Start with Baihuguan

However, manpower is what the Ming Dynasty lacks the most. As for craftsmen, as long as they adopt a multi-purpose approach, they can definitely train a large number of craftsmen.

After all, with the current national strength of Ming Dynasty, as long as there is enough money to spend, it can definitely create a miracle.

The logs were transported to the shipyard one by one, and within a few days, dozens of logs several feet long and dried in the shade were found in the city of Nanjing alone. Not even one percent.

Some local tyrants or officials have already used up some wood. Faced with Li Huan's power, these people can only offer high prices for rewards. Suddenly, in the south of the Yangtze River, many poor people went into the deep mountains and old forests to find those century-old woods in exchange for Lots of money.

Li Huan left behind a huge amount of money of up to 200 million taels, and left several personnel from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Jinyiwei, and Dongchang to supervise the use of the money.

A vigorous large-scale expansion has officially kicked off. At least a dozen large and small shipyards have expanded and excavated and repaired new docks. Taking Longjiang Shipyard as an example, there were only six docks in Longjiang Shipyard that could be used to build treasure ships. However, after receiving Li Huan's order, the Longjiang Shipyard was in place in one step, and opened ten more docks, striving to produce more than [-] treasure ships a year.

At the same time, folk craftsmen suddenly became popular and became the most sought-after existence, and a large number of craftsmen were recruited into shipyards everywhere.

Under Li Huan's request, each master craftsman with superb skills led a newcomer to teach skills while building a ship. If it was the past, perhaps these old craftsmen would definitely treat their skills as treasures and not pass them on. But the temptation of Li Huan's high reward is too great.

Every master craftsman who can bring out a qualified craftsman will be rewarded with 50 taels of silver. One can imagine what kind of temptation such a reward has for these skilled old craftsmen.

In Li Huan's view, even if these old craftsmen could train him 10 skilled craftsmen, he would only spend a few [-] taels of reward silver.

But how can the value of tens of thousands of craftsmen be compared with a mere 10 taels of silver.

Li Huan is a man of two generations. He knows better than anyone else that the importance of industry will only increase in the next few hundred years. To promote industrial development, the most important thing is industrial talents. Daming is a famous craftsman.

Whether it is the construction of giant ships and cannons, the development of the textile industry, or the future research and manufacture of steam engines, the construction of railways, iron smelting, and gold smelting, it can be said that everything is inseparable from a large number of craftsmen.

Before going south to Nanjing, Li Huanke first inspected dozens of ordnance-related factories and bureaus under the Ministry of Industry, including the Firearms Manufacturing Bureau, Jiazhang Manufacturing Bureau, Gunpowder Manufacturing Factory, and Iron and Steel Smelting Factory.

These places can be said to have gathered the most advanced industrial technology of the Ming Dynasty, and gathered a considerable number of skilled craftsmen. Li Huan made a tour and emptied all the materials related to these factory bureaus in his memory.

Whether it's cement firing, steam engine or artillery casting, or high-speed iron steelmaking, or muzzle-loading guns, musket guns, rifled guns, etc., Li Huan really didn't have much research on these, and more was the massive amount of knowledge in his previous life. The introduction of experience and reading information.

With the current Li Huan's memory, he recalled it clearly, and then Li Huan handed over these records one by one to these most skilled masters and ordered them to study.

These can be said to involve all aspects, even if these craftsmen can research a small part, it will definitely be of great help to Daming.

Ordering people to recruit craftsmen, and then letting these old craftsmen bring in new ones with high rewards, Li Huan's determination to train craftsmen can be described as extremely firm.

The overall situation in the south of the Yangtze River has been decided, but Li Huan has left the Longjiang Shipyard and returned to the capital quietly.

After returning to the capital, Li Huan just quietly went to the city to meet the emperor, reported the Jiangnan affairs to the emperor, and then took a rest in the capital, but after a few days, he rushed to Tianjinwei, a hundred miles away.

As the gateway of the capital, Tianjin Wei is adjacent to the Bohai Sea in the east, and crosses both banks of the Haihe River in the north. known as.

This time to open the sea, the imperial court planned to set up nine shipping departments temporarily, one of which was Tianjin Wei City Shipping Department, but this time Li Huan came to Tianjin Wei City Shipping Department because of an important matter that he had to personally supervise.

