The World of Yellow Sky

Chapter 818 The Navy Develops Ginseng Monopoly
Just as Zhen Yan walked out of the lobby, Xu You came out from behind the screen.

"This boy from the Zhen family is quite intelligent. I remember what Zhao Ji said before. It seems that this boy said at the last moment to donate all the money and food in the secret storehouse."

Xu An's eyes moved slightly. He didn't want to issue a certification to Zhen's officials and businessmen at first, but he changed his mind in the end.

The biggest reason is Zhen Yan.

He has a measure of advance and retreat, and knows how to measure. He is neither a reckless man, but he also has enough courage.

The information collected by the eagle wolf guard also corroborated this point.

To sail the sea, one must have enough courage and also must have enough ability.

Although Zhen Yan is from the north, he has experience in sea navigation. He used to be the leader of Qu Liang and was in charge of the caravan in the family.

Not long after he got in touch with Gongsun Du, Xu An began to prepare for the navy. After several years of development, the navy of the Ming Dynasty now has nearly [-] warships.

The navy of the Ming Dynasty is now divided into two parts, one is in Liaozhou, controlled by Gongsun Du, this part has [-] ships, and the other is in the hands of Lu Sheng, this part has only [-] ships.

However, the more ships are built, the more military expenses are required to maintain them. The navy has been in a state of losing money, and it is like a bottomless pit of continuous investment.

"How is the replacement of the warships of the Haidong Fleet going?"

Xu An waited until Xu You sat beside him, and asked.

He has been paying attention to the affairs of the Han court in the south and the internal affairs of Jizhou and Qingzhou. Therefore, he has asked Xu You to help handle the affairs of Liaozhou Province and Haidong Province.

"The [-] ships in the Liaozhou Fleet are all blessing ships, five of which are [-] ships, ten ships are [-] ships, and the rest are small boats."

"The Haidong Fleet now has thirty-two soft-sail ships, and the rest are still hard-sail ships."

"Limited by technical problems, most of our military's blessing boats are now small boats with a thousand materials, and most of the soft-sail ships are also small boats with a thousand materials. Only the flagship barely reaches two thousand materials. The flagship is soft sails, but the other two ships are one thousand and five There are hundreds of frigates, one with soft sails and the other with hard sails."

"According to Duke Ming's request, the Haidong Fleet is in the process of completely renewing the soft-sail warships. After the hard-sail blessing ships are eliminated, they will directly belong to the transport fleet..."

Xu You paused, appearing a little hesitant.

"Is there anything wrong?"

Xu An naturally noticed that Xu You's expression was different, so he asked directly.

Xu You hesitated, with a look of embarrassment on his face.

"I remember that I have not promulgated any decrees that do not allow remonstrance."

Xu An laughed, relieving the tense atmosphere in the hall.

Xu You pondered for a moment, he stood up first, saluted Xu An, and then said respectfully.

"I'm not against Minggong's decision, but I'm just a little confused, why Minggong replaced the hard-sailed blessing boat with a soft-sail warship."

Xu An frowned slightly, and adjusted his sitting posture. The reason why he prefers soft sailing boats is because soft sailing boats are indeed the mainstream of later generations.

Although Huaxia has a long coastline, it is not a civilization based on the ocean, and there is no threat of strong enemies at sea. Therefore, Huaxia is more developing the technology of the army. Hard sailing ships are more suitable for inland rivers and offshore navigation. .

But this is so. During the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty and Zheng He's seven voyages to the West, China's shipbuilding industry also reached its peak. Its fleet was undoubtedly the largest and most powerful fleet in the world at that time. far ahead of other countries.

However, at the end of the Ming Dynasty, the national strength was weak, and the West was in the period of great voyages. Practice has proved that soft sailboats are indeed more suitable for oceangoing sailing, and the speed is indeed faster than hard sailboats.

That's why Xu An wanted to develop soft sailing ships, open up the ocean, and develop the shipbuilding industry.

Xu An knew that there was a vast continent in the south and east of China.

Those two isolated continents were not discovered by Europeans until thousands of years later.

