In the following week, Sima visited the Huangxian Shipyard, which was under construction, and watched the navy's naval exercises. What excites him the most is that after a year of technology accumulation, the Laoshan shipyard has the conditions to build large warships.

During Sima Shu's visit, a 74-gun fourth-class sail battleship officially laid its keel and started construction! Once built, this new double-deck warship with 74 guns, which draws on the advantages of the East and the West, will greatly meet the current demand of the Dajin Navy for ocean-going warships.

According to the design of the shipyard's naval technicians, the guns of this 74-gun fourth-class battleship are far above the water, the sailing effect is very good, and there is enough cargo space on board to meet the needs of long-distance battles. This battleship, armed with 74 guns, met all the quality requirements of a capital ship at that time and could serve as the backbone of various fleets!

In Sima Shu's blueprint for the navy, in the future, the 74-gun fourth-class and 80-gun ** double-deck warships will be the main force of the naval fleet. And the large first, second and third deck heavy warships are the core and flagship of the future navy, playing a decisive role in naval warfare!

After visiting the shipyard, a more exciting news came that the First Fleet, which had gone to sea half a month ago, had returned, and along with the fleet, there were also Fu ships that went to the Wa Kingdom, Sanhan and other countries for trade.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, they are back! It's back! Marine Governor Zhu Zheng ran over with a shout, "Whew! Whoosh...... His Majesty...... Your Majesty, Captain Li returned to ...... It's back! There were a lot of silver and brass on board! ”

By the time Sima Shu came to the port, the entire port was already crowded with people, among whom Qingzhou Thorn Shi Shanjian and others had the words 'unbelievable' written on their faces. From time to time, someone in the crowd exclaimed, "How is this possible?!" 300,000 taels of silver, 100,000 catties of red copper! ”

Shan Jian on the side widened his eyes in surprise. Oh my God, what is the concept of 300,000 taels of silver, which is almost a year's income of a county in the Central Plains. And now? It's just an overseas trade income, and it's when there aren't enough ships. If there are enough boats, wouldn't it be more than Qingzhou's annual financial revenue!

Thinking of this, even a traditional scholar like Shan Jian was not calm, and he couldn't wait for His Majesty to order the construction of more lucky ships now. In fact, Shan Jian took it for granted, at the beginning, the trade profits of the Wa Kingdom and Samhan would increase exponentially, but this market was limited, and after a certain extent, the Wa State market would be saturated.

However, if the Great Jin navy developed and developed trade in the South and Indian Oceans, perhaps by that time Shan Jian would have found that the profits from overseas trade would account for the majority of the country's total income.

"Li Jun, the Governor of the First Fleet of the Navy, see Your Majesty, long live my emperor, long live, long live!" Li Jun walked down on the No. 2 Fu boat in the navy's white military uniform, and came to Sima Shu's side and knelt down on one knee to salute!

"Aiqing is flat! Aiqing has worked hard! Sima Shu stepped forward to help this first-generation admiral of the Great Jin Dynasty, others didn't know the hardships at sea, but he knew it very well. Especially the fleets like Li Jun and their ocean-going voyages, sometimes they basically can't see the mainland for a month or two, and that kind of mental pressure is enough to make ordinary people collapse!

"Your Majesty Xie cares! For the development of the Great Jin Navy, the ministers are willing to eat! Li Jun has now fallen in love with life at sea, and when he first sailed a fortune ship to overcome obstacles at sea, he thought he was living for the navy.

"Hahaha, Captain Li told me about your income this time, so that I can also open my eyes."

"Your Majesty, the minister has earned a total of 300,000 taels of silver and 100,000 catties of red copper from the Wa Kingdom, Sanhan and other places this time, please send someone to receive it." Although some people already knew about this result, it was confirmed by the person concerned again and caused a burst of distraction among everyone.

Sima Shu watched with interest at the distractions of the crowd, and thought that maybe in a year or two the imperial court would be able to store enough silver to issue silver dollars. In his opinion, the Great Jin lacked silver and gold mines, and it was not possible to implement either the gold standard or the silver standard. Because China's gold and silver reserves were mainly obtained from foreign trade.

In addition, the inflow of gold from foreign trade is relatively small, and most of the trade is dominated by silver. After all, gold is an important reserve for any country. It is indeed difficult to practice "gold absorption" by trade alone. Looks like you have to have a gold source.

Africa? Or the Americas? Or Australia? It's as if each one is so far away. However, at the current rate of silver reserves, it is possible to have a silver standard in a few years.

"Your Majesty, is this true? Is there really such a big profit in overseas trade? Shan Jian and the others slowly recovered from the shock, and he turned back to Sima Shu and muttered.

"Hahaha, what you said is true, and I can tell you responsibly that this is just the beginning. Once we open up other routes and expand other markets, the total profit of overseas trade will increase dozens of times. It's not impossible to even earn eight million taels of silver a year! ”

"Eight million taels of silver? This...... Isn't this a dream? Shan Jian looked at Sima Shu with a shocked face, as if to say: Your Majesty, you don't have a fever, do you?