It has been several months since the order of the Ming Dynasty to open the sea was issued. Not to mention the large number of merchants in the southeast coastal areas going to sea, it is said that Li Huan united a large number of nobles and the emperor to form a caravan.

The emperor personally named it the Daming Royal Caravan. One can imagine the influence of such a caravan that gathered the Daming noble group and the royal family.

It can be said that the Royal Caravan of Ming Dynasty was impeached wildly by the civil official group at the beginning of its establishment, saying that the emperor should not compete with the people for profit, let alone give a caravan such a name with a distinct royal color as the Royal Caravan of Ming Dynasty.

However, Zhu Houzhao didn’t need anyone, how could he be restrained by these civil servants, and even directly changed his name to Zhu Shou, proclaimed himself the chief executive of the Daming Royal Caravan, named Qin Guogong Li Huan as the deputy chief of the Daming Royal Caravan, and became the Duke of Cheng Zhu Assistant, British public Zhang Lun, etc. are all deputy managers, and such a showy operation directly caused the jaws of all officials to drop.

With the strength of Li Huan and other nobles, one can imagine the scale of raising a caravan.

The reason why Li Huan rushed to Tianjin Wei this time was because the royal caravan of the Ming Dynasty had already made arrangements and was preparing to go to sea for the first time. Under such circumstances, it was obviously impossible for Zhu Houzhao, the emperor, to leave the capital, so Li Huan did his part. There are no two candidates, but Luo Xiang, one of the Eight Tigers, is traveling with Li Huan.

Not only Li Huan, but also Duke Cheng, Duke Ying, and several other Dukes, Lord Hou, etc. can be said to all gather in Tianjin Wei.

On this day, dozens of huge merchant ships were moored in the port of Tianjinwei, and a group of people headed by Li Huan stood on the pier and watched a group of merchants, shopkeepers and sailors board the big ship.

A burly man in military uniform bowed to Li Huan and the others and said, "The last general, Jiang Bin, has seen all your lords."

Li Huan couldn't help raising his brows when he heard the words. Could this Jiang Bin be that Jiang Bin? If so, this person can be regarded as a talent, but he doesn't know how he was selected to be the caravan's guard army command.

After all, it is a royal caravan. Even private maritime merchants will keep guards on the sea to guard against pirates at sea, let alone a royal caravan. As the backbone, he selected a group of elite warriors from the army, and took Jiang Bin as the commander of the guard army and the guard of the caravan.

The entire caravan has dozens of merchant ships, nearly ten large and small warships, has more than two hundred guards, and is equipped with more than a dozen large and small cannons, and hundreds of firecrackers and crossbows. Large-scale pirate forces are also sufficient to protect themselves.

Zhang Lun nodded slightly at Jiang Bin and said: "The safety of the caravan is in your hands. Work hard, you may not be able to listen to the heavens in the future, enter His Majesty's sight, and become prosperous from then on."

He drew a big cake for Jiang Bin, which only made Jiang Bin look excited, and repeatedly assured that even if he risked his life, he would ensure the safety of the caravan.

At this time, Li Huan was holding a glass of water and wine and said to Luo Xiang: "Drink this wine, Superintendent Luo, this time traveling with the boat, but you have to be careful all the way."

Luo Xiang took the wine glass and drank it down, then said with a smile on his face: "Duke Qin, don't worry, our family is ordered to go out to sea with the boat, and we will have a drink with the Duke when we return."

Li Huan laughed loudly and said: "Since that's the case, Li will wait for the day when Brother Luo returns smoothly."

Accompanied by the sound of the loud and clear horn, one after another the ships lifted anchor and raised their sails and slowly sailed out of the port and gradually disappeared into the sky.

Seeing the disappearance of the fleet, the British Duke Zhang Lun couldn't help saying with emotion: "The sea is vast, and I don't know if everything will go well with the caravan here."

On the contrary, Cheng Guogong Zhu Fu stroked his beard and said: "No matter whether it is smooth or not, since the sea is open, then I will set an example. More importantly, the caravan trades with all countries, and can collect information from overseas countries for my Ming Dynasty. That’s what matters.”

Although they knew that the sea trade contained a lot of benefits, these nobles didn't care about it. Compared with the benefits that they hadn't seen yet, they valued the deeper meaning contained in this caravan.

