Although the Spanish Empire was the first maritime power in the Age of Discovery, the problem was that their sailors and sailors lived very poorly at sea, and the only food they could store was jerky and dry bread.

But the problem is that the price of canned food is too high, until now, the Spaniards have not understood the key to the problem that canned food can extend the shelf life, they have learned to do it themselves, but the canned food made is stored for half a month at most, and it is stinky when opened, and the Spaniards do not understand the principle and technology of disinfection and sterilization.

Of course, the window paper that pierced the technical barrier of canning is a thin layer.

In the Spanish Empire, unless you can't get along in the country, you will go to the ocean, the voyage is very hard, crossing the ocean once, you can eat up the hardships of three lifetimes, and it is very dangerous, you don't know if you can come back when you go out, in addition to navigators, you can choose this kind of life in addition to those poor people who have a way to go, people who have a decent job, ghosts are willing to be sailors! 、

In Europe, sailors are the embodiment of dirty, gamblers, outlaws, and the vast majority of people will only fear them, despise them, and never respect them!

In Spain, as soldiers and admirals in the navy, such a good opportunity could not be their turn, even if it was canned food prepared on a sea ship, it was not a material that ordinary sailors could enjoy.

Occasionally, because of their merits, they will be rewarded with canned food, which is simply the most delicious thing they have ever eaten, in the eyes of the Spanish sailors, the sailors of the Ming Dynasty are so happy, they actually think that canned food is not delicious, and they want to plant bean sprouts on the ship?

In short, the Spaniards were envious of the Ming Dynasty's strong national strength, and when they were in Liaodong, they saw brand-new houses, clean streets, mountains of materials, dense warships and ocean-going transport ships.

Since Cheng Shijie and the Dutch fought, the speed of the Ming Navy to build warships has slowed down, and the speed of building transport ships has directly accelerated a lot, the people of Daming are actually very smart, and most of the craftsmen have no way out, once the mouth is opened, the technological innovation can simply be described with each passing day.

Just like at the beginning, Cheng Shijie successfully built the Giant Shark-class battleship because of the help of the craftsmen of the Sand Boat Gang, but under the temptation of high salaries, Nanjing craftsmen went to Liaodong one after another, especially the Guangfu ship of 2,600 tons, and now the ocean-going transport ships that go to sea with Shen Qidong are all 8,000 material ships, that is, 2,600 tons.

In addition to material support, the most enviable thing for the Spanish sailors was the difference in status, Shen Qidong was ready to go to sea, and many decent people came to see him off, and they were very puzzled.

"These Chinese sailors seem to be very respected!"

A Spanish sailor whispered, "It's not like Europe.

"Our peers are different from us!"

Another Spanish sailor said: "Their treatment is so good that people are jealous!" ”

A clever sailor laughed: "When they return to Daming empty-handed from the wasteland where they can't find any gold and silver, I don't know if they can still be so respected?" ”

Many sailors laughed: "I'm afraid that no one will pay attention to them anymore, just like what happened to Captain Columbus at the beginning!" ”

It is recorded in the history books that Columbus was determined to open a new route to the East, bypassing the barbarian Ottomans and establishing a maritime Silk Road with the rich East.

In fact, Columbus was all about gold from the beginning to the end, and he won the trust of the king of Spain, who put together a fleet of ships for him out of his own pocket and sent him on board himself, and he promised to bring back a shipload of gold for the king when he returned.

The rest of the story is known, Columbus discovered the American continent, and a new page in world history was opened, but he failed to bring back the gold and silver that the Spanish king craved most, and was thrown into prison by the angry king.

So the current Spanish sailors are just waiting to see the jokes of the Ming sailors, they have been to the plain of La Plata, there is no gold and silver in that land, this voyage is 100% to lose money, I don't know if these sailors will return to Liaodong after losing all their money, will anyone come to welcome them?

In fact, Shen Qidong's task was not to find gold, nor to find silver, but the vast plain in their mouths that was the size of half of the Ming Dynasty......

