"Your Highness, in this way, I am afraid that it will force Zheng Zhilong to rebel." Shen Tingyang said worriedly: "This person was originally Li Dan's righteous son, and he was very big in Japan. This time, it was Zheng Zhilong who opened his mouth and bought 10,000 catties of copper, and the shogunate forbade the sale of copper. "Because Japan was backward in refining jishu, it was unable to extract the silver in copper ore, so copper became one of the most popular materials.

"I know that Japan is closed to the rest of the country, but didn't the Tokugawa shogunate allow the Ming maritime merchants and the Dutch to trade in Nagasaki?" Zhu Cihong asked.

"Your Highness, the Japanese have built a small island outside the port of Nagasaki, allowing the Dutch to load and unload goods on this island, and not allowing them to land on Japanese soil." Shen Tingyang said: "As for my Daming, I can only trade in Nagasaki if I have the seal issued by the Tokugawa clan. ”

"How much did you give the seal?"

"Very little." Shen Tingyang shook his head and said: "So there are many private ports on the five islands outside Nagasaki Port, all of which are set up by Japan's own powerful people, shogunate officials, and maritime merchants such as Zheng Zhilong and other maritime merchants with vermilion seals. They purchased goods from the five islands and brought them to Nagasaki on their own ships. ”

Since there are local snakes involved, the shogunate will definitely not send more seals.

Zhu Cihong's face was dark, and he said: "If North Korea is a filial son, then Japan is a rebel!" Now I have something to do, and after two years, I have quelled the civil strife, and I have to send troops to Japan. ”

"But Your Highness, Japan is a 'non-conquerable country' designated by Emperor Taizu Gao." Shen Tingyang said this, but he was quite looking forward to it. Japan is a big silver-producing country, and just a few silver mines are a lot of profits! Moreover, once the army is to be used against Japan, the sailors will inevitably go, and they can reap great benefits by negotiating afterwards, occupying land and commercial ports, and collecting tariffs.

Zhu Cihong just sneered. Not much was said.

Although it is true that the "Emperor Ming Zu Xun" stipulates that the country cannot be conquered, Japan invaded Korea during the Wanli period, openly confronted the Ming army, and committed ten heinous crimes, which was enough to send troops to conquer its own country. In addition, the large-scale mining of silver mines in Japan was a matter of the year after the Hiroji and Shotoku years. If Emperor Gao had the foresight, he might have beaten it long ago.

"The key is still you," Zhu Cihong said, "It is by no means easy to cross the sea and fight, and whether the Dengzhou Navy can control the sea power is the top priority." Training sailors, training captains, and improving warships had to be done immediately. ”

"Your Highness, since the minister was appointed, he has also been meditating day by day, collecting ships and examples of wars in the east and west. compiled into a book, I want to dedicate it to His Highness. Shen Tingyang saw that the crown prince came to Qingdao and did not go to the port to see the ship, so he knew that His Royal Highness the crown prince did not have any expectations for the current Dengzhou sailors, so he had to use his own experience to make up for it

"Take it for me." Zhu Cihong said.

Shen Tingyang quickly ordered his personal servant to fetch a thick stack of manuscripts, which had been altered and obviously not finalized.

Zhu Cihong stood in the cold wind, not very interested in looking through it on the spot. However, Shen Tingyang said it so beautifully in the general outline at the beginning, almost with the flavor of "The Theory of Sea Power". This kind of exposition of promoting the idea of sea power is particularly precious, which makes Zhu Cihong out of control. I actually stood and flipped through this unfinished book.

Shen Tingyang observed Zhu Cihong's expression, and his heart was worried. He said that he had only thought about writing this book since he was commissioned, but in fact, he had already had an idea when he was just in charge of the family business and seeking to prosper the Sand Boat Gang. In particular, the comparison of various sea vessels and the elaboration of naval warfare thinking are the essence of many years.

However, it is these two parts. It's the easiest thing to get into trouble for him.

Because according to the conclusion he reached, not only did the sailors of the imperial court lack combat effectiveness, but even Zheng Zhilong was at the end of his crossbow, and he was bound to be defeated by emerging sea power countries such as Spain and the Netherlands.

Since ancient times, this judgment has not been good. In addition, so far, the Ming Dynasty has never lost a record of naval battles in European countries, so it is not only unreasonable to rashly make a prediction of defeat, but also be criticized as ignorance and cowardice.