The advantage that Xu An has is that he knows the existence of these two continents, and at this time, the shipbuilding industry of Chinese civilization is far ahead of the world.

"Zi is far away, but it doesn't matter."

Xu An gave Xu You a reassurance first. Although he believed that soft sails would be the mainstream in the future and would be more conducive to ocean sailing, but he would be wise if he listened to them, and he would be dark if he believed too much. He decided to listen to Xu You's opinion.

Xu You saluted again, slowly stretched out his palm, raised three fingers, and said.

"In my opinion, compared with soft-sail warships, hard-sail blessing boats have three major advantages."

"Three major advantages?"

"Exactly."

Xu You nodded and continued.

"The performance of the hard sail Fuchuan is excellent in all aspects. The first advantage is that the hard sail is easy to operate. The sailors only need to train for a short time before they can get started and learn the essentials. Compared with the soft sail, the training is much simpler and it is easy to grow. military."

Xu An nodded slightly. Compared with hard sailboats, soft sailboats really need more sailors to control the sails, and it is also more difficult to train.

Soft sails are complicated to operate, difficult and dangerous to furl, and require many and complicated ropes.

"Secondly, the ship is tall, and the soldiers can condescend against the enemy. At the same time, the deck is wide, and more bed crossbows can be loaded, which can strike the enemy from a long distance. Whether it is a gang battle or a long-range attack, it has an advantage. .”

"Thirdly, now that the shipbuilding technology of Hard Sail Fuchuan is mature, it is easier to manufacture large ships and carry more soldiers."

After Xu You finished speaking, after saluting, he sat back in his seat and did not continue to speak.

He has been the chief officer of the Department of Internal Affairs for many years, and he has also been the official of the Zhongshu Mansion for a long time, so he naturally understands how to communicate with Xu An.

So he stated all the advantages one by one at once.

He didn't want to question Xu An's decision at first. After all, every decision Xu An made later proved his decision to be correct, whether it was education, the army, or workshops, including the law. all the same.

But during this time, Xu You has received more and more feedback, which shows that the hard-sail Fuchuan is far superior to the soft-sail warship at this stage.

When the hard-sail Fuchuan was able to produce large ships with more than [-] materials, the largest warship produced by the soft-sail warships was only [-] materials.

Soft sail warships and fuchuan are different from all previous warships. Compared with fuchuan, their hulls are much lower and their center of gravity is lower. Although the shipbuilding technology of soft sail boats is constantly improving , but because there are few technologies that can be used for reference, the development has been at a low speed.

Most of the current soft sailing boats are made by relying on the shape of the sailing boat drawn by Xu An at the beginning, and they are constantly developing on this basis.

Xu An frowned slightly, Xu You's words made him discover a big problem.

In this era, there is not only no artillery, but even small firearms. The prototype gunpowder now only exists in the Taihang workshop, which is far from being used in actual combat.

As for gunpowder and firearms, Xu An didn't have a deep research. He just had a concept. He put forward a concept and a rough outline. Most of the research depends on the researchers in the workshop, but this is a completely novel thing. , Not many people knew about it before, so the development of gunpowder was not rapid.

Without artillery and firearms, the warships of this era rely more on bows and crossbows to attack the opponent from a long distance when fighting, and they also use cold weapons to fight by jumping from side to side.

Then the height of the ship is extremely important, and condescending can occupy a great advantage in long-distance and close combat.

He forgot the most important point, that is, wars in the era of cold weapons and wars in the era of hot weapons are completely different things.

Xu An frowned. Soft sails are the mainstream, but the cold weapons at this stage cannot make the soft sails play their true strength. On the contrary, the hard sails will be stronger in actual combat.

"The research and development of soft sailing boats cannot be stopped, and must continue to develop."

After a long silence, Xu An raised his head and looked at Xu You who was waiting for his reaction.

"promise."

Xu You responded respectfully. The decisions made by Xu An rarely changed, and he also had psychological expectations.

"The replacement of warships in the Haidong Fleet will be temporarily delayed, and the number of soft-sail warships and hard-sail Fuchuan will remain the same."