As one of the members of the Ming cabinet, Shen Boyun naturally knew that this trip was dangerous, but the Shen family's position in the Dingxin Dynasty was a little embarrassing, they had no military power, they could not make contributions on the battlefield, they did not have family education, they could not get ahead in culture and education, the only way was to use their advantage of running the sea boat, as long as they successfully arrived at the plain that was slightly smaller than the Ming Dynasty, they would have made great achievements.

Cheng Shijie once announced openly with Shen Boyun and Shen Qidong that as long as Shen Qidong established a stronghold in the plain of La Plata and successfully gained a firm foothold, Cheng Shijie promised that the title of the first duke of the Dingxin Dynasty would be given to Shen Qidong, and if the task was completed within three years, Cheng Shijie would make Shen Qidong the Duke of Britain.

In Shen Qidong's thoughts, Cheng Shijie wanted to use Huguang Yingshan County as his fiefdom, which was the seat of Britain more than 4,000 years ago.

Of course, Cheng Shijie's original intention was to change the name of Great Britain.

Shen Qidong said goodbye to his wife Wang and his colleagues, he strode onto the ship, and amid the loud shouts of the sailors, the anchor was pulled up, and the ships sailed out of the harbor one by one and sailed towards the ocean of Haohan. Shen Qidong stood at the stern of the boat, reluctantly looking at the coastline that was gradually swallowed by the intoxicating blue, holding the small bag of local sachets tightly in his hand, and silently chanting in his heart: "I will definitely succeed!" ”

Just when Shen Qidong went to South America, Cheng Shijie finally came to the port of the Lin'an Management Committee from Jiangnan, and Qin Liangyu, Shi Tianbao and others came to welcome Cheng Shijie's arrival. However, due to the need for secrecy, Qin Liangyu could not welcome Cheng Shijie's arrival with grand etiquette, let alone a large feast, so he could only bring a few relatives to greet him, and salute when he met: "Meet the king!" ”

"Excuse me!"

"Old General Qin, are you still used to living here?"

"Thank you for your concern, it's very good here!"

Qin Liangyu never thought that the people under her command could still live a life where they could not eat enough food and meat, and now the Lin'an Management Committee is still the same management committee, but the population has skyrocketed to more than seven million, and more than 2,000 town-level establishments have been established.

After almost a year of development, this place has changed a lot. It has become a prosperous city similar to the south of the Yangtze River, where dozens of ethnic groups work hard, and if conditions permit, they also engage in poultry aquaculture, which is an idyllic scene. If it weren't for the different accents and different dresses, Cheng Shijie would still think that he was still in Jiangnan.

As for the road which was built of straight triple earth, the road is also open while building a road. There is no way, as there are more and more immigrants and more and more vehicles, the originally narrow roads affect traffic and can only continue to widen.

Cheng Shijie looked at the people working with weapons on their backs and smiled: "Will those southern monkeys still come to you for trouble?" ”

"Nope!"

Qin Liangyu didn't answer, but a slightly darkened woman who followed her said directly: "Those monkeys have been cleaned up, so naturally they won't come to trouble us!" ”

Cheng Shijie asked with some confusion: "Cleaned up?" What do you mean? ”

The beauty said: "Those monkeys are hiding in the mountains and forests and keep attacking us, it's so annoying, we destroyed all their strongholds, killed all those who dared to resist, and sold those who didn't dare to resist to Xiyi as slaves, so now there are basically no southern monkeys here." ”

Compared with Luzon's policy of vacating cages for birds, it was implemented more thoroughly, and the multi-ethnic legions composed of Sichuan, Huguang, Liangguang, Yunnan and Guitusi were very barbaric and bloodthirsty.

They have been dealing with the Han people for thousands of years, and they have been living a good life, until Cheng Shijie assigned this place to them, provided them with equipment and materials, and let them exchange knives and guns for their own living space.

After seeing the fertility of the Red River Plain, the Tusi army or the young and strong who came were reluctant to leave, they never knew that there was such a fertile land under the sky, even if it was the Hanjiang River Plain with wide lakes, it was far inferior to the Red River Plain.