The manuscript was mixed with a large number of drawings and tactical formations, and Zhu Cihong did not study them carefully, but just asked: "Is it true that you are talking about the naval battle between Britain and Spain?" ”

Shen Tingyang said: "This battle took place in August 1588 of the Western calendar, which was the sixteenth year of Wanli in our dynasty. It's not far off, but it's huge. Although the ministers heard of the Portuguese in Macao, even if there were some discrepancies in numbers, they were not necessarily bad in terms of tactics. And judging from today's sea situation, Taixi's sea ships and tactics are indeed imitating the British. ”

This naval battle, which Shen Tingyang felt was problematic in terms of data, was the naval battle in which the British fleet defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. Although Britain won a decisive victory in this naval battle, the Spanish maritime supremacy was only slightly shaken. A year later, Spain's new heavy artillery fleet crushed the much larger English fleet and forced England into signing the Treaty of London in 1604.

"This means," Zhu Cihong sighed, "that we are indeed one era behind in naval warfare. ”

Both the British and the Spaniards, who fought back, won the naval battle for the same reason: heavy firepower.

To this end, the British and Spaniards built their ships taller and taller, placed their guns on the side sides, and abandoned the tactics of straight line approach, and changed to the tactics of horizontal line and long-range artillery strike. Under such conditions, the side with more firepower naturally has a greater advantage.

"Our dynasty still uses the boarding of ships as the main means, or sets small ships on fire to burn their big ships. This was the tactics of the Westerners decades ago. Shen Tingyang said: "The minister thinks that it is not difficult for the sailor to defeat Japan, but I am afraid that there will be losses when encountering Xiyi." Rather than follow the old path of others and be defeated, it is better to change course, build Western-style warships, and win with artillery. ”

The news of the defeat of the Eastern Captives by the official army was repeatedly published in the "Huangming Bulletin", and Shen Tingyang naturally went to find someone to inquire. As long as there are some news channels, everyone knows that now the Ming Dynasty often uses three or five artillery pieces in combat, and there are more than a dozen. This was unthinkable before.

As long as there are enough artillery, it will naturally not be difficult to expand a large fleet.

Zhu Cihong did not rush to conclusions, and said: "No matter what kind of ship, it needs to be operated by sailors, so the training of sailors should still be placed at the top, and no matter how much it is, it is not too much." "Only with a large base can we choose the best of the best. Even if it exceeds military needs, there is still a huge gap in the civilian field.

Moreover, only when a large number of talents pour into the navigation industry can we break the traditional monopoly of navigation passed down from father to son, master and apprentice, and avoid Jishu being outdated and backward.

"You have to do one more thing," Zhu Cihong said, "to sum up the advantages and disadvantages of the Ming ship and the western ship, it is best to build a western ship yourself." Can you find a shipbuilder? ”

"Many shipbuilders in Nanyang are descendants of my Ming dynasty, and you can ask the imperial court to hire them."

"Yes. Leave this matter to Shen Youlong. Zhu Cihong nodded and agreed: "In terms of silver, I will allocate 30,000 taels to you first." This money can only be used for the modification of warships. ”

"Obey the order!" Shen Tingyang immediately bowed.

After the opening of the sea in Longqing, the silver of all shijie was pouring into China, and it directly became the circulating currency of the Ming Dynasty. Especially along the coast, silver has almost replaced copper coins. For the wealthy families in Jiangnan, 30,000 taels of silver simply can't do anything, which increases the appetite of all corrupt officials. In the last years of Wanli, the bribes given to the cabinet ministers were only 1,000 or 100 taels of silver, and by the Chongzhen Dynasty it had risen to 5,000 taels.

In addition to the annual salary of 9 million taels, the Beijing officials had to share half of the profits, that is, 4.5 million taels of silver into the hands of corrupt officials and corrupt officials. In this kind of local inflation, Chongzhen can't do anything with less than 200,000 taels of internal money!

But has silver really depreciated? In fact, it is not, just because of the excessive concentration of wealth, the gap between the rich and the poor in society is too large. Zhu Cihong's rule in Shandong was also a process of equalizing prosperity, and silver was transferred from the hands of the powerful family to the hands of the East Palace, and then exchanged for materials and distributed to the people as means of production and means of life.

Coupled with the introduction of the accounting and auditing system, the administrative expenses of local officials had to be tabulated, which greatly increased the difficulty and cost of corruption, and the monetary value of silver was soon back on track. These 30,000 taels of silver are still a huge amount of money, and they can do a lot of things. (To be continued......)

PS: Ask for recommendation votes~~~ Excuse yourself with these few cards, these are not water, this is the sprout of a new shijie~~