"Sixth master, sixth master, the deer you just hunted, the wine is also warm, how about drinking together?" The distance was so far away, Yang Yandi looked at Chen Liuzi, quickly greeted him, and shouted flatteringly.

Chen Liuzi shook his head slightly: "There is still something on the ship today, there is no time to socialize, you can drink it yourself." ”

"Sixth Master, then I'll split the deer in half and send it to you on the boat." Yang Yandi looked at Chen Liuzi's back and said loudly.

"Chief Chen is really, so arrogant, he doesn't even give you face." The officer behind Yang Yandi muttered.

Yang Yandi's face became ugly, he raised his hand to fight, and saw that the officers behind him were all newly recruited guards or recruited thieves, and it had not been too long to join the Eastern Brigade, so he no longer taught me a lesson, but said seriously: "You all listen to me, and you are not allowed to speak ill of Chief Chen in the future."

He is the sworn brother of the big shopkeeper, don't think that the big shopkeeper gave the big guy a future with a word, if it weren't for Chief Chen's mediation, the Oriental Brigade would never have such a grand occasion. Brothers who meet the navy fleet in the future should also have a good attitude. ”

"Yes!" The crowd saluted with their hands crossed.

The Eastern Brigade will be the focus of the trading company's military field next year, and this is the one that Li Zhaoji personally operated and established, and it can be said that the trading company's resources for the whole year should be invested in the equipment, training, and application of this mixed army brigade.

However, it is undeniable that the trading company was built on the basis of the fleet, and almost all the top leaders of the trading company came out of the fleet, and invested not in the navy, but in the army, which is criticized. It is even more puzzling that resources are not invested in the commercial expansion and conquest of trading companies, but in the suppression of thieves and captives for the Ming court.

Only Li Zhaoji has the ability to defy public opinion and practice his will, but the support of Chen Liuzi, a representative of the navy and fleet, is also an indispensable help.

Yang Yandi knew the strange atmosphere inside the trading company, and he had to be even more cautious, and he had to treat Chen Liuzi with more respect.

Chen Liuzi came to the flagship of the Dongfang, and saw Tang Mu laughing and talking with his subordinates from a distance, so he knew that Li Zhaoji had arrived on the ship.

"The big shopkeeper is waiting for you in the war room." Tang Mu said to Chen Liuzi.

Chen Liuzi nodded, and when he entered the war room, he saw that the table was full of drinks and dishes. Given the cramped space on the Vostok, this war room also served as an officer's dining room and a chart room, and it is clear that it is now a private dining room for two.

"Is this a foreign wine from Matsolko?" Chen Liuzi picked up a glass of whiskey, tasted it, and said, "General, very ordinary." ”

"Indeed, but when the treaty is signed, and I celebrate with this wine, you will express your satisfaction with the whiskey to the director-general." Lee Siu Kee said.

"Of course, do you want to make a play on the spot, the treaties have been signed, the lining has been given, the benefits have been caught, and the face will naturally have to go." Chen Liuzi said, but his words were still full of dissatisfaction.

Li Zhaoji said: "You still think that I should not participate in the operation of the Guangdong army to the north, right? ”

In terms of the trading company's strategy for next year, Li Zhaoji has already had a disagreement with the top management of the trading company, and Chen Liuzi and Liu Mingde are both puzzled by Li Zhaoji's full support for the Guangdong army, although they have given the greatest cooperation to his arrangement out of trust in Li Zhaoji, but they still cannot understand it.

Chen Liuzi said: "I didn't think so, the entanglement of interests between the trading company and Guangdong Province will only get deeper and deeper, and it is inevitable to have a good relationship with the Ming court." Then it's okay to be a mercenary for them, but big brother, I really didn't expect that you would invest so much.

You know the current situation of the trading companies, in the north, we provoked such a formidable opponent as Japan, and in the south, the Dutch saw us as a threat.