Qin Liangyu took Cheng Shijie to Shizhu Town, where the Executive Committee was located, although it was called a town, it was actually larger than most of the prefectures in the south of the Yangtze River, and there were nearly 200,000 people living there.

Cheng Shijie followed Qin Liangyu to the street, looking at all kinds of goods, he found that the prices here are outrageously low, at first Liaodong "cent" is the smallest unit of silver coins, but soon found that a silver coin can be exchanged for one or two silver, and it is really inconvenient to exchange a hundred points, because one cent can buy a lot of things, in desperation, as long as copper coins are used.

In fact, the current Ming copper coin is about equivalent to one yuan in later generations, basically there are not many items that can be less than one dollar, but now the copper coin is used here, a penny can buy a liter of rice, a tael of silver can buy ten stone rice, almost equivalent to a dozen of the price of grain in the Ming Dynasty.

A penny can even buy two or three palm-sized fish, here the money is really valuable, of course, limited to copper coins and silver coins, such as broken silver or silver jewelry, gold jewelry is not valuable, a silver hairpin that looks good manufacturing process, only five pennies, if this silver hairpin is placed in the Ming Dynasty, there is no three or five taels of silver can not be bought, and the silver alone is worth more than two taels.

What surprised Cheng Shijie even more was that there were a lot of children here, and it was normal for a woman to have three or five children, and there were seven or eight more.

Of course, Cheng Shijie found a problem, the prices here are not cheap, some things are still very expensive, for example, the four-wheeled carriage produced in Liaodong, an ordinary version of the carriage in Liaodong, about twenty-five taels of silver or thirty taels of silver, of course, not counting the horses that drag the carriage.

But the problem is that this kind of four-wheeled carriage needs at least seventy or eighty taels of silver, and the rubber wheels even exceed one hundred and twenty taels of silver, but the problem is that there are still buyers like clouds, and there are also linen or linen clothes, clothes of this texture fabric absorb sweat, comfortable, more comfortable than linen, but not cheap, of course, the value of knives, guns and weapons is more than twice as expensive as Liaodong.

Follow Qin Liangyu, Shi Tianbao and others to another town about sixty miles away from Shizhu Town, this is called Yongning Town, and you know that this is from the luxury family of Tusi, in fact, Lin'an is not a town for each Tusi, but each Tusi is not allowed to have a town-level unit independently.

Rather, at least ten Tusi were placed in a town, and the same method of mixed arrangement was adopted, a town was divided into ten bao, no matter how many Tusi numbered, all of them were disrupted, and Shizhu Tusi was divided into more than eighty towns by Qin Liangyu, and the nearest ones were also adjacent, with a distance of more than five hundred kilometers.

The same is true in Yongding Town, there is only one Bao in Yongning Town, which is also a hundred households, and the others are Shizhu, Longshan, Shuixi, Yongshun, Dafang, Pingyuan (now Zhijin), Weining, Sixi, etc.

Cheng Shijie had to admit: "Director Qin, you did a good job!" ”

"Thanks to the king's mercy!"

Qin Liangyu said with a smile: "In fact, not everyone wants to be the king and hegemon, most people only have the purpose of living, the king let us live, and we are naturally willing to live under the king's plan!" ”

Cheng Shijie nodded and said: "Seeing that the development here is so good, this king is relieved!" ”

As the so-called poor mountains and bad waters come out of the people, the most fundamental reason is because of the poor, as long as there is food, drink, and industry, how many people will take risks?

Qin Liangyu continued: "Your Majesty, we can eat here, but there are still problems!" ”

"What's the problem?"

"Read!"

Qin Liangyu smiled bitterly: "The king promised us that we would be like the children of the Han family, we can study, do business, be in the army, and also be in politics, but the problem is that most of our people are illiterate, and if they want to teach the dolls to read, there is no way to teach them!" ”

"This can only be done slowly!"

