Ning Qi was silent after seeing Xu Xinsu's response, and he could roughly guess the psychology of the other party, so he immediately threw out a preferential condition: "Considering the long-standing cooperative relationship between our two sides, our military expenses in this joint military exercise will be borne by our side, and Lord Xu does not need to worry about the cost." ”

"How can this be made!" Xu Xinsu was broken by Ning Qidao, and hurriedly objected: "This joint military exercise will benefit the Ming army a lot, and the old man can't ask for it, so it should be borne by our side." ”

Ning Qi waved his hand and said, "Lord Xu, don't fight, the cost of the military exercise is a trivial matter, you just need to promise me another thing." ”

"Mr. Ning, please speak!" Xu Xinsu saw that Ning Qi was resolute, so he didn't continue to argue about it, and planned to listen to Ning Qi's conditions first. In case Ning Qi wanted to use this to blackmail himself into giving up the peace talks, then he would have to think about it again.

I heard Ning Qi say: "I plan to invite Lord Xu to our flagship 'Wei Signal' to coordinate and command this joint military exercise, I wonder if Lord Xu can appreciate his face?"

Xu Xinsu was stunned and said, "This is Mr. Ning's condition?" He originally thought that Ning Qi would definitely put forward some conditions that would make him embarrassed, but he never thought that he would just invite himself to the ship to observe the military exercise. When the "Wei signal" appeared in the port of Zhongzuo, Xu Xinsu and his sailors and generals were already drooling, although they also wanted to take the opportunity to make a request to board the ship to visit, but they also felt that this warship was a big killer weapon of the Haihan, and most of them would not allow outsiders to visit, for fear of being directly rejected by the Haihan people and losing face, so they never mentioned this matter. I didn't think that I didn't ask for it, but Ning Qi took the initiative to invite first.

Ning Qi smiled: "Although I don't have any intention of mentioning conditions, it doesn't matter if Lord Xu wants to understand this as our condition." ”

Xu Xinsu knew that he was speechless, so he had to force a smile at the moment: "Mr. Ning invited him kindly, but the old man was disrespectful." May I ask Mr. Ning, when is the appropriate arrangement for this joint military exercise? How many troops does our side need to participate? Is there a corresponding plan?"

Ning Qi turned his head sideways and said to Morgan, "Now it's your turn." ”

Morgan coughed dryly, and then said: "Lord Xu, our planning for this naval exercise will take two to three days, and the main training content is maritime patrol, coordinated attack, and sea rescue. But first of all, I need to understand how many troops and warships you can dispatch without having a big impact on Fujian's coastal defense, and then we can formulate a corresponding exercise and combat plan, and this link, plus the preparation of materials and the mobilization of personnel, will take about four or five days. ”

Xu Xinsu pondered for a while before responding: "How about being consistent with you? As for how many ships to ship, this old man Rong said a big thing, as long as you need it, two or three hundred sea ships can still be transferred at any time. ”

Morgan emphasized: "I'm talking about warships, not ordinary civilian ships. ”

Xu Xinsu said with a smile: "The sea ships under the old man's command, even if they are merchant ships, carry a few earthen cannons and a few bird guns, and they can also be temporarily requisitioned as warships if necessary." Although it was not as strong as Haihan's ships, it was barely enough to deal with the attack of Eighteen Zhi in the coastal waters. ”

Xu Xinsu said the truth, because piracy was rampant along the coast of Fujian, unarmed merchant ships did not dare to go to sea at all, and some melee firearms were usually prepared on board. Of course, these weapons are completely different from the ship-borne weapons equipped with the Haihan Navy, and the weapons of the Haihan Navy are designed to damage and sink enemy ships, and they have powerful firepower and long range. The firearms on these ships are aimed at killing and injuring the crews of the opposing side at close range, and as for the attack on the ship, these firearms are slightly less powerful.

Xu Xinsu may have deliberately not mentioned the weapon configuration of the Ming army's naval divisions, but in fact, although the Ming army's naval divisions were equipped with many firearms, their power was not much stronger, especially in terms of range and shooting accuracy, there was a relatively large performance gap with the Haihan naval guns. And this gap is not a secret, most of the officers of the Fujian Navy Division who have gone to Sanya for training in recent years have seen the power of the artillery of the Haihan Navy with their own eyes, and to equip a warship with double-digit artillery, there are still many technical obstacles for the current Fujian Navy Division. Of course, Haihan's purchase restriction order for all kinds of artillery is probably one of the root causes of the Fujian naval division's combat readiness level to stagnate, even if they want to buy guns from Haihan to load them on their own ships, they will have to give priority to meeting the needs of city defense because of insufficient numbers.