Under the circumstance that the trade in the Central Plains and Jiangnan was always obstructed by the Zheng family, the trade in the South Seas was also inevitable.

Whichever side you deal with, you should put most of your resources into the fleet, rather than taking advantage of the fire for the Ming court.

You are not a loyal minister and filial son of the Ming Dynasty, how can you be more active than the Guangdong gentry in this matter? ”

Chen Liuzi has been in Nanyang for several generations, and he is not loyal to the Ming Dynasty, Li Zhaoji also claims to have been adrift for many years, and a person who dares to take the Qinglong as the banner does not look like a guy who wants to be a loyal minister of the Ming Dynasty.

Chen Liuzi drank wine, the more he drank, the more bitter he became, he said: "The most important thing is that I don't see any benefits from being involved in the northern aid of the Guangdong army, and even if there is, it will not be comparable to our investment." You even signed a treaty with the Dutch for this matter, tying yourself up. ”

It can be said that since the extermination of the four surnames, all the focus of the Oriental Trading Company has shifted to assisting the Guangdong army in aiding the north, and funds, manpower, and resources have all been invested in it. In the negotiations with the Dutch, Li Zhaoji convened a treaty with the Dutch, not to obtain cheap rice from the South Seas, nor to make any trade profits, but to avoid the threat of the sea.

When the full strength of the trading company is invested in the north, the trading company must ensure that there is no major threat at sea.

"Do you still feel sorry for this?" Lee took out a model from under the table.

It was a beautiful two-deck battleship, with the word Qinglong written in gold-painted font on the stern, which was the ambition of Chen Liuzi, who made this appearance with several craftsmen based on the shipbuilding ability of the trading company and Lee Zhaoji's understanding and expectations of the sail battleship.

With a displacement of more than a thousand tons, the Blue Dragon could be armed with sixty cannons, of which twenty-four pounder guns were on the lower deck, eighteen pounder guns on the upper deck, and nine pounder guns on the open deck.

This was the first battleship designed by Chen Liuzi for the trading company's navy, and it was planned early, when Aaron returned, he asked Aaron to bring European shipbuilders, and he arranged for the commercial officers stationed in Manila to hire the shipbuilders in Cavite for the Spaniards, and even searched extensively for teak in the South Seas, preparing to find a forty-meter-long teak to make the keel of the battleship.

Chen Liuzi hoped that in four years, the Qinglong could be launched and become the strongest battleship in the eastern seas, not the new flagship of the navy.

When the formation of the Eastern Brigade became a reality, this model was put away by Chen Liuzi from his desk, but when he learned that the treaty signed between Li Zhaoji and the Dutch restricted the trading company navy to build single-gun deck warships, and the Qinglong was completely unnecessary.

"Sixth brother, you don't think that if you build the Blue Dragon, you can defeat the Dutch." Lee Siu Kee said.

"We can build more." Chen Liuzi said.

Li Zhaoji laughed: "This ship, no matter how you look at it, the cost will not be less than 100,000 taels of silver, with the strength of the trading company, how many can you build?" And the warships with the same firepower, the Dutch East India, Du Company has more than 20 ships, and those returning galleons of more than 1,000 tons can be transformed into such firepower at any time.

Do you think that with Van Dimen's character, he will watch you build ten Blue Dragons? ”

"It's better to deter the red hairs than just building a cruiser." Chen Liuzi said.

Li Zhaoji shook his head slightly: "There is no future in building battleships, and our increment will never be able to catch up with the stock of the Dutch." But having a strong navy to replace the Dutch as the hegemon of the seas is the common ideal of you and my brothers.

Yes, the resources of the trading company are now invested in the army, but it does not mean that the navy is sinking, but as the weaker side, we need to have a long-term and more effective plan.

So, I'm giving you this as a gift. ”

Li Zhaoji opened the box at his feet and took out the model of the ship inside, Chen Liuzi put down the wine glass, took a look, and when he saw that it was a model of a cruiser, he was not interested, he put down the wine glass, but the slender hull of the cruiser always made him can't help but look at it.

