The reply of the Ming court did not surprise the committee, and basically agreed to all the demands made in the telegram here: to allow the delegation to go to Beijing for negotiations, to agree to the landing of the passenger ship they were on in the port of Tianjin, and by the way, to take the "Shenwei Dingyuan General" with him to Tianjin, where the imperial court would send officials of the military department to receive it.

This name was of course taken by the Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen himself, and the young man's attention was easily distracted, and when Qian Qianyi heard about it when he personally reported to him the results of the negotiations with the short hair, he immediately put aside the anger and resentment that had accumulated in his heart for months because of the salt tax issue, and turned to think about the name of the new ship wholeheartedly - this is actually not to blame him for being light-hearted, the key is that Zhao Lide and others have always been meticulous: since they have decided to send a good ship, It is definitely necessary to let the supreme head of the empire know how good this ship is, and know how huge the benefits they have given up this time.

Emperor Ming would definitely not go to the seashore, so it was impossible to see this giant ship with his own eyes, so while repairing the Spanish flagship, Huang Xiaodong also commissioned several skilled carpenters to make a model of this ship in strict proportions, and brought it to Chen Tao when he sent supplies to Beijing, and finally handed it over to the old Qian Ge, asking him to present it to the emperor at the "right time".

Of course, Qian Ge Lao can understand the significance of this model - he has seen the Qionghai and the Princess with his own eyes, and knows that no matter what the written description is, it cannot be compared to the shock when he sees the real thing, but it is a pity that the Son of Heaven will never leave the capital, and the giant ship of the sea will not be able to sail to Beijing, so he can only use this model to let the Son of Heaven have an intuitive feeling.

Qian Qianyi's thinking was more meticulous than Zhao Lide's - he did not rush to submit the ship model, but asked Chen Tao to invite a group of master craftsmen to make the standard Guangchuan Fu ship model that many Ming sailors were currently using according to the same proportion. Then, taking advantage of this opportunity to report to the emperor, he sent the ship model on the same page......

When the more than ten ship models are lined up on the floor of the main hall, the huge volume of the Western ship stands out among the surrounding Ming ships, which can give people a sense of shock. Zhu Youzhen is the Son of Heaven and the emperor, but at the same time, he is only a young man in his twenties after all, he has never been out of Beijing City in his life, and after ascending the throne, he has been nesting in a small place in the Forbidden City all day long.

"This is the Xiyi giant ship that Qiongzhen is about to pay tribute to the imperial court?"

The young emperor was so attracted that he didn't pay much attention to the rest of the report, just circled around the models. And Lao Qian also did his homework first, and at this time he was confident and told the story:

"Exactly, Your Majesty. This is a model that has been reduced by one-fiftieth of the size - all the objects on this ship would be exactly the same as the real ship if magnified fifty times. ”

"Are those of my Great Ming Sailor ships next to them? How can it be so small? ”

Qian Qianyi pouted secretly in his heart, and said in his heart that this was the reason why he wanted to put it together, but he pretended to be panicked:

"The old minister is ashamed, but these ship models are also made in strict accordance with the ratio of 1:50 - the difference between the real objects is so big."

“…………”

Zhu Youzhen was silent, Qian Qianyi naturally knew that the emperor was a little unhappy - he had similar thoughts when he first saw those Western ships of the Qiong Navy, and hurriedly said:

"Our Ming Dynasty actually has a huge ship - it is said that the treasure ship used by the Three Treasure Eunuchs when they went to the West was bigger and better than this Western ship, but the sea has been banned for many years, the shipwork drawings have been scattered, and the shipyard in Nanjing has long been abandoned."

Zhu Youzhen was silent for a long time, and then waved his sleeves:

"The court has no money...... No wonder the Xiyi people are so rampant. Fortunately, Qian Qing said that he had surrendered Qiongzhen, and it was a good policy to control Yicheng. ”

Qian Qianyi was overjoyed, and secretly said that this hard work was not in vain, but he quickly knelt down to thank him, saying something like "the old minister is afraid" and "he should do his best for the country".

And Zhu Youzhen's attention quickly focused on another aspect:

"Is the Hongyi cannon on this ship really the same as the one on Ning Yuancheng's head?"

Although the Western giant ships are lovely, in the minds of the Ming Dynasty, these heavy cannons are more practical - the giant ships cannot be driven to Shaanxi to quell the rebellion of the displaced people, nor can they be used to recover the inland of Liaodong, and they are not even useful for defending the city. The artillery is different, especially after it is rumored that Nurhachi, the chief of Jianzhou, died under the Ningyuan cannon, and the Ming Empire had an almost superstitious good impression of heavy artillery - especially the Hongyi cannon imported from the Westerners.

