Five large bungalows, plus a temporary creek, are the location of the Ming Ordnance Bureau.

Zhu Youzhen sat by a pile of coal fires, looking at John Tang and three hundred Portuguese soldiers with a high nose and blue eyes in front of him.

The three hundred Portuguese soldiers were neatly groomed, all of them mighty and erect, armed with heavy revolvers and some ramming flintlock pistols.

At the same time, it was equipped with three Franc cannons.

Zhu Youzhen knew the power of the Portuguese soldiers.

In this era, Britain has not yet risen, the world, especially the sea, is still the world of Spain and Portugal, and of course the Netherlands, the sea coachman, has begun to twilight.

That is, the Portuguese army at this time should be one of the strongest in the world today.

Originally, in history, Qu Shiyun, a famous minister who resisted the Qing Dynasty, relied on a group of borrowed Portuguese soldiers to defeat the Qing army and recover many lost territories.

In addition to the fact that Tang Ruowang's appearance is still Western, his demeanor is no different from that of a Chinese, and he wears a five-grade official uniform.

Zhu Youzhen first asked the three hundred Portuguese soldiers in front of him: "Which of you is the commander, will you speak the words of my Ming Empire?" ”

At this time, a man wearing a white skirt, a gray vest, a red top hat, and yellow curly hair on his temples and about the same shoulder as himself walked in front of Zhu Youzhen with a command knife and saluted Zhu Youzhen.

"Your Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, the contemptible Baron Chadri, is now bringing three hundred Portuguese soldiers to receive the order."

"Chadri is it, you are still a baron, I will also make you an official, and you will be appointed as the general of the Western Battalion directly under the Second Army of the Guards, from now on, before the contract is terminated, you are an official of my Ming Dynasty, and I will give you the treatment you deserve, but from now on, everything must be under the command of me and your direct superior, He Xin, the chief officer of the Second Army of the Imperial Horse Guard, including your life, I can also take it at any time."

Chadri was a little dazed, and hurriedly waved his hand: "No, no, His Majesty Emperor Ming, I can accept to serve in your country, but my life can't belong to you." ”

"I can't help you, show this knight who came from afar to show me the majesty of my Ming Guard!"

Zhu Youzhen took a few steps back after speaking, and then an iron wall fell from the sky, blocking Zhu Youzhen inside.

At the same time, the soldiers of the Guards stationed at the armory began to assemble, all of them were birds and horses, and there were cavalrymen with three-eyed guns, and they surrounded the three hundred Portuguese soldiers.

Portugal had lost the battle in the hands of the Ming Dynasty, so it did not dare to be as arrogant as the Westerners in front of the Qing army in later generations, and the Ming army in front of them obviously occupied the home advantage, so although the Portuguese soldiers had better firearms and even stronger individual capabilities, they had to give in at this moment.

"Well, I choose to obey, you are really a domineering Emperor Your Majesty, but you didn't mention it in the employment contract you gave me."

Chadri was very aggrieved, he thought that he could really earn a lot of real money by coming to work as a mercenary for this rich emperor, and get more commercial trade privileges and religious propaganda privileges.

But he didn't expect that he would put his life in the hands of His Majesty the Ming Emperor in such a daze, and he was very worried that Zhu Youzhen would be an extremely cruel emperor.

"It doesn't matter if you mention it or not, if you go against my will, it's not easy for me to kill you, you need to tell me now, how many people around you can speak my Ming official language?"

Since Zhu Youzhen spent a lot of money to hire a group of Portuguese soldiers from Macao, he naturally would not simply let them send their heads like Qu Shiyun.

If there are people here who understand the official language of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Youzhen hopes to let these people do things for the Ming Dynasty in the Ordnance Institute and the Lecture Hall.

But alas.

Chadri expressed great regret that his soldiers basically did not understand Fengyang Mandarin, except for a few Hakka dialects in the Liangguang area.

This is related to the fact that Daming currently has no Mandarin standard.

Ten miles of different winds, thousands of miles of different customs, relying on the ears and eyes to learn the Chinese Chinese language of the Francophone people naturally difficult to be familiar with the dialects of all places in Daming, even the Daming people can not do it.

Whether it is domestic or international exchanges, Zhu Youzhen feels that it is also very important to comprehensively popularize the official language of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, this matter can only be implemented after Liu Zongzhou of the Ministry of Rites is busy with Enke.

With the three hundred Portuguese soldiers in front of him, Zhu Youzhen couldn't let them fight for a while, after all, before the spring of the eighteenth year of Chongzhen, Shenzhou was still relatively quiet at this time.

Therefore, Zhu Youzhen pretended to be very disappointed and said: "I don't understand the official language of the Ming Dynasty, how can I obey the order, go and call me the Ying Tianfu Cheng Qu Shiyun, and ask him to assist you in popularizing the official language of the Ming Dynasty for this group of soldiers under you, two months later, if you can't learn the official language of the Ming Fengyang, I will be severely punished!" ”

Chadri didn't expect to come to Daming, and the first thing His Majesty the Emperor Daming asked him to do was to take his officers and soldiers to learn the official language of Daming.

This made Chadri breathe a sigh of relief, learning a language is better than going to the battlefield, and the mercenary money is the same anyway, so why not do it.

However, in a few days, they would rather choose to go to the battlefield for Zhu Youzhen than be willing to follow the Confucian minds of the Ming Dynasty.

Although Bi Maokang was seriously ill, there were still many literati and scholars in the Ming Dynasty who had studied or accepted natural sciences.

Although Zhu Youzhen himself can't remember much, under the recommendation of Song Yingxing and others, Qu Shiyun, Fang Yizhi, and Sun Heding (Sun Shiyuan's son) have all been listed in the list of key training, including two missionaries, John Tang and Julio.

Among them, Julius was a good friend of Qu Shiyun, and Qu Shiyun was also a Christian.

Jin Yiwei successfully hired 300 Portuguese soldiers from Macao, and Qu Shiyun went to Macao through Julius to do this.

Now Zhu Youzhen asked Qu Shiyun to lead this group of Portuguese soldiers, which is naturally convenient for this group of Portuguese soldiers to communicate with the people of the Ming Dynasty more conveniently, and at the same time, through this move, Qu Shiyun will be incorporated into his own guard system.

Fang Yizhi is a member of the Restoration Society, and a member of the Hanlin Academy, although he has a lot of research on Western studies, but he is not as focused on technical research as Bi Maokang, and is biased towards theoretical research, so Zhu Youzhen did not let him participate in the work of the Ordnance Institute, but planned to let him preside over the establishment of the Daming Academy of Sciences.

As one of the four sons of the late Ming Dynasty, and a high school scholar, or a Hanlin official, Fang Yizhi's influence and connections in the Ming academic circles, especially in the Jiangnan area, are naturally unparalleled.

According to Qu Shiyun, this person is good at geography, especially surveying and mapping, and the "Complete Map of All Nations" was completed by this person in cooperation with Yang Tingyun and others.

Zhu Youzhen, in line with the purpose of making the best use of his talents, also sent Jinyi Wei to summon this person into Beijing to participate in geographical surveying and mapping.

However, it is impossible to count on this person to help in the ordnance, and Zhu Youzhen can only use one person now, which is John Tang in front of him.