I really don't want to be emperor at the end of Ming Dynasty

Pirates threaten the safety of shipping routes, which is a troublesome problem no matter in time or space. In this era, the Ming Dynasty has no scruples. The navy wants military glory like crazy. It always wants to find something to do when it has nothing to do. As for hearing In which waters the Ming merchant ships were attacked?

The navy of the Ming Dynasty will soon gather in this area, wishing they could dig three feet into the ground. Not to mention the pirates taking the initiative to attack the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty. Even if the ships of the Ming Dynasty encounter a storm, the pirates will reach out to rescue them. I hope they can prove that this is a storm. caused by pirate attacks.

Compared to pirates, would the Ming Dynasty's navy be more troublesome, with its steep terrain difficult to defend and difficult to attack? It doesn't exist. The large warships of the Ming Dynasty have deep drafts and there are many shoals or reefs in the sea, so they cannot sail. But this is not a problem. The Ming Dynasty has a kind of ship that is not afraid of the reefs at all. As long as there is water, even if it is only three feet Deep water is navigable.

This is actually just an inflatable rubber boat. Each Seawolf-class boat will carry four of these boats. They are usually used as lifeboats. Once they encounter dangerous sea areas, they can use this kind of rubber boat to charge directly, and they will be invincible against pirates.

It can be said that when the Ming Dynasty's dragon flag and sun and moon flag were hoisted, even pirates stayed away. As for the pirates controlled by England and the pirates supported by the Ottoman Empire, they were the main targets that the Ming Navy insisted on attacking. As long as pirates were found, the people around them would If you fail to report to the Ming Dynasty and try to hide the pirates, the result will be the crime of collaborating with bandits, and you will be subject to justice. Those who harbor pirates, those who sell stolen goods to pirates, those who shelter pirates, and those who support pirates will all be severely punished.

Even if everyone knows that Great Britain has been looting Spanish treasure ships all along, Spain knows this phenomenon, but there is nothing it can do about it, because the two countries are already at war. The principle of the Ming Dynasty is that once a Ming merchant ship is attacked by pirates controlled by Great Britain, , Ming will have the right to maintain equal revenge.

When the Zhejiang-registered merchant ship Polaris was attacked by Caribbean pirates, the accompanying merchant ships resisted desperately. In the end, the Polaris was hit by forty-three bullets and sank. This directly led to the direct action of the Ming pirates, who seized four ships in just one month. Thirteen British merchant ships. If Great Britain does not hand over Edward Morgan, the pirate leader, Ming's revenge will be doubled in the next stage.

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

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

Now it can be said that the Dragon Flag of the Ming Dynasty is a life-saving talisman. Of course, if one counterfeits the Dragon Flag of the Ming Dynasty or the Sun and Moon Flag, the consequences will be very serious once discovered.

"How can you imagine the wealth of the Ming Dynasty without seeing it with your own eyes?"

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

Anthony was standing not far from Tianjin Port, which was a huge shipyard. Tianjin Shipyard is a newly built shipyard, and it is also the largest shipyard in Ming Dynasty after Jinzhou East Shipyard, Jinzhou West Shipyard, Lushun Shipyard, Changshan Shipyard, etc. The nineteenth large shipyard.

Now this shipyard is under construction day and night. Massive amounts of steel, cement, sand, stone, and wood are transported from all directions. Ship after ship is filled in. Thousands of workers work in two shifts day and night. The bustling scene is really exciting. People are uplifting.

This Tianjin shipyard will build a total of eight docks. Each dock must have the ability to produce giant ships of 3,000 to 6,000 tons. As for whether it can be used for giant ships of this level, let’s not mention it. Anyway, we must have this ability. , this scale is really shocking.

At the same time as the shipyard was being built, classes were officially opened at the Tianjin Shipbuilding Institute. The teachers who served as teachers were not great scholars or high-ranking officials, but senior technicians recruited from several old shipyards such as Fujian, Guangzhou, and Nanjing.

