"Damn it!" Wu Sangui, who was on the battleship, was so angry that he lifted all the cups and plates on the table.

Of the 8,000 Indian soldiers who had been trained with great difficulty, 5,000 were annihilated in this battle. If you don't see the opportunity quickly, take advantage of the night to get on the boat. It is estimated that he is either killed or taken prisoner by the Ming army now. For Wu Sangui, these two things are about the same.

The only difference may be that one will die a miserable death and the other will die even worse.

The Queen of England doesn't care if she can win Daming, she cares about paying as few resources as possible to get greater benefits. The British will not be sent to the Far East to fight, Europe is not at peace now, and Britain needs to maintain a strong military in Europe to deal with those old powers on the European continent.

Wu Sangui can only train Indian soldiers. Fortunately, India is a country with a large population. Just post a recruitment notice, and you can find dozens or even millions of people to apply.

Picking out 10,000 or 20,000 people from so many people to train, they are definitely guys who have reached the peak of intelligence and physical fitness. However, the battle of Xinjiapo was ......!

"Wu! Don't be sad, India has a large population, you can re-recruit the army for training. We have dozens of arsenals in India, there are good quality iron mines in Syria, and equipment is not a big problem.

You see, we already have a steam engine, we have more ferocious guns, and we already have the strength to fight with the Ming Dynasty. George was unleashing Wu Sangui on the side.

"But we still lost!" Wu Sangui was as angry as a mad dog.

"Wu! We lost, but we have to see progress compared to before. You see, we still have four more battleships. If there had been such a naval battle before, we would not have been able to sink only one battleship. That's not a fight, that's a massacre!

Well, now, we have the strength to fight the Ming Navy. If there are more ships, if we have more advanced weapons, next time, we will defeat the Ming army. Believe me!

When I got back, I wrote to the professors at Cambridge and Oxford. I'm going to send people to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and invite some of Europe's top scientists. We will study the secret of the motor, as long as Daming studies it, it will prove that there is such a thing in this world.

I don't believe that the Europeans will lose to the Ming in science. We didn't have a steam engine before, and Mr. Watt helped us solve it perfectly. Maybe the next gentleman can help us solve the electricity problem. Although George lost the naval battle, he was very excited about the result.

The defeat in Zhoushan was so miserable that the British fleet had developed a fear of the Ming fleet. This naval battle lasted more than two hours, and the Ming Navy did its best to sink the Prince of Wales.

And George and saw that the Ming Navy also paid a high price for it. Their flagship was almost crippled, and if they had something that could explode underwater, they might have sunk it.

George believes that bad luck won't just be his own. God is fair, and one day bad luck will also befall the heads of the Ming people.

There will come a day!

George was thinking about the day when the British Empire surpassed the Ming Dynasty in science and technology, but Li Xiao was sighing with a telegram in the capital.

Hell, it's only been a few years since the British Empire has already tinkered with a steam engine. If there is no leak in this, Li Xiao will not believe it. The only question now is ......whether Li Xiu wants to capture Sri Lanka according to the plan in advance.

As an island nation on the edge of India, Sri Lanka is strategically located. As long as Sri Lanka is occupied, with airships and warships, one side of the entire Indian subcontinent is within the range of Ming fire. If nothing else, the daily bombing of airships alone was enough for the British to drink a pot.

I think that the Third Reich was also exhausted by years of strategic bombing. After bombing India for a few years, I don't believe that the British can stay on the coast of India.

At the beginning, Li Xiao's idea was that the fleet would send troops to Sri Lanka after a short rest in Xinjiapo. With the combat power of the Marine Corps, it should be easy to take. Then use Sri Lanka as a springboard to attack Mumbai, India. As long as Mumbai is captured, a nail can be wedged in India.

The British wanted to get Bombay back anyway, and when the time came, they would use Bombay to give full play to the strengths of the Ming army's firepower and consume the British army's vital strengths.

A naval battle off the coast of Xinjiapo can be regarded as completely defeating Li Xiao's calculations. In response to that sentence, the plan could not keep up with the rapid change. Now Li Xiao needs a new, highly feasible plan of action.

"Old man, it is still not appropriate for Sri Lanka to attack. There is no shipyard in Xinjiapo now, and if our navy wants to repair it, it needs to return to Lushun or Huangdao. Even the relatively close Huangdao shipyard will take at least two months.

