At present, Zheng Zhilong is very restrained and tries his best to restrain his subordinates from clashing with Shandong at sea, because Zheng Zhilong is worried that Zhao Yan will fight directly from Shandong to Fujian.

Especially Zhao Yan's behavior of confiscating the Jin merchants not long ago made Zheng Zhilong see the subtlety of it, he can do anything, but he can't do it if he betrays the country.

Once you are detained in this basin, you will lose people's hearts.

Jin Shang was directly copied by Zhao Yan, and who jumped out to complain? The reason why no one came out was because the Jin merchants betrayed the country and collaborated with the enemy.

If he had gone out to help the Dutch at this time, this basin would have been detained on his head.

Zheng Zhilong is absolutely unwilling to go through this infamy.

However, Zheng Zhilong is not without a follow-up move, not long ago, he sent 10 million taels of silver to the capital and handed it over to Chongzhen, the Dutch are unreliable, but Chongzhen is reliable.

According to the report, Chongzhen is undergoing military reform.

Isn't it stupid that Shandong's method of military training has been completely leaked to the imperial court?

As long as there is a method of military training, coupled with enough money and food, the imperial court and Fujian can also train a strong army, Zhao Yan can train a strong army in Shandong within a few years, and the imperial court and Fujian can also do the same.

As long as the imperial court and Fujian train a new army, can the Shandong army still be as feared as it is now?

…… Far away in the Forbidden City, Chongzhen is very happy.

Because the financial resources have been abundant recently, in addition to the more than three million taels donated by the imperial merchants, Zheng Zhilong sent another 10 million taels of silver, which made Chongzhen overjoyed.

With this silver, it was enough for him to train 200,000 new troops.

Zheng Zhilong sent this 10 million taels of silver, the purpose was just to ask for the method of training the new army, and Chongzhen readily agreed.

Recently, thanks to Yang Sichang's efforts, the imperial court has successfully built 75mm cannons and howitzers, and at the same time, water power has also been used in plate armor stamping.

In terms of weapons and equipment, Chongzhen believes that there is no difference between him and the Shandong army.

In terms of instructors, there are also officers provided by Zhao Yan, and Chongzhen gave them a high salary, and everyone's salary is comparable to that of the prefect.

This trick worked, and the officers from Shandong quickly turned their allegiance to Chongzhen.

It's just that what Chongzhen doesn't know is that these officers are not very good in the Shandong Army, and they look decent on the surface, but in fact they are mostly showy.

Although the training is very hard, it is almost impossible to get these people to actually serve on the battlefield. Many Shandong officers who served in the imperial court were just hypocritical and wrongdoers.

Once against the Shandong army, I am afraid that the first to rebel against the water will be these Shandong officers.

Because they had been in the Shandong Army and knew the strength of the Shandong Army, even if the imperial court had advanced weapons and training methods of the Shandong Army, it would not be able to imitate them completely, and it would never be possible to answer the level of the Shandong Army.

Of course, Yang Sichang only asked these people to train soldiers and horses, and he never thought of letting them lead the troops.

Chongzhen, who was supported by Zheng Zhilong, suddenly opened up for the first time. With Zheng Zhilong's financial support, coupled with the training of the new army by the imperial court and Fujian, it will inevitably be able to compete with Zhao Yan.

It's just that Chongzhen and Yang Sichang still don't understand that the Shandong Army has already changed its combat methods, and it is still changing.

Zheng Zhilong also didn't understand.

…… Just when Chongzhen and Zheng Zhilong were smug, Zhao Yan had already guided the research of 'smokeless gunpowder' in the Ordnance Bureau, Zhao Yan had made this kind of thing before he crossed over, and knew that there were actually many formulas of smokeless gunpowder.

Smokeless gunpowder is inseparable from two things, nitric acid and sulfuric acid.

Nitric acid and sulfuric acid had already arrived, and under the command of Zhao Yan, the researchers of the Ordnance Bureau carefully poured nitric acid and sulfuric acid on the cotton cloth.

Then set the cotton cloth on fire!

I heard a bang, and the flames quickly jumped up, and the cotton cloth burned rapidly, as if it was just an instant, and a piece of cloth burned away.

Not a single ash remained, and only a small amount of white smoke was produced!

The people around were stunned.

