Pirates threaten the safety of shipping routes, no matter which time and space is a headache, in this era, the Ming Dynasty has no scruples, the navy wants to be crazy about military merits, and usually has nothing to do and always wants to find something to do, as for hearing that the Ming merchant ships were attacked in which sea area.

The Ming Navy will soon gather in this area, eager to dig three feet into the ground, not to mention the pirates who take the initiative to attack the Ming merchant ships, even if they encounter a storm in the Ming Dynasty, the pirates will also come to the rescue, hoping that they can prove that this is caused by the storm, not because of the pirate attack.

Compared with pirates, the navy of the Ming Dynasty will be more of a headache, and the steep terrain that is easy to defend and difficult to attack will be? It doesn't exist, Daming's large warships have a deep draft, there are many shoals or reefs to make up for the sea area, there is no way to navigate, but this is not a problem, Daming has a kind of ship, which is not afraid of reefs at all, as long as there is water, even if it is only three feet deep, it can be navigated.

This is actually just an inflatable rubber boat, this kind of dinghy will carry four on each Seawolf class, usually used as a lifeboat, once encountering a dangerous sea area, use this rubber boat to charge directly, against pirates invincible.

It can be said that hanging the dragon flag and the sun and moon flag of the Ming Dynasty, even the pirates are retreating, as for the pirates controlled by England and the pirates supported by the Ottoman Empire, they are the main targets that the Ming Navy insists on cracking down, as long as the pirates are found, the people around them do not report to the Ming Dynasty, and try to hide the pirates, the result is the crime of banditry, and they must accept a just trial, and those who harbor pirates, sell stolen goods to pirates, take in pirates, and support pirates, will be severely punished.

Even if everyone knows that it has always been the British who ransacked the Spanish treasure ship, Spain knows this phenomenon, but there is no way, because the two countries are in a state of war, and the principle of the Ming Dynasty is that once the Ming merchant ship is attacked by pirates controlled by Great Britain, the Ming will have the same right to retaliate.

In Zhejiang, the Polaris merchant ship was attacked by Caribbean pirates, and the accompanying merchant ships desperately resisted, and finally the Polaris was finally sunk due to 43 shots, which directly led to the direct action of the Ming pirates, in just one month, 43 British merchant ships were suppressed, if Great Britain did not hand over Edward Morgan, the pirate leader, the next stage of revenge of the Ming Dynasty will be doubled.

In desperation, under the pressure of the Ming Dynasty, this was once one of Elizabeth's secret lovers, because the pirate became the pirate leader of the earl, he committed suicide by poisoning, and put his head on a silver plate and sent it to the Ming Navy.

As an English earl, Edward's last dignity was not even preserved.

Now it can be said that the dragon flag of the Ming Dynasty is a life amulet, of course, if you fake the dragon flag of the Ming Dynasty, or the sun and moon flag, once it will be discovered, the consequences are also very serious.

"How can you imagine the wealth of the Ming Dynasty if you don't see it with your own eyes?"

Anthony sighed: "The last time I came to Tianjin, there was no shipyard here, and in just over half a year, there was a huge shipyard here!" ”

Not far from the port of Tianjin, Anthony stands a huge shipyard, Tianjin Shipyard is a newly built shipyard, and it is also the nineteenth large shipyard in Daming after Jinzhou East Shipyard, Jinzhou West Shipyard, Lushun Shipyard, Changshan Shipyard and so on.

Now this shipyard is working day and night, a large amount of steel, cement, sand and timber is transported from all directions, a shipload is filled, and thousands of workers work day and night in two shifts.

This Tianjin shipyard will build a total of eight docks, each of which must have the ability to produce 3,000 to 6,000-ton giant ships.

At the same time as the construction of the dock, the Tianjin Shipbuilding College also officially opened, and the teachers were not Confucians or high-ranking officials, but senior technicians who went to Fujian, Guangzhou, Nanjing and other old shipyards to dig up.

Those who have been working with ships all their lives, skilled craftsmen are their favorites, who have been exposed to it since childhood, and who have learned how to build ships at a young age. For the first time, I became a teacher, and it doesn't matter if I have no teaching experience.