Count the time for repairing the ship, and then sail to the South China Sea. It takes more than half a year to come and go, which is too long.

Comparatively speaking, the British repaired ships much closer than us. Mumbai Shipbuilding is only a dozen days away from Singapore, and even closer to Sri Lanka.

If we capture Sri Lanka, the fleet will return to the Ming mainland for repairs. After the British warships were repaired, they could directly drive out to besiege Sri Lanka, and then the soldiers there would become water without a source and a tree without roots. The best outcome is to fight to the last soldier.

If there is a large-scale surrender, we will lose our face.

Besides, advanced howitzers and heavy machine guns are not deployed to Sri Lanka, but if they are deployed in Sri Lanka, they will be easily learned by the British. Without deployment, Sri Lanka has no hope of holding on. This is a dilemma, so the old man said, don't attack Sri Lanka for the time being. ”

Zhang Huangyan's analysis is very meticulous and well-reasoned.

Li Xiao nodded in affirmation, it was too far from Daming to Xinjiapo. The telegram in his hand was that the airship flew to Hainan, and then flew to Guangzhou after refueling from Hainan. It was then sent directly to the imperial court by the Guangzhou Telegraph Office.

Rao also spent twelve days on the road. Li Xiao was very afraid of Li Xiu at this time, and he had already attacked Sri Lanka according to the original plan.

"Send a telegram to the Guangzhou Telegraph Office, telling the second child to lead the fleet to stay in Xinjiapo for the time being. During this period, it was necessary to repair the warship on its own. When the defense of Xinjiapo is complete, we will return to the north. ”

"No!" The adjutant took the record and showed it to Li Xiao, and after confirming that it was correct, Li Xiao signed his name and the telegram was sent to the telegraph room.

"The priority now is to set up shipyards in Guangzhou and Hainan. Our fleet can be repaired back and forth, saving at least half of the distance. Zhang Huangyan looked at the latest map and pointed to Guangzhou and Hainan.

"It's too conservative! Guangzhou and Hainan need to set up shipbuilding, and I think it is more important to build shipbuilding in Xinjiapo and Java. In addition, we want to occupy Nha Trang in Cochin. This place serves as a transit point for the Ming Navy to go south, and with this place, the airship can take off with a lot less fuel, and the speed can be increased by at least 30%. Refuel in Nha Trang in the middle, and then you can fly directly to Hainan or Guangzhou.

In this way, the journey was shortened from almost 12 days to about 8 days. ”

"That's fine, but shipbuilding is top secret. Whether it is Lushun or Huangdao shipyards, they are on the island, and the news is quite easy to control. But if a shipbuilding is set up in the bay, what about secrecy?

Besides, the workers are overseas all the year round, and it is difficult to take care of this family, and I am afraid that not many people are willing to go. These are difficult questions! Zhang Huangyan was a little embarrassed, these are specific difficulties. And it's only a part of the specific difficulties, and there are even more things that need to be solved in order to really do it.

"The Java shipyard is easy to do! Over the years, we have continued to arrest people in Java, and no less than one million laborers have been sent into Daming. The construction of the new home Po City, the number of people who died of exhaustion and disease alone reached 100,000. The natives of Java have basically been caught. Now it is basically the world of our Ming people, and we workers go there, except for a little hotter, there seems to be nothing different.

Let Yuan Chonghuan come to the capital for a trip, and the second division must gradually move to Java. With the protection of the 2nd Division, there should be no problems with Javanese shipbuilding. In this way, the defense line of our Daming Sea Frontier has extended more than 6,000 miles. The entire South China Sea has become our Ming Inland Sea, and there will be much more room for maneuver.

As for the shipyard, let the one named Wu Ciyou who followed Zheng Sen do it. This kid is very capable, and the Jinan Arsenal let him get it. Not only has the annual production of rifles increased by 20%, but also more than 2,000 box guns can be produced. That thing is a melee weapon, and the man is chasing after my ass to me.

Just let that kid go! Give the Java shipyard to Lao Tzu, and in the future, the ships of the Ming Navy can be repaired and berthed there. You can also build ships there, and I've heard that along Java and further south, there's a place called Australia.