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

Tianjin Shipyard College has more than 800 excellent teachers with shipbuilding and operation of large ocean-going ships and navigation experience, including technical talents in various shipbuilding majors. Now Tianjin Shipyard College has enrolled more than 2,600 students. Of course This is just the first batch of students, there will be more in the future.

I heard that Tianjin Shipyard is recruiting craftsmen, and even many European craftsmen who are living in Asia have shamelessly come over to beg for food. 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 such a shipyard? There are actually nineteen in the Ming Dynasty. As for smaller ones, there are even more. The shipbuilding craftsmen alone are more than those in the Netherlands. There are even more people in the United Kingdom!”

Specks sighed and said: "I know all these things. Not only do I know, but I also know that in the Ming Dynasty, they can build more than half a million ships every year, which is more new ships than all our European countries combined." They can even build a Spanish Armada in two or three months!"

Anthony pointed to the timber dragged by large ships in the distance. In order to protect the forest resources of the Ming Dynasty, Cheng Shijie prohibited the felling of forests in Huguang, Lingnan and Bashu. The timber used for shipbuilding came either from the Indo-China Peninsula, Africa, or South America.

These timbers were transported along the ocean currents and piled up on the shore. Teachers from those excellent shipping schools took their students to learn how to handle the wood.

Now the Ming Dynasty has formed an industrial system. If it was like before, just transporting these timbers would be a huge headache. But now it is different. The timbers hauled from the sea are hoisted to the Fire Niu gantry cranes. Then the wood was transported to the lumber stacking plant on a fire ox cart.

After screening, it is confirmed that there are no insect holes, and then it is smoked, dehydrated and dried. The dried wood is then peeled and mechanically cut. Even the best shipyard craftsmen must learn this.

In the Ming Dynasty, where science and technology are becoming more and more developed, various new tools and machinery will appear. Traditional woodworking tools such as planes and axes are replaced by new machinery.

For example, the three-dimensional band saw replaces the woodworking hand saw. It does not mean that the hand saw is useless, at least most of the time, the hand saw is basically no longer needed, but the fire cow band saw and the fire cow circular saw.

As the people of the Ming Dynasty become more and more affluent, the demand for furniture is also increasing. The original people of the Ming Dynasty basically had bare houses at home. Now, the demand for various cabinets, cupboards, chairs, sofas, beds, etc. is increasing. Large, first-class and best wood is used to build ships, and unqualified wood will not be wasted, but will be made into furniture.

When bad wood is found, it is loaded onto a truck and transported to a furniture factory. Due to the convenience of sea transportation, Tianjin’s economy develops very rapidly. Factory, asphalt factory, carriage factory, machinery factory...a lot of factories are lined up.

Specks looked at the mountains of timber in surprise and said, "Oh my god, it's so spectacular! How many ships must be built to use such a large shipyard!"

The Ming Dynasty officer responsible for escorting Anton's army said proudly: "It's actually not much. The wood shipped to Tianjin is actually not much. The real amount is in Fujian, or Shanghai, and there is more in Dengzhou than in Tianjin!" Anthony was excited Authentic: "So, Ming Dynasty needs to build thousands of warships?"

"Are thousands of battleships a lot?"

The Ming officer said: "Countess Catherine said that her Venetian City-State Republic is just a small city with thousands of merchant ships. Our population is hundreds of times that of the Venetian City-State Republic, and our ships are ten or twenty times larger than theirs. Isn’t it normal?”

Specks smiled bitterly and said: "I must admit that with the human and financial resources of your Ming Dynasty...if you are determined to rule the ocean, absolutely no one can be your opponent. If the Netherlands also has such a huge shipyard and such sufficient Manpower, we would have dominated all of Europe long ago!”

The Dutch mission did not stay in Tianjin for long, but started walking towards Beijing along the official road. They all transferred to the train. The train from Tianjin to Beijing has been fully opened. Now the train is similar to the green leather hard-seat train of later generations. The same There is a toilet and a boiling water room at the entrance of the carriage.

However, the aisle is in the middle, which is slightly different from that of later generations. There are six seats in each row, and there are six opposite seats on the left and right sides of the aisle. After boarding the train, Anthony looked out of the car window through the window.

