space farmer girl busy farming

Chapter 1535 A new mission descends from the sky
The ocean fleet brought the gunboat, so Ma Zhiwen naturally wanted to report it. Bai Qing came here in person, and with the help of an interpreter, he had a long talk with the captain to learn more about the situation of the pirates.

Under Qi Ke's secret instruction, the captain generously invited Bai Qing to visit the gunboat, secretly expressing that as long as he can afford it, he can buy as many gunboats as he wants, with a total length of 140 meters and the most Ships with [-] guns can also be owned.

Bai Qing's eyes brightened, and he inquired about the price in detail. Three days later, he left Liangshui Town and went straight to Dong'an Mansion.

General Bai called together his generals to discuss whether to buy a few small gunboats as training boats, instead of letting the soldiers practice swimming in the sea all the time, it is better to go out to sea to feel the feeling.

The generals all agreed, and the money can be confidently demanded from the imperial court. They have all come to the border of the East China Sea for several years, but they have not seen a new ship, and the only one was seized from pirates.

The memorial soon arrived at the Ministry of War in the capital. General Bai didn't dare to open his mouth. He only wanted [-] small gunboats with less than [-] guns, and distributed them to each household and hundreds of households facing the sea.

The unit price of a small gunboat with 10 guns is [-] taels of silver. The price quoted by the ocean fleet includes weapons and shells. Hollow bullets for daily drills and live ammunition for warfare are optional.

General Bai counted in detail why he wanted fifty ships, and the reasons were reasonable. Seeing that the total valuation was 500 million taels, the Minister of the Ministry of War leaned back, almost feeling overwhelmed.

When the Ministry discussed it, they all said no, at least half of it had to be cut, the gunboats couldn’t be saved, and a boat with [-] guns was actually not too big, and it was said in the notes that there were already [-]-gun boats. The sea is like a giant, and pirates hide away when they see such a big ship.

As the frontier army defending the coast, the gunboats with only [-] guns in the whole army are too shabby, and they will definitely buy bigger ones in the future. In order to be able to spend money in the future, it is a little bit of savings now.

But you don’t need so many cannonballs, so buy a little less, and then the firearms craftsmen will be responsible for making the cannonballs, and the Ministry of War can coordinate the supply of raw materials.

Therefore, when General Bai received the reply from the Ministry of War, the 500 million taels were cut down to 200 million taels, and even fifty gunboats with twenty guns could not be made up. More shells are probably enough.

Although General Bai was dissatisfied with the Ministry of War's slashing too hard, but seeing the box of bank notes that came with the text, he still endured this, and wrote to his eldest son, enclosing the bank notes, and let him handle it.

Bai Qing looked at his father's letter, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, what could he do, just such a little money, either reduce the number of ships or the number of guns.

Fortunately, the Ministry of War makes the raw materials for the shells by itself, which is barely a piece of comforting news.

But self-made shells are used on gunboats bought from foreign countries. Bai Qing has no confidence in the craftsmanship of the military's firearms craftsmen. He pinches the letter and thinks there is no better way. He writes a letter to Qi Ke and asks her Do you have the confidence to take on such a task?

Qi Ke was stunned after receiving the documents. He didn't expect that a business worth several million taels would be cut so hard that even the cannonballs had to be made by himself. The imperial court was really poor enough.

"Although independent research and development is a good thing, it also depends on the timing. Dawen Dynasty thinks that its rule can continue? Don't research and develop without results, the dynasty will be finished first." Qi Ke pinched the letter paper as a fan, while Yaofeng sneered at Lin.

(End of this chapter)