Nitrocellulose was officially born in this experiment, and at the same time, Zhao Yan also proposed to the institute that the large-scale production of this kind of thing is prone to accidents, and nitrocellulose must be dissolved in ether and ethanol, and stable substances must be added to make production safe.

Then Zhao Yan commanded the experimenters to configure 'nitroglycerin', which is a kind of explosive surnamed Nitroglycerin, which can be used in industrial blasting and can save a lot of manpower.

Nitroglycerin is also made with nitric acid and sulfuric acid, which is then mixed into glycerin. Glycerin is an ingredient in animal and vegetable oils and fats, which can be extracted from animal and vegetable oils and can also be manufactured by other processes.

Nitroglycerin was invented by Nobel, and it is an extremely dangerous explosive that can be triggered by a slightly stronger vibration, and has no practical value.

However, nitroglycerin will be very stable after adsorption with diatomaceous earth, and then detonate with a detonator.

At the same time, nitroglycerin can replace ether and ethanol in smokeless gunpowder, and ammonium nitrate can also be added to replace part of nitroglycerin to make a safer and cheaper yellow gunpowder.

Zhao Yan knew these things well, wrote down the theory and handed it to the laboratory, and asked the laboratory to conduct experiments cautiously to avoid accidents.

Smokeless gunpowder is divided into two stages, one is the relatively less powerful nitrocellulose stage, and the other is the more powerful yellow powder stage.

Yellow gunpowder is divided into explosives and propellants, both of which are improved from Nobel.

At the same time, Zhao Yan also drew the drawings of the Makqin heavy machine gun and asked the Ordnance Bureau to develop it with black powder first.

In 1882, when Maxim went to England to investigate, he found that soldiers often shot from the recoil of old rifles, and their shoulders were bruised and purple. This shows that the recoil of the gun has a considerable amount of energy, which comes from the gunpowder gases produced when the bullet is fired. It was from the recoil phenomenon that people are accustomed to and turned a blind eye to that Makqin found the ideal impetus for the automatic continuous firing of weapons. Makqin first carried out a modification test on an old-fashioned Winchester rifle, using the gunpowder gas emitted by the bullet during firing to make the gun complete a series of actions such as unlocking, unshelling, feeding, and re-locking, realizing the automatic continuous shooting of the single-barreled gun and reducing the recoil of the gun.

Makqin was the first to successfully develop the world's first automatic rifle in 1883. Later, based on the experience gained from the rifle, he further developed and perfected the principle of automatic fire with a short recoil of the barrel. He also changed the traditional way of feeding bombs and made a 6-meter-long canvas bullet chain. Continuous feeding of ammunition for machine guns. In order to cool down the barrel that heats up due to continuous high-speed firing, Maxim also uses water cooling. In 1884, Maxim built the world's first machine gun capable of automatic continuous fire, with a rate of fire of more than 600 rounds per minute.

As a traverser, Zhao Yan did not need any research and development process at all, and directly drew the drawings of the 'Makqin Heavy Machine Gun' that had been perfected.

The Maxim heavy machine gun in this drawing uses cold water cooling and a shield to protect the shooter.

It is also possible to use black powder for the Makqin machine gun, and jamming is inevitable. But as long as you replace it with smokeless gunpowder, you can make this killing machine run smoothly.

Of course, the bullets of the Maxim machine gun are different from the bullets used now, and with the advent of smokeless gunpowder, the style of bullets and shells will change greatly.

Zhao Yan also directly drew the structural drawings of bullets and shells.

At the same time, Zhao Yan also asked the Ordnance Bureau to step up the research on artillery. His main research interests are the application of smokeless gunpowder, as well as the study of cannon steel and shell loading methods.

Take the 75mm field gun, for example, the range of 1200 meters is too low, it is simply inferior to a mortar.

Artillery technology represents supremacy at sea!

At the same time, it also represents the initiative in the land war!

On the ocean, artillery is the main combat weapon. On land, artillery is used to cover the advance of infantry and armored vehicles, and to attack fortified positions.

Artillery on land is not a panacea, but a necessary auxiliary means, after all, artillery cannot destroy all enemies, and the battle still needs to rely on infantry and cavalry to solve, but it can greatly increase the chances of victory for infantry units.

Some enemies with weak combat effectiveness will even be directly routed in front of artillery. However, it was not so easy to encounter a stubborn enemy, and there were still face-to-face battles between the infantry, which required individual firepower and some other heavy weapons.