Although the warships under the command of the Fujian Navy Division were limited, Xu Xinsu still had many seagoing ships with preliminary armaments under his private name. As he said, these ships can be temporarily requisitioned as warships in wartime, and even if the combat performance is average, the opponent's ships are not much better. However, Eighteen Zhi won at least two or three times more than Xu Xinsu's side, and under the condition that the individual strength of the two sides was about the same, Eighteen Zhi could gain an overwhelming advantage in numbers.

However, this advantage is only for the old sailing ships, the Fujian Ming army now purchased from the Haihan "Exploration class" warship, its performance has greatly exceeded the old style sailing ship, not only fast speed and flexible operation, but also strong firepower, completely can carry out unilateral artillery bombardment of the enemy at a relatively safe distance, even if the number of opponent ships is larger, the "exploration class" can also rely on the advantage of speed to get out safely. Tactics such as sticking, blocking, and intercepting used by Shibazhi in the past to plunder at sea are difficult to come in handy in front of the "exploration-class" warships.

Being able to personally participate in the military exercises organized by the Haihan military obviously made Xu Xinsu very excited, and during the next discussion with Morgan about the details, Xu Xinsu almost responded to his requests, and even Morgan proposed that after the fleet went to sea, the Haihan side would take command, and Xu Xinsu also agreed.

Ning Qi and Morgan also deliberately did not mention the matter of peace talks, they were not prepared to use the military exercise as a quid pro quo in exchange for Xu Xinsu's compromise, but wanted to use their strength to tell Xu Xinsu who should hold on to his thighs.

The two sides talked about noon, Xu Xinsu asked people to open a table, and continued to talk while eating. After lunch, Xu Xinsu asked several of his generals to come to the mansion to discuss the details of the exercise with Morgan. And Ningqi, a civil official, inevitably had nothing to do, so he took the initiative to propose to Xu Xinsu at the moment that he wanted to go around the city of Zhangzhou and see the local people.

Seeing this, Xu Xinsu called a housekeeper in the house and asked him to take someone to accompany Ning Qi to the city. Ning Qi was about to leave when he was stopped by Morgan. Morgan pulled him under the porch outside the house, then pulled out a pistol and handed it to him: "There is business to talk about here, and the safety is up to you." ”

"Rest assured. Ning Qi patted Morgan on the shoulder, then took the pistol and put it in his briefcase: "I'll be careful." ”

"Remember to open the safety first when shooting, and also, this glock18 is an automatic pistol, don't be nervous and run out of bullets, this baby's bullet reserve is not too much. Morgan was afraid that Ning Qi would forget it, so he specially admonished him.

In fact, Ning Qi did not go to Zhangzhou City alone, in addition to Xu Xinsu transferred a team of people to protect him in civilian clothes, Ning Qi also had four guards affiliated with the Executive Committee Guard Company who had been following him. This guard is also very strict in the selection criteria, not only must be bold and good at these basic requirements, but more importantly, he must be 100% loyal to Haihan, and he will not hesitate to sacrifice himself at a critical moment to protect Haihan's dignitaries. When it comes to shielding knives and arrows, they are the last line of defense by the traverser's side.

Of course, this scarce resource is not available to every traverser, and only a few high-level personnel of the Executive Committee will be equipped with personal guards, and each person will only have two personal guards, and only two personal guards will be allowed to allocate two more places when they leave the Sanya base area to perform official duties.

The guards company fighters were not equipped with rifles, and the standard personal weapons were short guns and daggers. The short gun is a revolver that was successfully trial-produced in the Tiandu Arsenal at the beginning of this year, which is the revolver that often appears in Westerns. However, due to the relatively high manufacturing cost and use cost of this kind of close-range weapon, only a small amount of the special department of the guard company is equipped at this stage, and the performance of the weapon is still in the state of experiments, which is far from the level required by the military.

