugawa shogunate did not necessarily want to protect the natural economy of the countryside, otherwise they would not have opened a trading port in Nagasaki during the period of seclusion, and traded in the form of a monopoly of the Tokugawa shogunate, and their main purpose was to consolidate their dominance.

So Zhao Yan also proceeded from this point and offered to sell weapons to them. Selling a little plate armor and muskets, and backward artillery is not a big problem for Xiao Yueben, it is completely impossible to pose a threat to Zhao Yan, let alone make them progress in science and technology.

After the letter was written, Wen Bangliang was immediately sent to Nagasaki on a flying clipper boat under the protection of a hundred soldiers. It doesn't matter if you're not familiar with it, there are so many Ming people in Nagasaki that the 'Kara City' was formed in Nagasaki, with more than 20,000 people.

After Wen Bangliang set off, Zhao Yan immediately asked the First Fleet to prepare for escort, and at the same time began to let Zhao Quan form a fleet to go to Yueben.

If you want to go to the trade, in addition to the goods you grab, glass mirrors are naturally indispensable, and cotton cloth is also indispensable.

Cotton cloth will be used as a pioneer to impact the natural economy of rural areas.

…… Zhao Yan returned to Zhaojiabao from Longkou Port after dealing with this, this year's winter wheat has matured, and half of the 3 million mu of farmland reclaimed last year was planted with wheat.

The settled people happily harvested the wheat in the fields, and the rent of the wheat was only 30%, which was undoubtedly a great blessing for these people, who were mostly poor and had nothing.

After paying the rent, each household still has more than 10 stone left, which is enough for the family's rations, and the sweet potatoes can be harvested after the autumn, which is another income.

Of course, you can't get rich just by farming, because everyone's farmland is not much, only 30 acres, if you want to live a good life, you have to work hard to participate in training and get a ranking in the township competition.

Or concentrate on learning horse breeding techniques, raise a qualified war horse, and deduct the cost of two taels of silver. The women of the family can also work in the yarn mill and weaving factory, and they can also get a tael of silver every month.

For those young and strong, if they can enter the army as a soldier, they can have two taels of silver per month! Food, clothing and other things are provided by the army, and the income is much higher than that of farming.

In the army, as long as you conscientiously learn to read and write and bravely kill the enemy, you will be promoted. At present, a large number of people have been promoted, and the salary after promotion is naturally much higher.

Every summer harvest, the soldiers in the battalion go to the fields to help the people harvest wheat, as in previous years, and the scribes of the Propaganda Department take the opportunity to propagate the slogan of the military and the people as a family.

Tang Zhengze quickly presented Zhao Yan with the results of this year's summer harvest. This year's winter wheat yield reached nearly two million stones, with an average harvest of nearly two stones per mu.

Last year, various water conservancy projects were excavated, and the Ministry of Agriculture set up an agricultural group to summarize wheat planting techniques.

"The wheat harvested reached 600,000 stones, and we estimated that we could harvest 4 billion catties ......of sweet potatoes and 900 million catties of corn during the autumn harvest.

"4 billion catties of sweet potatoes ......" Zhao Yan was also shocked after hearing it, he only thought about a variety of grains, but he didn't expect it to cause a thorny problem.

In later generations, things like potatoes and sweet potatoes were generally planted in large quantities in one or two counties, and the output of these two counties plus sporadic planting in various places was enough to supply the whole country.

What do you do with so many sweet potatoes? After thinking for a while, Zhao Yan asked, "How many sweet potatoes can the displaced people we recruited now eat?" ”

"Shandong has recruited 350,000 displaced people, who are being reclaimed in Laizhou, and these people can't all eat sweet potatoes, otherwise the young and strong physique will not meet the standard, and at most 100 million catties will be consumed, 430,000 displaced people in Yingzhou, 530,000 in Handan, and 200 million catties in the sky." Tang Zhengze said.

"There should be no problem for the commercial bank to dispose of 1 billion catties." Zhao Quan came up with a way at this time, "The reason why sweet potatoes can't be disposed of is mainly because it is not easy to transport, but we can recruit more laborers and transport these sweet potatoes to various places for sale, according to the price of freight, so that we will not lose money, our small-scale soup kitchen is okay, if it is a large-scale soup kitchen, I am afraid it will cause criticism, saying that we buy people's hearts." ”

The original intention of Zhao Yan was not to buy people's hearts, but to retain more national vitality, he didn't want to see a depressed and turbulent world at the end of the fight against the Manchu Qing Dynasty.

"Hmmm! With that, you can use these sweet potatoes to make wine, and sell them all over the world as dried sweet potatoes, and you can also make sweet potato powder, which really can't be disposed of, so throw them to the saint to deal with! Zhao Yan suddenly had an idea, and thought of a way in his heart, it would be difficult to deal with it if he gave it away for nothing, so it was better to use it to make a commodity.

The next day, Zhao Yan immediately gathered people and began to experiment with sweet potato brewing and the production of dried sweet potatoes.

Sweet potatoes are undoubtedly a good thing for winemaking, winemaking is very food-consuming, and making wine with sweet potatoes, which is a high-yield and low-cost thing, can avoid food waste.

At the same time, the production of dried sweet potatoes is also very important, like the dried sweet potatoes directly dried in the countryside are hard and sticky, which is really not very delicious.

But if you add sugar to the dried sweet potato, it will become very delicious, such as the dried sweet potato of Longyan in later generations, which tastes very good.

As for sweet potato powder, generally speaking, the market for this thing is not too big, after all, the rural natural economy is prevalent, people do not have to use sweet potatoes, they can be made with fern roots and kudzu vines, those things are all over the mountains, but making sweet potato powder is also a treatment method.

(To be continued)