Zhu Chengxiu stood on the shore of Pyongyang's port with his eyes squinted, looking out at the dozen or so pier trestles that were being built. As the commander of the navy of the 'revolutionary army', he has never had a sense of presence in the army. Compared with the Guards, which are famous on land and have made outstanding achievements, the Navy is simply a fishing brigade and a transport brigade.

When Zhou Qingfeng first arrested Zhu Chengxiu to form a navy, firstly, he really had no other manpower, and secondly, he only wanted to deal with pirates. As for the Ming army's sailors who are inferior to pirates, they don't need to pay much attention at all. And the pirates have limited combat power, so naturally they don't need any particularly powerful warships to deal with, just make do with it.

In addition, the 'revolutionary army' has just been established, and the demand for foreign trade is increasing, and a large number of transportation forces are urgently needed. In the case of a limited number of civilian vessels, the navy can be transferred as a transport fleet.

Especially after the capture of Tianjin, the demand for shipping has skyrocketed. At first, the shipyard could only build 100-ton cargo ships, but soon built 500-ton ships. As a result, people in the Navy are constantly being temporarily transferred to run transportation - good fortune tellers for transportation, and bad luck to go fishing.

Zhu Chengxiu was born in a family of sailors, and his family has worked as a sailor in Tianjin for more than 100 years. But in recent decades, few people in their family know how to operate a ship and go to sea, and even fewer know how to fight a sea. The people of the Daming Water Master have long been reduced to merchants, who are responsible for transporting goods and making money.

Zhu Chengxiu himself originally just wanted to be a son-in-law. However, the grandfather of the Zhu family felt that his family's foundation was a ship, and he would be finished without the sea family, so he forced him to learn - fortunately he could drive a boat, otherwise he would have been beheaded after being captured in Wanghai Fort.

However, when the 'revolutionary army' made a steamboat, the sailor's set immediately became obsolete. Zhu Chengxiu's hard sailing ship's handling method is completely unsuitable for steamships - of course, steamships are good, they can run fast without wind, the tonnage is extremely huge, and the handling is much stronger than that of sailboats. But the steamship is complicated, and how to serve the steam engine well is a university question.

Zhu Chengxiu, a dignified naval commander, could only take more than 1,000 captains and sailors under his command to enter the Jinzhou Machinery Factory as apprentices. They had to re-learn, undergo the baptism of industrialization, master a completely different knowledge, and switch from sail power to steam power – Zhu Chengxiu spent the past six months in the academy and in the machine factory.

The whole learning process was so painful and cruel. Zhu Chengxiu painstakingly searched for more than 1,000 naval personnel, and half of these people were eliminated in the process of studying. Many old fur seals who run the sea all year round have no ability to learn in the face of paper, pen and machinery, so they can only be downgraded to run merchant ships. The Navy had to replenish a new batch of junior and senior primary school students and retrain them.

Mechanics are still taught, and boating skills must be taught and practiced by oneself. Not only did no one understand it, but there were also few books. Zhao Ze specially lent them two small steam boats for teaching use. Those two teaching boats often broke down when they went to sea, repaired when they broke, ran after repairing, and broke down when they ran. The entire Navy was tossed alive and dead by the teaching ship.

The result of the toss was that it took half a year to compile several thick "Steam Ship Operation Manuals", "Marine Steam Engine Maintenance Specifications", and "Navy Ship Combat Drill Manual". They are all freshly baked books, and they still contain a lot of mistakes, omissions and contradictions, and are waiting for more practical tests and adjustments.

With these manuals and manuals and the remaining hundreds of usable naval personnel, Zhou Qingfeng ordered the expansion of the navy. The first phase of the target is five warships, thirty auxiliary ships for transporting coal, transporting troops, supplies, commuting. Zhu Chengxiu calculated his family background and found that it was still the life of the transportation brigade.

Most of the Ming army sailors used four or five hundred ships as battleships, which were small in tonnage and could not be loaded with any guns. Naval battles are often carried out by jumping gangs or even setting fire to ships. The sailor's cannon can only shoot iron sand and spray it on the opponent's deck at close range. Don't count on the rest of the tricks.

Zhu Chengxiu originally didn't think that his navy could be anything special. The shipyard of the 'Revolutionary Army' has been producing well recently, and it will soon be equipped with various auxiliary vessels. For example, a commuter boat with a displacement of only a few tens of tons, equipped with a 100-horsepower steam engine, can run at a high speed of 12 knots at sea. The cruising state can also run about eight knots.

As for a standard 500-ton battleship equipped with heavy artillery, it was equipped with two 250-horsepower steam engines with a maximum speed of 10 knots. The performance doesn't look bad, but the design hasn't been completed on Zhao Ze's drawings yet. The only thing Zhu Chengxiu's men were armed with was this 50-ton commuter boat - Zhao Ze's poor navy currently only had a transport ship, so he had to install a cannon on the bow of this commuter boat.

Don't expect any artillery for a fifty-ton boat. Zhao Ze changed the cavalry gun, the caliber was raised from fifty millimeters to seventy millimeters, and the barrel was forged for one meter and five. The barrel is thickened to adapt to the strong charge, the rifling is drawn out of the breech, and the fixed ammunition increases the rate of fire. Naval warfare does not require any ricochet attacks, so a conical warhead is used to improve penetration, and the expansion of the bullet tail strengthens breath-holding.

There was only one cannon on the whole ship, and Zhao Ze had the luxury of designing a semi-enclosed swing turret for this cannon controlled by manpower. Breech loading, frame retreat re-entry, barrel retracted in turret. The turret side fronts are reinforced with steel plates. From the outside, the bow of the commuter ship looks like a small house.