Cheng Shijie smiled bitterly: "You also know that even if you are a child of the Han family, there are no more than thirty percent of the people who read, but don't worry, without the Golden Sycamore, you can't attract the Golden Phoenix, but when the development here is better, the teacher will come!" By the way, are the Ruan family and the Zheng family still fighting? ”

Qin Liangyu shook his head and said, "No, they seem to have put aside their prejudices and concentrated their forces to prepare to deal with us!" ”

Cheng Shijie nodded and said, "Is there any difficulty, do you need help!" ”

Shi Tianbao said: "Don't bother the king, clean up those monkeys, we can still do it!" ”

Shitianbao did not brag, Hualu City (now Quang Binh Province) is a big city in the south of the monkey, more than a month ago was taken by the Tusi army, the defenders of Hualu City broke through several times were beaten back by guns and artillery, and the Annan army reinforced several times, but also failed to relieve the siege of Hualu City.

Qin Liangyu is still very good at fighting, and when the Annan army comes to support, he puts their main force into the city, but concentrates elite troops to intercept the grain convoy of the Annan army, simply put, people can go in, but not a grain of grain can go in!

The result of several reinforcements was that there were more and more soldiers in Hualu City, but there was less and less food, and Shi Tianbao bought spies into the city from time to time to set fire to the grain depot, and soon the defenders in the city were so hungry that they gnawed human flesh.

The city of Hualu has become a purgatory, but outside the city is an endless field of rice fields, sugar cane, and cassava, and the defenders leaned on the battlements weakly, looking at the ripe crops outside the city, their eyes were green and green, and they were very scary.

Qin Liangyu just used deep trenches to trap Hualu City to death, and did not attack on a large scale, turning Hualu City into a flesh mill, before and after, the Ruan family and the Zheng family had 60,000 troops ground into meat sauce by him.

Cheng Shijie asked: "So Hualu City has been taken?" ”

"It's been taken in just over a month, and we're now preparing to attack Thang Long City!"

Qin Liangyu frowned slightly and said, "Your Majesty, we are going to attack Shenglong City, I don't know if it's appropriate?" ”

Qin Liangyu was worried, how could the southern monkey say that it was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, and was it a bit of a bully to attack the vassal state?

"If you're well prepared, you can fight if you want!"

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "It doesn't matter how much territory you lay, the key is to be able to hold it!" ”

What Cheng Shijie didn't know was that he released a gluttonous beast. For a long time, the Tusi in various places have been suppressed to death by the Central Plains Dynasty, and there is no more to successfully rebel except for Jiannu. Even if An Bangyan had 160,000 troops and fought all the way to Chongqing, he was held down by the Ming Dynasty.

Although Daming paid a heavy price, the problem is that now Cheng Shijie directly armed them, released them, and put them in the Indochina Peninsula to bite people.

Just after Qin Liangyu, Shi Tianbao and the others left.

Zhou Ning said with some worry: "Your Majesty, aren't you afraid of raising tigers?" ”

"So what?"

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "We have now entered the age of firearms, their barbarism and martial arts are useless, fighting for the strength of the country, who is our opponent?" What's more, with this way they take it, it will be difficult to suppress the southern monkey! ”

"Didn't they say they were killed?"

"How can you kill them all?"

Cheng Shijie said lightly: "The forests and mountains here are not like the mountains in the Northeast, the mountains and forests in the Northeast can freeze to death in winter, it is difficult to survive there, the climate here is warm, there are not a few southern monkeys who flee into the mountains, and their vitality is so tenacious, wait, they will concentrate on fighting back!" ”

Cheng Shijie's real reason is that he really hates the white-eyed wolf of the southern monkey too much, as for the Tusi army, they are too deeply affected by sinicization, and the deterrence given to them by successive dynasties has penetrated deep into their bones, even if they want to rebel, they can't do it, they don't have a problem if they want to be full, and if they want to get rich, they can't do without the Ming Dynasty.

Zhou Ning naturally saw that Cheng Shijie seemed to be hiding something, but Cheng Shijie didn't say anything, and he didn't ask.

At this moment, Cheng Shijie took out a map and began to draw a grid on it, Cheng Shijie asked while drawing: "Zhou Ning, what name do you want?" ”

"Title?"

"Yes!"

"According to the merits, I should also knight you, you should at least be a duke!"

Cheng Shijie smiled: "How about sealing a German duke?" (End of chapter)