The housekeeper in Xu Xinsu's house also prepared a soft sedan chair for Ning Qi, but Ning Qi didn't want to sit in the sedan chair and parade the streets, so he politely declined the kindness, but the tour guide arranged for him accepted it gladly.

Ningqi was served as a tour guide by a teenager, who is said to be the son of a steward in Xu Xinsu's mansion, named Wang Jialin, who was not yet 20 years old, and also went to Sanya to study for more than a year earlier. After the establishment of "Qiong Lianfa" in the second year, the Haihan Executive Committee opened up some professional and technical learning opportunities in order to win over shareholders, and each shareholder sent reliable young people to Shengli Port to learn these advanced technologies, and Wang Jialin was one of them. However, he studied business and finance at that time, and did not have the experience of being a student under Ning Qi. Of course, although Ning Qi didn't recognize him, he did recognize Ning Qi, a big man at the top of the Haihan power pyramid.

A few days ago, after Xu Yuzhuo received the fleet of the Haihan mission on Dongshan Island, he had already sent a fast boat to the front to send a letter back to inform him of the composition of the Haihan mission. Xu Xinsu specially summoned Wang Jialin and other subordinates who had studied abroad and asked them about the personnel of the Haihan Mission. Roughly speaking, it is to understand the preferences, taboos, and so on of several high-level personnel of the mission, so that you can do what you like in the reception. After the mission arrived in Zhangzhou, the point-to-point reception and accompanying tasks were basically assigned to these former overseas students.

However, any international student who has lived in Shengli Harbor for a period of time has a much higher sense of identity with Haihan than ordinary Ming people, and Wang Jialin is no exception. After meeting Ning Qi, he took the initiative to inquire about the construction status of Shengli Harbor, especially the steam locomotive that ran between Shengli Port and Tian Du in smoke, which was the focus of Wang Jialin's concern -- he was very curious to know whether Haihan would one day promote this kind of steel monster car driving on the track to the entire Qiongzhou Island.

Ning Qi smiled: "This is our long-term goal, but it can't be achieved yet." Building railway tracks is a time-consuming, laborious and expensive job, and even if there is enough labor, it will probably take several years to build a railway around Qiongzhou Island. ”

Wang Jialin was slightly disappointed when he heard this answer: "If this is the case, can you still see it in your lifetime?"

Ning Qi said: "You are only nineteen years old, you are still early in your life, you not only have the opportunity to see the railway around the island, but also have the opportunity to witness other Haihan miracles." Well, maybe by the time you get old, there are many places in Fujian that already have railway tracks. ”

"If there is such a day, the villain must be the first passengers. Wanggarin was immediately excited again, apparently interested in steam locomotives.

Ning Qi asked curiously: "You just said that you studied business and finance in Shengli Port, since you are so interested in locomotives, why didn't you take a mechanical course in the first place?"

Wang Jialin shook his head helplessly and said: "This is the arrangement of the adults, what is the identity of the villain, how can he have the right to choose the course by himself." ”

"If you are really interested in this knowledge, then I can recommend you to study in Sanya. When Ning Qi heard him say this, his motivation to be a good teacher also rose. As long as they are young people who are interested in Haihan culture and knowledge, Ningqi is very good at pulling them into his own circle. As long as these young people have the opportunity to receive a few years of "orthodox" Haihan education, their values and world outlook will change significantly, and they will most likely become supporters of the Haihan system -- this has been well reflected in the young naturalized people who have been continuously trained in Sanya in recent years.

These young people from the middle and lower classes of society will not stick to the old ways, they have not personally experienced how vast the imperial grace is, how wise the imperial court is, but they really enjoy the benefits brought by the Haihan system to individuals, and obtain the opportunity for continuous upward development in this social system. The relatively more robust social security of the Haihan will also allow them to have less worries about the future, and they can do something in the Haihan area that may have seemed deviant in the past.

Something like a steam locomotive was regarded as a monster by many people when it first appeared in Sanya, but there are also many young people like Wang Jialin who quickly accepted the new thing, and wondered whether its operation was a demon law, or what the Haihan people called the "Avenue of Science". And once the door of this knowledge is opened, the basic theories of rule such as the "Mandate of Heaven" propagated by the feudal dynasty will be completely dismantled, and the authority of the Ming Dynasty will be rapidly reduced in the minds of these people.