However, Li Huan is clear that if everything goes well with the caravan, only the finest silk, porcelain, tea and other items loaded on the ship, after returning, the abundance of benefits will probably surprise everyone jaw.

In September of the sixth year of Zhengde in the Ming Dynasty, a memorial went straight to the capital.

In the imperial study room, Zhu Houzhao looked at Li Huan who was flipping through a memorial with a smile on his face, and said: "Li Qing, Wei Guogong Xu Yu has played, the first treasure ship of Longjiang Shipyard has been successfully completed, and With the cooperation of the Ministry of War, the Ministry of Industry and other ministries, all the cannons have been loaded and tested, and can be launched at any time."

While speaking, Zhu Houzhao said with an excited look: "You must know that this is the past hundred years. My Ming Dynasty has built a new treasure ship again. It is of great significance. What Xu Yu means is whether the imperial court should send officials to preside over the treasure ship in person. The launching ceremony."

Putting down the memorial in his hand, Li Huan also showed a bit of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

Li Huan is in charge of Jinyiwei, and Longjiang Shipyard can be said to be the key monitoring department of Jinyiwei, so every move of Longjiang Shipyard is under the monitoring of Jinyiwei.

In fact, the construction of the Zheng He treasure ship was completed a few months ago, but the completion of the hull does not mean that the entire ship is completely completed.

After all, the ship still needs to be loaded with weapons such as large and small artillery, rackets, and even trebuchets. It took several months to load these weapons on the ship. This is the complete completion of the construction of a warship. Go into the water to fight.

Because it was the first prototype, it took eight or nine months to build, which was a few months longer than the expected half a year.

However, in Li Huan's view, all of this is worthwhile. With the first ship, the second, third and even more ships can be launched continuously.

With Daming's background and strength, as long as he wants to, he can build a huge and amazing fleet within a few years.

With all kinds of thoughts flashing through his mind, Li Huan took a deep breath and bowed to the emperor, saying: "Your Majesty, let me go through it myself."

Zhu Houzhao summoned Li Huan to come here, originally intending to let Li Huan go to hell. After all, based on Zhu Houzhao's understanding of Li Huan, even if he didn't send Li Huan, Li Huan would take the initiative to invite Ying.

Hearing Li Huan speak now, Zhu Houzhao was not surprised at all, but smiled and said: "Li Qing is going to watch it for me. When the fleet is completed in the future, I will personally inspect our Daming Navy. fleet."

Li Huan just smiled when he heard that Zhu Houzhao had such an idea, which was expected by Li Huan. If it is not for his own identity, and the capital is far away from the south of the Yangtze River, it will take at least a month to go back and forth. I went to Jiangnan to personally witness the launching of this treasure ship.

Li Huan looked at Zhu Houzhao and said with a smile: "Your Majesty, according to the introduction of the craftsmen of the Longjiang Shipyard, this treasure ship has been improved to a certain extent on the basis of the original treasure ship. The performance of the improved gunpowder, shells, etc. has been further improved than before, and the ability to fight at sea has almost doubled."

Zhu Houzhao grinned when he heard that, and nodded repeatedly, obviously very satisfied with the news.

But at this moment, Li Huan looked at the emperor and said: "This ship can be called a peerless weapon of our Ming Dynasty, please Your Majesty give this ship a name!"

Zhu Houzhao's eyes lit up when he heard the words, and he looked at Li Huan with a bit of excitement and said, "Do you want me to name it myself?"

Li Huan smiled and said: "Shouldn't such a sharp weapon of the town have a famous name, and the world is so big, who is qualified to name it except His Majesty!"

I have to say that Li Huan's words made Zhu Houzhao smile, not to mention how excited he was. He really couldn't go to the south of the Yangtze River to watch the launching of the treasure ship in person, but he could name this treasure ship.

Just as Li Huan said, how could such a treasure ship, which can be called a powerful weapon for the country, not have a sufficiently resounding name.

With a bit of excitement, Zhu Houzhao couldn't help walking back and forth in the imperial study room, muttering softly as he walked: "I have to think hard about what kind of name I want to have."

Li Huan was watching Zhu Houzhao circling around there. To be honest, Li Huan was somewhat curious about what kind of name Zhu Houzhao could come up with.

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