More than 400 of them were actually arranged in six carriages, along with the accompanying cargo. This kind of fire-ox train was similar to the subway in later generations, with a total of twelve carriages, eight of which carried passengers and four carriages of cargo. .

In this era, full-line passenger transportation was not opened. Unlike later generations, many people in the Ming Dynasty did not even leave the county town in their lives. This was also the case even on official roads in various places. There were not many passengers, but mostly freight.

Anthony said mysteriously: "My dear friend, have you noticed it?"

"what?"

"Our entire mission is placed here. It looks like this is Daming's new car!"

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

"What kind of cow is a fire cow? Why haven't I heard of it?"

Anthony continued: "Which country in Europe has fire oxen?"

As the whistle sounded, the fire ox cart finally started to move. At this time, the fire ox train was not very fast. There were even people riding horses that could almost run with the fire ox cart, and the horses surpassed the fire ox cart.

The train drove forward a few kilometers, and a row of huge chimneys appeared in front of everyone. The diameter of these chimneys reached an astonishing more than 100 meters, spraying thick smoke into the sky.

Not far from the huge chimney, there is a huge stamping machine. This kind of impact machine that uses a chain to lift has a stamping force of more than 500 tons. If it is considered in later generations, it can only be regarded as a small stamping force. In the era of the Ming Dynasty, this is absolutely It's a behemoth.

Because of the appearance of the Fire Ox stamping machine, accompanied by a huge roar, no one knows what is being manufactured at this time. In a large factory, in front of several giant stamping machines, workers are carefully placing workpieces made of mild steel one by one. Put it into the mold, then step on the pedal, and the stretching mold driven by the fire ox will fall hard with a strong impact, and with a bang, the workpiece will be pressed into a Chinese cone shape with round holes.

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, even the warhead components of the rocket launcher are processed here. Of course, this processing method is still quite primitive, the machines are backward, and the production capacity is not high. With so many machines, it can only process more than a thousand workpieces in a day. But in this era, such efficiency is already very scary.

The other machine tool, which was larger and required two fire bulls to fully operate, was busy processing a gun barrel.

This gun barrel has a diameter of four inches and a length of thirty times its diameter. It is so heavy that it has to be powered by a fire ox to drive a lathe before it can be sent to the machine tool. Of course, the machine tool responsible for processing it is no ordinary person. The sharp boring tool rotates very fast driven by the fire ox, and is fed into the barrel bit by bit...

A heart-wrenching sound sounded, and a large amount of steel debris flew out from it. This was rifling. The knife is made of the sharpest and most impact-resistant high-manganese steel. At such a high speed, cutting the hardest bronze is almost like cutting tofu.

Despite this, it is not an easy task to draw the rifling well. After all, this is a very bulky weapon with very high accuracy requirements. Even the most skilled craftsmen are not completely sure that it can be done in one go.

The habit of Chinese people is to either not play or play like crazy. Before there was no industry, people only used hydraulic machinery to grind rice and noodles, or to carry water. When they discovered these fire-powered machines After it could be used to make industrial products instead of manpower, everyone suddenly felt bad. Hundreds of flowers bloomed for a while, and all kinds of crazy fire-power machines appeared one after another.

A guy was inspired by human-powered bicycles and had an idea. He wondered if he could use fire oxen to generate machinery to drive the bicycle. So, steam-type motorcycles appeared. Along with the steam-type bicycles, that is, motorcycles, what? Fire Ox tricycle, Fire Ox four-wheel vehicle, rapid development...

The four words "industrial empire" are not called for nothing. Not every country has the ability to become an industrial empire.

From Tianjin to Beijing, if you take a carriage, it will take at least one day. If you change horses all the way, if you take the post station system, it will take at least five or six hours. However, the train only takes half a day.

But the fire ox cart successfully arrived in the capital in only two and a half hours. At the train station outside the city,

Specks looked at the outline of the city wall in the distance and was dumbfounded: "Is this the capital of the Ming Dynasty?" (End of this chapter)