…… In contrast, Zhao Yan's industry has also begun to skyrocket this year.

First of all, in the glass industry, this year the sales price of glass mirrors has been greatly reduced, a palm-sized mirror, only three taels of silver can be bought, and the workmanship is more exquisite, the cost is only two dollars of silver, the wholesale price is two taels, and the commercial tax is two dollars.

Shandong businessmen now have no privileges in the sale of glass mirrors.

They've been selling for a few years now, and there's no reason to keep traders from other regions out.

Larger mirrors range from five taels to dozens of taels, and the largest diameter is only 20 centimeters. Twenty centimeters or more is in the luxury category.

The glass mirrors were still expensive, and they were getting bigger and bigger, and they were renovated in a variety of ways so that the rich could buy them and get their money out of their pockets.

As soon as the glass mirror was opened for wholesale, many merchants flocked to it, and the price increase space in the intermediate link has been reduced a lot.

The cheapest mirror, because the cost is relatively small, small traders and hawkers do the most, so the profits of vendors and sellers are compressed to eight yuan, not even one or two silver.

However, as soon as the price of glass mirrors decreased, the market also showed a hot trend. At present, the glass mirror has been packaged into a style that conforms to the aesthetics of the Chinese, the outer frame is made of copper, and there are some words such as auspicious wealth, and there are some scattered information and encourage people to buy glass mirrors in the 'nursery', the price has dropped so low, many people with more money will choose to buy one.

Under Zhao Quan's stewardship, the sales volume of glass mirrors has risen all the way this year.

In the first quarter alone, 200,000 small mirrors with varying prices were sold, and nearly 5,000 large mirrors were sold as luxury porcelain, with a profit of more than 2 million taels.

In the second quarter, the sales volume was even more violent, with more than 30 small mirrors and more than 4,000 large mirrors sold in just two months.

The sales are still strong in small mirrors, and the big mirrors basically do not have much potential for improvement, but they shrank in the second quarter.

Because most of those rich people have it in their hands, they have bought glass mirrors from the beginning, and seeing that the price of glass mirrors has plummeted, they have almost seen through this thing.

Many people don't want to be fat sheep anymore, these are guys who have some money and are very stingy. But some people continue to buy new versions of mirrors in order to continue to show off.

People are rich! I don't care about that bit of silver.

I heard that King Lu bought two more 'Luxury Supreme Edition' glass mirrors and spent more than 100,000 taels of silver!

King Lu is now a day to spend all day drinking, since he got the freedom to go out of the city, he is simply happy to race the gods, King Lu sold some land, and his net worth became rich again, and the shot was naturally extraordinary.

Daming has a population of nearly 200 million, if one-third of the population buys glass mirrors every year, that is more than 60 million people, each person earns 1 yuan of silver, there are more than 6 million, plus the income of some luxury mirrors, there will be tens of millions of taels.

Zhao Quan once suggested that Zhao Yan play an administrative monopoly and prohibit others from getting involved in the glass manufacturing industry. However, it was vetoed by Zhao Yan, what is there to monopolize the glass thing.

Naturally, there will be more advanced products in the future.

And the mirror is not a thing that needs to be changed often, you may buy one and not buy it for more than ten years. In the case of high prices, no one must want to change it.

And with the continuous emergence of high-end products, mirrors will also be faded out of sight one after another, and people's desire for mirrors will not be so strong.

This thing really doesn't have a monopoly meaning.

In the overseas market, the glass mirror obviously sells well, this can be extracted through tariffs to extract profits, domestic sales of three taels of glass mirrors, tariffs to dozens of taels, people sell to overseas markets still have money to make, and the profits are relatively rich.

In contrast, the textile industry has gradually become a leading industry in terms of profitability.

The cotton cloth market in Daming has been more than ninety percent of the textile industry under Zhao Yan this year, and the textile workshops in the south have basically closed down.

This year, at least tens of millions of taels of silver can be grabbed in the cotton cloth market of the Ming Dynasty, and overseas, the main trade objects are Ben, Spain, and Portugal.

The price of cotton cloth in the price of the book is still higher than the Ming Dynasty, but the rapid loss of precious metals is a very objective reality, at present, Shandong commodities in the book has not been able to grab the initial profits, but the phenomenon of profiteering still exists, there is a certain potential to be tapped, the most potential to tap is the brass of the book.