A navy can not only have battleships, but also other types of warships, and cruisers are an important cooperation, but Chen Liuzi looked at it for a while and found that the cruiser also called Qinglong was completely different.

Judging by the sail cable system, the cruiser was built to the same proportions as the battleship Qinglong, but it looked more slender, and the gun deck was noticeably longer.

You must know that the Qinglong designed by Chen Liuzi has 26 guns on the lower gun deck, 28 guns on the upper gun deck, and the cruiser has a longer deck, and theoretically the number of one-sided gun doors is more, which can reach fifteen or even sixteen, but the gun doors of the cruiser are very sparse.

In other words, this cruiser, which is longer than the gun deck of the Qinglong, has only twenty main guns, and with the open-air deck guns, the number is only twenty-eight.

Chen Liuzi took out a model of a cannon from it and found that, as he thought, it was indeed a kind of artillery that he had never seen before.

Navy guns, whether iron or bronze, are getting thinner and thinner from the tail to the muzzle, that is, the thickness of the gun wall is getting thinner, after all, the distance from the gunpowder deflagration is getting farther and farther, and the pressure that needs to be borne is getting smaller and smaller, and being as thin as possible can reduce weight and material use.

The same is true of this new type of artillery, but its transition is not at all silky, and the transition from the tail to the muzzle to two-fifths of the way suddenly narrows and widens.

Chen Liuzi always felt that the appearance of this artillery cannon was a little familiar, as if he had seen it somewhere, he thought about it, his eyes inadvertently caught a glimpse of the whiskey that was already left, he put the wine bottle down, and immediately understood, is this different from the wine bottle?

"How does this cannon look like a wine bottle?" Chen Liuzi asked.

Li Zhaoji nodded: "Yes, this kind of artillery, we can call it a wine bottle cannon, it adopts a new casting method, and the arsenal is experimenting, but it is not going well, but it is obvious that it will be successful."

In the future, the main guns on this cruiser will be this kind of bottle guns. ”

"How many pounds, thirty-six?" Chen Liuzi asked: The 36-pounder gun is currently the heaviest artillery used in the warships of the foreign navy.

Obviously, with such a long artillery deck with so few guns, the caliber must be large.

"It's bigger than that." Lee Siu Kee said.

"It can't be forty-eight pounds." Chen Liuzi's eyes widened, he had heard Aaron say that Britain had equipped its naval flagship with a forty-eight-pound gun, but because it was too heavy, the center of gravity of the flagship was unstable, so it was changed back to a forty-six-pound one.

Li Zhaoji shook his head again, and with one finger indicated the poundage of the artillery.

Chen Liuzi almost exclaimed: "Ninety pounds!" Oh my God, that's a lot of weight. ”

Li Zhaoji thought for a while: "It's about the same as the British's forty-eight-pounder gun." ”

The weight of the 90-pound bottle cannon was about 68 pounds equivalent to that of the naval guns of the same era, but the 17th-century cannon casting process was not perfect, and the 48-pound cannon was four and a half tons, which was about the same as the 90-pound bottle gun.

Li Zhaoji added: "If you don't feel that the power is strong enough, you can change to a bigger artillery." For example, how about four hundred and forty pounds, and if it doesn't work, what about eight hundred pounds? ”

"Okay, don't talk about it." Thinking that a shell could be heavier than himself, Chen Liuzi felt a headache: "What kind of warship is worth bombarding with an eight-hundred-pound gun?" ”

"It's such a warship!" Li Zhaoji clicked on the model on the table and flicked it with his fingernail, making a crisp sound instead of a dull sound on the wood.

Chen Liuzi took a closer look, and the side of the ship turned out to be made of iron, Chen Liuzi asked, "Could it be that this is an ironclad battleship?" ”

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