Tianjin Shipbuilding College has more than 800 excellent shipbuilding and operation of large ocean-going vessels and sailing experience teachers, including a variety of shipbuilding professional technical personnel, now Tianjin Shipyard College has enrolled more than 2,600 students, of course, this is only the first batch of students, there will be more students in the future.

I heard that the Tianjin shipyard is recruiting craftsmen, and even many European craftsmen who are living in Asia have the cheekiness to come over to beg for food, and by the way, they also bring a lot of European shipbuilding experience, which can be regarded as a combination of Chinese and Western.

Anthony pointed to the shipyard under construction and said, "Can you imagine a shipyard like this?" There are actually nineteen of them in the Ming Dynasty, and there are even more of them than this scale, and there are more shipbuilders alone than we in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands! ”

Spex sighed and said: "I know all these things, I not only know, but also know that in Daming, they can build more than half a million ships every year, more than all the new ships of all our European countries combined, and they can even build a Spanish Armada in two or three months!" ”

In order to protect the forest resources of the Ming Dynasty, Cheng Shijie banned the felling of forests in Huguang, Lingnan and Bashu, and the timber used for shipbuilding either came from the Indochina Peninsula, Africa, or South America.

The timber was transported along the ocean currents and piled up on the shore. Those excellent teachers from the Harbour Master's College take the students to learn how to handle the wood.

Now the Ming Dynasty has formed an industrial system, if like these timber, just handling is enough to make people headaches, now it is different, the timber hauled from the sea, through the fire bull gantry crane, the wood is hoisted to the fire ox cart, and then the moon fire ox cart is transported to the timber storage plant.

After screening, after determining that there are no insect eyes, they will be smoked to dehydrate and dry, and the dried wood will be peeled and mechanically cut, and even the best shipyard craftsmen must learn.

In the Ming Dynasty, where science and technology are becoming more and more developed, all kinds of new tools and machinery will appear, and the traditional woodworking tools such as planers and axes have been replaced by new machinery.

Compared with the three-dimensional band saw, the replacement of the carpenter's hand saw, it is not that the hand saw is useless, at least for most of the time, the hand saw is basically not used, but the fire bull band saw, the fire bull circular saw.

As the people of the Ming Dynasty become richer and richer, the demand for furniture is also increasing, the original people of the Ming Dynasty, the home is basically a family with four walls, and now all kinds of cabinets, cabinets, chairs, sofas, beds, etc. need to be more and more large, the best wood is used to build ships, and the unqualified wood will not be wasted, but made into furniture.

Tianjin because of the convenience of shipping, the economic development is very rapid, in addition to the general factory, rivet factory, rigging factory, canvas factory, bearing factory, pump factory, fireproof paint factory, asphalt factory, carriage factory, machinery factory...... A whole bunch of factories lined up.

Spex looked at the mountain of timber in amazement and said, "Oh my God, it's magnificent!" How many ships do you have to build to use such a large shipyard! ”

The Ming officer who was in charge of escorting the Andong Army said proudly: "This is actually not much, there is not much timber transported to Tianjin, and the real more is in Fujian, or Shanghai, and Dengzhou is also more than Tianjin!" ”

Anthony said excitedly: "So, Daming needs to build thousands of warships? ”

"Is a few thousand warships a lot?"

The Ming officer said: "Countess Catherine said that her Venice city-state republic is just a small city with thousands of merchant ships, and our population is hundreds of times that of the Venice city-state republic, isn't it normal for ships to be more than ten or twenty times more than theirs?" ”

Spex smiled bitterly: "I must admit that the manpower and financial resources of your Daming Kingdom are ...... If you are determined to rule the seas, there is absolutely no one to match you. If the Netherlands had such a large shipyard and such an abundance of manpower, we would have ruled all of Europe long ago! ”

The Dutch mission did not stay long in Tianjin, but began to walk along the official road to Beijing, they all transferred to the train, the train from Tianjin to Beijing has been fully opened, and now the train is similar to the green hard-seat train of later generations, and the same carriage entrance position is set up with a toilet and boiling water room.