At the beginning, there were only 40 authentic "Hongyi cannons" in the entire Ming Empire, 20 in Beijing, 10 in Shanhaiguan, and 10 in Ningyuan, outside the Guan. Of course, the Ming Dynasty itself is also trying to imitate, but like modern people look at imported products, in the minds of the Ming people, homemade knockoffs are worse than imported genuine goods after all. What's even worse is that the place where the most imitation of Western artillery was Dengzhou before, and during the Dengzhou Mutiny, most of these imitation artillery fell into the hands of the rebels, becoming a sharp weapon used against the imperial court, and the reputation was even more unbearable.

Qian Qianyi was naturally well aware of this kind of psychology, and at this time, he hurriedly and quietly looked at the small note hidden in his sleeve in advance - although some professional terms on it had been memorized several times in advance, he still had to look at the cheat sheet to feel at ease.

"Your Majesty, although rest assured, the guns carried on the ship this time are all standard twenty-four-pounder long-range guns from the Royal Arsenal of Spain, which are the most commonly used types of guns on the ships of the Xiyi army, and they are only stronger than the Hongyi guns equipped with in our previous dynasty. According to them, the Hongyi cannon that I purchased earlier was actually only attached to a third-class warship in England, and it sank in the South China Sea in the wind and waves, and was salvaged and sold to the Ming Dynasty by the Francos, and the specifications were only between twelve and eighteen pounds, which was actually not a heavy artillery on the Xiyi side. The 24-pounder guns carried on the ship this time were standard ship heavy guns, with long barrels and long firing range, which could be adapted to both naval and land battles. The gun body is all bronze, and it can be recast after it is damaged......"

Qian Qianyi parroted the performance introduction he had previously inquired about from Qiong Haijun, and Zhu Youzhen, who knew nothing about it, listened to it with a fluttering brow-only when he heard the last sentence, and then frowned:

"Will this cannon still break?"

Qian Qianyi was unhurried - he had asked this question beforehand, and he had received a fairly perfect answer:

"Yes, Your Majesty, those people in Qiongzhen made it very clear - this firearm will inevitably be damaged if it is used too much. Gain, whether it is a gun or a cannon, relies on the thrust of the gunpowder explosion in the chamber to eject the gunball cannons so that they can be shot far away. It doesn't hurt to blow it up once or twice, but if it blows up too much, even if the chamber is made of steel, it will inevitably be lost because of its uneven heat and cold--cracks will occur on the surface or inside, and if you continue to use it, you may blow up the chamber and injure yourself. ”

Therefore, these firearms have their lifespan, and they are usually unusable after three to five hundred rounds, and if they are forced to be used, they will explode at some point, which is very dangerous. In the past, the guns of our Daming Shenji Battalion hurt many people, and many generals did not dare to use them, because those firearms were too old, and some of them were even handed down during the Hongwu period, and they had already passed the safety period and could collapse at any time. ”

As soon as these words came out, Zhu Youzhen was immediately shocked:

"In this way, won't most of the firearms battalions of the imperial court have to be re-equipped? How much does that cost more than 10 million?! ”

-- During this period of time, he had been tormented by financial problems, so when Zhu Youzhen heard about this, he immediately thought about economic problems again. Qian Qianyi smiled bitterly, but he didn't dare to go deeper on this topic, so he had to talk about the matter, and pointed to the barrel on the ship model:

"We mostly use iron for our self-made artillery, which is cheap to build, but it can easily break and have a short lifespan. The Xiyi cast cannon is mostly made of bronze, which is better than the iron cannon in terms of thermal conductivity and ductility, and is not easy to rust, so it has a long service life. The guards of the city everywhere love the red cannon and don't like to cast themselves, which is why. In addition, there is another advantage of using a bronze cannon - that is, what the old minister just said: when it is worn out, there may be cracks in the inside, it will be re-cast, and a new cannon can be obtained. In this way, although the price of a single copper cannon is higher, if it is used repeatedly, it is actually not more expensive than an iron cannon. ”

After a long speech, Qian Qianyi couldn't help wiping the beads of sweat on his forehead, and said in his heart that although these theories of short hair are all vernacular, it is much more troublesome to understand than to make poems.

But fortunately, it is enough to fool the emperor - Zhu Youzhen pondered for a long time after hearing these words, and nodded slightly:

"It's a strange story, but it sounds self-justifying. No wonder Cao Huachun reported after inspecting the city the day before yesterday, saying that the firearms left by the apocalypse year on the heads of the various gates except for the Hongyi cannon, the rest of the cannons were quite rusty and unusable...... Those people are still sincere, and the good and bad are made clear, not blindly showing good people. ”

Reaching out and gently patting the guns on the ship models - these models of guns came out of metal rod carts and painted blue, and they looked very realistic. Zhu Youzhen originally thought it was wood, but after touching it, he found out that it was not, so he couldn't help but pick it up and look at it carefully, and sighed:

"It's really finely made...... Qian Qing, I heard that the firearms used by the Qiong Navy are better than those of Xiyi? ”RS