Zhu Chengxiu suddenly drove such a small broken ship from Lushun to provide a minimum maritime vigilance and protection for the commander's Korean strategy - on the sea, the fleet of the 'revolutionary army' was not afraid of encountering pirates, and the steamship could easily throw off the enemy by using its power advantage. However, it is much more dangerous to enter and leave the port because of the fixed route.

To sail to Pyongyang, Zhu Chengxiu needed to dock to replenish water and coal for the boiler. The steam engine has requirements for both water and coal, and the development of the industrial system also requires the quality of personnel. It is not uncommon for the entire 'revolutionary army' system to be punished for indiscriminately adding water and coal to steam engines. Zhou Qingfeng was forced to pay high salaries and conduct strict training for steam engine operators, and severely punished low-level mistakes.

Zhu Chengxiu finally managed to get a boat with a cannon, so he naturally cherished it very much. He personally went ashore to inspect the work of the port's water and coal bureau to make sure that his precious ship would not be damaged. When he finally made sure that the water and coal were all right, he had time to look at the exotic scenery in front of him.

This part of North Korea is known as 'Little China'......

"Phew, how can we Chinese women wear such shameless open-breasted clothes?" Zhu Chengxiu looked at the North Korean woman wearing a chestless dress on the road outside the city with wide eyes, and said disdainfully: "How can these two lumps of black and loose skin and flesh look good?" Fair and tender, the pigeon milk is wonderful. These North Koreans really don't know love! ”

Zhu Chengxiu complained while watching back and forth by the dock. The port on the banks of the Datong River is being built rapidly, and he only had a muddy field half a month ago, and half a month later, there are rows of warehouses and a large number of trestle bridges. Thin and small North Korean coolies worked hard, without any overseers or salaries, just to take care of their food.

There were several foremen on the side of the wharf, and at first glance they were the official gentry who had been exiled from Shandong. These people have been powerful in their original place for hundreds of years, but once they met a ruthless person like Dashuai, they were all transported to North Korea - this is a good fortune, and if the fate is not good, they will die.

Behind Zhu Chengxiu were a large number of barefoot North Korean children, mixed with many young women with fluffy hair and ragged clothes. These are the untouchables near Pyongyang, and those who can do their jobs have been recruited from the city. These can only beg for a living. As for the women, most of them were twelve or thirteen years old, and occasionally fourteen or fifteen, but they had already started the leather and meat business.

"Alas......, Dashuai is not good in a thousand ways, but it is really good for the children of my Han family." Zhu Chengxiu looked at these children of different races and thought of a large number of children under the rule of the 'revolutionary army'. In the past, those who bought young children were either slaves or dragged to beggars. Both are days when life is worse than death.

But the 'revolutionary army' treats children like a young master. Not only did they provide food and clothing, but they also taught children to read and write. Take care of these people who are suffering. Zhu Chengxiu looked at these foreign children and thought that in another ten or twenty years, those children under the rule of the 'revolutionary army' would grow up to be a loyal group of backbones.

Several North Korean girls seem to want to do some 'business' with Zhu Chengxiu, but Zhu Chengxiu can't look down on these dirty little guys. He casually took out a few pieces of bread from his pocket and threw them out, and shouted, "Let's go, let's ......, don't come to me to make trouble." ”

When the cake landed, the North Korean children cheered and rushed up to grab it. Older nature predominates, and they grab the cake and stuff it into their mouths, regardless of the mud. The rest of the people who didn't grab it could only stretch out their hands again and look up at Zhu Chengxiu.

Zhu Chengxiu was covered in goosebumps when these children looked at him, raised his hand and shouted: "Get out, get out!" Don't bother me. ”

A group of children refused to leave, knowing that these Han people had fierce faces, but they rarely bullied children. It wasn't until a North Korean official came up with a whip that they scattered and fled. After the North Korean official drove the child away, he saluted Zhu Chengxiu with a smile and bowed vigorously to please him. Zhu Chengxiu could only throw another penny over, and the official left satisfied.

"Oops, tsk......tt." Zhu Chengxiu looked at everything in front of him with disgust, "If it weren't for the mission, Lao Tzu wouldn't want to come to North Korea." Look at the people here, it's a shame. The Central Plains is so big, why does the big man want to come and grab such a ghost place where birds don't? I also have to send money to the people here, I have to come to build a port here, and I heard that I will also open a mine and a factory here. ”

The matter of the 50 million silver dollar loan to the DPRK has slowly spread from the mouths of the middle and high-ranking members of the 'revolutionary army', and it has been openly reported in the newspapers. The people in Tianjin didn't understand this at all. People didn't dare to go to the Marshal's Mansion to inquire, so they kept running to the newspaper office to inquire - 50 million silver dollars, how much silver is this! With so much money, why not?

Did someone deceive the handsome? What are the benefits of investing so much money in that part of North Korea? It's better to spend this money in the Central Plains. I can buy the whole country. The 'revolutionary army' has less than 50 million people, and if this money is divided equally, each person will get more than a dozen yuan.

This is the case with the public opinion of the people, but whether people understand it or not, anyway, the 'revolutionary army' is Zhou Qingfeng's final say. He said that he wanted to invest 50 million in North Korea, that is, he would invest 50 million. It is useless for others to object.

As long as Zhu Chengxiu thinks about the 50 million, his heartbeat can speed up a few points. He couldn't help but spit on the ground and scolded, "It's cheap to kill you barbarians." The handsome man occupies your land, which is the accumulation of virtue by your ancestors. He had just cursed a few words, but suddenly heard a warning suona from the direction of the port. When I turned my head, I saw several strange boats in the river not far away.