"Small Fuchuan is temporarily excluded from the list of warships. All warships must reach [-] materials, and it is better to be short than to be overwhelmed."

Xu You's eyes moved slightly. Xu An's original order was to replace all the Haidong Fleet with soft-sail warships, but now he wants to maintain the same number. It seems that he has listened to his words.

but……

Xu An also understood Xu You's doubts, so he explained.

"For ocean-going sailing, I think soft-sail warships have more advantages. This is the reason why I keep soft-sail warships and demand to continue to develop soft-sail warships."

"Do you remember what I told you about the gold and silver mountains?"

"Naturally remember."

Although it has been more than a year since Xu An mentioned Jinshan Yinshan last time, Xu You naturally will not forget such important information.

"Duke Ming once said that on Dongyi Island to the east of the Korean Peninsula, there are mountains of gold and silver."

"good."

Xu An nodded slightly.

"The most important reason why I build up the navy and expand the fleet is for the golden mountain and silver mountain on Dongyi Island."

"With the gold and silver mountains of Dongyi Island, many financial problems of my Daming will be easily solved."

Xu An, who comes from later generations, is naturally how much silver and gold can be produced by gold mountains such as Sado Gold Mountain and Iwami Silver Mountain every year.

Silver and gold are hard currencies at any time.

"The soft sailboat has a faster speed and has more advantages for ocean sailing. Rivers are no better than the sea, and coastal seas are no better than oceans. Various factors such as wind and waves must be taken into consideration."

Xu An paused for a moment. In the final analysis, it was still shipbuilding technology.

It is said that hard sailing ships are not suitable for ocean voyages, but in history, Zheng He made seven voyages to the West, and the furthest reached Africa.
"Order Soft Sail Shipyard to suspend shipbuilding, and devote all energy to research first, and then open the shipyard after the improvement is completed."

"By the way, how about the military ports built by Youzhou, Liaozhou Province and Haidong Province?"

Xu You bowed slightly and reported.

"After Xu Rong received the order, he immediately started to build the Tianjin Military Port, and Gongsun Du did the same. He started to build the Ninghai Navy Port in the southernmost part of Liaodong County."

"The Haidong Province has also begun to build the Zhenyuan Military Port. Lu Sheng obeyed the order of Ming Gong and ordered the Haidong Fleet to set sail for Tsushima Island and build a military port on the island as a springboard to Dongyi Island."

Xu An glanced at the map of the world placed not far in front of him.

This time, even with the help of "Kamikaze", there is no way to change the ending.

Now in the entire world, there is no existence that can wrestle with the Ming Navy, not even Rome at the same time.

Now Ming has been at the forefront of the world, from the army to the navy, leading all countries in the same period by more than one generation.

"By the way, what I asked Lu Sheng to look for in Haidong Province, did he find it?"

Xu An withdrew his gaze and remembered one thing he asked Lu Sheng before.

"I found it. Haidong's caravan just arrived in Yecheng a few days ago. Duke Ming was busy with his affairs, so he didn't report it. This time, I brought the goods over as well."

Hearing Xu An's question, Xu You also recalled it.

Xu You stood up, took out a long brocade box from his sleeve and presented it to the table in front of Xu An.

"Please take a look, Mr. Ming."

Xu An's eyes fell on the opened brocade box on the table.

In the brocade box, a piece of ginseng was quietly lying in the brocade box. Its appearance was really human-shaped, with many roots, winding and cookie-like. Quite orderly.

Xu An's eyes moved slightly, this was actually the first time he saw ginseng up close.

"Put all the ginseng into the warehouse and store it well."

"From now on, ginseng belongs to the monopoly of the government, and no one is allowed to sell it for transshipment without permission."

"Ministry of Households, Department of Internal Affairs, set up an additional office to manage ginseng monopoly, and its grade is the same as that of salt and iron."

As an extremely rare medicinal material, ginseng can bring huge effects and huge profits.

Whether it is sold domestically or traveled across the oceans as commodities, this will become a major fiscal revenue for the Ming Dynasty.

(End of this chapter)