Shandong's cotton cloth exports will be able to make at least 8 million taels of profits this year, or even more.

Trade with Spain and Portugal was often handled by Zheng Zhilong.

Cotton cloth is one of the larger export goods of the Ming Dynasty, this year the market was occupied by Zhao Yan, Zheng Zhilong's trade energy is mainly concentrated in Taiwan, Macao, Luzon and Nanyang countries. The cotton cloth that Zheng Zhilong traded in the trade was all produced in Shandong.

Zhao Yan's trade with Spain and Portugal was through the Pacific trade routes.

Zhao Yan's ocean-going merchant ships have increased to more than 200, of which more than 50 are clippers, and after the first batch of 30 clippers transported 30,000 Xiangyong to the Americas, Zhao Yan sent a merchant fleet composed of 20 clippers to the Americas to trade with Spain and the Portuguese.

This fleet brought with it many glass mirrors, as well as a large amount of cotton, porcelain, and tea, worth more than 10 million taels.

The fleet would return in a year at the earliest, but if the trade went well, the profits were staggering.

To trade in the Americas, the profit is at least seven or eight times higher.

It is basically an easy thing for Daming's goods to multiply six or seven times in the Americas, and then buy goods from the Americas and ship them back to Daming, the profit may not be large, because there may not be many goods in the Americas, and they are most gold and silver.

And gold and silver are also a kind of appreciation in transportation, because while the goods are sold to the Americas to earn six or seven times the profit, it is also because the gold and silver in the Americas are worthless, so these six or eight times the profit is the profit of two round-trip voyages.

In addition to gold and silver, the fleet would bring back raw materials from the Americas, which may not make much silver, but provide raw materials for factories to produce more goods.

Although the ocean trade is profitable, Zhao Yan always feels that it is too troublesome for him to operate, and the Ministry of Commerce has become more and more huge with the development of overseas trade.

This is a huge challenge for management, and it is impossible for a department to operate as pervasively as a businessman, and it is also prone to [***].

However, if the trade is left to the merchants, it is very likely that a different phenomenon will occur.

That is, military spending has increased year after year, but the money has run into the pockets of businessmen!

How did Britain, known as the Empire of Immortality, decline? That's why. The political axe increases military spending every year, the army fights in front, and the businessmen make money behind the back, and finally they are dragged to death.

Although the current level of science and technology in the world, as long as the Ming Dynasty develops faster, it is impossible to have a situation like the United Kingdom.

But the money still fell into the pockets of businessmen.

Businessmen are a necessary group for social adjustment, but they are also very likely to cause the gap between the rich and the poor to widen.

So now Zhao Yan is very conflicted, whether to continue to let the Ministry of Commerce undertake most of the maritime trade, or will he restrict the full opening of the country, so that businessmen can give full play to their pervasive expertise?

However, there is a characteristic of businessmen that Zhao Yan is most afraid of, that is for money, he can sell anything!

Zhao Yan from the future has seen too many examples of selling advanced technology for profit in history.

In the modern era, before globalization, a country could buy whatever it wanted, as long as it had money. The most advanced weapons were sold to China just after leaving the factory.

Although to a certain extent, it has something to do with the more powers of that era, after all, if you don't sell it, I will sell it, and if I don't sell it, they will sell it, so it is better for me to sell it. But the technical blockade is not reliable in front of businessmen in many cases.

Zhao Yan, who had been thinking about it for a long time, decided to choose a more compromise method.

That is the demarcation of trade zones.

In areas where there is no profiteering market and no threat, maritime merchants can trade freely, with the only principle being to pay taxes and prohibit the leakage of advanced technology.

For example, the Americas and Europe are forbidden places.

At the same time, in the areas already under control, special trading ports will be set up, and European merchant ships will be able to trade in designated ports, and they will be subject to strict supervision.

This is not to close the country, but to block the technology and prevent the Europeans who come to trade from stealing advanced technology.

The purpose of trading in designated ports is to concentrate the Europeans who come to trade, so that it is better to supervise, otherwise they can enter and exit any port freely, and it is very difficult to blockade.

At present, it is said that Ben will become the first area to open up and restrict, and it is said that Ben is an island country, and now it is said that it will never turn over.

(To be continued)