The place is rich in iron ore, and it is in good condition. According to legend, there was a whole stone the size of a mountain filled with iron ore. From afar, it's all rusty red.

Let the second child send people to search south along the Java Sea, find this place in Australia, and mine iron ore to supply me to the Ming Dynasty. ”

"But it takes a lot of ......!" Zhang Huang regretted his words as soon as he spoke, because the answer was obvious.

"Let the Japanese people catch it, whether it's the Javanese people, or the local Australian natives. It doesn't matter if it's a Jiaozhi person, a Siamese person, or a Burmese person. Anyway, as long as they don't arrest my Ming people, they can do anything. "It was not unexpected by Zhang Huangyan, and sure enough, Li Xiao's method was to arrest people.

Now the financial burden of the Ming Dynasty is very heavy, if it were not for the fact that the six provinces in the south of the Yangtze River already have tax output. The growing military spending will crush the Ming Dynasty's finances. Plundering labor became a good way to save the Ming finances, especially overseas. The plundered laborers only need to take care of the food, and they will work hard for Daming.

This greatly reduces the cost of mineral development! Especially in the northern part of the Ming Dynasty, many coal mines are filled with foreign laborers. As the army of the Ming minerals plundered northward, foreign laborers from Java even appeared in the Mongolian steppe.

The million people mentioned by Li Xiao are just a conservative number, and this number only includes the Javanese labor force plundered by the Ming court. And the coal merchants of the Ming Dynasty hired the laborers plundered by the private armed forces of the Japanese state, which was only a lot more than this number.

As a result, Java, which was originally a populous country, became sparsely populated in just five or six years. Walking on Batavia Street, there are hardly a few Javanese people in sight. The Javanese were reduced from being the first population to a minority in a very short period of time.

"The remaining shipyards in Guangzhou and Hainan will be handed over to Zheng Sen to undertake. In the shipbuilding of Guangzhou and Hainan, there is no need for the ability to manufacture warships. It only takes the ability to build ships, but they need to have the ability to repair warships.

Now that the secret of the steam engine has been leaked, let the ban simply be lifted. It is possible to produce steam engine merchant ships, and it is good to be able to make some money from shipbuilding due to lack of funds.

As for the Xinjiapo Shipyard, let the second child do it. His subordinates can endure a lot, and the nest of manufacturing talents dug from the Xu family has been trained by the fisherman for a few years, and now it is time for them to take the lead.

Then he ordered the city to send people to station in Xinjiapo City, and all the materials that I shipped overseas in Daming were delivered to overseas merchants in Xinjiapo. And tariffs on the site of the new home slope!

The goods shipped to my Ming by overseas merchants can only be handed over to my Ming merchants in Xinjiapo. In charge of tariffs, it is also delivered in Xinjiapo. If the Ming fleet finds ships in the South China Sea without tax payment certificates, they can immediately confiscate them. If you dare to resist, you can sink it immediately.

If smuggled materials are received at ports in various places, those involved will be charged with the death penalty. If an official is involved in the case, in addition to beheading, all family property can be confiscated. The three generations of children and grandchildren were not allowed to go to school, join the army, enter the country's business, and serve as officials in the imperial court. For business, the tax rate is halved.

In this way, a large amount of customs money can be received from Xinjiapo every year. The burden on Ai Husheng's shoulders can also be lighter. "The shipyard needs a lot of money, and Li Xiao can't put his idea on the customs money.

At present, customs cents are collected in various ports, and customs cents are often embezzled in various places. The imperial court has not been able to put an end to it! The reason is also very good, the court handed over the task, but did not allocate the corresponding money. can only embezzle the customs money to use it first, and wait for the imperial court to allocate funds before repaying.

Li Xiao was almost angry to death, but there was no way. Let the local government run schools, and open charity halls to adopt orphans and the elderly. And building roads, bridges, and so on all require money. Many times the imperial court did not give funds, and could only rely on local solutions.

The problem is that the imperial court is also poor!

The northwest has consumed a huge amount of military expenditure, and all localities are engaged in large-scale projects. Large-scale projects such as building roads and railways, hydrothermal power stations, and bridges across the Yangtze River. Ai Husheng has hardly been in the capital over the years, looking for money everywhere to fill the bottomless pit of the imperial court's finances. Over the years, it has been really difficult for him.