It's just that the aisle is in the middle, which is slightly different from the later ones, each row is six seats, and there are six opposite seats on the left and right of the aisle, and after boarding the train, Anthony looks out of the car through the window.

More than 400 of them were arranged in six carriages, accompanied by goods, this kind of fire ox train is similar to the subway of later generations, a total of twelve carriages, eight of which carry passengers, four carriages carry goods.

This era did not open the whole line of passenger transport, unlike later generations, many people of the Ming Dynasty did not even go out of the county for a lifetime, even if the official roads around the country are the same, there are not many passengers, are the majority of freight.

Anthony said mysteriously: "My dear friend, have you found out! ”

"What?"

"Our entire mission has been placed here, it looks like this is Daming's new car!"

"I heard them say, this is called a fire ox cart, and it is also called a train!"

"What kind of cow is a fire cow? How come I haven't heard of it? ”

Anthony continued: "Which country in Europe do we have a fire ox? ”

With a whistle, the ox cart finally started, the ox train was not fast at this time, and there were even people who could run with the ox cart on horseback, and the horse overtook the ox cart.

A few kilometers ahead of the train, a row of huge chimneys appeared in front of everyone's eyes. These chimneys are all over a hundred meters in diameter and are spewing smoke into the sky.

Not far from the huge chimney, is a huge stamping machine, this kind of impact machine that takes the chain lifting, has more than 500 tons of stamping force, if it is placed in the later generations can only be regarded as a small stamping force, in the era of the Ming Dynasty, this is definitely a behemoth.

Because of the appearance of the fire bull stamping machine, accompanied by a huge roar, the ghost only knew what was being made at this time, in a large factory, in front of several giant stamping machines, the workers were carefully putting the workpieces made of soft steel into the mold, and then stepped on the pedal, the drawing die driven by the fire bull fell hard with a strong impact force, and the workpiece was pressed into a Chinese cone with a round hole with a bang.

This is the prototype of the warhead, whether it is a three-inch gun equipped by the sea or a three-inch gun equipped by the infantry, and even the warhead component of the rocket artillery is processed here. Of course, this processing method is still quite primitive, the machine is also backward, the production capacity is not high, so many machines, can only process more than 1,000 workpieces in a day, but in this era, such efficiency is already very scary.

Another, much larger machine that had to be powered by two Oxen to run it fully, was busy machining a barrel.

The barrel was four inches in diameter and thirty times as long as it was so heavy that it had to be powered by a fire ox and driven by a lathe to get it to the machine. Of course, the machine tool responsible for processing it is not an idle person, and the sharp boring knife is driven by the fire ox to turn fast, and is sent into the barrel little by little......

A tooth-aching sound sounded, and a large number of steel chips splattered out of it, which was rifling. The knife was made of the sharpest, most impact-resistant high-manganese steel, and at such a high speed, the hardest bronze was about the same as cutting tofu.

Still, it is not easy to get the rifling right, after all, it is a very bulky weapon with a very high demand for accuracy, and even the most skilled craftsman cannot be completely sure that it can be done in one go.

The habit of the Chinese is either not to play, to play to play crazy, there was no industry before, everyone's use of hydraulic machinery is only used to grind some rice, noodles, or to lift a water or something, when it is found that these fire bull power machinery can also be used to replace manpower to make industrial products, everyone's feeling is suddenly not good, for a time a hundred flowers bloomed, all kinds of crazy fire bull power machinery rushed out.

There is a guy from the human-powered bicycle by the development, the idea, can you use the fire bull to produce machinery to drive the bicycle up, so, the steam motorcycle appeared, along with the steam bicycle, that is, the motorcycle appeared, what fire bull tricycle, fire bull four-wheeler, rapid development......

The words "industrial empire" are not called in vain, and not every country has the ability to become an industrial empire.

From Tianjin to Beijing, if you take a horse-drawn carriage, it takes at least a day, if you change horses all the way, if you go through the post system, it also takes at least five or six hours, but the train only takes half a day.

But it only took two and a half hours for the fire ox cart to successfully arrive in the capital, at the railway station outside the city,

Spex looked at the outline of the city wall from afar and was dumbfounded: "This is the capital of the Ming Dynasty?" (End of chapter)