"What? Aiqing doesn't believe it, you ask Li Duwei, see if what I said is grounded? ”

"Lord Shan, Your Majesty's prophecy is not wrong at all. Lord Thorn had never been to the Wakoku Kingdom and did not know much about the market there, so it is understandable that he did not have confidence in overseas trade. Unbeknownst to adults, due to the extremely low level of productivity in the entire Wa Kingdom, they had an extreme thirst for silk, textiles, porcelain, steel products, etc. ”

At the same time, the Wa kingdom was rich in copper and silver mines, which made silver quite cheap in their country. The purchasing power of one or two pieces of silver is only less than one-third of the territory of my dynasty, that is, what I have always bought with money in the Great Jin Dynasty, and can be sold for two or three times the price when it arrives in the Wa Kingdom, and Lord Thorn Shi can imagine how much profit there is in the middle. ”

After listening to Li Jun's introduction, everyone present was not calm. Sima Xiao looked at everyone with a smile, he was very happy with everyone's reaction, and he also believed that soon all the families would know that overseas trade contained huge trade. Sima Shu is not afraid of everyone knowing, because he knows that if he wants to prosper overseas trade, it is not enough to rely on the state alone, and he must guide the participation of the people, among which the family is the object of his full efforts!

After returning to Luoyang City after completing the inspection of Qingzhou, Sima Shu devoted himself to the work of opening the sea trade road for the Great Jin Dynasty. By introducing Qingzhou's foreign trade achievements to the cabinet, and then having in-depth conversations with the Wang, Pei, Yang, and other families, Sima Shu submitted a detailed plan for the development of overseas trade in the Dajin Dynasty to Menxia Province at the end of June of the first year of Hongwu.

Drawing on the experience of overseas trade in later generations, Sima Shu proposed solutions to the many difficulties encountered in Qingzhou before.

In terms of seaports, Sima Shu proposed to build the port of Qingdao near Laoshan County, Qingzhou, preparing to make it the largest trading port in the north, attracting merchants from the north to and from the Korean Peninsula and the Japanese kingdom to trade here. In Qingdao Port, the imperial court can set up a customs agency to collect certain transaction taxes and fees. The merchants of the Great Jin Dynasty could transport goods to the Koreans, the Three Koreas, the Wa Kingdom, and even the Nanyang States through the port of Qingdao.

At the same time, because the Central Plains Dynasty had always had close ties with the countries on the Korean Peninsula, Sima Shu was ready to trade with the Korean Peninsula and the Wa Kingdom in the early stage. After the development of the Great Jin Navy to a certain extent, Sima Shu could set his sights on the Nanyang region.

The reason why Sima Shu made this choice was, on the one hand, considering that the Korean Peninsula was relatively close to Qingzhou in the Great Jin Dynasty, and it was only more than 1,000 miles by sea, and the route was relatively safe. Although the Wa State was a little far away, because the Wa State had silver and copper mines that the Great Jin Dynasty urgently needed, it was impossible for Sima Shu to give up trade with the Wa State.

In addition, Goguryeo and Wa did not have a strong navy, and for the time being, they could not pose a threat to the 'weak' Dajin navy, which could allow the Dajin navy to grow up healthily. When the navy has the ability to fight in the ocean, Sima Shu can let them go to the Nanyang region to wander around!

In addition to the choice of routes, the most heated discussion in Sima Shu's overseas trade development plan was that the imperial court was ready to involve private individuals in overseas trade. Since the wind of overseas trade in Qingzhou blew into the capital, everyone is not calm! Now that the emperor himself has promised to allow private access to overseas trade activities, how can he not excite everyone!

The Wang family, the Yang family, the Cui family, the Pei family, the Xun family and a large number of other families who took refuge in Sima Shu completely gave up the little mustard in their hearts, and in their opinion, the wealth road that Sima Shu pointed out to them was much greater than the benefits that were plundered from them at the beginning. Many families believed that as long as overseas trade developed, perhaps in a few years, they would be able to recoup the wealth they had accumulated over the centuries from the land.

According to the news from Qingzhou, the profit of a trip to overseas trade is more than 100,000 yuan, and there must be no one million yuan in a year? That's a lot of profit! Everybody is crazy!

Menxia Province deliberated and approved this overseas trade development plan drafted by the emperor himself at a very fast speed!

From the second half of the first year of Hongwu, the people in the Central Plains, Guanzhong, and Shuzhong were agitated by this overseas trade. Not only the big families, but also some ordinary people learned from the experience of joint-stock farms, and dozens of weak businessmen united to form a large chamber of commerce to compete with the big families!

For this situation, Sima Shu is happy to see it, although in the future there will only be some powerful families who have the strength to carry out ocean trade, but these spontaneously united chambers of commerce will also get a piece of the pie, so that more people will benefit. (To be continued.) )